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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30318 ***
+
+                                MONEY MAGIC
+
+                             By HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+SUNSET EDITION
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+      II. MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+     III. BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+      IV. HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+       V. BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+      VI. THE HANEY PALACE
+
+     VII. BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+    VIII. BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+      IX. BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+       X. BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+      XI. BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+     XII. ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+    XIII. BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+     XIV. THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+      XV. MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+     XVI. A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+    XVII. BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+   XVIII. BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+     XIX. THE FARTHER EAST
+
+      XX. BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+     XXI. BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+    XXII. THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+   XXIII. BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+    XXIV. THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+     XXV. BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+    XXVI. ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+   XXVII. MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+  XXVIII. VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+    XXIX. MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+
+
+MONEY MAGIC
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+
+Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
+dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
+thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
+shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
+generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
+the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
+south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
+when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
+the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.
+
+It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
+cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
+of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
+grass and grain spring up like magic.
+
+For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
+and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
+laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
+giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
+aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
+clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
+life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
+Creede.
+
+Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
+cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
+and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
+of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
+put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
+sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.
+
+At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
+Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
+was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
+general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
+hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm--therefore Bertha, who
+would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
+tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
+straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes--wistful when in
+repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
+to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.
+
+"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
+sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
+here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
+a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived--"
+
+It was her habit to leave her demonstrations--even her
+sentences--unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
+hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
+failing powers. She had been handsome once--but the heat of the stove,
+the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
+daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
+of womanhood.
+
+"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
+You see--"
+
+She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
+schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
+dreams--of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
+half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
+last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
+this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.
+
+"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
+to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
+Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
+stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while--"
+
+The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
+put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
+the Eagle.
+
+He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
+carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
+mouth.
+
+He began by saying to Bertha:
+
+"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
+When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
+floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
+like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.
+
+"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
+attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
+like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
+day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
+I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
+work so hard--that's all that troubles me at the present time."
+
+Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
+age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
+man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
+bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
+or flush--she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
+where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
+the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.
+
+"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
+place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
+is too public."
+
+"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
+anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."
+
+The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
+I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
+you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
+let me know--they won't repeat it."
+
+"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
+of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."
+
+This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
+on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
+to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
+handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
+without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
+necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
+and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
+expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
+his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
+middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
+the girl a certain sweetness came into it.
+
+"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
+spend Sunday--seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
+his chance o' grace."
+
+His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
+circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.
+
+Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
+Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."
+
+The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
+me--I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
+the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
+jest.
+
+"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
+to-morrow."
+
+The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
+said, in a low and deeply significant tone:
+
+"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
+Haney--not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you--you can
+boss my ranch any day."
+
+The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
+eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
+diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
+and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
+The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:
+
+"Be careful, Mart--"
+
+Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."
+
+"I didn't mean to butt in--"
+
+"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
+replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
+remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
+walked away.
+
+Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
+encounter with the girl had put into his blood.
+
+It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
+weeks--leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
+chance to see this child--this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
+and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her--to
+buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
+weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
+that she would one day be on his side.
+
+When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl--of
+carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
+when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
+fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
+time, but a Catholic--in training at least--and the words he had planned
+to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
+lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.
+
+He was a desperate character--a man of violence--and none too delicate
+in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
+mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
+weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
+unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.
+
+"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
+his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
+answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
+then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
+"Stay on the farm, me lad--'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
+the back of your neck than to fill a cell at CaƱon City."
+
+In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
+visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
+collected all notes remorselessly--and it was in this way that he had
+acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
+mines--"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
+It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
+determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
+came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
+honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
+sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
+heart with a strange delight.
+
+He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
+doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
+before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
+new-found grace.
+
+Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron--as his mother used to
+do--and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
+chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.
+
+"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
+a seat beside him.
+
+"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
+Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
+mother didn't make--for she was Irish."
+
+"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
+can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid--and then down here we have my
+son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."
+
+"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
+vegetables--it's still a matter of ham and eggs."
+
+"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.
+
+"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
+of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
+working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest--a vacation, I'm
+thinkin'."
+
+"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
+of taking it."
+
+"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
+She should be in a home of her own."
+
+"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
+to hiring anybody to fill her place--it would take a man to do her
+work."
+
+"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
+she?"
+
+"Eighteen next November."
+
+"She seems like a woman of twenty."
+
+"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
+down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
+conversation.
+
+"She's a little queen," declared Haney.
+
+It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
+had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
+proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
+glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
+to trouble you, my dear woman--if anny debt presses, let me know, and
+I'll lift it for ye."
+
+The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
+feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
+our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
+obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."
+
+"But I don't like to think of you here for another year--and Bertie
+should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
+passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
+house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
+for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
+hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
+welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
+inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.
+
+"What do you mean, Captain?"
+
+The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
+a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."
+
+She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
+"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"
+
+"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
+in his intentions.
+
+"But--but--you're so old--I mean so much older--"
+
+"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
+what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
+have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."
+
+This turned the current of her emotion--she gasped. "One hundred
+thousand dollars!"
+
+He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
+younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
+I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'--all you need to
+do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
+Denver--or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
+on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
+I came this time to ask her to go back with me."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
+take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
+place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."
+
+The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
+said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
+her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
+terror. She feared a man of such power--a man who could in a single
+moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
+wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
+he sat there talking to her--and she in her apron and her hair in
+disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
+enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
+apologized incoherently.
+
+"Captain, I appreciate your kindness--you've always been a good
+customer--one I liked to do for--but I'm all upset--I can't get my
+wits--"
+
+"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
+coming. Don't hurry at all--at all."
+
+She hurried out, leaving him alone--with the clock, the cat, and the
+hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
+Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
+into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.
+
+Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
+wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
+disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
+breath--clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.
+
+She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
+with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
+dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:
+
+"Do you know--what Captain Haney just said to me?"
+
+"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
+was moved by her mother's white, awed face.
+
+"He wants you!"
+
+Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
+"Well, he can't have me!"
+
+With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
+moved to argue.
+
+"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
+mines."
+
+"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
+posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler--not this summer," she ended,
+decisively.
+
+"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
+was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
+Think of that!"
+
+"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
+makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
+it?"
+
+"Out of his mine--and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
+needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
+is his, anyway. Did you know that?"
+
+Bertha eyed her mother closely--with cool, bright, accusing eyes--for a
+moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
+you--no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
+marry most anybody to give you a rest--but, mother, Captain Haney is
+forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
+his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
+there's Ed."
+
+The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.
+
+"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
+into something else."
+
+"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
+No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."
+
+"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
+Haney has killed his man."
+
+"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
+over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance--and my heart's so
+bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
+want you to marry him if you don't want to--I'm not asking you to. You
+know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man--and I get awfully
+discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
+without any security."
+
+One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
+pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
+burdens of her stewardship.
+
+"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."
+
+"I won't," replied the girl.
+
+She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
+and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
+the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
+and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
+guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
+our little hotel for a year--to see me!"
+
+This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
+the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
+weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
+put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
+of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.
+
+She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
+by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
+lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
+bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
+coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
+defensive.
+
+Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
+hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother--" She arrested herself and
+went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
+new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
+honorable.
+
+The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
+the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
+consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
+would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
+travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
+things she could discern--but of the larger life which money could open
+to her she could only vaguely dream.
+
+The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
+life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
+camps about them.
+
+As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
+a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
+doors forever.
+
+When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
+she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
+commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
+change in her mood.
+
+This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
+later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
+wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."
+
+Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
+He came on the run, alert for trade.
+
+"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
+drying to cinders over here."
+
+The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
+joking."
+
+"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.
+
+She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
+he brought a choice slice in to her.
+
+She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me--not yet." Her
+tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that--before
+people."
+
+"Like what?" he asked.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
+waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
+over alone."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
+least a consideration of his proposal.
+
+He held out his hand. "Good-bye--till next Saturday."
+
+She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
+face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
+something very winning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+
+It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
+gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
+trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
+the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
+polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
+Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
+long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
+dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
+camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
+came as lookers-on.
+
+On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
+usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
+and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
+glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
+opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
+crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
+and the games of his halls were reported honest.
+
+To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
+gambler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
+maidenhood--and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
+kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
+else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
+he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
+invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
+singular sweetness--all the more alluring because of its rarity--and the
+warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
+County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
+admired among the miners.
+
+The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
+was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
+"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
+despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
+to clean house."
+
+Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
+would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
+business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
+well serve their wish as any other--better, indeed, for no man can
+accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
+business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
+matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
+thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."
+
+He no longer thought of her as his victim--as something to be ruthlessly
+enjoyed--he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
+in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
+she has me on me knees--the witch. Me mind is filled with her."
+
+All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
+saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.
+
+At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
+rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
+click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears--he
+was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
+written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
+on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
+in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
+be too good for her--"
+
+He roused himself to a touch on his elbow. One of his agents had a new
+offer for the two saloons. It was still less than he considered the
+business worth, but in his softened mood he said, "It goes!"
+
+"Make out your papers," replied the other man, with almost equal
+brevity.
+
+During the rest of the evening the gambler sat above his lay-out with
+mingled feelings of relief and regret. After all, he was in command
+here. He knew this business, and he loved the companionship and the
+admiration of the men who dropped round by his side to discuss the camp
+or the weather, or to invite him to join a hunting trip. He felt himself
+to be one of the chief men of the town, and that he could at any time
+become their Representative if he chose. For some years (he couldn't
+have told why) he had taken on a thrift unknown to him before, and had
+been attending strictly to business. He now saw that it must have been
+from a foreknowledge of Bertha. In him the superstitions of both miner
+and gambler mingled. The cards had run against him for three years, now
+they were falling in his favor. "I will take advantage of them," he
+declared.
+
+Slowly the crowd thinned out, and at one o'clock only a few inveterate
+poker-players and one or two young fellows who were still "bucking" the
+roulette wheel remained and, calling one of his men to take charge,
+Haney nodded to Williams and they went out on the street.
+
+As he reached the cold, crisp, deliciously rarefied air outside, he took
+off his hat and involuntarily looked up at the stars blazing thick in
+the deep-blue midnight sky. With solemn voice he said to his partner:
+"Well, 'Spot,' right here Mart Haney's saloon business ends. We're all
+in."
+
+Williams felt that his partner was acting rashly. "Oh, I wouldn't say
+that! You may get into it again."
+
+"No--the little girl and her mother won't stand for it, and, besides,
+what's the use? I don't need to do it, and if I'm ever going to see the
+world now is my chance. I'm goin' back East to discover how many
+brothers and sisters I have livin'. The old father is dodderin 'round
+somewheres back there. I'll surprise him, too. Now, have those papers
+all made out ready to sign by eleven o'clock to-morrow. I'm goin' down
+the valley on the noon train."
+
+"All right, Mart, but you're makin' a mistake."
+
+"Never you mind, me bucko. 'Tis me own game, and the mines will take all
+the gray matter you can spare."
+
+As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
+"Hello, Mart!"
+
+"Hello, Mag; what's doing?"
+
+She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the
+moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won't you?"
+
+"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad
+as that? What's t' old man doin' these days?"
+
+"Servin' time," she answered, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I'd forgotten. Well, take care
+o' yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of
+the woman's misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his
+younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.
+
+It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed
+that he didn't hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his
+brothers he gained by chance. "They're all great boozers," he said, in
+summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo--came to see me at the
+stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered
+brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about
+seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"
+
+"No, I didn't know."
+
+"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother--a nice girl. Dad
+sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and
+then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal
+column, I hear of them."
+
+Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other
+poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the
+time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and
+saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his
+father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and
+this was due to Bertie's influence) he earnestly desired to help his
+family out of their mire.
+
+"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother
+left us."
+
+As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
+The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy
+majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring
+in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting
+above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in
+many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+
+Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
+his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
+seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.
+
+She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
+register.
+
+"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.
+
+"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
+weather we've had since I came to town."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know?"
+
+She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
+to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
+I've sent her out to the ranch."
+
+"You're not running the house alone?"
+
+"Why, cert!--that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
+in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
+three years."
+
+He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"
+
+"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
+Saturday."
+
+"I've sold out--signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
+forever."
+
+She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business--not a
+little bit."
+
+He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
+saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
+capitalist--and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
+bending a keen glance upon her.
+
+The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
+not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
+supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.
+
+He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
+and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
+her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
+wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
+for her.
+
+Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
+accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
+truculently.
+
+"Yes, he's at supper--want to see him?"
+
+"See him? No! And I don't want _you_ to see him! He's too free with you,
+Bert; I don't like it."
+
+She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with _him_, Ed--I'd
+hate to see your remains afterwards."
+
+"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
+unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me--and now
+here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
+What's the meaning of it?"
+
+"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.
+
+He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
+sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."
+
+"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
+retorted.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He's sold out--clean as a whistle."
+
+"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
+Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly--"don't
+you dare!"
+
+The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
+you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
+you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
+'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."
+
+He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down--fer that--old
+tout, I'll kill you both."
+
+The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
+came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
+weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
+throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:
+
+"If you really meant that!--but you don't, you're only talking to hear
+yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
+chewing the rag, anyway--this is my busy day."
+
+For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
+hands clinched. "Don't you do it--that's all!" he finally snarled.
+"You'll wish you hadn't."
+
+"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
+feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
+anybody just yet."
+
+His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
+don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."
+
+"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
+mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."
+
+"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"But it riled me like the devil to think--" he began again.
+
+"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."
+
+Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
+sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:
+
+"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
+your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
+wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand--now shake, and run."
+
+His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
+"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"
+
+"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.
+
+"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.
+
+She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
+a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
+goods," she said, and they took the hint.
+
+When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
+counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
+hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
+a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
+far corner of the dining-room--a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
+was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
+out-stretched in sympathy--and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
+for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
+shook with silent sobs.
+
+The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
+matter, Bertie; are you sick?"
+
+"Oh no--but I'm worried--about mother."
+
+"You haven't heard anything--?"
+
+"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
+have quit here a month ago."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
+pure she'll pick up right away--you'll see."
+
+"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
+done work enough--and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."
+
+Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
+abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
+you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
+office."
+
+"You're not going alone?"
+
+"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."
+
+"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
+young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"
+
+"Yes, if mother is no worse."
+
+Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
+but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
+he apologized for its shortcomings--"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
+it _should_ be."
+
+She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
+know you were an Irishman."
+
+"I am, and proud of it."
+
+"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."
+
+"Not in this rig," he protested.
+
+She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
+a call."
+
+"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.
+
+The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
+and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
+and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
+eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
+She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
+engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
+at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
+upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
+and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.
+
+"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
+behind.
+
+"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
+about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
+Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
+miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."
+
+"That was right--only you should have sent for me."
+
+She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
+demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here--in the
+office they were on more equal terms--but she enjoyed in a subconscious
+way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
+quiet authority in his voice--even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
+towards which they were driving he began to speak.
+
+"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
+to-morrow--that's the day set--but I want to say that I've been cleaning
+house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
+this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
+drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
+planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
+this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old--I'm no older than I
+was at twenty-one, sure--and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
+He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
+smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
+day we'll be of an age."
+
+Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
+silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.
+
+He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
+partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
+rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'--Which road now?"
+
+She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
+great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.
+
+The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
+exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
+lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
+time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'--whether you come to
+me or not."
+
+All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
+changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
+sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
+her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
+far, far behind her.
+
+Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
+tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
+devils," he admitted--"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
+wouldn't go to school--not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
+well--and we fished and played ball and went to the circus--" He
+chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
+lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
+I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
+since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
+and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
+same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."
+
+Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"
+
+"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
+I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
+Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."
+
+"I like it--but I'd like to see the rest of the country."
+
+"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."
+
+She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once--went on one of
+these excursion tickets."
+
+"How did you like it there?"
+
+"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
+worst ever--it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
+door of the big places."
+
+"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush--if you will."
+
+Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
+such hotels--There's our ranch."
+
+"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
+pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."
+
+"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."
+
+"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
+planted."
+
+"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
+sentimental speech.
+
+The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
+of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
+house--a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
+temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees--thriftily
+green--and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
+husbandry of the owner.
+
+Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
+rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
+comfort to her--it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
+of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
+that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
+father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
+drowse.
+
+Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
+overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
+her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
+forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
+to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
+you say so, mother."
+
+"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
+answer.
+
+Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
+bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"
+
+The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
+cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."
+
+"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
+is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
+house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
+little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."
+
+Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
+her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
+drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
+her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
+fine. They brace right up to the situation, and--and everybody's nice to
+us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
+you were--and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
+things were going."
+
+The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"
+
+"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
+an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."
+
+The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
+think. I'm afraid to leave this to you--it's an awful temptation to a
+girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
+ought to marry."
+
+She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
+"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."
+
+"But he's so old--for you."
+
+"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
+the case is this: he's sold out up there--cleared out his saloon
+business--and all for _me_. Think o' that--and I hadn't given him a word
+of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
+think?"
+
+The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then--"
+
+The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
+don't--I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
+know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
+to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
+answer yet awhile--time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
+another week if I want to."
+
+The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
+streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
+girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
+Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
+that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
+said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
+lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
+hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
+would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
+understand her mood--perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
+a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now--I could
+do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
+whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."
+
+If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
+mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
+as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
+peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
+have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."
+
+"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.
+
+This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
+profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
+admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
+suddenly to him, and said:
+
+"You're good to me--and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
+to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to--some time--not
+now--next spring, maybe."
+
+He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
+softening emotion.
+
+"You've made Mart Haney over new--so you have! As sure as God lets me
+live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+
+Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
+regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
+trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat--the stir of
+his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
+taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
+with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
+right spot this time."
+
+With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
+this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
+Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
+quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
+whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
+Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
+most sentimental of men--it is said); and now that he had been surprised
+into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
+pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
+his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
+his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
+associates of a lifetime.
+
+He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
+brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
+of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
+he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.
+
+"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."
+
+"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
+place.
+
+Haney nodded, without smiling.
+
+His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"
+
+"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.
+
+"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
+in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
+drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
+rampage for two days--crazy as a loon."
+
+"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
+like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
+bust-up?"
+
+"He don't seem to--or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
+he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
+your guard."
+
+They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
+Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
+began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
+years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
+consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
+put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
+with me--God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
+I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
+of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
+entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
+he had no fear--only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
+repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
+he'd drop it."
+
+He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
+grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
+Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
+bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
+home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
+find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
+the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
+greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
+nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.
+
+The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
+yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
+taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
+violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
+shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
+thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
+uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.
+
+The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
+hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
+face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
+by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
+excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
+palm pressed to his breast, stood silent--curiously silent--his lips
+white with his effort at self-control.
+
+At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
+old man? Are you hurt bad?"
+
+His lips moved--they listened--as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
+boys. Here's where I quit."
+
+"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
+Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
+it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"
+
+Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete--I'm torn to pieces--I'm
+all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl--that's all I ask."
+
+Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
+gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
+the crowd out.
+
+Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
+Bertie--quick!"
+
+The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
+significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
+they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
+the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
+satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
+command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
+girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
+Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
+let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
+is it, Mart?"
+
+Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
+patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
+intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
+and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
+torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner--Haney was indeed
+his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
+riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
+Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
+the bar-room--and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
+became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
+curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.
+
+To him stepped a man--one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
+attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
+lamp-post. Want to see?"
+
+For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
+had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
+tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
+never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
+friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
+his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
+'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
+and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
+buckshot--just when he was takin' a wife--is hellish."
+
+His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
+revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
+watch beside his friend.
+
+The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
+softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
+tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
+changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
+who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
+themselves.
+
+"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.
+
+This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
+office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
+of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
+his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
+"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
+here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"
+
+"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
+shortcoming.
+
+"It must be done!"
+
+"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
+wire him to see her--and bring her."
+
+"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."
+
+It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
+them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
+who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
+all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
+he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
+woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
+does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
+Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain--just the
+mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."
+
+"Will she come? Can she get away?"
+
+"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
+here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
+calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes--you can bet high on that. I'm
+only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."
+
+Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
+an air of waiting--waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
+checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
+doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life--he
+had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
+and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
+me--here. I want her to have all I've got--_everything_!"
+
+At another time he said: "Get the judge--have everything ready!"
+
+They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
+in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
+resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
+weakness persisted heroically--till even the doctor's throat filled with
+sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
+into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
+Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
+pull through, with her help."
+
+To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
+was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
+wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
+at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
+chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
+watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
+rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
+drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
+barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.
+
+About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
+leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."
+
+Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
+it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
+I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
+hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
+every resource--forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.
+
+A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
+man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
+I've no strength to waste--'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
+here--to marry us--" And with this request the priest was forced to be
+content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
+as he turned away.
+
+Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
+ceremony must be legal--I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
+protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
+and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
+life.
+
+"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
+partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
+be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
+if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
+the Church."
+
+Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
+with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
+every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
+her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
+Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
+don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."
+
+From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
+faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
+records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
+that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
+Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.
+
+"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
+afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
+better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
+possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+
+Bertha was eating her supper, after a hard day's work in her little
+hotel, when a little yellow envelope was handed to her. The words of the
+message were few, but they were meaning-full: "Come at once. Mart hurt,
+not expected to live." It was signed by Williams. While still she sat
+stunned and hesitant, under the weight of this demand, another and much
+more explicit telegram came: "Johnson, superintendent, is ordered to
+fetch you with special train. Don't delay. Mart needs you--is calling
+for you. Come at once!"
+
+The phrase "is calling for you" reached her heart--decided her. She
+rose, and, with a word of explanation to her housekeeper, put on her
+hat, and threw a cloak over her arm. "I've got to go to Cripple. Captain
+Haney is sick, and I've got to go to him. I don't know when I'll be
+back," she said. "Get along the best you can." Her face was white but
+calm, and her manner deliberate. "Send word to mother that Mart is hurt,
+and I've gone up to see him. Tell her not to worry."
+
+To her night clerk, who had come on duty, she quietly remarked: "I
+reckon you'll have to look after things to-morrow. I'll try to get back
+the day after. If I don't, Lem Markham will take my place." While still
+she stood arranging the details of her business a short, dark man
+stepped inside the door, and very kindly and gravely explained his
+errand. "I'm Johnson, the division superintendent. They've telegraphed
+me for a special, and I'm going to take you up myself. Mart is a friend
+of mine," he added, with some feeling.
+
+She thanked him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together
+they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive
+coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of
+spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short
+caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and
+the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up
+speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to
+the girl: "I guess you'd better take my chair; it's bolted to the floor,
+and you can hang on when we go round the curves."
+
+She obeyed instantly, and with her small hands gripping the arm-rests of
+the rude seat cowered in silence, while the clambering monster rushed
+and roared over the level lands and labored up the grades, shrieking now
+and again, as if in mingled pain and warning. Johnson and the brakeman,
+for the most part, kept to the lookout in the turret, and the girl rode
+alone--rode far, passing swiftly from girlhood to womanhood, so full of
+enforced meditation were the hours of that ride. It seemed that she was
+leaving something sweet and care-free behind her, and it was certain
+that she was about to face death. She had one perfectly clear
+conception, and that was that the man who had been most kind to her, and
+to whom she had given her promise of marriage, was dying and needed
+her--was calling for her through the night.
+
+Burdened with responsibility from her childhood, accustomed to make her
+own decisions, she had responded to this prayer, knowing dimly that this
+journey denoted a new and portentous experience--a fundamental change in
+her life.
+
+She had admired and liked Haney from the first, but her feeling even yet
+was very like that of a boy for a man of heroic statue--her regard had
+very little of woman's passion in it. She was appalled and benumbed by
+the thought that she was soon to look upon him lying prone. That she
+might soon be called upon to meet those bold eyes closing in death she
+had been warned, and yet she did not shrink from it. The nurse, latent
+in every woman, rose in her, and she ached with desire of haste, longing
+to lay her hand upon the suffering man in some healing way. His
+kindness, his gentleness, during the days of his final courtship had
+sunk deep--his generosity had been so full, so free, so unhesitating.
+
+She thought of her mother, and as a fuller conception of the alarm and
+anxiety she would feel came to her, she decided to send her a telegram.
+"She will know it was my duty to go," she decided. "As for the
+hotel--what does it matter now?" Nothing seemed to matter, indeed, save
+the speed of her chariot.
+
+The night was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down
+out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning
+encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with
+taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be
+otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on
+one other point--this journey committed her to Marshall Haney. There
+could be no further hesitation. "Some time, soon, if he lives, I must
+marry him," she thought, and the conception troubled her with a new
+revelation of what that relationship might mean. She felt suddenly very
+small, very weak, and very helpless. "He must be good to me," she
+murmured. And then, as the words of his prayer to her came back, she
+added: "And I'll be good to him."
+
+Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the
+busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this
+moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed
+a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through
+the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown
+stars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as
+the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end
+of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station.
+
+"Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff
+and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of
+passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back.
+
+Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still
+here--and waiting for you."
+
+Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became
+alert, clear-brained. "How is he?"
+
+"Pretty bad."
+
+"What's it all about? How did it happen?"
+
+"I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a
+carriage.
+
+Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go
+ahead--straight."
+
+He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the
+border, and who has no nice shading in act or word.
+
+"Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause.
+
+"I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the
+night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now."
+
+That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but
+that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her
+dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to
+shudder at the sight of blood.
+
+Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to
+tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies."
+
+The girl drew away. "Not this minute--to-night?"
+
+"Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to
+do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said
+this.
+
+Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom
+swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching
+her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything
+is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a
+civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a
+Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied
+good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He
+says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers
+or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little
+sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can
+refuse, specially as it makes his dying--" He stopped there.
+
+The street was silent as they drew up to the saloon door, and only
+Slater and one or two of his friends were present when Bertha walked
+into the bar-room, erect as a boy, her calm, sweet face ashen white in
+the electric light. For an instant; she stood there in the middle of the
+floor alone, her big dark eyes searching every face. Then Judge Brady, a
+kindly, gray-haired man, advanced, and took her hand. "We're very glad
+to see you," he gravely said, introducing himself. Williams, who had
+entered the inner room, returned instantly to say: "Come, he's waiting."
+
+Without a word the bride entered the presence of her groom, and the
+doctor, bending low to the gambler, said: "Be careful now, Mart. Don't
+try to rise. Be perfectly still. Bertie has come."
+
+Haney turned with a smile--a tender, humorous smile--and whispered:
+"Bertie, acushla mavourneen, come to me!"
+
+Then the watchers withdrew, leaving them alone, and the girl, bending
+above him, kissed him. "Oh, Captain, can't I do something? I _must_ do
+something."
+
+"Yes, darlin', ye can. You can marry me this minute, and ye shall. I'm
+dyin', girl--so the doctor says. I don't feel it that way; but, anyhow,
+we take no chances. All I have is for you, and so--"
+
+She put her hand ever his lips. "You must be quiet. I understand, and I
+will do it--but only to make you well." She turned to the door, and her
+voice was clear as she said to those who waited: "I am ready."
+
+"Will you have Father Kearney?" asked Williams.
+
+She turned towards Haney. "Just as he says."
+
+The stricken miner, ghastly with the pain brought on by movement,
+responded to the doctor's question, only by a whisper: "The
+priest--first."
+
+The girl heard, and her fine, clear glance rested upon the face of the
+priest. Tears were on her cheeks, but a kind of exultation was in her
+tone as she said: "I am willing, father."
+
+With a look which denoted his appreciation of the girl's courage, the
+priest stepped forward and led her to her place beside her bridegroom.
+She took Haney's big nerveless hand in her firm grasp, and together they
+listened to the solemn words which made them husband and wife. It seemed
+that the gambler was passing into the shadow during the opening prayer,
+but his whispered responses came at the proper pauses, and only when the
+final benediction was given, and the priest and the judge fell back
+before the rush of the young doctor, did the wounded man's eyes close in
+final collapse. He had indeed reached the end of his endurance.
+
+The young wife spoke then, imperiously, almost fiercely, asking: "Why is
+he lying here? This is no place for him."
+
+The doctor explained. "We were afraid to move him--till you came. In
+fact, he wouldn't let me move him. If you say so now, we will take him
+up." With these words the watchers shifted their responsibility to her
+shoulders, uttering sighs of deep relief. Whatever happened now, Mart's
+will had been secured. At her command they lifted the table on which her
+husband lay, and the wife walked beside it, unheeding the throngs of
+silent men walling her path. Every one made way for her, waited upon
+her, eager to serve her, partly because she was Marshall Haney's wife,
+but more because of her youth and the brave heart which looked from her
+clear and candid eyes.
+
+She showed no hesitation now, gave out no word of weakness; on the
+contrary, she commanded with certainty and precision, calling to her aid
+all that the city afforded. Not till she had summoned the best surgeons
+and was sure that everything had been done that could be done did she
+permit herself to relax--or to think of rest or her mother.
+
+When she had sunk to sleep upon a couch beside her husband's bed,
+Williams, with a note of deep admiration, demanded of the surgeon:
+"Ain't she a little Captain? Mart can't die now, can he? He's got too
+much to live for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE HANEY PALACE
+
+
+One day early in the following summer a tall, thin man, with one
+helpless side, entered the big luminous hall of the Antlers Hotel at the
+Springs, upheld by a stalwart attendant, and accompanied by a
+sweet-faced, calm-lipped young woman. This was Marshall Haney and his
+young wife Bertha, down from the mountain for the first time since his
+illness, and those who knew their story and recognized them, stood aside
+with a thrill of pity for the man and a look of admiration for the girl,
+whose bravery and devotion had done so much to bring her husband back to
+life and to a growing measure of his former strength.
+
+Marshall Haney was, indeed, but a poor hulk of his stalwart self. One
+lung had been deeply torn, his left shoulder was almost wholly disabled,
+and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was
+not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened--"gentled,"
+as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern
+and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep
+horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a
+mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look--older and more
+military. It was plain, also, that he leaned upon his keen-eyed,
+impassive little wife, who never for one moment lost her hold upon
+herself or her surroundings. Her flashing glances took note of
+everything about her, and her lips were close-set and firm.
+
+Williams, ugly and wordless as ever, followed them with a proud smile
+till they entered the handsome suite of rooms which had been reserved
+for them. "There's nothing too good for Marshall Haney and his
+side-partner," he exulted to the bell-boy.
+
+Thereupon, Mart, with a look of reverence at his young bride, replied:
+"She's airned it--and more!"
+
+A sigh was in his voice and a singular appeal in his big eyes as he sank
+into an easy-chair. "I believe I do feel better down here; my heart
+seems to work aisier. I'm going to get well now, darlin'."
+
+"Of course you are," she answered, in the tone of a daughter; then
+added, with a smile: "I like it here. Why not settle?"
+
+To her Colorado Springs was a dazzling social centre. The beauty of the
+homes along its wide streets, the splendor of its private carriages,
+affected her almost as deeply as the magnitude and glory of Denver
+itself; but she was not of those who display their weaknesses and
+diffidence. She ate her first dinner in the lofty Antlers dining-hall
+with quiet dignity, and would not have been particularly noticed but for
+Haney, who was well-known to the waiters of the hotel. Her association
+with him had made her a marked figure in their mountain towns, and she
+was accustomed to comment.
+
+She met the men who addressed her with entire fearlessness and candor
+(she was afraid only of women in good clothes), speaking with the easy
+slanginess of a herder, using naturally and unconsciously the most
+picturesque phrases of the West. Her speech was incisive and
+unhesitating, yet not swift. She never chattered, but "you bet" and "all
+right" were authorized English so far as she was concerned. "They say
+you can't beat this town anywhere for society, and I sure like the looks
+of what we've seen. Suppose we hang around this hotel for a while--not
+too long, for it's mighty expensive." Here she smiled--a quick, flashing
+smile. "You see, I can't get used to spending money--I'm afraid all the
+time I'll wake up. It's just like a dream I used to have of finding
+chink--I always came to before I had a chance to handle it and see if it
+was real."
+
+Haney answered, indulgently: "'Tis all real, Bertie. I'll show you that
+when I'm meself again."
+
+"Oh, I believe it--at least, part of the time," she retorted. "But I'll
+have to flash a roll to do it--checks are no good. I could sign a
+million checks and not have 'em seem like real money. I'm from Missouri
+when it comes to cash."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, who had always stood in bewilderment and wonder of her
+daughter, was entirely subject now. She and Williams usually moved in
+silence, like adoring subjects in the presence of their sovereigns. They
+had no doubts whatsoever concerning the power and primacy of gold; and
+as for Haney himself, his unquestioning confidence in his little wife's
+judgment had come to be like an article of religious faith.
+
+After breakfast on the second day of her stay Bertha ordered a carriage,
+and they drove about the town in the brilliant morning sunshine, looking
+for a place to build. She resembled a little home-seeking sparrow. Every
+cosey cottage was to her an almost irresistible allurement. "There's a
+dandy place, Captain," she called several times. "Wouldn't you like a
+house like that?"
+
+He, with larger notions, shook his head each time. "Too small, Bertie.
+We've the right to a fine big place--like that, now." He nodded towards
+a stately gray-stone mansion, with the sign "For Sale" planted on its
+lawn.
+
+She was aghast. "Gee! what would we do with a state-house like that?"
+
+"Live in it, sure."
+
+"It would need four chamber-maids and two hired men to take care of a
+place like that. And think of the money it would spoil to stock it with
+furniture!" Nevertheless, she gazed at it longingly. "I'd sure like that
+big garden and that porch. You could sit on that porch and see the
+mountains, couldn't you? But my ears and whiskers, the expense of
+keeping it!"
+
+They passed on to other and less palatial possibilities, and returned to
+the hotel undecided. The two women, bewildered and weary, diverged and
+discussed the matter of dress till the mid-day meal.
+
+"I like being rich," remarked the young wife, as they took their seats
+in the lovely dining-room, and looked about at the tables so shining, so
+dainty. "It would be fun to run a house like this, don't you think?" She
+addressed her mother.
+
+"Good gracious, no! Think of the bill for help and the worry of looking
+after all this silver! No, it's too splendid for us."
+
+Haney still retained enough of his ancient humor to smile at them. "I'd
+rather see you manage that big stone house with the porch which I'm
+going to buy."
+
+"You don't mean it?" said Bertha, while Mrs. Gilman stared at him over
+her soup.
+
+He went on quietly. "Sure! Me mind's made up. You want the garden and I
+like the porch; so 'phone the agent after dinner, and we'll go up and
+see to it this very afternoon."
+
+Bertha's bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes expanded. "I'd like
+just once to see the _inside_ of a house like that. It must be half as
+big as this hotel--but to own it! You're crazy, Captain."
+
+The remote possibility of walking through that wonderful mansion took
+away the young wife's appetite, and she became silent and reflective in
+the face of a delicious fried chicken. The magic of her husband's wealth
+began to make itself most potently felt.
+
+Haney insisted on smoking a cigar in the lobby. Bertha took her mother
+away to talk over the tremendous decision which was about to be thrust
+upon them. "We want a house," said she, decisively, "but not a palace
+like that. What would we do with it? It scares me up a tree to think of
+it."
+
+"I guess he was only joking," Mrs. Gilman agreed.
+
+"I can see the porch would be fine for him," Bertha went on. "But,
+jiminy spelter, we'd all be lost in the place!"
+
+Haney called Williams to his side, and told him of the house. "It's a
+big place, but I want it. Go you and see the agent. My little girl needs
+a roof, and why not the best?"
+
+"Sure!" replied Williams, with conviction. "She's entitled to a castle.
+You round up the women, and I'll do the rest."
+
+The house proved to be even more splendid and spacious than its exterior
+indicated, and Bertha walked its wide halls with breathless delight.
+After a hurried survey of the interior, they came out upon the broad
+veranda, and lingered long in awe and wonder of the outlook. To the west
+lay a glorious garden of fruits and flowers; a fountain was playing over
+the rich green grass; high above the tops of the pear and peach trees
+(which made a little copse) rose the purple peaks of the Rampart range.
+
+"Oh, isn't it great!" exclaimed Bertha.
+
+Haney turned to the agent with a tense look on his pale face--a look of
+exultant power.
+
+"Make out your papers," said he, quietly. "We take the place--as it
+stands."
+
+Bertha was overwhelmed by this flourish of the enchanter's wand--but
+only for a moment. No sooner was the contract signed than she roused
+herself as to a new business venture. "Well, now, the first thing is
+furniture. Let's see! There is some carpets and curtains in the place,
+isn't there? And a steel range. It's up to me to rustle the balance of
+the outfit together right lively."
+
+And so she set to work quite as she would have done in outfitting a new
+hotel--so many beds, so many chairs in a room, so many dressers, and
+soon had a long list made out and the order placed.
+
+She spent every available moment of her time for the next two days
+getting the kitchen and dining-room in running order, and when she had
+two beds ready insisted on moving in. "We can kind o' camp out in the
+place till we get stocked up. I'm crazy to be under our own roof."
+
+Haney, almost as eager as she, consented, and on the third day they
+drove up to the door, dismissed their hired coachman, and stepped inside
+the gate--master and mistress of an American chateau.
+
+Mart turned, and, with misty eyes and a voice choked with happiness,
+said: "Well, darlin', we have it now--the palace of the fairy stories."
+
+"It's great," she repeated, musingly; "but I can't make it seem like a
+home--mebbe it'll change when I get it filled with furniture, but the
+garden is sure all right."
+
+They took their first meal on the porch overlooking the mountains,
+listening to the breeze in the vines. It was heavenly sweet after the
+barren squalor of their Cripple Creek home, and they did little but gaze
+and dream.
+
+"We need a team," Bertha said, at last.
+
+"Buy one," replied Haney.
+
+So Bertha bought a carriage and a fine black span. This expenditure
+involved a coachman, and to fill that position an old friend of
+Williams'--a talkative and officious old miner--was employed. She next
+secured a Chinese cook, the best to be had, and a girl to do the
+chamber-work. They were all busy as hornets, and Bertha lived in a glow
+of excitement every waking hour of the day--though she did not show it.
+
+Haney's check-book was quite as wonderful in its way as Aladdin's lamp,
+and little by little the women permitted themselves to draw upon its
+magic. The shining span of blacks, with flowing manes and champing bits,
+became a feature of the avenue as the women drove up and down on their
+never-ending quest for household luxuries--they had gone beyond mere
+necessities. Mart usually went with them, sitting in the carriage while
+they "visited" with the grocery clerks and furniture dealers. They were
+very popular with these people, as was natural.
+
+"Little Mrs. Haney" became at once the subject of endless
+comment--mostly unfavorable; for Mart's saloon-made reputation was
+well-known, and the current notion of a woman who would marry him was
+not high. She was reported, in the alien circles of the town, to be a
+vulgar little chamber-maid who had taken a gambler for his money at a
+time when he was supposed to be on his death-bed, and her elevation to
+the management of a palatial residence was pointed out as being
+"peculiarly Western-American."
+
+The men, however, were much more tolerant of judgment than their women.
+They had become more or less hardened to seeing crude miners luxuriating
+in sudden, accidental wealth; therefore, they nodded good-humoredly at
+Haney and tipped their hats to his pretty wife with smiles. As bankers,
+tradesmen, and taxpayers generally they could not afford to neglect a
+citizen possessed of so much wealth and circumstance.
+
+Mrs. Gilman presented a letter of introduction to the nearest church of
+her own persuasion, and went to service quite as unassumingly as in
+Sibley, and was greeted by a few of the ladies there cordially and
+without hint of her son-in-law's connections. Two or three, including
+the pastor's wife, made special effort to cultivate her acquaintance by
+calling immediately, but they were not of those who attracted Bertha;
+and though she showed them about the house and answered their questions,
+she did not promise to call. "We're too busy," she explained. "I haven't
+got more than half the rooms into shape, and, besides, we're to have my
+brother's folks down from the Junction--we're on the hustle all day
+long."
+
+This was true. She had been quite besieged by her former neighbors in
+Sibley, who found it convenient to "put up with the Haneys" while
+visiting the town. They were, in fact, very curious to study her in her
+new and splendid setting; and though some of them peeked and peered amid
+the beds, and thumped the mattresses in vulgar curiosity, the young
+housewife merely laughed. All her life had been spent among folk of this
+directly inquisitive sort. She expected them to act as they did, and,
+being a hearty and generous soul, as well as a very democratic one, she
+sent them away happy.
+
+Indeed, she won praise from all who came to know her. But that small
+part of the Springs--alien and exclusive--which considered itself higher
+if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the
+gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined
+to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback"
+as she met them on the boulevard.
+
+Of all this critical comment Bertha remained, happily, unconscious, and
+it is probable that she would soon have won her way to a decent circle
+of friends had not Charles Haney descended upon them like a plague. Mart
+had been receiving letters from this brother, but had said nothing to
+Bertha of his demands. "Charles despised me when he met me in Denver,"
+he explained to Williams. "I was busted at the time, ye mind." He
+winked. "And now when he reads in the papers that Mart Haney is rich, he
+comes down on me like a hawk on a June bug. 'Tis no matter. He may
+come--I'll not cast him out. But he does not play with me
+double-eagles--not he!"
+
+Charles Haney was not fitted to raise his brother's wife in the social
+scale, for he belonged to that marked, insistent variety of actor to be
+distinguished on trains and in the lobbies of hotels--a fat, sleek,
+loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while
+ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in
+illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of
+those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and
+brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their
+first meeting.
+
+She amazed him. He had expected a woman of his own class--an
+adventuress, painted, designing; and to find this sweet little
+girl--"why, she's too good for Mart," he concluded, and shifted his
+hollow pretensions of sympathy from his brother to his sister-in-law.
+Before the first evening of his visit closed he sought opportunity to
+tell her, in hypocritic sadness, that Mart was a doomed man, and that
+she would soon be free of him. Bertha was disturbed by his gaze and
+repelled by his touch, but tried to like him on Mart's account. His
+mouthing disgusted her, and the good-will with which Haney greeted his
+brother turned into bitterness as the boaster and low wit began to
+display himself.
+
+"We all grew up in the street or in the saloon," Haney sadly remarked,
+"and you finished your education in the variety theatre, I'm thinking."
+
+The actor took this as a joke, and with a grin retorted: "That's better
+than running a faro-layout."
+
+"I dunno; a good quiet game has its power to educate a man," replied the
+gambler.
+
+That night, as she was preparing the Captain for bed, he remarked, with
+a sigh: "Life is a quare game! I mind Charley well as a cute little
+yellow-haired divil, always laughing, always in mischief, and me chasin'
+after him--a big slob of a boy. I used to carry him up an' down the
+tenement stairs. I learned him to skate--and now here he is drinkin'
+himself puffy, whilst I am an old broken-down hack at forty-five." He
+looked up at her with a sheen of tears in his eyes. "Darlin', 'tis a
+shame to be leanin' on you."
+
+She put her arm around his big grizzled head and drew it to her.
+
+"You can lean hard, Mart. I'm standin' by."
+
+"No, I'll not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine,
+straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young
+life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me any
+longer."
+
+"Now, now, no more of that!" she warned. "When I have cause to knock,
+you won't need no ear-trumpet. Put up your hoof." He obeyed, and,
+stooping swiftly, she began to unlace the shoe which he could no longer
+reach. Her manner was that of a daughter who tyrannizes over an
+indulgent father. Her admiration and gratitude, so boyish once, were now
+replaced by an affection in which the element of sex had small place,
+and his love for her sprang also from a source far removed from the
+fierce instinct which first led him to seek her subduing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+
+Charles Haney had no scruples. From the moment of his first meeting with
+his brother's young wife he determined to make himself "solid" with her.
+Convinced that Mart was not long for this world, he set to work to win
+Bertha's favor, for this was the only way to harvest the golden fortune
+she controlled.
+
+"Mart is just fool enough and contrary enough to leave every cent of his
+money to her." Here he placed one finger against his brow. "Carlos, here
+is where you get busy. It's us to the haberdasher. We shine."
+
+Notwithstanding all his boasting, he was not only an actor out of an
+engagement, but flat broke, badly dressed, and in sorry disrepute with
+managers. "I've been playing in a stock company in San Francisco," he
+had explained, "and I'm now on my way to New York to produce a play of
+my own. Hence these tears. I need an 'angel.'"
+
+He distinctly said "the first of the month" in this announcement, but as
+the days went by he only settled deeper into the snug corners of the
+Haney home, making no further mention of his triumphal eastward
+progress. On the contrary, he had the air of a regular boarder, and
+turned up promptly for meals, rotund and glowing in the opulence of his
+brother's hospitality.
+
+On the strength of his name he found favor with the tailors, and
+bourgeoned forth a few days later in the best cloth the shops afforded,
+and strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock before Bertha,
+keeping up meanwhile a pretension of sympathy and good-fellowship with
+Mart.
+
+In this he miscalculated; for Bertha, youthful as she seemed, was
+accustomed, as she would say, to "standing off mashers," and her
+impassive face and keen, steady eyes fairly disconcerted the libertine.
+"For Mart's sake, we'll put up with him," she said to her mother. "He's
+a loafer; but I can see the Captain kind o' likes to have him
+around--for old times' sake, I reckon."
+
+This was true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his
+egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the
+dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to
+see and understand that this was his most ingratiating rƓle, and he
+played it "to the limit," as Bertha would have said.
+
+And yet no one in the house realized how his presence reacted against
+Bertha.
+
+"What are we to think of a girl so obtuse that she permits a man like
+this fat, disgusting actor to dangle about her?" asked Mrs. Crego of her
+husband, who was Haney's legal adviser.
+
+"He's her husband's brother, you know," argued Crego.
+
+"All the same, I can't understand her. She looks nice and sweet, and you
+say she is so; and yet here she is married to a notorious gambler, and
+associating with mountebanks and all sorts of malodorous people. Why,
+I've seen her riding down the street with the upholsterer, and Mrs.
+Congdon told me that she saw her stop her carriage in front of a cigar
+store and talk with a barber in a white jacket for at least ten
+minutes."
+
+Crego laughed. "What infamy! However, I can't believe even the
+upholsterer will finally corrupt her. The fact is, my dear, we're all
+getting to be what some of my clients call 'too a-ristocratic.' Bertha
+Haney is sprung from good average American stock, and has associated
+with the kind of people you abhor all her life. She hasn't begun to draw
+any of your artificial distinctions. I hope she never will. Her barber
+friend is on the same level with the clerks and grocery-men of the town.
+They're all human, you know. She's the true democrat. I confess I like
+the girl. Her ability is astonishing. Williams and Haney both take her
+opinion quite as weightily as my own."
+
+Mrs. Crego was impressed. "Well, I'll call on her if you really think I
+_ought_ to do so."
+
+"I don't. I withdraw my suggestion. I deprecate your calling--in that
+spirit. I doubt if she expects you to call. I hardly think she has
+awakened to any slights put upon her by your set. Indeed, she seems
+quite happy in the society of Thomas, Richard, and Harry."
+
+"Don't be brutal, Allen."
+
+"I'm not. The girl is now serene--that's the main thing; and you might
+raise up doubts and discontents in her mind."
+
+"I certainly shall not go near her so long as that odious actor is
+hanging about. His smirk at me the other day made me ill."
+
+This conversation was typical of many others in homes of equal culture,
+for Bertha's position as well as her face and manner piqued curiosity.
+After all, the town was a small place--just large enough to give gossip
+room to play in--and the sheen of Mrs. Haney's wealth made her
+conspicuous from afar, while her youth and boyish beauty had been the
+subject of admiring club talk from the very first. Haney was only an old
+and wounded animal, whose mate was free to choose anew.
+
+"It makes me ache to see the girl go wrong," said Mrs. Frank Congdon,
+wife of a resident portrait-painter, also in delicate health (she was
+speaking to Mrs. Crego). "Think of that great house--Frank says she runs
+it admirably--filled with tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers,
+not to mention touts and gamblers--when she might be entertaining--well,
+us, for example!" She laughed at the unbending face of her friend; then
+went on: "Dr. Cronk says the mother is a sweet old lady and of good New
+England family--a constitutional Methodist, he calls her. I wish she
+kept better company."
+
+"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother
+was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and
+the girl boasts of it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the
+most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has
+called, you know?"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's
+picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."
+
+"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's
+face fade out of her memory."
+
+"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the
+portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to
+paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers
+Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and
+was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now--his face is one
+of the saddest I ever saw--makes it all the more interesting to Frank.
+So I'm going to call--in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."
+
+"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You
+must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't
+you?"
+
+At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.
+
+Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her
+social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the
+ideas and usages of Sibley Junction--that was all. She acknowledged her
+obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England
+democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the
+right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice.
+The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this
+privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her
+own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church
+associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the
+distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and
+Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are
+too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the
+revelation came to her.
+
+From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the
+Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that
+her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say
+proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while
+from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs,
+beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital
+infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.
+
+Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and
+Charles--both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great
+concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her
+husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not
+merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.
+
+Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in
+resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister
+one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's
+faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any
+other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I
+call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the
+finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.
+
+Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's,
+and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the
+social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles,
+embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He
+had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar
+you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set'
+and quoting _Town Topics_ like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little
+two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What
+d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of
+me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at
+the club fail to invite me to their houses."
+
+Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a
+different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone
+beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each
+day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be
+alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell
+Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But
+his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so
+she endured.
+
+The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the
+town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was
+"in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr.
+Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss
+Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst
+significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless
+tongue.
+
+This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her
+loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on
+his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat
+beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was
+furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence
+that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.
+
+His attentions--which were almost assaults--came at last to destroy a
+large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside
+her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him
+before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever
+she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never
+been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon
+conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his
+maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting
+himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the
+Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams
+was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's
+care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who
+paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.
+
+Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching
+them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain,"
+Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush.
+And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until
+his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort.
+He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come
+from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no
+imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.
+
+Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of
+his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he
+now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that
+the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such
+times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of
+mines and mining--though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded
+little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not
+go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his
+condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in
+possession of it.
+
+"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put
+a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges
+there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis
+impossible--I see that--but I may live on for a long time. Already me
+mind misgives me about Bertie--she's too young to be tied up to a
+shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."
+
+To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry.
+She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."
+
+Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I
+niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency
+darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me
+out. I'm only a big nuisance."
+
+"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is
+all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an
+atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never
+for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.
+
+This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he
+came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting
+alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart,
+feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.
+
+Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk,
+went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her.
+Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe
+of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a
+glare of reckless desire.
+
+"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want
+'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me,
+anyhow?"
+
+She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up
+tense and strong, silently confronting him.
+
+He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't
+you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."
+
+His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his
+lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her,
+clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply
+with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell
+sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his
+balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one
+less experienced than she.
+
+"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"
+
+"_Stop!_" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you
+want to die?" The word _die_ pierced the mist of his madness. "What do
+you think Mart will say to this?"
+
+He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered
+in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.
+
+"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it,
+I beg--I beg!"
+
+She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his
+wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house
+to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are.
+You haven't fooled me any--not for a minute. I've put up with you for
+his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you,
+but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning--you _sabe_?
+It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."
+
+He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her
+feet.
+
+She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of
+disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the
+rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He _was_
+company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I
+never see him again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he
+sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me
+another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."
+
+She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I
+don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but
+fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away,
+flabby and faltering, to his brother.
+
+"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I
+need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I
+get to work I'll send you a check."
+
+Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and
+put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one
+of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get
+down to hard work. It's _time_ ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but
+loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk--part of the time; but I can
+see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad
+for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."
+
+"Can't you--" He was going to ask for a position--something easy with
+big pay--when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.
+
+As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a
+gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father,
+write and tell me how he is."
+
+Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in
+what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and
+went out to his carriage--alone.
+
+As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm
+directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a
+gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could
+live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has
+him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."
+
+Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+
+Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost
+the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train,
+as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village,
+but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy
+streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose
+belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.
+
+And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death,
+fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned
+all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning
+their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented
+exiles--men as well as women--who have come to enjoy their enforced stay
+here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its
+surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate
+and the water have prolonged their lives.
+
+Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at
+present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
+others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
+their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
+blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
+and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
+of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
+but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
+for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
+also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
+and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
+and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
+comfort and content.
+
+In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
+desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
+Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
+a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence--"to get some good of
+their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
+avenues are luxurious homes--absurdly pretentious in some
+instances--which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
+big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
+drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
+sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
+comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
+said.
+
+Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
+city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
+staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
+certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
+genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
+microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
+would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
+change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
+with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
+interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
+my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
+eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
+don't _interest_ me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do
+them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence.
+And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have
+always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has,
+nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the
+grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."
+
+"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where
+would the Congdons be?"
+
+"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't
+a matter of brains. It's a question of--"
+
+"_Savoir faire._"
+
+"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently--" Congdon stopped
+him, gravely.
+
+"I owe you fifty--I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I
+suddenly recalled--"
+
+"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go
+everywhere and are welcome. Why?"
+
+"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's
+all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on
+the gray matter of this family."
+
+"You do yourself an injustice."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your
+type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You
+mix. And Haney, for example--to return to the concrete again--Haney
+would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife,
+clever as she is, is impossible--or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she
+is."
+
+Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little
+Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."
+
+"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on
+the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her
+interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.'
+So there we stand."
+
+Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The
+girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."
+
+"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of
+a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this
+realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me
+I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments.
+Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're
+painting his portrait--why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"
+
+"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the
+line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of
+hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women
+can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can.
+As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything--except
+borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber
+lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than
+anything else. They think her tastes are low."
+
+"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and
+though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he
+seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will
+admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional,
+but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act.
+Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with
+them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but--' And there the argument
+rests."
+
+"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy,"
+said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would
+like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will
+never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going
+to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."
+
+And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with
+his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the
+portrait is nearly done," he said.
+
+"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't
+much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my
+mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to
+teach her."
+
+Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he.
+"That girl's no fool--she's capable of development. She will amaze you
+yet."
+
+"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to
+dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll
+we ask to meet her--the Cregos?"
+
+"Yes, I'd thought of them."
+
+"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting
+a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I
+think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce
+in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is
+crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away,
+little boy, and leave the whole business to me."
+
+As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the
+Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic
+cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide
+old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of
+beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing
+ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a
+prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American
+ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little
+better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for
+automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the
+blazing fires of roomy hearths.
+
+Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a
+state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by
+pretending to be a sculptor--and she still did occasionally model a
+figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the
+aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter,
+whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was
+making a precarious living in the Springs--precarious for the reason
+that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and
+on dark days he _couldn't_ see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was
+not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as
+he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted
+his laziness and incompetency.
+
+Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the
+Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a
+couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their
+troubles--credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each
+of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was
+accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and
+when they needed food helped them to it.
+
+Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee
+reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage.
+There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the
+slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs.
+Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this
+consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.
+
+Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with
+flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and
+almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress),
+and so waited for further information.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Haney?" Lee began. "I'm Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Bertha threw the rug over Mart's knees before turning to offer her hand.
+"I'm glad to meet you," she responded, with gravity. "I've seen you on
+the street."
+
+Lee couldn't quite make out whether this remark was intended for
+reproach or not, but she went on, quickly: "I was just about to call.
+Indeed, I came to ask you and Mr. Haney to dine with us on Thursday."
+She nodded and smiled at Mart, who sat with impassive countenance
+listening with attention--his piercing eyes making her rather
+uncomfortable. "We dine at seven. I hope you can come."
+
+Bertha looked up at her husband. "What do you say, Captain?"
+
+"I don't see any objection," he answered, without warmth.
+
+Bertha turned, with still passive countenance. "All right," she said,
+"we'll be there. Won't you jump in and take a ride with us?"
+
+Lee, burning with mingled flames of resentment and humor, replied:
+"Thank you, I have another call to make--Thursday, then, at seven
+o'clock."
+
+"We'll connect. Much obliged," replied Bertha, and sprang into the
+carriage. "Go ahead, Dan. Good-day, Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Lee stood for an instant in amazement at this easy, not to say
+indifferent, acceptance of her tremendous offering. "Well, if that isn't
+cool!" she gasped, and walked on thoughtfully.
+
+Humor dominated her at last, and when she entered Mrs. Crego's house she
+was flushed with laughter, and recounted the words of the interview with
+so many subtle interpretations of her own that Mrs. Crego was delighted.
+
+Mrs. Congdon did not spare herself. "Helen, she made me feel like a
+bill-collector! 'All right,' said she, 'I'll be there,' and left me
+standing in the middle of the street. You've got to come now, Helen, to
+preserve my dignity."
+
+"I'm wild to come, really. I want to see what she'll do to us
+'professional people.' Maybe she will patronize us too."
+
+When Lee told Frank about it at night he failed to laugh as heartily as
+she had expected. "That's all very funny, the way you tell it, but as a
+matter of fact the girl did all she knew. She accepted your invitation
+and civilly asked you to take a ride. What more could mortal woman
+proffer?"
+
+"She might have invited me into the house."
+
+"Not at the moment. It was Mart's hour for a drive, and you were
+interfering with one of her duties. I think she treated you very well."
+
+"Anyhow, she's coming, and so is Helen. It tickled Helen nearly into
+fits, of course, and she's coming--just to see me 'put to it to manage
+these wet valley bronchos.'"
+
+"The girl may look like a bronk, but she's got good blood in her. She'll
+hold her own anywhere," replied Congdon, with conviction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+
+For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
+for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
+experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
+the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
+She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
+husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
+street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
+which she had begun to take a settled pride.
+
+As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
+clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
+dinner."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
+think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."
+
+"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
+in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
+go--I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
+meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
+need more doin'."
+
+Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
+Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
+me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me _congƩ_ out of
+self-respect--just to give you open road."
+
+"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
+rush. Wonder what's eating him?"
+
+Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
+the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
+died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
+excitement.
+
+"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.
+
+He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
+"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
+more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
+here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
+fellow here--Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
+chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"
+
+"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.
+
+Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
+course, I'm sorry about your father."
+
+"I understand--so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
+myself. I know you always despised my trade."
+
+"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
+dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."
+
+Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
+about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
+barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
+fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
+ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
+board while I study."
+
+Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
+part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
+both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
+down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
+conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
+earnest conversation with a barber.
+
+Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
+then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
+exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.
+
+Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."
+
+"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
+the line at barbers."
+
+"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
+you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."
+
+"I can't understand such people."
+
+"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
+is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
+natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."
+
+Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
+in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
+she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
+"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that--not in my
+presence."
+
+"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
+down the steps to help Haney up.
+
+The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
+said he. "I let me little Corporal help me--sometimes for love of it,
+not because I nade it."
+
+He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
+and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
+was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
+trousers, and looked very well indeed--quite irreproachable.
+
+Bertha was clad in black also--a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
+made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
+eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
+bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
+and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
+like that of an athlete.
+
+"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
+followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.
+
+Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
+hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
+concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
+walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
+chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
+pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
+ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
+had charm.
+
+Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
+centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
+at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
+shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
+He's a regular kid anyway--always doing the things he ought not to do."
+
+In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
+looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
+nor embarrassed--on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
+else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
+husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
+it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
+about my size."
+
+"You're disappointed, then?"
+
+"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
+just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
+the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
+picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
+see nothin' else."
+
+Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
+of the painter--he puts on canvas what _he_ sees, not what his patron
+sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
+artist."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
+presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
+visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
+silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
+suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
+this chill reception.
+
+Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
+pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
+a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
+with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
+such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
+went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
+saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
+you. Your life seems very romantic to me."
+
+The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
+recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
+by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
+was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
+manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
+hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
+somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
+made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.
+
+They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
+felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
+of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
+at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
+curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
+found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
+sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
+rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
+intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
+furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
+in a way quite new to her.
+
+Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
+magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
+Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
+things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
+under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
+been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
+the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
+devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
+domestication in a stone palace--all appealed to his imagination. Such
+things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
+most satisfying to his taste.
+
+Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
+kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
+and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
+hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
+tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
+enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
+Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
+gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
+reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
+delightedly with no accusation in their eyes--except in the case of Mrs.
+Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
+and inner repugnance.
+
+Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
+terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
+willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
+conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
+of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
+imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
+would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
+Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
+with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
+confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
+it was a most interesting monologue.
+
+It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
+to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
+unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand--always
+careful not to interrupt his talk.
+
+As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
+contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
+"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
+tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
+America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
+last was a delight as well as an education.
+
+Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
+was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
+lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
+puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
+but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
+something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
+her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
+fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
+know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
+hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
+Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.
+
+Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
+suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
+cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
+her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
+compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
+them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
+grateful charm.
+
+Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
+Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.
+
+Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
+by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
+such an opportunity for doing good."
+
+Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"
+
+"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
+that?"
+
+"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
+and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
+else."
+
+"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
+to help--I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
+when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
+Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one--he's only
+twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
+can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
+Congdon has told you of us?"
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
+have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
+was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
+help me."
+
+This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
+much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
+very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
+all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.
+
+When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
+enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
+became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
+been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
+appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
+but to us you seem typical of the West."
+
+What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
+which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
+revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
+insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
+laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
+descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
+the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
+flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
+heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.
+
+Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
+conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
+intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
+which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.
+
+Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
+among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
+in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
+gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
+meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
+in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
+habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
+a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
+never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
+built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
+the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
+art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
+cultivated speech.
+
+When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
+side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
+your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."
+
+Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
+with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
+music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
+explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
+acquirement."
+
+His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang--as Bertha had never
+heard any one sing--certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
+made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
+handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
+Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
+sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
+girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
+splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
+toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
+splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
+her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
+came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.
+
+He sang other songs--tunes not worthy of him--but ended with a ballad
+called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell--a song so stern, so strange, so
+inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
+his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
+voice. Her horizon--her emotional horizon--was of a sudden extended, and
+she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
+and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
+the others cheered--her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
+to applaud.
+
+Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
+have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
+ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
+and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
+to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past--as it caused
+Bertha to forecast the future.
+
+While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
+his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
+hastened to him.
+
+"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
+directness.
+
+"It's early yet," replied her hostess.
+
+Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
+the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
+the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
+truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
+merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
+weakened by that tearing charge of shot.
+
+Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
+"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
+soon."
+
+Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"
+
+"I used to--I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
+horse, so we mostly drive."
+
+"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
+We ride every morning--a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
+rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."
+
+Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
+answered. "I'd like to--but--Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
+and then she gave him her hand in parting.
+
+Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
+said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
+responded: "I certainly shall do so."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
+of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
+brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
+a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
+most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
+beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
+background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
+charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music--quite the
+best she had ever heard. The evening--so simple, almost commonplace, to
+her hostess--was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.
+
+She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
+comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
+right. Crego's the fine man--we do well to make him our lawyer." As
+Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
+Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno--them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
+little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
+McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
+girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
+has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
+make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
+that--'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
+lad--as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
+man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
+she waits till she gets well."
+
+To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
+was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened--all that
+had been said.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
+just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
+urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
+library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
+supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
+noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
+I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
+there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."
+
+Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
+apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
+husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
+the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
+chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
+out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
+moonlit.
+
+A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
+short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
+much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
+with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
+sparks of fire from that radiant hour.
+
+She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
+fibres and reaches of another world--the world of art, and that
+indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
+splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
+jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
+flattering and alluring.
+
+She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
+older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
+elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
+devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
+young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
+"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
+don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
+laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
+time over our blunders."
+
+She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
+like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
+self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
+reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
+imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
+genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
+of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
+companionship.
+
+What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
+what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
+stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.
+
+The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
+pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
+expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
+such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
+Haney's side that summer night--now so far away--was momentous, but its
+import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
+just passed.
+
+She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
+sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
+mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
+achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
+life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+
+Ben Fordyce and his affianced bride rode home talking of the Haneys.
+"Aren't they deliciously Western!" she said.
+
+"Mrs. Haney certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite
+soberly; "she's like a quail--so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her
+devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter
+than a wife, don't you think so?"
+
+"They're great fun if you don't feel sorry for him as I do," Alice
+thoughtfully responded. "They say he was magnificent as a gambler. He
+admitted to me to-night that he longed to go back to the camp, but that
+he had promised his wife and mother-in-law not to do so. I never ran a
+gambling-saloon, but I can imagine it would be exciting as a play all
+the time, can't you? Here, as he said to me, he can only sit in the sun
+like a lizard on a log. It must seem wonderful to her--having all this
+money and that big castle of a house. Don't you think so? Wasn't she
+reticent! She hardly uttered a word the whole evening. Some way I feel
+sorry for them both. They can't be happy. Don't you see that? It is
+plain she doesn't love him as a wife should, while he worships her. When
+she's away he is helpless. 'I'm no gairdner,' he said, pathetically; 'I
+was raised on the cobble-stones. I wouldn't know a growin' cabbage from
+a squash.' So you see he can't pass his time in gardening."
+
+Ben's reply was a question. "I wonder if she would ride with us?"
+
+"Perhaps we would do better not to follow up the acquaintance, Ben. It's
+all very interesting to meet them as we did to-night, but they are
+impossible socially--that you must admit. If there is any possibility of
+our settling down here I suppose we must be careful to do the right
+thing from the start."
+
+Ben was a little irritated by this. "If I'm to settle here as a lawyer I
+can't draw social distinctions of that sort."
+
+"Certainly not--as a lawyer. Of course, you ought to know Haney; but for
+me to ride or drive with Mrs. Haney is quite a different matter.
+However, I don't really care. She attracts me, and, so far as I know, is
+just a nice little uncultivated woman. We might call on her in the
+morning, and see if she can go with us. It will commit us; but really,
+Ben, I am not going to drag Eastern conventions into this fresh big
+country. I'm willing to risk the Haneys."
+
+"I'm glad you take that view of it," said Ben.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bertha was in the yard when they rode up to the gate next morning.
+Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a
+handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of
+young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the
+dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch,
+was watching her with a proud smile.
+
+Alice glanced at her lover with admiration in her eyes. "What a glorious
+creature she really is!"
+
+Seeing visitors at her gate, Bertha came down without confusion to say
+good-morning, and to ask them to dismount.
+
+Ben, with doffed cap, replied by saying: "We've come to ask you to ride
+with us."
+
+Bertha looked up at him composedly. "Haven't a saddle, and I don't know
+that any of our horses are broken. But come again to-morrow, and I'll
+have an outfit."
+
+"There's no time like the present. Let me ride down to the barn and
+bring one up," volunteered Ben.
+
+"Don't need to do that, I'll 'phone. I didn't really expect you," she
+explained. "Get off and come in a few minutes, and I'll see what I can
+hustle together for an outfit. I haven't rode a lick since I left
+Sibley."
+
+Ben helped Alice to dismount, and Bertha led her to the house while he
+tethered the horses.
+
+"What a superb place you have here!" exclaimed Alice. "It is one of the
+best in the city."
+
+"We bought it for the porch," calmly replied the girl. "The Captain
+likes to sit where he can see the mountains. I'm not entirely done with
+the outfitting yet, but it beats a barn."
+
+Haney rose as they drew near, and smilingly greeted his visitors. "I
+should be out gatherin' the peanuts and harvestin' the egg-plants, but
+the dinner last night, not mentionin' Congdon's pink liquor, kept me
+awake till two."
+
+"Moral: Stick to Irish whiskey--or Scotch," laughed Ben.
+
+"I will. These strange liquors are not for strong men like ourselves."
+
+Ben took a seat at his invitation, while Bertha went in to 'phone for a
+horse and to "dig up" a riding-skirt. Alice was eager to see the
+interior of the house, but held her curiosity in check by walking about
+the beautiful garden, which ran to the very edge of a deep ravine. The
+trees hid the base of the mountain peaks, whose immitigable crags took
+on added majesty from the play of the delicate near-by branches against
+their distant rugged slopes.
+
+"You have a magnificent outlook here, Captain Haney."
+
+"'Tis so, and I try to be content with it; but it's hard for one who has
+roamed the air like a hawk all his life to be content with ridin' a
+wooden horse. I couldn't endure it if it weren't for me wife."
+
+His big form rested in his chair with a ponderous inertness which was a
+telltale witness to his essential helplessness. His left hand still
+failed to participate in the movements of his right, and yet, as he
+showed, he could, by special effort of will, use it. "I'm gaining all
+the time--but slowly," he went on. "I want to make a trip back up to the
+mines, and I think I'll be able to do it soon." He put aside his own
+troubles. "And you, miss, I hope the climate is doing you good?"
+
+"Oh, indeed, yes," she brightly responded. "I feel stronger every day."
+
+Ben at the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for
+Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha
+returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as
+distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening,
+fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited
+too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new
+treatment which they had discussed.
+
+"Come in and see the house," said Bertha, in brusque invitation. "It
+isn't ship-shape yet. I wanted to do it all myself, but I find it's a
+big proposition to go up against. It sure is. But I like it. I'd like
+nothing better than running a big hotel--not too big, but just big
+enough. I tell the Captain that when our mines 'pinch out' I'll go to
+Denver and start a hotel."
+
+She was quite communicative, but not at ease as she led them from room
+to room. Her manner was rather that of one seeking to conceal
+trepidation, and her fluency seemed a little out of character.
+
+In fact, she was trying to make the best possible impression on these
+people, whose sincere interest she felt; but with Ben's eyes fixed upon
+her so constantly, and a knowledge of Alice's delicate wit to trouble,
+she was more deeply embarrassed than ever before in her life. It was not
+her habit to blush or stammer, and she did not do so now, but she was
+carried out of her wonted reticence.
+
+"As I say, we bought the place for the porch. I didn't realize what I
+was being let into--if I had I might have shied. We're practically lost
+in the place. Except when some of the people come down from camp, we're
+alone. My mother helps out some, but she's up at the ranch a good deal."
+She opened the library door, and led the way before an easel, on which
+stood a huge canvas. "Here's the picture Mr. Congdon is paintin' of the
+Captain. I wanted him taken with his hat on, but Mr. Congdon said no,
+and his word went. I don't know whether I like this or not. It's got me
+twisted."
+
+Congdon had been after psychology rather than costume, that was evident
+at a glance, for the clothing counted for little in the portrait. Out of
+the shadow the face peered sadly, yet with a kind of ferocity, too--a
+look which made Alice Heath recoil from the man. In a certain way the
+artist had taken advantage of Mart's helplessness and loneliness. He had
+caught the sadness, sullenness, and remorselessness of his sitter rather
+than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned
+with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good
+likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a
+cracker-jack piece of work," he ended.
+
+Bertha replied: "I suppose it is, and yet I can't see it. I'd rather it
+looked the way the Captain used to when he came down to the Junction.
+I'm sorry to have his sickness painted in that way."
+
+"That can't be helped. These artists are queer cattle; you can't drive
+'em," Ben remarked.
+
+Bertha smiled. "He wants to paint me now. 'Not on your life' says I.
+'You'd be doing double stunts with my freckles, and I won't stand for
+it.'" She laughed. "No sir-ree, I don't let any artist tip my freckles
+edgewise just to see how flip he is at it. I like Mr. Congdon, but I
+don't trust him--he's too much of a joker."
+
+Thereupon she led the way to the second floor, and showed them the
+furniture, which was mostly very costly and very bad, and at last said:
+"The third story is pretty empty yet. I don't know just what I'm going
+to do with it." She was looking at Alice. "I wish you'd come over and
+help me decide some day."
+
+"What fun!" cried Alice, speaking on the impulse. "I'd like to very
+much."
+
+"You see," Bertha went on, "my folks have always been purty poor, and
+I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know
+any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all
+to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled
+quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell
+me--except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did
+give me a few points on the library, which ain't so bad, we think; but
+all the rest of it I had to dig out myself, and it's slow work. But I
+guess we better go down; my horse will be here in a few minutes." Then,
+with lowered voice, she added: "I can't stay out but a little while. The
+Captain dreads to have me leave him even to go down-town. I hadn't ought
+to go at all."
+
+Ben began to perceive a real slavery in her life, and reassured her.
+"I'm glad you're coming. It will do you good, and it will be a pleasure
+to us too. We'll only be away an hour."
+
+As they returned to the porch, Bertha put her hand on Haney's shoulder,
+in the manner of one man to another, saying: "I'm going for a little
+ride with these people, Captain, if you don't mind."
+
+"Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a
+subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart
+responded to it.
+
+Bertha's horse proved to be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with
+the ease and celerity of a boy--riding astride, in the mountain fashion.
+"I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all
+the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything
+more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the
+saddle, her face glowing, her hair blown across her face.
+
+Alice, a timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was
+always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A
+pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at
+them--so young, so vigorous, and so blithe.
+
+"I should be sitting with Captain Haney on the porch," she thought, with
+bitterness. "I am out of place here."
+
+The words which passed between Bertha and her cavalier meant little, but
+their glances meant much. It was, indeed, a fateful ride. The liking,
+the deep interest, born of their first meeting, swept irresistibly into
+admiration. Their faces turned towards each other, youth to youth, as
+naturally as flowers swing towards the light.
+
+They fell into argument over saddles, over the difference between his
+manner of riding and her own. Her speech, so direct, so full of quaint
+slang, enchanted him, and Alice soon found herself the third party. And
+when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a
+clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
+out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
+gait?"
+
+"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
+became anxious at once.
+
+"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race--I can see that; and I'd
+really like to see her ride--she sits her horse so beautifully."
+
+"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
+you."
+
+Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
+road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
+with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
+a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
+she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
+interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
+physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
+sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
+and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.
+
+When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
+her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
+disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
+some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
+youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was--a broken thing. The
+divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
+vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
+month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
+the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
+skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
+hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
+Ben was receiving lessons from her--absorbed and jocular.
+
+At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
+landscape--a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
+rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
+deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
+beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
+Alice, let's make our home here."
+
+She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."
+
+"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"
+
+The horse that Bertha rode was prancing and foaming, eager for a renewal
+of the race, and Ben, seeing it, cried out: "Shall we go round by the
+hanging rock?"
+
+"I'm willing!" answered Bertha, her eyes shining with excitement.
+
+Alice shook her head. "I think I'll let you young things go your own
+gait, and I'll poke along back towards home."
+
+Ben rode near her, searching her face anxiously. "You're not tired--are
+you, sweetness?"
+
+"No, but I would be if I took that big circuit. But never mind me, I
+like to poke."
+
+"Very well," he answered, quite relieved, "we'll meet you at the
+bridge." And off they dashed with furious clatter, leaving her to slowly
+retrace her lonely way, feeling very tired, very old, and very sad.
+
+Bertha was perfectly, perilously happy. It was almost her first escape
+from the brooding care and weight of Haney's presence. She felt as she
+used to feel when speeding away on swift gallop to the ranch with some
+companion as care-free as herself. Since that fateful day when her
+mother fell ill and Marshall Haney asked her to marry him, she had not
+been permitted an hour's holiday. Even when absent from her husband her
+mind carried an inescapable picture of his loneliness and helplessness,
+and no complete relaxation had come with her temporary freedom. This
+day, this hour, she was suddenly free from care, from pain, from all
+uneasiness.
+
+She considered this feeling due to the saddle and to the clear air of
+the morning. "I will ride every day," she declared to Ben, with shining
+face, as they drew their horses to a walk. "I don't know when I've
+enjoyed a ride so much. I can't see why I haven't been out before. I
+used to ride a good lot; lately I've dropped it."
+
+"We'll call for you every morning," he replied. "As Alice gets stronger,
+we can go up into the caƱons and take long rides."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll let her ride in the cart
+with the Captain, and take our dinner, and we'll all go up the North
+CaƱon some day, and eat picnic dinner there."
+
+"Good idea," he said, accepting her disposition of Alice without even
+mental dissent. "That will be jolly fun."
+
+They planned this and other excursions, with no sense of leaving any one
+behind or of cutting across conventional boundaries. Their native
+honesty and innocence of any ill intention prevented even a suspicion of
+danger, and by the time they joined Alice at the bridge they were on
+terms of intimacy and good-fellowship which seemed to rise from years of
+long acquaintance. Ben had promised to help her select a horse, and she
+had agreed to bring the Captain to call on Alice, who was staying with
+some friends not far away.
+
+This change in Bertha's manner extended to Alice, who returned it in
+kind. The guilelessness which shone from the young wife's clear eyes was
+unmistakable. She was growing handsome, too. The flush of blood in her
+cheeks had submerged her freckles, and Alice began to realize how the
+poor child's devotion to Marshall Haney had reacted against her native
+good health. "She is but a child even now," she thought.
+
+Haney was sitting on the porch where they had left him, the collie at
+his feet, but at sight of them returning he rose and hobbled slowly down
+the walk, his heart filled with tenderness and admiration for his wife.
+He had never ridden with her, but he had once seen her mounted, and one
+of his expressed wishes had been that he might be able to sit a saddle
+once more and ride by her side.
+
+"Come in and stay to dinner!" he called, hospitably, and Bertha eagerly
+seconded the invitation.
+
+But Alice replied: "I'm pretty tired; I think I'll go home. You can stay
+if you like, Ben."
+
+Ben, smitten with sudden contrition, quickly said: "Oh no; I will go
+with you. I'm afraid you've ridden too far."
+
+She protested against this, for Bertha's relief. "Not at all. It's a
+good tiredness. It's been great fun."
+
+And with promises of another expedition of the same sort they rode away,
+while Bertha and Haney remained at the gate to examine the new horse.
+
+As little Mrs. Haney re-entered the house with her husband the day
+seemed to lose its magical brightness, and to decline to a humdrum,
+shadowless flare. The house became cold and gloomy and the day empty.
+For the first time since its purchase she mentally asked herself: "What
+will I do now?" It was as if some ruling motive had suddenly been
+withdrawn from her life.
+
+This empty, aching spot remained with her all through the day, even when
+she took Haney for his drive down-town, and only disappeared for a few
+moments as they met young Fordyce on the street. It troubled her as she
+returned to the house, and she was glad that Williams came in to take
+supper with them, for his talk of the mine diverted her and deeply
+interested her husband.
+
+Williams eyed his boss critically. "You're gainin', Captain. You'll soon
+be able to make camp again."
+
+"I hope so, but the doctor says my heart's affected and it wouldn't be
+safe for me to go any higher--for a while."
+
+Williams smiled at Bertha. "Better send the missus, then. The men all
+have a great idea of her. They say she's a kind of mascot. McGonnigle
+asks me every time what she thinks of our new shaft. I've a kind of
+reverence for her judgment myself. They say women kind o' feel their way
+to a conclusion. Now, I'd like her to pass judgment on our work in _The
+Diamond Ace_."
+
+"I'd like to go up," said Bertha. But, in truth, she was no longer
+thinking of the mine: she was considering how she might make her table
+look as pretty as Mrs. Congdon's. Her first dissatisfaction with her own
+way of life filled her mind. "I must have some of those candles," she
+said to herself, while the men were still intent upon the mine. Her
+first step towards social conformity was at this moment taken.
+
+She felt herself akin to these people, and this assertion, subconscious
+and unuttered, brought something between Marshall Haney and herself. It
+was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was
+perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the
+Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the
+ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge
+she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day,
+though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, now piteously
+dependent upon her.
+
+He managed his morning paper very well, but when she read aloud to him
+he almost always went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+
+Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
+Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
+waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
+had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
+nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
+weakness of will not native to her.
+
+Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
+with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
+As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
+a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
+her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.
+
+As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
+did ye have a good ride?"
+
+"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.
+
+"Ye did not--Why not?"
+
+"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
+repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."
+
+"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
+mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
+better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
+get ready at your ease."
+
+The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
+afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
+day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
+lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.
+
+"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
+in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
+buy the friends you really care for.
+
+On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
+had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
+explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
+again to-morrow."
+
+This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
+mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
+and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
+call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
+little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
+listened to me gabble," he added.
+
+Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend--a rather handsome
+house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
+blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
+her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
+Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
+Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
+don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
+and then. I'm glad you came."
+
+"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
+delicate face was wrinkled and withered.
+
+Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
+"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork--nothing permanently depresses
+me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"
+
+Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
+of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
+a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."
+
+"Have you, indeed?"
+
+"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
+me out--I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."
+
+"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay _down_ more than three
+days."
+
+Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
+"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
+hand. "How are ye the day?"
+
+"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
+Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
+one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."
+
+Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
+o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."
+
+"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
+had just sighted the camp of the robbers."
+
+Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
+must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
+that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
+in those days."
+
+"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
+and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
+revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
+You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."
+
+Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
+anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
+things she cares to see."
+
+Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
+in your ears?"
+
+"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
+me."
+
+Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."
+
+"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
+protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.
+
+Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
+exquisite profile?" he thought.
+
+The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
+Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
+boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
+of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
+of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
+respect?
+
+Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
+be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
+sighted us?"
+
+"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.
+
+The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
+furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
+discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
+advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
+wife.
+
+"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
+and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals--if she has any."
+
+To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
+"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
+poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
+off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
+that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
+man do it."
+
+The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
+social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
+go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
+up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
+she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
+glowing and her face alight.
+
+"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.
+
+Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
+horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
+boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
+'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
+day."
+
+Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"
+
+"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
+with us to-day."
+
+As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
+their return--patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
+resentful within.
+
+Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear CaƱon, but Ben was quick to say:
+"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."
+
+Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
+sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
+and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
+the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
+gone.
+
+An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
+unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
+plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
+racing, no circuits with her--and yet outwardly and in reality she was
+deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.
+
+Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
+luncheon--Bertha was learning to call it that--the outing ended in a
+rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
+showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
+and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.
+
+Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
+single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.
+
+"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
+they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
+"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."
+
+"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
+knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
+awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
+thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
+know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
+to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
+before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
+running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."
+
+"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
+pertinent. What can I help you on?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Alice"--she spoke the word with a little
+hesitation--"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
+that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church--a little--and I'm helping
+up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
+some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
+pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
+down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"
+
+"There are women who do that and nothing else."
+
+"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
+as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
+sitting around."
+
+"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."
+
+"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
+We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
+thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
+they come, but they don't stay--they don't seem comfortable. They are
+all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
+used to. And the people next door here--well, they don't neighbor at
+all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
+church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"
+
+He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
+your wealth is a barrier."
+
+"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
+go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
+this money I might put on airs; but I haven't--I've just married into
+it."
+
+"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly--almost accusingly.
+
+Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
+Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
+discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
+I--And so when the word came that he was hurt--and wanted me--I went."
+Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"
+
+He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
+great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
+fine man in spite of--" He broke off.
+
+She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
+mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
+before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."
+
+He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers--I'm
+a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
+that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
+crime."
+
+"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor--he never let a crooked deal
+pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
+and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
+face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
+Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"
+
+His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
+gambler rather than a miner."
+
+"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
+the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
+in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
+count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."
+
+The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
+confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
+His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
+responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
+pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
+her--the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
+to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
+power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
+their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
+potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
+pupil, before him.
+
+He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
+and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man--he has your legal
+business, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
+she despises us--that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
+ain't legal advice I want--it's something else. I don't know what it is.
+Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
+life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
+take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
+to me?"
+
+He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer--and a very young
+one at that."
+
+"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."
+
+"What am I, then?"
+
+The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
+the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
+scholar."
+
+"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."
+
+She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
+trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
+tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
+but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
+down."
+
+This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
+tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
+shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
+me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"
+
+"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."
+
+Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
+self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now--the quality which
+attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."
+
+The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
+the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
+took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
+settee.
+
+Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
+believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
+care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
+little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
+when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
+misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
+maybe she's right--maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."
+
+To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
+given her a good deal, Captain."
+
+"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
+going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
+and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
+spread out before us--Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
+from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
+comin'. I used to work hard--you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
+used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
+though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
+and twist me two thumbs--and one of them bog-spavined, at that."
+
+To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
+Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!--I
+mean luncheon, ma'am--I'm lately instructed."
+
+They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
+twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."
+
+Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
+eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."
+
+Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
+continued to be very personal--it could not be prevented, for each of
+these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
+feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
+thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
+the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
+self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
+struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
+careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
+first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
+wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.
+
+For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
+reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
+trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
+Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
+spirit of the meal.
+
+At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
+lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
+I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
+you'll be able to do it."
+
+Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
+Crego?"
+
+Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
+to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
+not above nodding when me own wife passes by."
+
+Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
+Crego."
+
+"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
+paid well--as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
+advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."
+
+Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
+would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
+and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."
+
+Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
+loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."
+
+Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."
+
+He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
+quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
+Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
+it profitable to ye."
+
+Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
+anyway--"
+
+"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
+office."
+
+"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
+I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
+besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."
+
+Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
+if you have definitely decided against him--"
+
+"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."
+
+Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
+Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
+good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
+harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."
+
+Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients--at least,
+a _young_ lawyer can't."
+
+Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
+up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
+has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
+high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
+defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
+fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
+luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
+had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
+go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
+I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
+mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
+to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
+me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
+for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
+was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won--I
+almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
+sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
+another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
+gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
+the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
+takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
+an equal chance with me--else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
+rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
+is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
+above--if there is such--is there to see that we all have a show for our
+ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."
+
+Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
+spirit. She was not of his faith--quite the contrary. She was a
+fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
+to understand his point of view.
+
+Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
+game, but to keep them _out_ of the game. I had too much faith in me
+luck to ever weaken."
+
+"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.
+
+"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
+instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
+plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
+put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
+says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
+turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
+knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
+considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
+me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
+but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
+that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces--I don't complain. I
+take me chances. Now"--here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
+lightened--"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"
+
+Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
+me to get busy."
+
+"And ye expect to marry soon?"
+
+This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
+people listening--a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
+perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
+housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
+little stronger."
+
+"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
+"here's _your_ chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
+We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
+by that."
+
+Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
+of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
+your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
+sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
+more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
+liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
+offer--provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
+across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
+she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
+I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."
+
+Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.
+
+They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
+quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
+Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
+business here."
+
+His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
+takes me eye."
+
+Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
+glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
+like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.
+
+The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
+little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
+business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
+we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"
+
+"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
+pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
+first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
+glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
+satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
+her home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+
+This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
+the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
+of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
+could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
+right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
+solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
+going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
+the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
+place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
+immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.
+
+Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
+horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
+to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
+said.
+
+He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
+social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
+inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely--especially
+if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
+responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
+arrangement."
+
+"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
+bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
+with them--or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"
+
+"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"
+
+"If any evil comes of this--and there will be sorrow in it--you'll be
+morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
+who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
+and not be hurt by it."
+
+The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
+has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
+Haney--he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
+be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
+has pleased Haney--"
+
+"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it--I'm
+perfectly sure."
+
+"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
+of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
+took up his paper and walked away from her.
+
+She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
+news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
+either. What do you think, Frank?"
+
+"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
+right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."
+
+"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"
+
+"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
+tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
+Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
+whole thing over."
+
+"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."
+
+"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
+they choose to make, and I mostly think they can--ten generations of
+Quaker ancestry--"
+
+"But the people there don't know their ancestry."
+
+"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."
+
+Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
+is _taken_ with Ben--it's all her plan."
+
+Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
+true as steel."
+
+"I don't care. My prophetic soul--"
+
+Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
+straightforward as a boy of twelve."
+
+"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
+Ben and his singing that night here."
+
+"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
+say such a thing--even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
+believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
+create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
+husband.
+
+He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
+I are friends. I like him immensely--too much to think of running such a
+frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
+peril."
+
+Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
+deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
+warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
+whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
+granted."
+
+So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
+couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
+am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
+first time they called at his office.
+
+Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
+pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
+for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
+entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
+accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
+second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
+practice a long time."
+
+"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
+replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
+Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
+signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."
+
+"Sure it has."
+
+"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."
+
+"They do," Haney agreed.
+
+Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
+This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
+face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
+this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
+in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
+being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
+It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
+they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
+and it's really due to you."
+
+She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
+like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
+looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."
+
+"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
+often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
+full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
+hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
+easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
+me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
+have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
+turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
+own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
+Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
+Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
+in the West."
+
+Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
+Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.
+
+She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
+Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
+doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
+young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
+might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
+of the Captain's wife.
+
+Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
+years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
+possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
+innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
+been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid--which she knew
+and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
+to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
+is flooded with sunshine--a static world in appearance. But how will it
+be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
+sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
+other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
+unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
+spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
+filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
+"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
+stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
+conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
+of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
+ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
+will rise--and then--"
+
+She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
+you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
+me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
+Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
+to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
+wife."
+
+She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
+girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."
+
+"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
+widow?"
+
+She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
+different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
+acceptable to the really best people."
+
+"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
+rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
+would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"
+
+"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."
+
+"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.
+
+"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
+more interesting woman."
+
+"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
+men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
+I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
+friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
+their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
+gambler. Isn't that so, now?"
+
+She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
+talk about it any more--at present." And at this moment there passed
+before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
+mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
+the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
+shadow--disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
+the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
+the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.
+
+This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
+later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
+presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
+the cause of his wounding?
+
+This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
+They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
+rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
+say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
+predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
+comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
+reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
+or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
+comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
+entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
+still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
+are ever in our thoughts in slumber.
+
+For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
+was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
+sake--and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
+are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
+Dutch aunt."
+
+Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
+going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
+they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
+guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
+this retainer from Captain Haney."
+
+He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
+hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
+When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
+possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
+here and pay our way?"
+
+"Oh, Ben!"--there was a wail in her voice--"I don't seem to gain as I
+should! I'm completely tired out to-night."
+
+He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
+exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
+all."
+
+"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
+office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
+I keep a house--your house--in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
+it--not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."
+
+He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
+so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
+time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
+wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
+girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.
+
+"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
+lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
+down into these detestable moods."
+
+Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
+Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
+about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
+a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"
+
+"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
+cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
+been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
+didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"
+
+When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
+her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.
+
+"I always have something on my mind."
+
+"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
+your mind. Do I know what it is?"
+
+"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
+is urging an immediate marriage."
+
+Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
+not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
+here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
+it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
+not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
+is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
+socially with them."
+
+"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
+the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."
+
+"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
+little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
+some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
+to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
+now; your cheeks are blazing."
+
+"With wrath--not health."
+
+"At me?"
+
+"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."
+
+"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
+Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."
+
+Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
+getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
+younger to-night!"
+
+"That's because I'm angry."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
+to-night."
+
+Congdon became solemn--grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
+been making some of your tactful remarks."
+
+"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
+you to do."
+
+He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
+by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."
+
+Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
+candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held--apparently; for Alice
+was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
+and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously--except his
+portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
+not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
+tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
+Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
+but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
+fates--generally the humorous ones--pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
+him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
+long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
+give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
+left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.
+
+In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
+description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
+mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
+me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
+'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
+does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her--put a spell over
+her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
+thing with her--and she was _such_ a good girl. How could you,
+Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
+her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
+have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
+"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
+I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
+over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
+the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
+appearing suddenly at the door Ć  la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
+of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
+I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
+hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
+me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
+this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
+ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
+crime of this kind unless--'
+
+"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
+then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
+Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
+made Mrs. Henry turn pale.
+
+"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.
+
+"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
+you to the police.'
+
+"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'
+
+"'So it is--with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
+thinks I've hypnotized her?'
+
+"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
+truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
+door--particularly as everything was quiet inside."
+
+His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
+before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
+of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
+all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
+spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"
+
+"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.
+
+His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
+didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
+'phoned the police."
+
+"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.
+
+Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
+so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
+expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
+burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
+he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
+story--he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
+don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
+business?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For good and all?"
+
+"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
+rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."
+
+"I'm sorry," she said, simply.
+
+Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
+his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
+investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
+mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
+Ben's just the boy to do this."
+
+Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
+start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
+called low--"
+
+Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"
+
+"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
+business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
+different with Ben, who is just starting."
+
+Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
+do."
+
+"How bad do you need it?" she asked.
+
+"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
+looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
+the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
+Congdon perceived it.
+
+"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.
+
+"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
+able to buy or rent and keep house--or I didn't till Haney made this
+offer."
+
+"How did he come to make it?"
+
+His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
+himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
+and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
+misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
+come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
+thinks I am at once able and honest."
+
+"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
+said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
+too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."
+
+"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.
+
+She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
+any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
+dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
+"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
+were alone.
+
+"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
+don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
+her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
+A wonder it wasn't with me."
+
+"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."
+
+"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+
+Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort--just what he
+needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to
+his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law
+journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys
+regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal
+for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This
+filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the
+carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the
+afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost
+daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated
+Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was,
+as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing
+the outcome of it all.
+
+"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs.
+Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled
+under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.
+
+Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly
+yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing
+rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but
+her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came
+into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired
+feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases
+which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of
+her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little
+niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.
+
+At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required
+a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding
+(the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume
+the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but
+she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And
+he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the
+first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong
+and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll
+wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."
+
+These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with
+such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like
+some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant
+and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out,
+glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old
+Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did
+not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and
+called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign
+of his growing inertness.
+
+And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice
+suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.
+He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha
+persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and
+if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.
+
+Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego),
+found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to
+be--as they were--innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume
+the rƓle of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the
+suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben
+one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."
+
+He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."
+
+"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study--to
+prepare yourself for other clients--when they come."
+
+He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do
+get in an hour or two every day."
+
+"But you ought to study _six_ hours every day. Aren't the traditions of
+Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax,
+and study in the light of pine knots all night?"
+
+He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.
+But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law
+at all."
+
+She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy,
+Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"
+
+"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I
+really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.
+Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they
+are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."
+
+"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.
+
+"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but
+I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've
+always felt that yourself."
+
+"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.
+Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of
+course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would
+be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"
+
+"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you
+know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."
+
+It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual
+way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in
+case he should forget--as he was likely to do--and allude to "Bertha" in
+her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely
+said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her--I mean I'm sorry she
+can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is
+improving very rapidly."
+
+"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through
+the town library--a book every other day, she tells me."
+
+"Novels, I fear."
+
+"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.
+Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised
+her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've
+suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."
+
+He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the
+look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to assume the position of mentor
+as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual
+supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her
+daily life as absolutely as a husband--more absolutely, in fact; for she
+obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these
+facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his
+feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and
+therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal
+anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.
+
+He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her
+upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously
+about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one
+of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening
+to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to
+take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to
+render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite
+differently about that.
+
+"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says,
+she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made
+man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex
+is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my
+father's ability?"
+
+"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to
+draw from."
+
+"No; but her father was an educated man--a civil engineer, she tells me,
+who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an
+inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor--they nearly all do."
+
+"But the mother?"
+
+"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's
+broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so
+bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I
+think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she
+did--barbers and railway hands, and all that--and be what she is to-day.
+If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have
+gone far."
+
+"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.
+Congdon.
+
+"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"
+
+"And his legatee!"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."
+
+They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying
+something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why
+she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over
+Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."
+She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going
+to make it as pretty as I can."
+
+"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"
+
+"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben
+wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like
+the girl."
+
+Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course
+I'll come. Who else will?"
+
+"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos--"
+
+"Not the missus?"
+
+"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really
+promises to be smart!"
+
+Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be
+smart--Mrs. Haney?"
+
+The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.
+Haney."
+
+"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and
+she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this
+town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's
+doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your
+life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't
+think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is
+putting her on?"
+
+"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"
+
+"Well, it was."
+
+"The Captain was in it?"
+
+"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the
+fire."
+
+The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the
+end. Poor old Captain."
+
+Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she
+pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old
+way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.
+He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these
+things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special
+license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then
+she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it.
+I'm not going to keep it,' she said."
+
+"That was for effect," remarked Lee.
+
+"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes
+and say such things."
+
+Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,'
+then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is
+nothing, intellect is nothing--it's all a question of whether we're
+good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so
+hard to please."
+
+"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.
+
+"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I
+accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and
+commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the
+hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was
+she dressed?"
+
+"In perfect good taste--almost too good. She looked like one of Joe
+Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries
+that sort of thing well--she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could
+have a year in Paris--wow!--well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"
+
+"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted
+Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination.
+I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus
+far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public.
+But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting
+power."
+
+Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the
+reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you
+look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."
+
+Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"
+
+"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney,
+we better put on our swellest ginghams."
+
+Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she
+was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her
+for a long time--since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed
+since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it
+was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a
+vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to
+their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me
+only failing health, and dares not speak."
+
+She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too
+long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she
+despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And
+she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face,
+and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a
+smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant
+as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+
+The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in
+outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young
+wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner.
+She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a
+high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her
+critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university
+who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette
+up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns.
+Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which
+revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed the
+growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and
+turquoise--not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of
+all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as
+she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr
+to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually
+uncertain of step.
+
+Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he
+greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of
+his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with
+a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called
+beautiful--and by him--had been outside the circle of her most daring
+hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of
+musical bells--entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his
+right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry
+clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one
+said--except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain
+down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with
+his napkin and his fork.
+
+The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on
+her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice--half-laughing, but tender
+also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning
+my salary while you're gone."
+
+"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times,
+but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you--and
+Alice--come with us?"
+
+"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out
+of the question."
+
+"He'll pay you wages just the same."
+
+"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and
+I can't think of going without her."
+
+This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her
+face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table
+was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the
+great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a
+graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She
+vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of
+the best the world over--that it was of a part and interfused with the
+dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be _au fait_,"
+Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath _knows_."
+
+Mrs. Crego, who sat nearly opposite, stared at the girl in stupefaction.
+"She makes me feel dowdy," she had confessed to Lee in the
+dressing-room. "Why didn't you warn me to come in my best? Who has been
+coaching her? Alice Heath, I suppose." She now wondered as sharply over
+the girl's manner; for Bertha, carried out of herself by Ben's word of
+praise, felt no desire to drink or to eat, and her reticence and the
+delicacy of her appetite conferred a distinction which concealed her
+lack of small talk, and protected her from the criticism to which
+exuberance of manner ordinarily exposed her.
+
+She was deeply impressed, too, with Ben's management of the waiters, and
+with the ease and skill with which he supported Alice in carrying
+forward the courses. It was a revelation of training which instructed
+her absurdly, for her mind was quick to link and compare. It leaped so
+swiftly and so subtilely along connecting lines of thought that a hint
+alone sufficed to set in motion a hundred latent memories and inherited
+aptitudes. Her father had been a man of native refinement, and she
+possessed unstirred deeps of character, as Alice now well understood.
+And from her end of the table she glanced often at the sweetly smiling
+girl-wife whose beauty abashed Haney. At last she said to him: "Your
+wife is very lovely to-night, Captain."
+
+He hesitated a moment; then replied, slowly: "She is. She's as fine as
+anny queen!" Then after another pause, added: "And the more shame to me,
+being what I am! She's a good girl, miss, true as steel. Never a word of
+complaint or a frown. She bears with me like an angel."
+
+"You're doing a great deal for her."
+
+His face lightened. "So she says. I mean to do more. I mean to show her
+the world. That's the only comfort I have; my money is giving her nice
+clothes and a home as good as anny, and to-night I feel 'tis giving her
+friends."
+
+"But she is worth while, even without the money."
+
+"True," he quickly said. "But I take comfort in the consideration that
+had I not carried her away she'd be in Sibley Junction this night."
+
+"Sibley Junction! Can this radiant young creature sitting there at the
+head of my table be the clerk of the Golden Eagle Hotel?" thought Alice.
+"Money is magical! No wonder we all work for it--and worship it!"
+
+The dinner was both early and short, in order that Bertha and the
+Captain might take the train at ten o'clock. And as they were to have
+the drawing-room in the sleeping-car (Ben's suggestion), they went
+directly to the coach in their party clothes. And so it happened that
+this little woman, who had never occupied a berth in a Pullman, entered
+her compartment in the robes of a princess.
+
+Alice had suggested a maid, but Bertha would not hear to that; but she
+was willing that their coachman should go along to help the Captain. Ben
+had interposed here, and said: "You need some one used to travelling. I
+know a colored fellow who is out of service just now, and would like to
+come to you. He's a good, reliable man, and a fine nurse." So she had
+engaged him. He was on the platform as they drove up--a slight, quiet
+man, of gentle speech and indeterminable age, who took charge of the
+Captain at once, as if he had been his servant for years.
+
+Alice said good-bye at the carriage door, but Ben went with them into
+the coach. And in the excitement of getting to the train and into the
+car Bertha had been able to forget the sick feeling about her heart. But
+now, as he turned and said, "It's nearly time to start," and held out
+his hand in parting, a desolation, a loneliness, a helpless hunger swept
+over her, the like of which had never anguished her before.
+
+"I wish you were going too!" she faltered, her speech broken and full of
+sad cadences.
+
+He, too, was tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I
+can't--I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and
+kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and,
+so stumbling and shaken, vanished from her sight.
+
+For a moment she remained standing in the aisle, the touch of his lips
+still clinging to her cheek, surprised, full of bewildered defence;
+then, as reckless of on-lookers as he had been, she rushed to the window
+in swift attempt to catch a final glimpse of him. But in vain; he had
+hurried away without looking back, her look of wonder and surprise still
+dazzling him with its significance. A kiss with him, as with her, had
+never been a thing lightly given or received, and this caress, so simple
+to others, sprang from an impulse that was elemental. That he had both
+shocked and angered her he fully believed; but the arch of her brows,
+the wistful curve of her lips, and the pretty, almost childish, push of
+her hands against his breast were still so appealingly vivid that he
+entered the carriage and took his seat beside Alice with a kind of
+rebellious joy hot in his blood.
+
+However, as his passion ebbed his uneasiness deepened, and he went to
+his room that night with a feeling that his connection with the Haneys,
+so profitable and so pleasant, was in danger of being irremediably
+broken off. "She will be justified in refusing ever to see me again," he
+groaned. And in this spirit of self-condemnation and loneliness he took
+up his work next day.
+
+Bertha's self-revelation was slower. She was so young and so innately
+honest and good that no sense of guilt attached to the pleasure she felt
+in the sudden revelation that this splendid young man loved her--a
+pleasure which grew as the first shock of the parting, the pain, and the
+surprise wore away. "He likes me! He said I was beautiful! He kissed
+me!" These were the rounds in the ladder of her ascent, and she was
+carried high, only to fall into despair. For was she not leaving him and
+all the pleasant people she had come so recently to know--hurrying away
+into darkness with a crippled man, old before his time, out into a world
+of which she knew little--for which, at this moment, she cared nothing?
+
+She went back, a few moments later, with this sorrow written on her
+face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for
+bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness
+mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this--me, that could
+once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so it is."
+
+"I'll take care of you!" she cried, in swift contrition. Turning almost
+fiercely to the valet, she said: "You can go, I'll 'tend to him!"
+
+The Captain stopped her gently. "No, darlin', Ben's right; I'm too
+clumsy and heavy for you. I need just such a handy man. Now, now! Let
+be!... Go ahead, Lucius, strip off these monkey-fixens, and dom the man
+that gets me into them again."
+
+Efficient as she was, the girl could not but admit that Lucius was
+better able to serve her husband than herself. He was both deft and
+strong; and though the swaying of the car troubled his master, he
+steadied him and guided him and stowed him away as featly as if it were
+the fiftieth instead of the first time; then, with a few words of
+explanation to the wife, he quietly withdrew, and shut the door with a
+final touch of considerate care which was new to her.
+
+She would have been less troubled by him had he been a black man, but he
+was not. He seemed more like a Spaniard, and his grizzled mustache,
+yellowish skin, and big dreamy black eyes lent him a curious
+distinction, and the thought that he was to take her place as crutch and
+cane to the Captain gave her a sense of uselessness which she had not,
+up to this moment, confessed.
+
+His suggestions, combined to the minute instructions of Miss Franklin,
+enabled her to get to her bunk in fair order, but no sleep came to her
+for hours. She longed for her mother more childishly than at any time
+since her marriage. She reproached herself for not bringing Miss
+Franklin. "Why did I come at all?" she wailed, in final accusation.
+
+There had been a time when the thought of this trip--of Chicago, New
+York, and Washington--was big in her mind, but it was so no longer.
+These great cities were but names--empty sounds compared to the
+realities she was leaving: her splendid house, her horses and dogs--and
+her daily joy in Ben Fordyce. She did not put these visits in their
+highest place, not even when remembering his parting kiss, but she dwelt
+upon the inspiriting morning drives, the talks in the mellow-tinted,
+sunshine-lighted office. She recalled the lunches they took together and
+the occasional wild gallops up the caƱon--these she treasured as the
+golden realities, for the loss of which she was even now heart-sick.
+
+One thought alone steadied her--gave her a kind of resignation: the
+Captain wanted to find his sisters, to revisit the scenes of his youth,
+and it was her duty to go with him. And in this somewhat dreary comfort
+she fell asleep at last.
+
+She was awakened next morning by a pleasant voice saying: "The first
+call for breakfast has been made, Mrs. Haney." And she looked up to find
+Lucius peering in at the door with serious, kindly eyes. He added,
+formally: "If I can assist you in any way call me, and please let me
+know when you are ready to have me come in."
+
+His speech was so precise and his manner so perfect that Bertha was
+puzzled and a little embarrassed by them. It seemed abnormal to have a
+hired servant so polished, so thoughtful. She dressed hurriedly, while
+the Captain yawned and talked between his yawning. "That yellow chap is
+sure handy. I wish I'd had him before; 'twould have saved you a power o'
+work and worry. Did ye sleep last night?"
+
+"Not very well. I hope you did. You can't complain of the bunk."
+
+"'Tis luxurious--'tis so! But there's nothing like the west side of
+Colorado Avenue, after all, or a bed of pine boughs beside a roaring
+mountain stream. 'Twas a fine little supper Ben gave us last night."
+
+The level lands awed and depressed the mountain girl. They seemed to
+type the flat and desolate spiritual world into which she was entering,
+and the ride seemed interminable, carrying her every hour farther from
+the scenes and sounds to which her love clung. She was bitterly
+homesick, and nothing seemed to promise comfort. She gazed with
+lack-lustre eyes on the towns and rivers along the way, and she entered
+the great inland metropolis by the lake with dread and a deepening sense
+of her inexperience and youth.
+
+On the neighboring track stood the return sleepers headed for the hills,
+and she acknowledged a wild desire to take her place among the jocund
+folk who stood on the observation-platform exchanging good-byes with
+friends. Thunderous, smothering, and vast the city seemed as they drove
+through it on their way to the hotel, and upon reaching her room she
+flung herself down on her bed and sobbed in a frenzy of homesickness.
+
+Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled,
+and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius
+went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would
+soon be over.
+
+"What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye
+sick?"
+
+She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child,
+and made no further answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+
+Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still
+at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an
+hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet
+insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at
+a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten
+as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse.
+
+Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart,
+and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it
+was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the
+Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were
+tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!"
+
+Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood,
+not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll
+take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive
+and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the
+World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is,
+bedad."
+
+Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the
+moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney."
+
+"A lady! Who?"
+
+"A certain Mrs. Brent--a friend of Miss Franklin's."
+
+Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave
+me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out.
+
+She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion
+to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the
+cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing
+it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock.
+
+Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor--I
+mean Miss Franklin--has been writing to me about you. You're just in
+time to come to a little dinner of mine--don't make any engagement for
+to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately."
+
+Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up
+the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that
+the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears.
+
+"Who was it?" asked the Captain.
+
+"A friend of Miss Franklin's--sounds just like her voice, but I think
+she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here
+at eleven."
+
+The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up
+the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off."
+
+"There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."
+
+The gambler looked at him humorously. "Ye must be a mind-reader."
+
+A tap on the door called the man out, and when he returned he bore a
+telegram. "For you, Captain," he said, presenting it on the salver.
+
+The gambler took it with sudden apprehension in his face. "I hope
+there's no trouble at the mine," he muttered.
+
+Bertha, leaning over his shoulder, read it first. "It's from Ben!" she
+called, joyously. "Ain't it just like him?"
+
+This message seemed a little bit foolish to Haney.
+
+     "Just to say hello! All well here. Have a good time.
+     "FORDYCE."
+
+To Bertha it made all the difference between sunshine and shadow. She
+thrilled to it as if it had been a voice. "He knew I'd be homesick, and
+so he sent this to cheer me up," she said. And in this she was right.
+Her shoulders lifted and her face cleared. "Come on, Captain, if we're
+going."
+
+As they came down the elevator, men in buttons met them, and attended
+them to the door, and turned them over to still other uniformed
+attendants, who were fain to help them into the auto-car; for Lucius had
+managed to convey to the hotel a proper sense of his employer's money
+value. He himself was always close to his master's side, for lately
+Haney had taken to stumbling at unexpected moments, and his increasing
+bulk made a fall a real danger.
+
+A thrill of delight, of elation, ran through the young wife as she
+glanced up and down Chicago's proudest avenue. It conformed to her
+notion of a city. The level park, flooded with spring sunshine, was
+walled on the west by massive buildings, while to the east stretched the
+shining lake. From here the city seemed truly cosmopolitan. It had
+dignity and wealth of color, and to the girl from Sibley Junction was
+completely satisfying--almost inspiring.
+
+It was uplifting also to be attended to a splendid auto-car by willing,
+alert servants, and to feel that the passers-by were all envious of her
+careless ease. Bertha forgot her homesickness, and took her seat in the
+spirit of one who is determined to have the worth of her money (for once
+anyhow), and the pedestrians, if they had any definite notion of her at
+all, probably said: "There goes a rich old cattle king and his pretty
+daughter. It's money that makes the 'mobile go."
+
+She held to this pose for half an hour, while they threaded the tumult
+of Wabash Avenue, and, crossing the river, swept up the Lake Shore
+Drive. But the lake filled her with other thoughts. "I wish we had this
+at the Springs," she said. "This is fine!"
+
+"We have our share," answered he. "If we had this at our door, there
+wouldn't be anything left to go to."
+
+They whizzed through the park, and down another avenue into the thick
+tangle of traffic, which scared them both, and so back to the hotel, the
+Captain saying: "My! my! but she has grown. 'Tis twenty years since I
+took this turn."
+
+In some strange way Bertha had drawn courage, resolution, pride, and
+ambition from what she saw on this short ride. That she was in a car and
+mistress of it was in itself a marvellous distinction, and the thought
+of what she would have been--as a "round-tripper" from Sibley
+Junction--added to her pleasure and pride. She was always doing sums in
+her head now. Thus: "Suppose our excursion does cost twenty dollars per
+day; that's only one hundred and fifty per week, six hundred per month,
+and our income is ten times that, and more." She had not risen above the
+habit of calculation, but she was fast rising to higher levels of
+expenditure.
+
+She met Mrs. Brent with something of this mood in her manner, but was
+instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least
+resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully
+the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, and her lips smiling.
+
+"Why, you're a child," she said--"a mere babe! Dorothy didn't tell me
+that."
+
+Bertha stiffened a little, and Mrs. Brent laughingly added: "Please
+don't be offended--I am really surprised." And then her manner became so
+winning that before the Western girl realized it she had given her
+consent to join a dinner-party the following night. "Come early, for we
+are to go to the theatre afterwards. I'll have some of the university
+people in to see you. Miss Franklin has made us all eager to meet you."
+
+Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was
+curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor
+kept her from openly rebelling.
+
+The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he
+said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf--when the time served;
+but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to
+keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."
+
+Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they
+parted very good friends.
+
+As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and,
+going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's
+big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"
+
+Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's
+well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman,
+and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
+gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
+life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
+I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
+They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 P.M." And she went out,
+leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.
+
+Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
+brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
+said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
+sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
+he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
+would it do to slide over and see?"
+
+"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
+and the dinner.
+
+Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
+can hardly get to it with a machine."
+
+"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
+anyhow."
+
+Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
+the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
+jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
+two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
+fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
+it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
+which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
+older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
+patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
+all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."
+
+The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
+lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
+homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
+away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."
+
+"Miss Franklin will see after it."
+
+"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
+to housekeeping--it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
+minute!"
+
+This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
+Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
+the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
+each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the
+driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned
+abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting
+block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house--a relic
+of the old-time city.
+
+The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at
+this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the
+seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At
+the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or
+two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."
+
+"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the
+specification," he answered.
+
+By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door,
+and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"
+
+"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.
+
+"That's me," the woman retorted.
+
+"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this
+minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.
+
+The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so
+like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.
+
+As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old
+sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me
+mouth."
+
+"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in
+anticipation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"
+
+He shook her hand--the kiss was out of his inclination--and responded in
+the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke
+out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."
+
+"Who's with you in the carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Haney, bedad."
+
+"Naw, it is not!"
+
+"Sure thing!"
+
+"She's too young and pretty--and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints,
+man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the
+eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."
+
+"The same to you."
+
+"I get little chance to practise it these days."
+
+"'Tis the same here."
+
+"But how came ye hurt?"
+
+"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and
+one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."
+
+She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and
+sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in--I'm not perticular."
+
+"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into
+something like sweetness and dignity.
+
+"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."
+
+As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home
+and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on
+a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this
+association. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a
+fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was
+disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said
+bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out
+and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."
+
+Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no
+way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of
+her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same
+squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.
+
+"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me
+brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"
+
+The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck
+in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of
+luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.
+The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with
+children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the
+air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the
+ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other
+the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all
+its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly
+moved Haney.
+
+"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs
+are her's."
+
+"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put
+in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."
+
+"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now--sure it's the very one we used to
+fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."
+
+"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied--tears of
+pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye--it's to
+see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us,
+Mart."
+
+"She was!" he answered.
+
+"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand
+in better light to-day I'm thinkin'--though the father did the best he
+knew."
+
+"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders
+now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."
+
+Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine
+lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust
+of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good
+humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was
+charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she
+could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was
+like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less
+of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The
+deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this
+woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest,
+leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into
+the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.
+
+McArdle was a small bent man, with a black beard, a pale serious face
+and speculative eyes. He looked like a wondering, rather cautious animal
+as he came in. He wore a cheap gray suit and a celluloid collar, and was
+as careless in his way as his wife. It was plain that he was gentle,
+absent-minded, and industrious.
+
+He listened to his wife's voluble explanations in silence, inwardly
+digesting all that was said, then shook hands--still without a word. And
+when all these preliminaries were over he laid his hat aside and ran his
+fingers through his thin hair with a perplexed and troubled gesture,
+asking, irrelevantly: "How's the weather out there?"
+
+Nobody saw the humor of this but his wife, who explained: "Pat is a
+fiend on the weather. He was raised on a farm, ye see, and he can't get
+over it. I say to him: 'What difference does the state o' the weather
+make to you, that's under a roof all day?' But divil a change does it
+make in him. The first thing in the morning he turns to the weather
+report."
+
+McArdle's eyes showed traces of a smile. "If it weren't for the papers
+and the weather reports, me days would be alike. But sit by," he added,
+hospitably, waving his hand towards the table, on which the dinner was
+steaming.
+
+They were drawing up to the board when a puffing and blowing, and the
+furious clatter of feet announced the inrushing of the children.
+
+Not the mother's shrill whooping, but the sight of the strange guests,
+transformed them into mutes. The carriage outside had filled them with
+wild alarms, but the sight of their parents alive, and entertaining
+guests of shining quality, was almost as satisfyingly unusual as death
+and a funeral.
+
+They were a noisy, hearty throng, and Bertha's heart went out to poor
+Patrick McArdle, who sat amid the uproar, silent, patient, the heroic
+breadwinner for them all. No wonder he was old before his time. Slowly
+her antipathy died out. She began to find excuses even for the mother.
+To feed such a herd of little pigs and calves, even out of wooden
+troughs, would require much labor; to keep them buttoned, combed, and
+fit for school was an appalling task. "Mart must help these folks," she
+said to herself.
+
+McArdle had nothing to say during the meal, and Bertha could see that
+his family did not expect him to do more than answer a plain question.
+Indeed, the children created a hubbub that quite cut off any connected
+intercourse, and Fan, with a grin of despair, at last said: "They'll be
+gorged in a few minutes, and then we'll have peace."
+
+"This is what lack of money means," Bertha was thinking. And her house,
+her automobile, her horses, became at the moment as priceless, as
+remote, as crown jewels and papal palaces. Then, conversely, she grew to
+a larger conception of the possibilities which lay in sixty thousand
+dollars a year. Not only did it lift her and all hers above the heat and
+mire and distress of the world of toil, it enabled them to help others.
+
+Swiftly the children filled their stomachs, and, seizing each a piece of
+cake or pie, withdrew, leaving the old folks and their guests in peace.
+
+Thereupon, McArdle, taking a pipe from his pocket and knocking it
+absent-mindedly on the seat of the chair, dryly remarked: "Now that we
+can hear ourselves think, let's have it all over again. Who air ye, and
+why air ye here?"
+
+Being told a second time that this was his brother-in-law, a miner from
+Colorado, he shook hands all over again, and accepted Mart's cigar with
+careful fingers, as if fearing to drop and break the precious thing.
+
+Bertha said: "I think we'd better be going, Captain. Our carriage is
+outside."
+
+"Gracious Peter," cried Mrs. McArdle, "I forgot all about it! Is he by
+the day or by the hour?"
+
+Mart answered, with an amused smile. "Well, now, I don't know. I think
+by the hour."
+
+"Ye're makin' a big bluff, Mart. We're properly impressed," said his
+sister. "Go pay him off, and save the money."
+
+McArdle put in a query. "You must have a good thing out there?"
+
+"'Tis enough to pay me carriage hire," answered Mart. And his tone
+satisfied McArdle, who, with reflective eye on Bertha, puffed away at
+his cigar, while Mart gave his promise to call again. "I'll come over
+and get you all, and take you to the theatre in me auto-car," he said,
+as he rose. "But we must be going now."
+
+Fan was beginning to perceive in him more and more of the man of power
+and substance, and her manner changed. "Ye were always the smartest of
+the lot of us, Mart."
+
+"No, I was not. Charles was the bright boy."
+
+"So he was, but he was lazy. That was why he took up with
+play-acting--'tis an easy job."
+
+"Even that is too much work for him," remarked McArdle.
+
+"I reckon that's right," laughed Mart, as he turned towards the door.
+
+"Come again, if ye find time," called Fan, as they went down the steps.
+
+McArdle, with his cigar in his hand, waved it in a sign of parting. And
+so their visit to the McArdles closed.
+
+Mart turned to his silent and thoughtful wife, and said, with a great
+deal of meaning in his voice: "Well, now, what do you think of that for
+a fine litter of pups?"
+
+"They seem hearty."
+
+"They do. 'Tis on such that the future of the ray-public rests." And
+then he added: "Sure, Bertie, it gripped me heart to see the mother's
+old chair!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+
+Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
+principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
+the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
+about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
+and explained that they were going out there to dinner.
+
+"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
+house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
+gown."
+
+"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
+like that."
+
+Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
+But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
+saleslady to fit you out."
+
+"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
+of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
+you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
+another."
+
+Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
+you don't use it to buy things?"
+
+Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
+several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
+Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
+his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
+quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
+helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
+gesture decided momentous questions.
+
+The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
+had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
+buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
+that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
+round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
+there, she glowed with pride.
+
+"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
+sincerity. "This is our smartest model--perfectly exclusive and new.
+Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."
+
+While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
+Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
+took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."
+
+Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."
+
+"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."
+
+"So do. Anything goes--for her, Lucius."
+
+Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
+a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
+attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
+room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
+little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
+having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
+Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
+she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
+earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
+a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
+therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
+wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.
+
+Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
+sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'--he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
+daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
+But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
+was in the days before his accident I don't know--they say he was a
+terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now--a pathetic
+figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
+very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
+and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
+maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
+been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
+in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
+Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
+and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
+want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
+saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
+as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
+to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
+steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."
+
+Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
+had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
+scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
+Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
+centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
+institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
+interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
+in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
+the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
+demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
+of movement--not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
+Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
+Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
+estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
+assemble round his hearthstone--an actual stone, by the way--the people
+he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.
+
+Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
+afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
+in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
+call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
+West Side--one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
+"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
+floor which their friends called Congress Hall.
+
+Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
+he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
+girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
+Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
+She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
+her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
+companion, and that I'm not ready to do--at present."
+
+After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
+friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
+"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
+few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.
+
+"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.
+
+Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
+Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
+Honey Gulch."
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"Hope to die!"
+
+"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
+after dinner?"
+
+"Ah, no, that would be too cruel--to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
+theatre. So be on hand at 7 P.M., sharp."
+
+In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
+good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
+soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
+auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
+colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
+for them (it was Lucius in his new suit--he was playing all the parts).
+Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
+lieu of broncos?"
+
+"They _are_ branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"
+
+She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
+and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
+Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
+sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
+second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
+so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
+came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
+one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.
+
+The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
+Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
+helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
+way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
+delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
+for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
+accustomed to big things--it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
+moved her.
+
+In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
+crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
+Bertha was glad to find them alone--she had expected to face a room full
+of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
+coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
+Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
+now--I don't know why I should."
+
+This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.
+
+Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
+and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her--that is to say, the
+ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
+the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
+Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
+started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
+their hostess's description.
+
+As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
+talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
+had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
+listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
+making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
+round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
+circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
+her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
+dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
+regard. She did not entirely trust any of them--not even her host.
+Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
+hotel.
+
+The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
+been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
+the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
+at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
+thought we might need him."
+
+Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
+conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
+improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
+tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
+How long is it since he was hurt?"
+
+"About eight months."
+
+"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
+frame."
+
+"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."
+
+"Who put him together--Steele, of Denver?"
+
+"No, a man in Cripple."
+
+"Sure he was the right man?"
+
+"He was the best I could get."
+
+"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
+you don't object--not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
+build and years--he tells me he's only forty-five--"
+
+"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
+people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
+afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
+of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
+Haney first came to Sibley--so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
+He, too, seemed young then; now he was old--old and feeble--a man to be
+advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
+corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
+girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
+love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons--and yet she
+was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
+conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
+she said little to express it.
+
+The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
+woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
+most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
+wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
+his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
+breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
+awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
+into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
+in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
+suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
+as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
+no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
+loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"
+
+The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband--old, coarse,
+brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
+tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover--virile, handsome and
+unscrupulous--wins the tortured woman's soul--and they flee, leaving the
+usual note behind.
+
+"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
+husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
+warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
+D." And so the curtain fell.
+
+Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
+began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
+miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
+And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
+starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
+of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
+or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
+ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
+author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
+"Isn't that comical!"
+
+The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
+he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
+the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'?"
+
+Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
+have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
+still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
+not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
+now."
+
+Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
+taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
+a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
+Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
+affair."
+
+"But how did she know?"
+
+"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
+replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."
+
+Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
+her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
+turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
+had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
+He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
+needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
+forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
+singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
+problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
+temptations--she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
+nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
+of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
+encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
+camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
+the artists--all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
+girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
+evil history.
+
+"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
+and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
+house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
+been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
+repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
+become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
+I cannot love him as a wife should."
+
+Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
+perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
+repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
+older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
+lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
+emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
+waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
+said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
+Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."
+
+"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
+better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
+was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
+peaks.
+
+"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
+doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
+him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."
+
+"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
+sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
+long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
+night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
+age and helplessness.
+
+"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
+don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
+condition."
+
+He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
+old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
+time."
+
+"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
+loose I'll let you know."
+
+"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+
+Bertha, deeply engrossed in the conceptions called up by this visit, did
+not feel like calling upon the Mosses, even though they were almost next
+door. She was troubled, too, with a feeling of helplessness in the use
+of a pen. She wanted to write to Fordyce, but was afraid to do so,
+knowing that a letter would disclose her ignorance of polite forms; but
+this, instead of discouraging her, roused her to a determination to
+learn. This was the saving clause in her character. She acknowledged
+shortcomings, but not defeats. Here again she was of the spirit that
+lifts the self-made man.
+
+The Congdons had been most generous of letters of introduction, and in
+addition to those to Mrs. Brent and the Mosses, Bertha was in possession
+of two or three envelopes addressed to people in New York City,
+presumably artists also, as they bore the names of certain studios. The
+note to Moss was unaffected and simple in itself, quite innocent of any
+qualification, but the letter which had privately preceded it was in the
+true Congdon vein, and Moss, like Mrs. Brent, did not delay his call.
+His card was in the Haney box when they returned. "Sorry to miss you.
+Come into my studio at five if you can," he had pencilled on the back.
+
+"Your artistic bunch," Congdon had written, "won't mind meeting one of
+the most successful and picturesque of our gamblers, Marshall Haney,
+especially as the walls of his big house are bare and his wife is
+pretty. They are ripping types, old man; not in the 'best society,' you
+understand, but I know you'll like 'em. Be as good to 'em as you can
+without involving anybody. Little Mrs. Haney is a corker. Good start on
+a self-made career. They're both unsophisticated in a way, and a little
+real sympathy will drag their secret history to the light. Do a sketch
+of her for me. She's likely to be famous. Haney is rolling in dough
+these days--(miner)--and she's bound for some whooping big thing, I
+don't know what, but she's like a country boy with a stirring ambition.
+It wouldn't surprise me to see her on Fifth Avenue one of these days.
+With these few burning words I commend them into your plastic hands.
+Don't let Sammy paint her, for God's sake. Oh yes, I worked 'em for a
+couple of canvases. What do you think. In this buoyant climate we all
+move. Yours in the velvet."
+
+With such a letter before him Joe Moss awaited his amazing guests with
+impatience, cautioning the few who were in the secret not to dodge when
+the Captain reached for his pocket-handkerchief. "And, above all, you
+are to praise Colorado and condemn the East as a place of residence."
+Joe prided himself on his _savoir faire_ and on his apparel, which had
+nothing about it to distinguish the sculptor. "In fact," he often said,
+"there _are_ people who say I'm not a sculptor. Be that as it may, I
+manage by daily care to look like a clerk in a hardware store."
+
+And he did. He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and
+trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand
+tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red
+tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we
+melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be
+distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always included Julia, his
+wife, in this way (although she never "modelled a lick"), for she wrote
+all his letters, made out all his checks, and took charge of him
+generally. Some said his success was due to her management. She was a
+dark-eyed, smiling little woman, exquisite in her dress and brisk in her
+manner.
+
+Their studio occupied the whole north side of the attic of a big office
+building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst
+of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his
+choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture.
+I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my
+way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to
+make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business
+men, not to avoid them. I like the roar of trade."
+
+The Haneys, therefore, led by the sagacious Lucius, soon found
+themselves in the Wisconsin Block, and shooting aloft in a bronze
+elevator that seemed fired from a cannon ("express to the 10th floor"),
+with nothing to suggest art in the men or in the signs about them. On
+the thirteenth story they alighted, and, walking up one flight of
+stairs, found themselves at the end of a bright hall, before a door
+which bore, in simple gold letters, "Jos. Moss, Sculptor." Bertha heard
+laughter within, and her heart misgave her. It was not easy for her to
+meet these artist folk. Of business men, miners, railway managers she
+was unafraid, but these people who joke and bully-rag each other and
+talk high philosophy one minute and gossip the next, like the Congdons,
+were "pretty swift" for her. After a moment's pause she said to the
+Captain, "They can't kill us; here goes!" and knocked gently.
+
+Moss himself opened the door, and his cordial, "How de do, Mrs. Haney,"
+established him in her mind at once as a good fellow. He was quite as
+direct as Congdon. "I'm glad to see you," he said to the Captain. "Come
+in." He looked keenly at Lucius, who composedly explained himself. "The
+Captain is a little lame, and I just came along to see that he got here
+all right. I'll be back at 5.30."
+
+The door opened into a big room, which was darkened at the windows and
+lighted by shaded electric globes. It was cool and bare in effect.
+Around a small table in a far corner a half-dozen people were sitting.
+Mrs. Moss, who was pouring tea, rose in her place at the tea-urn as her
+husband approached, and cordially shook hands with her guests. "I'm very
+glad you came. Please tell me how you'll have your tea," she said.
+
+Bertha was accustomed to take her tea "any old way," and said so, being
+influenced by Mrs. Moss' candid eyes and merry smile. Haney, with a
+queer feeling of being on the stage as a character in a play, sank
+heavily into the chair at his hostess' right hand and said: "I never
+took tea in my life, but I'm not dodgin' anything you mix."
+
+Joe earnestly protested. "Don't do it, Captain, there's some Scotch down
+cellar."
+
+Mrs. Moss indicated one or two other dimly seen faces about her and
+introduced their owners in a most casual manner while she compounded a
+hot drink for her Western guest.
+
+"How long have you been in our horrible town, Mr. Haney?" she asked,
+heedful of Joe's warning.
+
+"One day, ma'am."
+
+"You're just 'passing through,' I presume--that's the way all Colorado
+people do."
+
+Haney smiled. He was getting the drift of her remarks. "'Tis natural,
+ma'am; for, you see, 'tis a long run and a heavy grade, and hard to
+side-track on the way."
+
+Bertha, to whom Moss addressed himself, was candidly looking about
+her--profoundly interested in what she saw. Dim forms in bronze and
+plaster stood on shelves, brackets, and pedestals, and at the end of the
+long room a big group of figures writhed as if in mortal combat. It was
+a work-shop--that was evident even to her--with one small nook devoted
+to tea and talk.
+
+"Would you like to poke about?" he asked, anticipating her request.
+
+"Yes, I would," she bluntly replied.
+
+"There isn't much to see," he said. "I'm the kind of sculptor who works
+on order. I believe in the 'art for service' idea, and when I get an
+order I fill it as well as I can, make it as beautiful as I can, and
+send it out on its mission. I'd like to model mantel-pieces and
+andirons, because they are seen and actually influence people's lives.
+What I started to say was this: my stuff all goes out--my real stuff; my
+fool failures stay by me--this thing, for instance." He indicated the
+big clump of nude forms. "I had an 'idea' when I started, but it was too
+ambitious and too literary. Moreover, it isn't democratic. It don't gibe
+with the present. I'd be a wild-animal sculptor if I knew enough about
+them."
+
+It was a profoundly moving experience for this raw mountain-bred girl to
+stand there beside that colossal group while the man who had modelled it
+took her into his confidence. There was no affectation in Moss's candor.
+He had come to a swift conclusion that Congdon had attempted to let him
+into a trap, for Bertha's reticence and dignity quite reassured him. If
+she had uttered a single one of the banal compliments with which
+visitors "kill" artists he would have stopped short; but she didn't, she
+only looked, and something in her face profoundly interested him.
+Suddenly she turned and said:
+
+"Tell me what it means."
+
+"It don't mean anything--now. Originally I intended it to mean 'The
+Conquest of Art by the Spirit of Business,' or something like that. I
+started it when I was fresh from Paris, and wore a red tie and a pointed
+beard. I keep it as a record of the folly into which exotic instruction
+will lead a man. If I were to go at it now I'd turn the whole thing
+around--I'd make it 'Art Inspiring Business.'"
+
+Bertha did not follow his thought entirely, but she felt herself in the
+presence of a serious problem and listening to something deep down in
+the heart of a strong man. Here was another world--not an altogether
+strange world, for Congdon had also talked to her of his work--but a
+world so far removed from her own life that it seemed some other planet.
+"How well he talks," she thought. "Like a book."
+
+"How charming she is," he was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of
+her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he had picked
+up.
+
+They wandered up and down the long room while he showed her tiles for
+mantel decoration, bronze cats' heads for door-knobs, and curious and
+lovely figures for lamps and ash-trays. "I take a shy at 'most
+everything," he explained.
+
+"Do you sell these?" she asked, indicating some designs for electric
+desk-lamps.
+
+He smiled. "Sometimes--not as often as I'd like to."
+
+"How much are they?"
+
+"Fifty dollars each."
+
+"I'll take them both," she said, and her pulse leaped with the pride of
+being a patron of art.
+
+"Now see here, Mrs. Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a
+salesman--not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I
+try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it.
+"Don't take 'em--wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad
+anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I
+never saw a mountain lion outside the Zoo."
+
+"They're lions, all right. I want 'em, and I know the Captain will like
+'em." She stepped back to call Haney. But finding him surrounded by all
+of the other callers (they had "got him going" telling stories of his
+wild life in the West), she turned to the sculptor with a smile, saying:
+"Never mind, _I_ know they're what he needs--if he don't." And Moss,
+recalling Congdon's description of the Haneys' material condition,
+answered: "Very well, if you insist; but I really feel as though I had
+played a confidence game on you."
+
+"Can you fix 'em up with lights?" she asked, eager as a child. "I mean
+right now."
+
+"Certainly." He unscrewed a couple of small bulbs from a near-by
+bracket, and, putting them into place on the lamps, turned on the
+current. She laughed out in delight. One of the lions was playing with
+the stem which supported the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
+upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other--a counterpart, or
+nearly so in pose--had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
+clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.
+
+"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
+piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
+ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
+West. Shameful, isn't it?"
+
+"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
+mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
+_right_!"
+
+"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
+summer and try to meet it."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
+Colorado."
+
+"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
+Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
+moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
+sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
+I'll do something we can send out to him--if you wish."
+
+"What do you mean by a sketch?"
+
+"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
+veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
+head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
+dainty, very sweet, and smiling.
+
+Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."
+
+"It is my wife's sister--a quick study from life--just the kind of thing
+Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
+was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
+boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
+when it was done.
+
+Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
+this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
+even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
+dreadful, after all.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
+with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
+her seem again the untaught girl she really was.
+
+As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
+her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
+defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.
+
+Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
+doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
+than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.
+
+"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
+straight--that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
+'the house'--that is, the bank--is protected. My machines was always
+straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
+'fixed' in me favor."
+
+Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
+burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
+going."
+
+He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
+explained, and dutifully rose.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
+getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."
+
+Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
+She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
+to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.
+
+"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
+he inquired.
+
+"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.
+
+Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
+about those delightful games of chance."
+
+Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
+full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.
+
+As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
+view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
+came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
+handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
+"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
+good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
+voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
+as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
+These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
+last to her.
+
+Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
+gambling talk at the studio. "Why _must_ he always go back to that?" she
+asked, hotly.
+
+They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
+while the Captain discussed his sister and her family. "I'll do
+something for Fan," he said. "She's a different sort from Charles.
+McArdle seems a hard-workin' chap, the kind that a little help wouldn't
+spile. What do you think of buyin' them a bit of a house somewhere?"
+
+Bertha listened with a languor of interest new to her, and when he
+repeated his question and asked her if she were tired, she answered:
+"Yes; and I think I'll go to bed early to-night. It's been a hard day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+
+Joe Moss was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native
+West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions
+as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it
+was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or
+something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech.
+He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working the
+Thorwaldsen trick: find some fine site out there, some wall of rock
+close to the railway, and hew out a monster grizzly or mountain lion.
+The railway could then advertise it, you see; trains could stop there
+'five minutes to permit a view of Moss's Lion'; they could use a cut of
+it on all their folders. If there was a spring near by they could
+advertise the water and bottle it, a picture of my lion on the label.
+Ah, it is a fine scheme!"
+
+"'Tis so," said Haney. "I wonder nobody thought of it before."
+
+"It takes a Yankee, after all, to plan new suspender buttons," the
+sculptor replied. And all the time he talked his hands were dabbling,
+his thumbs gouging, his dibble cutting and smoothing.
+
+Haney watched him with amused glance. "Sure, I didn't know ye went at it
+so. I thought ye chipped each picture out o' stone." And when the
+process of molding in plaster was explained to him, he said: "'Tis like
+McArdle's trade entirely. He takes a rise in the world since I know he's
+an artist like yourself."
+
+"What is his 'line'?"
+
+"Pattern-maker for a stove foundry."
+
+Moss beamed. "Just what I'd like to be if they'd only pay a little more
+wages and furnish a better place to work."
+
+Bertha never knew when he was in earnest, so habitually mocking was his
+tone. But she grew towards a perception of his ideal, and dimly
+apprehended in him a mind far beyond any she had ever known. Mrs. Moss,
+almost as reticent as Mrs. Haney herself, came and went about the studio
+brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail,
+moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
+insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
+stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
+speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
+motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
+Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
+school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
+expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.
+
+One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
+measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
+of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
+line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
+Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line--"
+
+"I know it is!"
+
+"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
+the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
+the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face--let
+the neck at least suggest the woman below."
+
+"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
+here is spring-time--just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
+line must be kept free from any earthiness."
+
+"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
+painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
+the summer."
+
+They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
+clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
+considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
+momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
+"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
+called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
+his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
+precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
+freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.
+
+The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
+of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
+politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
+too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
+work with Joe, so that it needn't be any trouble to you."
+
+Bertha, her wealth still new upon her, had no suspicion of the motives
+of those who addressed her, was deeply flattered by this request, and as
+Moss made no objection, she consented.
+
+The only thing that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into
+troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet,
+or something like that--not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't
+droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When
+you're as old and blasƩ as Humiston there, you'll have a right to ponder
+the mysteries, but not now. You and I are young, thank God!"
+
+Humiston was dabbling at his small canvas swiftly, lightly, as unmoved
+by his fellow-artist as if his voice were the wind in the casement. He
+was a tall, sickly looking man with grizzled hair, and pale, deeply
+lined face. He was fresh from Paris with a small exhibition of his
+pictures, which were very advanced, as Mrs. Moss privately explained to
+Bertha. "And he's rather bitter against Americans because they don't
+appreciate his work. But Joe asks: 'Why should they?' They're
+undemocratic--little high-keyed 'precious' bits; pictures for other
+artists, not real paintings, or they are unacceptable otherwise. He's a
+wonderful technician, though, and he'll make an exquisite sketch of
+you."
+
+The Western girl-wife was completely fascinated by this small, dusky,
+dim, and richly colored heart of the fierce and terrible city whose
+material bulk alone is known to the world. To go from the crash and roar
+of the savage streets into this studio was like climbing from the level
+of the water in the Black CaƱon to the sunlit, grassy peaks where the
+Indian pink blossoms in silence. She was of the aspiring nature. She had
+commonly played with children older than herself. She had read books she
+could not understand. She had always reached upward, and here she found
+herself surrounded by men and women who excited her imagination as
+Congdon had done. They helped her forget the doubt of herself and her
+future, which was gnawing almost ceaselessly in her brain, and she was
+sorry when Moss said to her: "Come in once more, to-morrow, and see me
+do the real sculptor's act. No, don't look at it" (he flung a cloth over
+his work); "you may look at it to-morrow."
+
+"May I see my picture?" she asked of Humiston.
+
+He turned the easel towards her without a word.
+
+"Good work!" cried Moss.
+
+Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something
+exquisite."
+
+Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a
+dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it
+isn't me."
+
+Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the
+way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor
+to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."
+
+"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at
+the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and
+Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:
+
+"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so
+violently that Bertha shuddered.
+
+Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in _all_ her fine poses," he
+complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"
+
+The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture
+as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he
+said.
+
+With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to
+send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have
+here."
+
+Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs.
+Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak
+points."
+
+"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered
+Humiston, readily.
+
+"If you do you don't speak of 'em."
+
+"Why should I? You don't call out the defects of your 'hardware,' do
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Moss interposed. "That's just what he does do, and it hurts trade.
+I think I'll take Mrs. Haney over to see the pictures myself."
+
+Humiston brightened. "Very well; but you must all lunch with me. You're
+about the only civilized people I know in this crazy town, and I need
+you."
+
+"No," said Bertha. "It's our treat. You all come over and eat with us."
+
+Haney, who had been keeping in the background, now came forward. "I
+second that motion," he heartily said. "We don't get a chance every day
+to feed a bunch of artists."
+
+"You can have that pleasure any day here," said Moss. "Our noses are
+always over the bars, waiting."
+
+When she emerged from the gallery an hour later Bertha enjoyed an
+exalted sense of having been carried through some upper, serener world,
+where business, politics, and fashion had little place. It was "only a
+dip," as Mrs. Moss said--just to show the way; but it set the girl's
+brain astir with half-formed, disconnected aspirations. Only as she
+re-entered the hotel (the centre of obsequious servants) did she become
+again the wife of Marshall Haney, and Mrs. Moss, noting the eager
+attention of the waiters, was amazed and delighted at the look of calm
+command which came over the girl's face.
+
+"Art is fine and sweet as a side issue," said Julia to her husband, as
+they were going in, "but money makes the porters jump."
+
+Bertha, composed and serious, seated her guests at a table which had
+been reserved for her near a window and charmingly decorated with
+flowers. She put Moss at her left hand and Humiston at her right, and as
+the Eastern man settled into place, he said: "Really, now, this isn't so
+bad." His experienced eye had noted the swift flocking of the waiters,
+and with cynical amusement he commented upon it. "These people must
+_smell_ of money!" and in his heart acknowledged that he and Moss were
+not so very different from the servitors, after all. "They're out for
+tens, we're after thousands; that's the main point of difference."
+
+Bertha, once the cutlets were served, was able to give attention to the
+talk--Humiston's talk (he was celebrated as a monologist), for he had
+resumed the discussion into which he and Moss had fallen. "I don't
+believe in helping people to study art. I don't believe in charity. This
+interfering with the laws of the universe that kill off the crippled and
+the weakly is pure sentimentalism that will fill the world with
+deformed, diseased, and incapable persons."
+
+"You're a vile reactionary!" cried Moss.
+
+"I am not--I'm for the future. I want to see the world full of beauty."
+
+"Physical beauty?"
+
+"Yes, physical beauty. I want to see vice and crime and crooked limbs
+and low brows die out--not perpetuated. I believe in educating the
+people to the lovely in line and color."
+
+As he pursued this line of inexorable argument Bertha looked at him in
+wonder. Did he mean what he said? His burning eyes seemed sincere--and
+yet he did not fail to accept a second helping of the mushrooms. There
+was power in the man. He pushed the walls of her intellectual world very
+wide apart. He came from a strange, chaotic region--from a land where
+ordinary modes and motives seemed lost or perverted. He took a delight
+in shocking them all. Morality was a convention--a hypocritic agreement
+on the part of the few to reserve freedom to themselves at the expense
+of the many. "Art is impossible to little people, to those who starve
+the big side of their nature, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. Look at the real
+people--Rachel, Wagner, Turner, Bernhardt, and a thousand others. Were
+they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and
+petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the
+West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few
+petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow
+where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed
+normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained--no license,
+no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, to be personal?"
+
+"Too well balanced."
+
+"Precisely. You _talk_ like a man of power, but model like a cursed
+niggling prude. You're bitten with the new madness. You're the Bryan of
+art. 'The dear people' is your cry. Damn the people! They don't know a
+good thing when they see it. Why consider the millions? Consider the
+few, those who have the taste and the dollars. That's the way all the
+big men of the past had to do. Look at Rubens and Michael Angelo and
+Titian--all the big bunch; they were all frank, gross feeders, lovers of
+beauty, defiant of conventions."
+
+He had forgotten where he sat, but he was not neglecting his hostess. He
+took a satanic satisfaction in seeing her lovely eyes widen and glow as
+he went on. Subtly flattering her by including her among the very few
+who could understand his ideals, he seemed to draw her apart to his
+side--appealing to her for support against the coarse and foolish hosts
+represented by the Mosses, while Marshall Haney sat in a kind of stupor,
+his eyes alone speaking, as if to ask: "What the divil is the little man
+with the cough so hot about?"
+
+Moss, accustomed to Humiston's savage diatribes, roared out objections
+or laughed him to scorn, while Mrs. Moss tried her best to turn the mad
+artist's mind upon more suitable subjects. He had been deeply hurt and
+financially distressed by the failure of his exhibits in Pittsburg and
+Chicago, and was now taking it out on his friends. His passion, his
+bitter, vengeful cry against the ignorant masses of the world was
+something Bertha had read about, but never felt; but she quivered now
+with the half-disclosed fury of the disappointed austere soul.
+
+Could it be possible that this savage man, so worn and ill, had painted
+those dim, vague pictures of flower-like girls whose limbs were involved
+in blossoming vines?
+
+He concluded at last: "The only place in the world to-day for an artist
+is Paris. In no other city can he live his own life in frank fulness,
+and find patrons who see the subtlest meaning of a line."
+
+Bertha was tired of all this--mentally weary and confused; and she felt
+very grateful to Mrs. Moss, who came to the rescue the moment Humiston
+paused.
+
+"There, Mrs. Haney, that is the end of Professor Jerry Spoopendyke's
+lecture on the undesirability of America as a place of residence--_for
+him_. Of course, he don't mind selling his pictures just to enlighten
+our night of ignorance, but as for going to Sunday-school or keeping the
+decalogue, that's our job."
+
+Humiston had the grace to smile. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Haney, I have
+been a fool. But that monkey over there--Joe Moss--provoked me with his
+accursed heresies about the democracy of art. Art has no democracy, and
+democracy will never have an art--"
+
+"There, there!" warned Moss, "you said all that before."
+
+The painter wrenched himself away and turned to Bertha. "You _are_
+coming to New York, Mrs. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she said. "We may."
+
+"If you do, don't fail to let me know. I would like to see you."
+
+"All right," said Bertha, "I'll send you a line." And her frank smile
+made him sorry to say good-bye even for the day.
+
+As Mart was going up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all
+kinds of people to make up a world--Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the
+t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin'
+a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end I dunno."
+
+When alone in her room, Bertha's mind again reverted to Ben Fordyce. As
+she compared him with Humiston, he seemed handsomer and more boyishly
+frank than ever. What did Joe Moss mean by calling Mr. Humiston "blasƩ."
+She had seen that word in novels and it always meant something wicked.
+How could this weary, sick man be wicked? She pitied him and wished to
+help him. "Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to.
+Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does
+this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks
+poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money
+was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize. That the waiters and
+clerks buzzed round her because she was rich, she knew; but that these
+men, who talked of beauty and the higher life, could flatter her with
+attentions with a base motive was incredible.
+
+She was shrewd as her Yankee forbears, but she was also an idealist, and
+these artist folk now seemed to her the highest types she had ever known
+or was likely to know. She felt the mystery and the power in Humiston's
+personality, and his bitter and rebellious, almost blasphemous, words
+were counterpoised by his paintings, which she acknowledged to be
+beautiful--too beautiful for her to comprehend. He looked like a man of
+sorrow and weary of battle, and she longed to know more about him. When
+he was not fierce he was melancholy; evidently his life had been a
+failure. "Why shouldn't I buy some of his pictures?" she asked herself.
+
+Hitherto the answer to any such question had been, "Can we afford it?"
+but now another and deeper query came in answer, like an echo: "Is it
+right to spend Mart Haney's money? I am only his trained nurse, not his
+wife," and she now knew that she could not be his wife. She shrank from
+the weight of his hand, and each day made clearer the wide spaces of
+years, of family, of ideals, which lay between them. The kiss Ben
+Fordyce had pressed upon her lips had brought this revelation. But of
+this she was not yet aware; she was only conscious of a growing dread of
+the future. Her duties as his nurse were lightening. Lucius, indeed, now
+took many of her tasks upon himself, and she no longer helped him with
+his shoes or coat, and, what was still more significant, she could not
+calmly think of going back to these wifely services.
+
+She dwelt treacherously on Haney's own admission: that she had been in a
+sense entrapped. He had believed himself a dying man at the time, and
+she had been too excited, too exalted by the lurid romance of the scene
+to be clear about anything save the wish and the will to save him; and
+now she knew that at bottom of all her willingness to serve him lay the
+consciousness that he was on his death-bed. Afterwards he had been to
+her only a big-hearted, generous friend, in need of love and
+companionship. This understanding had made it easy for her to prepare
+his meals, to help him, as a nurse would help him, to dress and undress.
+She had lost all of the fear and much of the admiration in which she
+used to greet him as he swung into the office of her little hotel. He
+had become to her an invalid, a child to be jollied and humored, and yet
+respected; for no one could have been kinder or more scrupulously just
+than he. And it was the recollection of all his acts of self-sacrifice
+and loving patience which gave her assurance that he would never require
+obedience, though he might sue for it.
+
+Her danger lay in herself. "If he _does_ ask me to be his real
+wife--then I must either agree or leave. It won't be right for me to
+take all these benefits unless--"
+
+And with this thought, the big house in the Springs, the sleek horses,
+their shining carriages, the auto-car, her dresses, the service of the
+big hotel, and the consideration her husband's money gave to her, all
+assumed a new and corrupting lustre. She was growing accustomed to
+luxury and the thought of giving it up made her shiver like one who
+faces a plunge into a dark night and an icy river. Besides, her
+sacrifice would involve others. Her mother, her brother, were already
+roundly ensnared in Mart's bounty.
+
+Her head was aching with it all, when a comforting thought came to her.
+It was not necessary to decide it at that moment, and with a sigh of
+relief she threw it aside and sat down to write a letter to her mother.
+
+"I ought to have written before, but I've been jumped right into the
+middle of things here. The letters Frank Congdon gave me took me into an
+artistic bunch about as gay and queer as Frank is, but they've been
+mighty nice to me. I've been setting for my bust to Mr. Moss, who is a
+sculptor. He has a big studio clear on the top of one of the tallest
+blocks here and has some dandy lamps and things. I've bought some to
+bring back. I met a Mr. Humiston there from New York, and he made a
+sketch of me--wants me to see his studio in New York. I don't know
+whether I'll go on or let Mart go with Lucius. Lucius is all right--I
+don't see how I got on without him. He knows everything. I wish I had
+half the education he's got. He's up on all the society ways and puts me
+on. For instance, he told me the nice thing would be to give a dinner to
+this artist push and to the people that Dorothy give me a letter to, and
+I'm going to do it. Lucius will look out for the whole thing. You should
+see the way the waiters tend. I reckon Lucius has told 'em we're made of
+money. I'm afraid we're getting spoilt, Muzz. It would be pretty tough
+to go back to the hotel now, wouldn't it?
+
+"We went to see Mart's sister, Fanny. Her house was a sight. It was
+clean enough, but littered--well, litter is no name for it--but she's a
+good old thing and so is McArdle. He sat and looked at us the whole time
+like a turkey blind in one eye--never said a word the whole time but
+'pass the p-taties.' I liked him though. He's a kind of sculptor,
+too--makes patterns for all these little acorns and leaves and
+do-funnies on stoves. They've got forty-'leven children and need help
+and I'm perfectly willing Mart should help 'em. We're looking up houses
+now. He's going to buy a place for 'em on the west side. Wednesday night
+I went to see the Doctor Brents, Dorothy's friends. They had a
+dinner--very nice, but they all kind o' sat 'round and waited for us to
+perform. I guess they thought we were mountain lions. But they didn't
+make much out o' me. They was one chap there with goggles who looked at
+Mart like an undertaker. He's a scientific doctor--one of these fellers
+that invent new ways of doing things. His name is Halliday. I liked Dr.
+Brent pretty well--but Mrs. Brent only so-so. The doctor wants to
+'dagnose' Mart's case--says it won't cost a cent. We all went to a show
+at night and the Captain was just about petered to a point. He's better
+though. The lower altitude helps his circulation. I guess his heart _is_
+affected. He's afraid now he won't ever be able to go back to the mines.
+He wants to slide on to New York and see his father and wants me to
+go--but I'd rather come home--I'm homesick for the hills. They're nice
+to me here--but I want to see the old Peak once more. Tell" (here she
+wrote "Ben" and blotted it) "tell Mr. Fordyce that we're all right and
+to keep us posted every day. We see by the papers that the mine-owners
+are going to throw the unions out of business. If they try that they'll
+be war again. We'll be home soon--or at least I will. I'm getting
+home-sicker every minute as I write."
+
+She added a postscript. "Don't show my letters to _any one_. I wish I'd
+'a' had a little more schooling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE FARTHER EAST
+
+
+Haney visibly brightened as the days went by, and took long rides in his
+auto, sometimes with Bertha, sometimes alone with Lucius, and now and
+then with some old acquaintance, who, having seen his name in the paper,
+ventured to call. They were not very savory characters, to tell the
+truth, and he did not always introduce them to Bertha, but as his health
+improved he called upon a few of the more reputable of them,
+billiard-table agents, and the like of that, and to these proudly
+exhibited his wife.
+
+Bertha had hitherto accepted this with boyish tolerance, but now it
+irritated her. Some of these visitors presumed on her husband's past and
+treated her with a certain freedom of tone and looseness of tongue which
+made plain even to her unsuspecting nature that they put no high value
+on her virtue--in fact, one fellow went so far as to facetiously ask,
+"Where did Mart find you? Are there any more out there?" And she felt
+the insult, though she did not know how to resent it.
+
+Haney, so astute in many things, saw nothing out of the way in this
+off-hand treatment of his wife. He would have killed the man who dared
+to touch her, and yet he stood smilingly by while some chance
+acquaintance treated her as if she had been picked out of a Denver
+gutter. This threw Bertha upon her own defence, and at last she made
+even impudence humble itself. She carried herself like a young warrior,
+sure of her power and quick of defence.
+
+She refused to invite her husband's friends to lunch, and the first real
+argument she had thus far held with him came about in this way. She
+said, "Yes, you can ask Mr. Black or Mr. Brown to dinner, but I won't
+set at the same table with them."
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"Because they're not the kind of men I want to eat with," she bluntly
+replied. "They're just a little too coarse for me."
+
+"They're good business men and have fine homes--"
+
+"Do they invite you to their homes?"
+
+"They do not," he admitted, "but they may--after our dinner."
+
+"Lucius says it's their business to lead out--and he knows. I don't mind
+your lunching these dubs every day if you want to, but I keep clear of
+'em. I tell you those!"
+
+And so it fell out that while she was going about with the Mosses and
+their kind, Mart was explaining to Black and Brown that his wife "was a
+little shy." "You see she grew up in the hills like a doe antelope, and
+it's hard for her to get wonted to the noise of a great city," he
+laboriously set forth, but at heart he did not blame her. He was coming
+to find them a little "coarse" himself.
+
+Humiston was deeply enthralled by Bertha's odd speech, her beauty, her
+calm use of money, and lingered on day by day, spending nearly all his
+time at Moss's studio or at the hotel, seeking Mrs. Haney's company. He
+had never met her like, and confessed as much to Moss, who jocularly
+retorted: "That's saying a good deal--for you've seen quite a few."
+
+Humiston ignored this thrust. "She has beauty, imagination, and immense
+possibilities. She don't know herself. When she wakes up to her power,
+then look out! She can't go on long with this old, worn-out gambler."
+
+"Oh, Haney isn't such a beast as you make him out. Bertha told me he had
+never crossed her will. He's really very kind and generous."
+
+"That may be true, and yet he's a mill-stone about her neck. It's a
+shame--a waste of beauty--for the girl is a beauty."
+
+It was with a sense of relief that Moss heard Bertha say to his wife: "I
+guess I've had enough of this. It's me to the high ground to-morrow."
+
+"Aren't you going on to the metropolis?"
+
+"I don't think it. I'm hungry for the peaks--and, besides, our horses
+need exercise. I think I'll pull out for the West to-morrow and leave
+the Captain and Lucius to go East together. I don't believe I need New
+York."
+
+To this arrangement Haney reluctantly consented. "You're missin' a whole
+lot, Bertie. I don't feel right in goin' on to Babylon without ye. I
+reckon you'd better reconsider the motion. However, I'll not be gone
+long, and if I find the old Dad hearty I may bring him home with me.
+He's liable to be livin' with John Donahue. Charles said he was a
+shiffless whelp, and there's no telling how he's treating the old man.
+Anyhow, I'll let you know."
+
+She relented a little. "Ma'be I ought to go. I hate to see you starting
+off alone."
+
+"Sure now! don't ye worry, darling. Lucius is handy as a bootjack, and
+we'll get along fine. Besides, I may come back immegitly, for them
+mine-owners are cooking a hell-broth for us all. Havin' a governor on
+their side now, they must set out to show their power."
+
+Ben kept them supplied with home papers, and as Bertha took up one of
+these journals she found herself played upon by familiar forms and
+faces. The very names of the streets were an appeal. She saw herself
+sporting with her hounds, riding with Fordyce over the flowery Mesa, or
+facing him in his sun-bright office discussing the world's events and
+deciding upon their own policies and expenditures. She grew very
+homesick as these pleasant, familiar pictures freshened in her vision,
+and her faith in Ben's honesty and essential goodness came back to her.
+Moreover her mind was not at rest regarding Haney; much as she longed to
+go home, she felt it her duty to remain with him, and as she lay in her
+bed she thought of him with much the same pity a daughter feels for a
+disabled father. "He's given me a whole lot--I ought to stay by him."
+
+She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce
+alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to
+go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when she returned
+to the Springs.
+
+There are certain ways in which books instruct women--and men, too, for
+that matter--but there are other and more vital processes in which only
+experience (individual or inherited) teaches. In her desultory reading,
+little Mrs. Haney, like every other citizen, had taken imaginative part
+in many murders, seductions, and marital infidelities; and yet the
+motives for such deeds had never before seemed human. Now the dark
+places in the divorce trials, the obscure charges in the testimony of
+deserted wives, were suddenly illumined. She realized how easy it would
+be to make trouble between Mart and herself. She understood the stain
+those strangers in the car could put upon her, and she trembled at the
+mere thought of Mart's inquiring eyes when he should know of it. Why
+should he know of it? It was all over and done with. There was only one
+thing to do--forget it.
+
+Surely life was growing complex. With bewildering swiftness the
+experiences of a woman of the world were advancing upon her, and she,
+with no brother or father to be her guard, or friend to give her
+character, with a husband whose very name and face were injuries, was
+finding men in the centres of culture quite as predatory as among the
+hills, where Mart Haney's fame still made his glance a warning. These
+few weeks in Chicago had added a year to her development, but she dared
+not face Ben Fordyce alone--not just yet--not till her mind had cleared.
+
+In the midst of her doubt of herself and of him a message came which
+made all other news of no account. He was on his way to Chicago to
+consult Mart (so the words ran), but in her soul she knew he was coming
+to see her. Was it to test her? Had he taken silence for consent? Was he
+about to try her faith in him and her loyalty to her husband?
+
+His telegram read: "Coming on important business." That might mean
+concerning the mine--on the surface; but beneath ran something more
+vital to them both than any mine or labor war, something which developed
+in the girl both fear and wonder--fear of the power that came from his
+eyes, wonder of the world his love had already opened to her. What was
+the meaning of this mad, sweet riot of the blood--this forgetfulness of
+all the rest of the world--this longing which was both pleasure and
+pain, doubt and delight, which turned her face to the West as though
+through a long, shining vista she saw love's messenger speeding towards
+her?
+
+Sleep kept afar, and she lay restlessly turning till long after
+midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and
+her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She
+rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical
+weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever known
+before.
+
+Haney was also up and about, an hour ahead of his schedule, sure that
+Ben's business concerned the mine. "It's the labor war breaking out
+again," he repeated. "I feel it in my bones. If it is, back I go, for
+the boys will be nading me."
+
+They went to the station in their auto-car, but, at Bertha's suggestion,
+Mart sent Lucius in to meet their attorney and to direct him where to
+find them. The young wife had a feeling that to await him at the gate
+might give him a false notion of her purpose. She grew faint and her
+throat contracted as if a strong hand clutched it as she saw his tall
+form advancing, but almost instantly his frank and eager face, his clear
+glance, his simple and cordial greeting disarmed her, transmuted her
+half-shaped doubts into golden faith. He was true and good--of that she
+was completely reassured. Her spirits soared, and the glow came back to
+her cheek.
+
+Fordyce, looking up at her, was filled with astonishment at the picture
+of grace and ease which she presented, as she leaned to take his hand.
+She shone, unmistakable mistress of the car, while Haney filled the rƓle
+of trusted Irish coachman.
+
+As he climbed in, the young lawyer remarked merrily, "I don't know
+whether I approve of this extravagance or not." He tapped the car door.
+
+"It's mighty handy for the Captain," she replied. "You see he can't get
+round in the street-cars very well, and he says this is cheaper than
+cabs in the long run."
+
+"It has never proved economical to me; but it _is_ handy," he answered,
+with admiration of her growing mastery of wealth.
+
+And so with something fiercely beating in their hearts these youthful
+warriors struggled to be true to others--fighting against themselves as
+against domestic traitors, while they talked of the mine, the state
+judiciary, the operators, and the unions. Their words were impersonal,
+prosaic of association, but their eyes spoke of love as the diamond
+speaks of light. Ben's voice, carefully controlled, was vibrant with the
+poetry that comes but once in the life of a man, and she listened in
+that perfect content which makes gold and glory but the decorations of
+the palace where adoration dwells.
+
+The great, smoky, thunderous city somehow added to the sweetness of the
+meeting--made it the more precious, like a song in a tempest. It seemed
+to Ben Fordyce as if he had never really lived before. The very need of
+concealment gave his unspoken passion a singular quality--a tang of the
+wilding, the danger-some, which his intimacy with Alice had never
+possessed.
+
+The Haneys' suite of rooms at the hotel called for comment. "Surely
+Haney is feeling the power of money--but why not; who has a better right
+to lovely things than Bertha?" Then aloud he repeated: "How well you're
+looking--both of you! City life agrees with you. I never saw you look so
+well."
+
+This remark, innocent on its surface, brought self-consciousness to
+Bertha, for the light of his glance expressed more than admiration; and
+even as they stood facing each other, alive to the same disturbing
+flush, Lucius called Haney from the room, leaving them alone together.
+The moment of Ben's trial had come.
+
+For a few seconds the young wife waited in breathless silence for him to
+speak, a sense of her own wordlessness lying like a weight upon her.
+Into the cloud of her confusion his voice came bringing confidence and
+calm. "I feel that you have forgiven me--your eyes seem to say so. I
+couldn't blame you if you despised me. I won't say my feeling has
+changed, for it hasn't. It may be wrong to say so--it is wrong, but I
+can't help it. Please tell me that you forgive me. I will be happier if
+you do, and I will never offend again." His accent was at once softly
+pleading and manly, and, as she raised her eyes to his in restored
+self-confidence, she murmured a quaint, short, reassuring phrase: "Oh,
+that's all right!" Her glance, so shy, so appealing, united to the
+half-humorous words of her reply, were so surely of the Mountain-West
+that Ben was quite swept from the high ground of his resolution, and his
+hands leaped towards her with an almost irresistible embracing impulse.
+"You sweet girl!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Don't!" she said, starting back in alarm--"don't!"
+
+His face changed instantly, the clear candor of his voice reassured her.
+"Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I--that
+my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his
+self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their
+love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will
+give you all her time next summer--if you wish her to do so."
+
+She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
+day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann--I don't see how people can
+talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
+for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
+with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
+Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"
+
+"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
+association--you are improving very fast."
+
+Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"
+
+"I do mean it. No one would know--to see you here--that you had not
+enjoyed all the advantages."
+
+"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
+grin. They're onto my game all right."
+
+He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases--they like to
+hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
+or--or lacking in--in charm."
+
+Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
+relief Bertha retreated--almost fled to her room--leaving the two men to
+discuss their business.
+
+At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
+was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
+own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
+husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
+submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
+She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
+dress--with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
+she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration--"I will
+be loyal to the men"--and Ben's reply.
+
+"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
+Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
+mine-operators."
+
+"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
+Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
+that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
+heart is with the red-neckers--just where it was. Owning a paying mine
+has not changed me heart to a stone."
+
+Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
+with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
+kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
+order to be on hand."
+
+"What's the rush?" said Haney; "stay on a day or two and see the town
+with us--'tis a great show."
+
+Bertha, re-entering at this moment in her shining gown, put the young
+attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on
+the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and,
+besides--Alice is not very well."
+
+At the mention of Alice's name Bertha's glance wavered and her eyelids
+fell. She did not urge him to stay, and Haney spoke up, heartily: "I'm
+sorry to hear she's not well. She was pretty as a rose the night of the
+dinner."
+
+"She lives on her nerves," Ben replied, falling into sadness. "One day
+she's up in the clouds and dancing, the next she's flat in her bed in a
+darkened room unwilling to see anybody."
+
+"'Tis the way of the White Death," thought Haney, but he spoke
+hopefully: "Well, spring is here and a long summer before her--she'll be
+herself against October."
+
+"I trust so," said Ben, but Bertha could see that he was losing hope and
+that his life was being darkened by the presence of the death angel.
+
+Haney changed the current of all their thinking by saying to Bertha: "If
+you are minded to go home, now is your chance, acushla. You can return
+with Mr. Fordyce, while Lucius and I go on to New York the morning."
+
+"No, no!" she cried out in a panic. "No, I am going with you--I want to
+see New York myself," she added, in justification. The thought of the
+long journey with Ben Fordyce filled her with a kind of terror, a
+feeling she had never known before. She needed protection against
+herself.
+
+"Very well," said Haney, "that's settled. Now let's show Mr. Fordyce the
+town."
+
+Ben put aside his doubt and went forth with them, resolute to make a
+merry day of it. He seemed to regain all his care-free temper, but
+Bertha remained uneasy and at times abnormally distraught. She spoke
+with effort and listened badly, so busily was she wrought upon by
+unbidden thoughts. The question of her lover's disloyalty to Alice
+Heath, strange to say, had not hitherto troubled her--so selfishly, so
+childishly had her own relationship to him filled her mind. She now saw
+that Alice Heath was as deeply concerned in Ben's relationship to her as
+Haney, and the picture of the poor, pale, despairing lady, worn with
+weeping, persistently came between her and the scenes Mart pointed out
+on their trips about the city. Did Alice know--did she suspect? Was that
+why she was sinking lower and lower into the shadow?
+
+With these questions to be answered, as well as those she had already
+put to herself concerning Mart, she could not enjoy the day's outing.
+She rode through the parks with cold hands and white lips, and sat amid
+the color and bustle and light of the dining-room with only spasmodic
+return of her humorous, girlish self. The love which shone from Ben's
+admiring eyes only added to her uneasiness.
+
+She was very lovely in a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young
+bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx--the distraction upon her brow
+somehow adding to the charm of her face--and Ben thought her the most
+wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command
+was she. "Could any one," he thought, "be more swiftly adaptable?"
+
+They went to the theatre, and her beauty and her curiously unsmiling
+face aroused the admiration and curiosity of many others of those who
+saw her. At last, under the influence of the music, her eyes lost their
+shadow and grew tender and wistful. She ceased to question herself and
+gave herself up to the joy of the moment. The play and the
+melody--hackneyed to many of those present--appealed to her imagination,
+liberating her from the earth and all its concerns. She turned to Ben
+with eyes of rapture, saying, "Isn't it lovely!"
+
+And he, to whom the music was outworn and a little shoddy, instantly
+agreed. "Yes, it is very beautiful," and he meant it, for her pleasure
+in it brought back a knowledge of the charm it had once possessed.
+
+They dined together at the hotel, but the thought of Ben's departure
+brought a pang into Bertha's heart, and she fell back into her uneasy,
+distracted musing. She was being tempted, through her husband, who
+repeated with the half-forgetfulness of age and weakness, "You'd better
+go back with Mr. Fordyce, Bertie," but there was something stronger than
+her individual will in her reply--some racial resolution which came down
+the line of her good ancestry, and with almost angry outcry she
+answered:
+
+"There's no use talking that! I'm going with you," and with this she
+ended the outward siege, but the inward battle was not closed till she
+had taken and dropped the hand her lover held out in parting next
+morning, and even then she turned away, with his eyes and the tender
+cadences of his voice imprinted so vividly on her memory that she could
+not banish them, and she set face towards the farther East with the
+contest of duty and desire still going forward in her blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+
+It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
+forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
+floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
+pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
+farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
+trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
+weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
+they all live?
+
+At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
+the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
+slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
+to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
+heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
+great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
+I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
+Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
+plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me--poor girl! I'd
+like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
+up, too."
+
+Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
+obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
+her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
+beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
+magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
+thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
+to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
+splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
+thirty years ago--rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
+broken steak or a half-eaten roll--and she could imaginatively enter
+into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.
+
+"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle--"'sure the
+mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
+him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
+drop in on him and surprise him with a check"--at the moment he forgot
+that he was old and a cripple--"just to let him know the divil hadn't
+claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
+arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
+see you; he might say the divil had got _you_--but he couldn't pity
+me."
+
+She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
+deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
+like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
+naturally locoes me to think of it."
+
+"'Tis the only place to spend money--so the boys tell me. I've never
+been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
+man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
+fine swamp to lose a thief in."
+
+"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.
+
+"I did so--and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
+desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
+chances."
+
+Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
+were but empty boasting--so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
+that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
+potency of gold!--could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
+flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
+eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
+as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
+streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
+wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
+splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
+her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
+from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God--one derived
+from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.
+
+They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
+spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
+where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
+do it to-night."
+
+Bertha was tired, too--mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
+alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
+with the Troy directory.
+
+Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
+took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
+Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
+and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
+brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
+of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
+after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
+pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
+"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here--and I've earned many a dime
+sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
+said; "I don't know why--I had all the chance there was. I've been
+moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that--I'll say I tuck it
+as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
+alone--it spiled me nerve--I let the other felly do the drinkin'."
+
+Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
+proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
+plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
+shouted, "'Tis old Otto--just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"
+
+Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
+off me alretty."
+
+"I'm Mart Haney--you remember Mart Haney."
+
+Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
+Vell, vell--you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter--yes?"
+
+"My wife," said Haney.
+
+Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
+draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
+you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"
+
+"That's what."
+
+"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce--aind dot
+right?"
+
+Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
+up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
+what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"
+
+"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn--so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
+be clad to see you--"
+
+"You don't know his address?"
+
+"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."
+
+"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."
+
+"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
+directory--Chon Donahue, barkeep."
+
+"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
+the boys are livin' here now?"
+
+"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
+vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
+are teadt--many are teadt," he added, on second thought.
+
+"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
+machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"
+
+For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
+talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
+lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
+I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
+these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
+can't cheat a boy--he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
+of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
+right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
+broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
+whole long day--not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
+up with the Injuns."
+
+Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
+She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
+studying the scenes of his boyhood--her own childhood had been almost as
+humble, almost as cheerless--and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
+the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
+commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.
+
+Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
+much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
+opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
+very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
+with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
+with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
+importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.
+
+It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
+Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
+he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
+her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
+call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
+under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
+it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
+relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
+young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
+easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
+readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
+reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
+which she received what was said to her--something indefinably alert and
+self-masterful without being self-conscious--gave her a mysterious
+charm.
+
+She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
+and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
+She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
+of interest--even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
+Kate--more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
+her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
+buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
+if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.
+
+Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
+with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
+London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
+and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
+folk live in one place?
+
+Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
+they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
+herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
+for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
+when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
+Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
+alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
+her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
+the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
+foreign capital.
+
+It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp--a
+palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
+glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
+Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
+conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
+and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
+masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
+say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
+while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
+comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
+"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
+were put at his command.
+
+Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
+higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
+and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
+when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
+looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
+windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
+the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
+can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
+notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
+which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
+carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.
+
+Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
+get a car."
+
+"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.
+
+"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
+like me."
+
+Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
+again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
+was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
+angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
+bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
+timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
+race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
+with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans--and all others
+who have them not--struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
+distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
+display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
+not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
+people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
+diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
+from the scramble on the pave.
+
+Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
+heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
+grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
+had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
+auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
+handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
+and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
+therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
+little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
+door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
+old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
+broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
+me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
+'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
+cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
+play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
+was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
+in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."
+
+Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
+wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
+packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
+room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
+free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
+this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
+indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
+keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.
+
+In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
+ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"
+
+"Oh no, I'll go down."
+
+"They dress for dinner, ma'am."
+
+"Do they? What'll I wear?"
+
+He considered a moment. "Any light silk--semi-dress will do. I'll send a
+maid in to help you."
+
+"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.
+
+Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful--it was paternal;
+for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
+colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
+cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
+of adaptability--was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
+both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
+in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
+him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
+prejudice against both black and red men.
+
+The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
+exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
+deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
+a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
+the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
+zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
+Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"
+
+"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
+eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.
+
+Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
+bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
+tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
+appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
+lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
+women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
+they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
+beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
+very shy.
+
+"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
+to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but--to
+miss me sleep--"
+
+"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
+just about all in, myself."
+
+"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
+time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
+heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
+Lucius will take ye."
+
+"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
+We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
+kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."
+
+This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
+by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
+endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
+'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
+receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
+complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
+that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
+thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
+live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
+great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
+This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.
+
+"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
+turned off Broadway.
+
+"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
+special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"
+
+"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
+quieter now till November."
+
+They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
+in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
+most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
+nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
+of a rank with Paris and London--the gateway city of the nation, where
+the Old World meets and mingles with the New.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+As for Marshall Haney, as he went about New York and Brooklyn in search
+of his relations, he was astounded at the translation of the Irish
+laborer into something else. "In my time, when I left Troy, all the work
+in the streets was done by 'micks,' as they called 'em. Now they're
+gone--whisked away as ye'd sweep away a swarm of red ants, and here's
+these black Dagos in their places. Where's the Irishman gone--up or
+down? That's what's eatin' me. Is he dead or translated to a higher
+speer? 'Tis a mysterious dispensation, and troubles me much."
+
+He found a good many Donahues in Brooklyn, and plenty of them
+barkeepers; and after he'd pulled up half a dozen times at these
+"joints" Bertha began to pout. She didn't like such places; and as they
+were riding in a showy auto-car (the grandest Lucius could secure), they
+were pretty middling noticeable. At last she said, more sharply than she
+had ever spoken to him before: "Mart, I don't want any more of this. If
+you want to visit all the saloons in Brooklyn, I don't. Here's where I
+get out."
+
+He was instantly remorseful. "I was thinkin' of that myself, Bertie.
+Lucius and I will go on alone. We'll send you back to the hotel in the
+'mobile whilst we take a hack."
+
+Half doubting, half glad, she consented to this arrangement, and was
+soon whirling back towards the ferry, her guilty feeling giving place to
+a sense of relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her
+shoulders--for a moment. She began to understand that half the pleasure
+she had taken in her hours with Moss and Humiston lay in the freedom
+from her husband's over-shadowing presence. He was not a man to be
+ignored, as she had seen wives ignore and put aside their meek partners.
+Marshall Haney even yet was a dominating personality, even though his
+family affairs were so insistent and so difficult to manage or explain.
+If the father came her joy in her home would be gone, and yet she had no
+right to refuse him shelter.
+
+At the same time she was less sure of her place in the world, now that
+she was alone. She had the feeling that if anything were to happen--if
+the motorman should demand his pay at the door, or the hotel-keeper
+refuse to go her bond, she would be helpless. The Captain, for all his
+shortcomings and physical disability, was master of every situation. He
+had been schooled by stern powers, and his capabilities of defence were
+still equal to almost any need.
+
+On the ferry-boat she found herself surrounded by the swarms of people
+who are forever calculating expenditures, who never desert a garment,
+and who finger a nickel lovingly; and she caught them looking at her as
+upon one of those who enjoy without earning it the product of their
+toil. They made way for her, as she got down and walked to the railing,
+as they would have done for a millionaire's daughter, a little surlily,
+and she divined without understanding this enmity, but was too exalted
+by the glittering bay, with its romance of ship and sea and shore and
+town, to very much mind what her threadbare fellow-passengers thought of
+her. These dark-hulled, ocean-going vessels, these alien flags, widened
+her horizon--deepened her sense of the earth's wonder and the wide-flung
+nerves of national interest. From this sea-level she looked up in fancy
+to her brother's ranch near Sibley as at a cabin on a mountain-side. How
+still and faint and far it seemed at the moment!
+
+At the word of the chauffeur she climbed back into her car, returning to
+the isolation which money now provided for her. And so, girt about with
+velvet and costly wood and gilding, she rode up through the tearing
+throngs of the wharf, whirling past cars and trucks, outspeeding cabs
+and carriages, protected by a gambler's name, royally isolated and
+defensible by his money. As she spun through Fifth Avenue, so smooth of
+pave, so crowded, so sparkling, so far-reaching in its suggestions of
+security and power, the girl's soul entered upon a new and fierce phase
+of its struggle.
+
+It was a larger and more absorbing fairy story than any in the _Arabian
+Nights_. Without Marshall Haney, without the gold he brought, she could
+never have even looked upon this scene. She would at this moment have
+been standing inside her little counter at the Golden Eagle, selling
+cigars to some brakeman or cowboy. Ed Winchell would be coming to ask
+her, as usual, to marry him, and her mother would still be toiling in
+the hot kitchen or be at rest in her grave. Did ever Aladdin's lamp
+translate its owner farther or lift him higher? Was not her refusal to
+be Marshall Haney's wife the basest ingratitude?
+
+Not merely so, but the girl felt in herself potentialities not yet drawn
+upon, unlimited capabilities leading towards the accomplishment of good.
+Money had not merely the magic of exalting, educating, refining, and
+ennobling the individual (herself); it had radiating, transforming power
+for others. It could diffuse warmth like a flame, and send forth joy
+like a bell. "With it I am safe, strong: I can help the poor. Without it
+I am only a struggling girl, like millions of others, with no chance and
+no power to aid those who suffer." But at this point her love re-entered
+and her sense of right was confused. After all the heart ruled.
+
+At the hotel entrance the head porter was waiting to help her out, and
+the chauffeur, without a word or look of reminder, puffed away, secure
+in the reputation Lucius had given to Haney. As she went to her room the
+maid met her with gentle solicitude, and, after attending to her needs,
+considerately withdrew, leaving her deep-sunk in troubled musing.
+
+Up to the coming of Ben Fordyce she had accepted all that Haney gave her
+as from one good friend to another. Once having satisfied herself that
+the money was clean of any taint from gambling-hall and saloon, she had
+not hesitated to use it. But now something was rising within her which
+changed the current of her purpose. Haney was no longer before the bar
+of her conscience; the soul under question was her own. Dimly, yet with
+ever-growing definiteness, she saw the moment of decision approach. She
+must soon decide whether to continue on the smooth, broad highway with
+Haney, or to return to the mountain-trail from which he had taken her.
+
+While still she sat sombrely looking out over the city's roofs,
+Humiston's card was brought to her, and at the moment, in her loneliness
+and doubt, he seemed like an old friend. "Tell him to come up," she
+said, with instant cordiality, and her face shone with innocent pleasure
+when she met him. "I'm mighty glad to see you," she frankly said, in
+greeting.
+
+He misconceived her feeling, and took advantage of it to retain her
+hand. "I assure you I am delighted to find _you_ again."
+
+"I thought you'd forgot us."
+
+His eyes expressed a bold admiration as he answered: "I have done
+nothing but remember you. I've been in Pittsburg (only got back to town
+yesterday), and here I am." He looked about. "Where is the Captain?"
+
+She withdrew her hand. "He's out looking for his father. He'll return
+soon. He's liable to look in any minute now."
+
+"You are lovelier than ever. How is the Captain?"
+
+"Pretty well. He gets tired fairly easy, but he feels better than he
+did."
+
+His look of eager intensity embarrassed her. After a little pause, he
+remarked: "I am holding you to your promise. Can't you come over to my
+studio this afternoon?"
+
+"No, not to-day. I must be here when the Captain comes. He may bring the
+old father along, and he'd feel lost if I should be gone. Maybe I could
+come to-morrow."
+
+"Don't bring the Captain unless you have to--he'll be bored," he said,
+in the hope that she would get his full meaning. "I want to introduce
+you to some friends of mine."
+
+"Oh, don't do that!" she protested. "I'm afraid of your friends--they're
+all so way-wised while I am hardly bridle-broke."
+
+"You need not fear," he replied; "you are most to be envied. No one can
+have more than health, wealth, and youth and beauty. I would not
+hesitate to introduce you anywhere." His admiration was so outspoken, so
+choicely worded, that she could not distrust him, though Mrs. Moss had
+more than once hinted to her that he was not to be entirely honored. "He
+isn't a man to be careless with," she had once said, and yet he seemed
+so high-minded, so profoundly concerned with the beautiful world of art.
+How could a single-hearted Western girl believe ill of him? He could
+not be evil in the ways in which men were wicked in Sibley. His
+sensitive face was too weary and his eyes too sad.
+
+He was adroit enough to make his call short, and withdrew, leaving a
+very pleasant impression in her mind. She felt distinctly less lonely,
+now that she knew he was in the city, and she was still at the window
+musing about him when Haney returned, bringing his father with him.
+
+The elder Haney interested and amused her in spite of her
+perplexities--he was so quaintly of the old type of Irishman and so
+absurdly small to be the father of a giant. He carried a shrewd and
+kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
+line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
+calmer.
+
+With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
+dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
+awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
+self-possession.
+
+"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
+retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me--after the day he first
+thrun me down, the big gawk."
+
+Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
+'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"
+
+Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
+warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."
+
+It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
+"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
+is green--the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
+to the tooth-factory."
+
+"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."
+
+"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
+baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
+and be gay."
+
+Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
+may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
+man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."
+
+"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
+prospect in--so don't fuss."
+
+Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"
+
+"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
+'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
+at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
+take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
+recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
+telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
+said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
+'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
+every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
+So here he is--scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
+gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
+left the old sod." Here his face became sadly tender. "I wish the mother
+was alive, too; I'd make her rustle in silks, so I would. Heaven rest
+her!"
+
+The father's face grew suddenly accusing in line. "Ye waited too long,
+ye vagabond. Yer change of heart comes too late."
+
+"I know it--I know it! But I could never find time till a man with a
+shotgun pointed the way to it. Now I have all the time there is, and
+she's gone."
+
+In this moment of passing shadow Bertha caught a glimpse of the
+significance of the scene--of the wonder, almost alarm, which filled the
+old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the
+room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and
+green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness
+of the silk tapestry.
+
+The old man touched a gilded chair tenderly, and Mart cried out: "Lay
+hold, man, 'twill not rub off! Sit down and look about ye! Out with your
+new pipe and smoke up!"
+
+He took a seat with forced confidence, and looked about him. "I wish
+Donahue and Kate could see this."
+
+Mart turned a quietly humorous eye on Bertha. "Not this trip. I couldn't
+manage Kate," he explained. "She looks like Fan--only more so; and she
+has a litter o' young Donahues would make ye wonder could the world have
+room for them all."
+
+Haney the elder had something more than the bog-trotter in him, for as
+he grew towards a little more assurance that Mart would not be thrown
+out of his hotel for non-payment of bills, he settled down to enjoy his
+glass of rare whiskey and a costly cigar with an assumption of ease that
+almost deceived the maid, though Lucius, being in the secret, watched
+him anxiously for fear he might expectorate on the rug.
+
+Mart had some "p'otographs" of his house in the Springs, and showed them
+to Patrick. "Do ye see yerself smokin' a pipe on that porch?"
+
+"I do not," the father energetically replied. "I see meself goin' the
+rounds of that garden with a waterin'-pot and a pair of shears."
+
+"I thought ye was a bricklayer, or is it a billiard-marker?" asked Mart,
+with quizzical look.
+
+"I can turn me hand to anny honest work," he replied, with dignity. "An'
+can ye say as much?"
+
+"I cannot," confessed Mart. "Had ye put a club to me back and foorced me
+to a trade, sure I'd be layin' brick in Troy this day."
+
+This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was
+false, and yet here sat Mart--a gentleman. While still he puzzled over
+the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart
+turned to Bertha. "Do ye mind the old man's spendin' the rest of his
+days with us, darlin'?"
+
+"You're the doctor, Mart. It's your house, not mine."
+
+He felt the change in her. "Oh no, it isn't; it's _our_ house. I never
+would have had it only for you." He paused a moment. "The dad is a
+well-meaning old rascal, and I'll go bail he don't do mischief."
+
+Patrick took this up. "He is so, and he means to kape to his own way of
+life. If I go West, me b'y, 'tis on wages as a gardener--and, bedad,
+I'll draw 'em reg'ler, too. I'd like well to go West ('twould rejice me
+to see Fan and McArdle), and I don't object to spendin' a year with you
+in Coloraydo, but don't think Patrick Haney is to be pinsioner on anny
+one, not even his son."
+
+Bertha's heart vibrated in sympathy with this note of independence, and
+she heartily said: "I hope you will come, Mr. Haney. The Captain is
+alone a good deal, and you'd be a comfort to him."
+
+"I'll consider," the old man said. "I must have time to rea-lize it," he
+quaintly added. "I must smoke me pipe in me own garret once more, and
+talk it all over with Kate and the Donahues." He refused to stay to
+dinner with them (which was a relief to Lucius), and went away jaunty as
+a bucko from County Clare.
+
+He was no sooner gone from the room than Bertha turned to her husband,
+and said: "Mart, I want to talk things over with you."
+
+Something in her voice, as well as in the words, made him turn quickly
+and regard her anxiously.
+
+"What about? What is it, darlin'?"
+
+"I have something on my mind, and I've got to spit it out before I can
+rest to-night. I've just about decided to leave you. I don't feel right
+livin' with you."
+
+He looked at her steadily, but a gray pallor began to show on his face.
+He asked, quietly: "Do ye mean to go fer good?"
+
+Her heart was beating fast, but she bravely faced him. "Yes, Mart, I
+don't feel right living with you, and spending your money the way I've
+been doing."
+
+"Why not? It isn't mine--it's yours. Ye airn every cent ye spend."
+
+"No, I don't!" she cried, passionately. "Now that you're getting better
+and Lucius has come, I'm not even a nurse."
+
+"I'll send him away."
+
+"No, no; he's worth more than I am."
+
+"I'll not listen to such talk, Bertie. Ye well know you're the thing
+most precious to me. I can't live without ye." His voice thickened. "For
+God A'mighty's sake, don't say such things; they make me heart shake! Me
+teeth are chatterin' this minute! Ye're jokin'; say you don't mean it."
+
+"But I do. Don't you see that I can't stay and let you do things for me
+like this"--she indicated their apartment--"when I do so little to earn
+it all? Mart, I've got to be honest about it. I can't let you spend any
+more money on me. Help your own people, and let me go. I do nothing to
+pay for what you do for me. It's better for me to go."
+
+She could not bring herself to be as explicit as she should have been,
+but he was not far from understanding her real meaning, as he brokenly
+replied: "I've been afraid of this, my girl. I've thought of it all. The
+money I spend fer ye is but a small part of my debt. You say you do
+nothing for me. Why, darlin', every time you come into the room or smile
+at me you do much for me! I'm a selfish old wolf, but I'm not so bad as
+you think I am. If anny nice young felly comes along--a good square
+man--I'll get off the track; but I want you to let me stay near you as
+long as I live." His voice was hoarse with pleading. "Ye're all I have
+in the world; all I live for now is to make you happy. Don't pull away
+now, when me old heart has grown all round ye. I can't live and I
+daren't die without ye--now that's the eternal truth. Darlin', promise
+ye won't go--yet awhile."
+
+Wordless, as full of pain as he, she sat silently weeping, unable to
+carry out her resolution--unable to express the change which had come
+into her life.
+
+He went on. "I mark the difference between us. I see ye goin' up while I
+am goin' down. My heart is big with pride in ye. You belong with people
+like the Congdons and the Mosses--whilst I am only an old broken-down
+skate. I'm worse than you know. I went down to Sibley first with hell in
+me heart towards you, but that soon passed away--I loved ye as a man
+should love the girl he marries--and I love ye now as I love the saints.
+I wouldn't mar your young life fer anything in this world--'tis me wish
+to lave you as beautiful and fresh as I found you, and to give you all I
+have besides--so stay with me, if you can, till the other man comes."
+Here a new thought intruded. "Has he come now? Tell me if he has. Did ye
+find him in Chicago? Be honest, darlin'."
+
+"No, no!" she answered. "It isn't that. It's just because--because it
+don't seem right."
+
+"Then ye must stay with me," he said, "and don't worry about not doing
+things for me. You do things for me every minute--just by being in the
+world. If I can see ye or hear ye I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
+from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
+ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
+left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
+ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"
+
+She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.
+
+His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
+say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do--"
+
+"Oh no; I like him."
+
+"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
+that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
+don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
+out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
+voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
+me--now--I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
+name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
+is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
+die--I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
+Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+
+Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
+Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
+ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
+alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
+the libertine demands novelty--where struggle is essential, and to
+conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.
+
+He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
+and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
+won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him--pleased him. "She is no silly
+kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
+a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
+far, and I will be her guide--unless I have lost my cunning. She will
+share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."
+
+He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
+smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
+have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
+gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
+place. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own this
+work-shop are out; they'll be in soon."
+
+"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."
+
+"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."
+
+The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases upon
+the walls--not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay in
+America being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own.
+"I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.
+Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,
+for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,
+wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railway
+fare."
+
+He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't you
+come with us for a ride?"
+
+"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."
+
+"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bring
+you."
+
+"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. I
+despise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America--except
+you. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."
+
+"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a few
+minutes, and I'm going."
+
+He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"
+
+"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outside
+the hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."
+
+"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."
+
+"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."
+
+He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of my
+pictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,
+there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think better
+of the West--of America. I feel that you will find something in my
+pictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, he
+added: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage--"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anything
+but the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you--you are
+so aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. You
+would spur a man to big things."
+
+They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,
+embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by his
+voice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked round
+him. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold and
+depressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den in
+Paris. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiest
+days have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."
+
+He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerful
+manner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see his
+paintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your word
+and dine with you--perhaps this very night."
+
+"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonder
+at the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.
+
+He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to a
+belief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artist
+feelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost as
+lonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, but
+Haney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair for
+you," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.
+
+Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked of
+the West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and his
+essentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish that
+they might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," he
+insisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With your
+beauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, you
+could reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worth
+more to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anything
+in this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show you
+Paris."
+
+Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbing
+of her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctive
+distrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners and
+cowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back in
+growing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all the
+barriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of the
+eagle--now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray sea
+to slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willing
+to sit beside her and talk--he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.
+
+The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and his
+theories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portrait
+in the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.
+Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flattering
+not to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joined
+them in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had known
+Humiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry's
+amusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"
+
+He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the little
+gallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other men
+have been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've gone
+on refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line to
+color, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.
+The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only now
+and then that a man, or a woman _feels_ what I'm after--and so I live. I
+hold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."
+
+He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what she
+thought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of them
+home he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," he
+sharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yet
+used: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused of
+patronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spite
+of all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderful
+artist?
+
+She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I've
+got a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."
+
+"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones on
+which my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."
+
+Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit--they are
+too 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to show
+them to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.
+
+And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,
+consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."
+
+His gentle _camaraderie_, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when he
+took her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did not
+stumble at the crossing she was stirred--not as Ben's hand had moved
+her, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderful
+that she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in the
+midst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the company
+of one of the chief artists of the world?
+
+Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of the
+city, and explained to her that American dealers had no real
+appreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,
+and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the same
+in Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect of
+these densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."
+
+The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and out
+with friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha into
+the farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.
+No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the other
+paintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall and
+partly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the inner
+temple. Enter."
+
+She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not well
+lighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.
+
+Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:
+"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to show
+my masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothing
+unusual in the experience.
+
+It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits of
+excelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent over
+some canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one with
+care. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stood
+a large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back with
+eyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was in
+the new Salon--here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited in
+this rotten town."
+
+Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a
+nude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,
+rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and to
+the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught
+her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a
+defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female
+form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And
+then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
+beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
+he placed another canvas before her--something so unrefined, so animal,
+so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
+looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
+a degenerate demon--an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
+the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.
+
+Bertha stared at it--fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
+It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
+thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
+him.
+
+Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
+upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
+look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
+revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
+tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
+burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
+affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
+wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
+herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
+slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.
+
+It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
+brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
+the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
+he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
+Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
+ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
+Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
+the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
+in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
+and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
+and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
+sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
+vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?
+
+She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
+head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
+as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
+glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
+for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
+one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+
+Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
+a letter from Humiston--a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
+hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
+sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
+a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
+you to see them as I painted them--in pure artistic delight. You
+misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
+remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."
+
+Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
+beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
+relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
+experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
+shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
+quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
+near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
+before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
+decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
+leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
+little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
+trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben--these men she knew and respected.
+Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
+dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
+men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.
+
+She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
+go home--to-day."
+
+"All right, Bertie, I'm ready--or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
+father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"
+
+"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."
+
+"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
+impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
+me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
+goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
+have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next
+express."
+
+The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the
+Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a
+military camp.
+
+Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public
+dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her,
+and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she
+had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon
+them.
+
+As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than
+asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."
+
+"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."
+
+"We can put it in," said Bertha.
+
+"We can't do without you now," added Mart.
+
+Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't
+particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."
+
+Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in
+command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."
+
+Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't
+assumed--"
+
+"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a
+plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a
+steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it
+right with you--and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."
+
+"Sure, Mart--only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to
+do. He's _too_ handy--if anything."
+
+"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the
+price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you
+in on the mine."
+
+Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay
+with me; my wants are few."
+
+Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many
+times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all
+your life? Tell us your ambition--maybe we can help you."
+
+He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions
+once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as
+I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know
+exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my
+profession it was different--I was always being cursed for presumption."
+
+"What was your profession?" asked Haney.
+
+"I studied law--and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I
+didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got
+a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He
+stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.
+
+Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber
+like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong
+way."
+
+Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point
+upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as
+you have been doing--as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything
+about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very
+satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."
+
+"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled--you're adjutant-general
+of the Haneys' forces."
+
+After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told
+us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."
+
+Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do
+anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius,
+won't ye do that?'"
+
+Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's
+services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face
+and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of
+his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the
+trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have
+misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto,
+but in the spirit of the trained nurse.
+
+This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after
+a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western
+town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled
+away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance
+of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious
+Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of
+upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up
+Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights,
+with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and
+sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled
+bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had
+threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the
+mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of
+human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and
+very remote.
+
+Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her
+mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In
+all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he
+frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with
+regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into
+their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me
+down--I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius
+sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in
+the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten
+fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis
+a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the
+faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."
+
+"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"
+Bertha said.
+
+"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."
+
+"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."
+
+"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the
+road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis
+not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern
+streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than
+when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of
+our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls,
+and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."
+
+"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon
+the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a
+gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come
+back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a
+wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.
+
+The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was
+strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely,
+troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to
+catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his
+shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the
+limited express.
+
+"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world
+like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a
+visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody
+travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the
+matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of
+the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their
+ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man
+of his own level, and they held long confabulations together--the
+colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in
+which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window,
+dreaming of the past.
+
+As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing
+the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the
+pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was
+as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on
+which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made
+all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through
+which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those
+high places.
+
+Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time--by
+reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of
+New York--it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had
+once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She
+liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a
+pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and
+say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he
+even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely
+your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.
+I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly
+luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.
+
+There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the
+culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far
+from anything Ʀsthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved
+the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was
+about to leave the East for the West--perhaps to abandon the town for
+the village--she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto
+been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.
+New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content
+to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.
+
+That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the
+city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes,
+especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the
+East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver
+sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's
+Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and
+glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and
+especially of music and the drama--all these came back one by one to
+claim a place beside her peaks and caƱons, sharing the glory of the
+purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto
+loved so single-heartedly and so well.
+
+She saw Sibley now for what it was--a village almost barren of beauty--a
+good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there
+to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to
+do here--in the East. I can't stand Sibley."
+
+She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of
+Ben--but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited
+opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun
+to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul,
+with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with
+her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.
+She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien
+to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting
+her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned
+upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were
+aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and
+wise.
+
+Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night
+at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go
+stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So
+Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be
+over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father
+hurried away in joyous relief.
+
+"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he
+confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him
+unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like
+palin' a red onion to him--nothing more."
+
+The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was
+getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him.
+The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had
+not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn
+away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they
+infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new
+barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or
+coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were
+leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard
+unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees--which no one was
+allowed to climb.
+
+Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden--and this was onerous to
+the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again.
+However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations
+among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross
+them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had
+to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast
+to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed
+tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed.
+"We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole
+time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon
+with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."
+
+But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."
+
+Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the
+roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer.
+Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and
+p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it--snappin'
+and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."
+
+His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said:
+"'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing
+mind."
+
+They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped
+in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle
+having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought
+of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly
+less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour
+necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a
+certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father--a man
+inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was
+gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and
+took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small
+in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.
+
+There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and
+Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you
+gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you
+fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't
+put it on a charity basis--just sold the house on long time."
+
+"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"
+
+Lucius did not appear to hear.
+
+They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf,
+the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go
+over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not
+yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing.
+"Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.
+
+"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up
+before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in
+without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.
+
+Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought
+upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe,
+here's Mrs. Haney."
+
+Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows,
+but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a
+coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my
+arm--my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with
+frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared,
+'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and
+the West.'"
+
+Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our
+machine."
+
+"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming
+due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop
+and let art wag."
+
+Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised--"
+
+"Of course I did--that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now;
+I'll work to-night."
+
+"To-night is the Hall's circus party."
+
+"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool,
+clear air."
+
+Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he
+reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
+and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
+fishing or swimming.
+
+"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained--"took a
+contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
+to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
+money--now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
+can't breathe country air--had to work all day Sunday."
+
+"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
+children's summer suits."
+
+"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
+when I was a child--and that was a buff."
+
+All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
+how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"
+
+"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
+'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"
+
+"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
+"I'll secure one this week."
+
+Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
+hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
+school-children--even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
+turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
+pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
+powers of money--it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
+wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
+could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.
+
+Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
+Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
+deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
+crystalline.
+
+On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
+green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
+water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
+of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
+far away.
+
+Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
+a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
+boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
+type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
+look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."
+
+His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination--not because she cared to see
+Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his
+concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful
+was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about
+the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the
+city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him,
+angered him.
+
+She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till
+their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's
+private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his
+fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl
+who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to
+do?"
+
+"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure,
+he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time
+I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she
+is to fulfil her place in the world--and be happy."
+
+She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go
+further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or
+sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art
+that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative--home
+decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need
+of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know
+several highly successful women decorators--but I wouldn't advise that
+work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative
+sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."
+
+"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it
+over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show
+at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I
+missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."
+
+Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly
+romantic to us--the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you
+have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a
+visit."
+
+Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of
+pleading; then she answered: "Yes--but then, you see, it isn't really
+mine--it's the Captain's."
+
+"Yours by marriage."
+
+"That's what people say--but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no
+right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"
+
+What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
+moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
+Frank Congdon--he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
+with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
+is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
+gambler."
+
+She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
+saloon--when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
+promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
+and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
+didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
+comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
+the saloon money--and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
+I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
+straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
+though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
+way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
+account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
+in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."
+
+"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."
+
+She ignored the implied compliment and went on:
+
+"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
+man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
+and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
+know it?"
+
+"Does he complain?"
+
+"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits--but I'm
+afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
+game."
+
+In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
+trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
+it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
+you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
+handsome figure before his--accident."
+
+Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
+his trade--and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
+of the whole business--for me--I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
+big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
+sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I
+married him for his money--I liked him then, and, besides--well, I
+_thought_ I was doing the right thing--but now--well, I'm guessing." She
+ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her
+secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to
+her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her
+there.
+
+With sincere sympathy, he said: "We all do wrong at times that good may
+come out of it. You could not foresee the future--the best of us can
+_only guess_ at the effect of any action. You did the best you knew at
+the moment. The question you have to face now has only slight relation
+to the past. No one can enter wholly into another's perplexity--I'm not
+even sure of a single one of my inferences--but if you are thinking
+of--separation, I would say, meet this crisis as bravely as you met the
+other. But I don't believe we should decide any such question selfishly.
+I am not of those who always seek the side on which lies personal
+happiness, because a happiness that is essentially selfish won't last.
+The Captain lives only for you--any one can see that. What he does for
+you springs from deep affection. What would happen to him--if you left
+him?"
+
+He paused a moment and watched her subduing her tears; then added: "I
+won't say I was unprepared for what you've said, for the entire
+relationship, from our first meeting, seemed too abnormal to be
+altogether happy. Money will buy a great many desirable things, but it
+has its limits. At the same time, it is too much to expect of you--If
+your feeling for him has changed--"
+
+His delicacy, his sympathy for her, was made apparent by the unusual
+hesitation of his speech, and she would have broken down completely had
+not Julia Moss called out: "Joe, turn on the lights--it's getting dark."
+
+Conscious of Bertha's emotion, he did not immediately do as he was
+bidden. "I wish you'd talk this over with Julia," he ended gently;
+"she's a very wise little woman."
+
+Bertha shook her head. "I didn't intend to talk it over with you. I
+don't know what possessed me. I had no business to say what I did."
+
+He reassured her. "All you've told me and the part I've guessed is quite
+safe. I will not even permit Julia to share your confidence till you are
+willing to speak to her yourself."
+
+As he slowly lighted the studio Bertha was surprised and a little
+troubled to find that two or three other visitors had slipped in through
+the dusk, and were grouped about the tea-table, and that the Captain was
+again the centre of an eager-eyed group. "They treat him as if he were
+an Eskimo," she thought bitterly, and rose to join the circle and
+protect him from their inquisition.
+
+Haney was feeling extremely well, and talked with so much of his old
+time vigor and slash of epithet that his little audience was quite
+entranced. He enlarged upon the experiences of a year he had spent in
+Alaska. "Mining up there in them days made gambling slow business," he
+said. (He had told Bertha that he had made an attempt to get out of "the
+trade," but she was content to have him put it on less self-righteous
+grounds.) He contrived to make his hearers feel very keenly the
+pitiless, long-drawn ferocity of that sunless winter. He made it plain
+why men in that far land came together in vile dens to drink and gamble,
+and Moss glowed with the wonder and delight of those great boys who
+could rush away to the arctic edge of the world and die with laughing
+curses on their lips.
+
+"What did you all do it for?" he asked, bluntly. "For money?"
+
+"Partly--but more for the love of doing something hard. No man but a
+miser punishes himself for love of gold--it's for love of what the stuff
+will buy, that men fight the snows."
+
+While Haney talked of these things Bertha's eyes were musingly turned on
+the face of the sculptor, and her mind was far from the scenes which
+Mart so vividly described. This side of his life no longer amused
+her--on the contrary she shrank from any disclosure of his savage
+career. She was now as unjust in her criticism as she had been fond in
+her admiration, and when with darkening brow she cut short his garrulous
+flow of narrative Julia perceived her displeasure.
+
+Haney apologized, handsomely. "It's natural for the ould bedraggled
+eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he
+used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's
+weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now,
+as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I
+want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind o' wish
+to live 'em all over again. Bertie knows me weakness. I would talk
+forever did she lave me go on; but 'tis no blame to her--it was a cruel,
+bad, careless life."
+
+"When I come West," said Moss, sincerely, "we'll go camping together,
+and every night by the fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
+your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."
+
+Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
+going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
+the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
+briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
+right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
+above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
+examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
+because I know him--I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
+Springs."
+
+"What'll I do if he's worse?"
+
+"Bring him back here or go to sea level--only beware of high passes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+
+The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
+experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
+parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
+in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
+half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
+plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
+with his epoch-making wars.
+
+As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
+the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
+than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
+thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness--the strife
+was individual, the problems personal--and at last, weary of question,
+of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
+Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
+There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
+freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
+she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.
+
+She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
+secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
+intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
+out with lavish hand.
+
+Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
+too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.
+
+In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
+dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy gang, to the
+theatre--Patrick Haney as much of a boy as his grandsons, McArdle alone
+being unhappy as well as uneasy.
+
+She went about the shops, buying with reckless hand treasures for the
+house in the Springs, and this gave her husband more satisfaction than
+any other extravagance, for each article seemed a gage of the permanency
+of his home. In support of her mood he urged her to even larger
+expenditures. "Buy, buy like a queen," he often commanded, as she mused
+upon some choice. "Take the best!"
+
+There was instruction as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring
+with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her
+rƓle as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses,
+her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To
+them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways
+as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well
+as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She
+was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured
+Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with
+almost equal gusto--and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the
+outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate women in the world.
+
+And yet every day made her less tolerant of the crippled old man at her
+side. She did not pout or sulk or answer him shortly, but she often
+forgot him--failed to answer him--not out of petulance or disgust, but
+because her mind was busy with other people. Gradually, without
+realizing it, she got into the habit of leaving him to amuse himself, as
+he best could, for she knew he did not specially care for the pursuits
+which gave her the keenest joy. In consequence of this unintentional
+neglect he very naturally fell more and more into the hands of the
+bar-room spongers who loitered about the hotel corridors. He dreaded
+loneliness, and it was to keep his companions about him that he became a
+spendthrift in liquors. Sternly and deliberately temperate during his
+long career as a gambler, he fell at last into drinking to excess, and
+on one unhappy afternoon returned to Bertha quite plainly drunk.
+
+She was both startled and disgusted by this sign of weakness, and he was
+not so blinded by the mist of his potations but that he perceived the
+shrinking reluctance of her touch as she aided Lucius in lifting him
+into the bed. His inert, lumpish form was at the moment hideously
+repulsive to her, and physical contact with him a dreaded thing. What
+was left if he lost that self-control which had made him admirable? She
+had always been able to qualify his other shortcomings by saying, "Well,
+anyhow, he don't drink." She could boast of this no longer.
+
+It was a most miserable night for her. At dinner she was forced to lie
+about him (for the first time), and she did it so badly that Joe Moss
+divined her trouble and came generously to her aid with a long and
+amusing story about Whistler.
+
+The play to which she took her guests did not help her to laughter, for
+it set forth with diabolic skill the life of a woman who loathed her
+husband, dreaded maternity, and hated herself--a baffling, marvellously
+intricate and searching play--meat for well people, not for those
+mentally ill at ease or morally unstable. Of a truth, Bertha saw but
+half of it and comprehended less, for she could not forget the leaden
+hands and flushed face of the man she called husband--and whom she had
+left in his bed to sleep away his hours of intoxication. She pitied him
+now--but in a new fashion. Her compassion was mixed with contempt, and
+that showed more clearly than any other feeling could the depth to which
+Marshall Haney had sunk.
+
+When she came home at midnight she listened at his door, but did not
+enter, for Lucius--skilled in all such matters--reported the Captain to
+be "all right."
+
+She went to her own room in a more darkly tragic mood than she had ever
+known before. Her punishment, her time for trouble, had begun. "I reckon
+I'm due to pay for my fun," she said to herself, "but not in the way
+I've been figuring on." Haney seemed at the moment a complete physical
+ruin, and the change which his helplessness wrought in her was most
+radical.
+
+His deeply penitent mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as
+much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have
+preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast,"
+he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand
+and me tongue twisted--and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having
+nothing to do but trade lies with a lot of flat-bottomed loafers in a
+gaudy bar-room. But don't worry, darlin', right here old Mart pulls up.
+You'll not see anny more of this. Forget it, dear-heart--won't you now?"
+
+She promised, of course, but the chasm between them was widened, and a
+fear of his again yielding to temptation cut short her stay in the city,
+for Lucius warningly explained: "The Captain is settling into a corner
+of the bar-room with a gang of sponging blackguards around him, and
+every day makes it less easy for him to break away. I'd advise going
+home," he ended, quietly. "The Springs is a safer place for him now."
+
+The hyenas were beginning to prowl around the disabled lion, and this
+the faithful servant knew even better than the wife.
+
+"All right, home we go," she replied, and the thought of "home" was both
+sweet and perilous.
+
+Haney met her decision with pathetic, instant joy. "I'm ready, I was
+only waitin'," he said. "After all, your own shack is better than a
+pearl palace in anny town, and it's gettin' hot besides."
+
+Bertha parted from the Mosses with keen sorrow. Joe had come to be like
+an elder brother to her--a brother and a teacher, and, next to Ben
+Fordyce, was more often in her thought than any other human being. She
+had lost part of her awe of him, but her affection had deepened as she
+came to understand the essential manliness and simplicity of his
+character. He redeemed the artist-world from the shame men like Humiston
+had put upon it.
+
+As she entered for the last time the studio in which she had spent so
+many happy hours and from whose atmosphere of work and high endeavor she
+had derived so much mental and moral development she was sad, and this
+sadness lent a beauty to her face that it had never before attained. She
+looked older, too; and contrasting her with the girl who had first
+looked in at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a
+year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to
+know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns,
+but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the
+expression of security and power.
+
+He greeted her as usual with a frank nod and (his hands being free from
+clay) advanced to shake hands. "Don't tell me you've come to say
+good-bye."
+
+"That's what," she curtly said. "It's up to me to take the Captain home.
+He's getting into bad habits lying around this hotel."
+
+His face clouded. "I've been afraid of that," he answered, gently. "Yes,
+you'd better go home. It's harder for a man to have a good, easy time
+than it is for a woman. But sit down, Julia will be in soon; you mustn't
+go without seeing her."
+
+After some further talk on trains and other common-places she became
+abruptly personal. "I've been having a whole lot of fun buying things
+and planting dollars, but I'm beginning to see an end to that kind of
+business. After you've got your house filled up with furniture and
+jimcracks, what you going to do then?"
+
+"Burn 'em."
+
+"And begin all over again? You can't buy out the town. It's a real
+circus for a while, but I can see there's a limit to it. Once you find
+out you can just go down here to one of these jewelry-stores and order
+anything you want--you don't want anything. Here I am with a lot of
+money that ain't mine, having a gay whirl spending it, but I can see my
+finish right now. To go on in this line would take all the fun out of
+life. What am I to do?"
+
+Moss took a seat and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. I used
+to think if I had money I'd start out and 'do good to people,' but I'm
+not at all sure that charity isn't all a damned impertinence. A couple
+of years ago I would have said go in for 'Neighborhood Settlements,'
+free libraries, 'Noonday Rests,' 'Open-air Funds,' and all the rest of
+it, but now I ask, 'Why?' We've had our wave of altruism, and I'm
+inclined to think a wave of selfishness would do us all good--but you're
+too young to be bothered with these problems. Go home and be happy while
+you can. Enjoy your gold while it glitters. Work is my only fun--real,
+enduring fun--and I'm not a bit sure _that_ will last. Whatever you do,
+be yourself. Don't try to be what you think I or some one else would
+like to have you. I like you because you are so straight-forwardly
+yourself; I shall be heart-broken if you take on the disease of the age
+and begin to prate of your duty."
+
+She listened to him with only partial comprehension of his meaning, but
+she answered: "I was brought up to think duty was the whole works."
+
+"Yes, and your teacher meant duty to God, duty to others. Well, there's
+duty to one's self. The war of money and duty is the biggest mix of our
+day. It's simpler to be poor; then all you've got to worry about is
+bread and shoes and shingles."
+
+"That's just it. Sometimes I wish I was back in the Golden Eagle, where
+I--" she ended in mid-sentence.
+
+He laughed. "You sound like a middle-aged financier who mourns (tattooed
+with dollar-marks) for the days when he used to husk corn at seventy
+cents a day." She saw the humor of this, but was aware that without a
+knowledge of Ben Fordyce Joe could not understand her problem, therefore
+she abandoned her search for light and leading. "Well, anyhow, right
+here I quit what you fellows call civilization. I hate to lose you and
+Julia and the rest of the folks, but it's me to the high hills. You'll
+never know how much you've helped me."
+
+"I hope you'll never know how thoroughly we've _done_ you. An
+evil-minded person would say we'd worked you for dinners and drives most
+shameful. However, if you have enjoyed our company as thoroughly as
+we've delighted in your champagne and birds, we'll cry quits. All my
+theories of art and life I advance _gratis_. I ought to do something
+handsome for you--you've listened so divinely."
+
+Underneath his banter Moss was sincerely moved. It was hard to say
+good-bye to this curious, earnest, seeking mind, this unspoiled child in
+whose face the world was being reflected as in a magical mirror. He
+loved her with frank affection--a pure passion that was more intimate
+than fraternal love and more exalted, in a sense, than the selfish,
+devouring passion of the suitor. It would have been difficult for him to
+say what his relationship to her at the moment was. It was more than
+friendship, more than brotherly care, and yet it was definably less than
+that of the lover.
+
+Julia came in and was quite as outspoken in her regret, and both refused
+to say good-bye at the moment. "We'll see you at the station," they
+said, and Bertha went away, feeling the pain of parting less keen by
+reason of this promise.
+
+Afterwards, as the hour for departure came near, she hoped they would
+not come. It was less difficult to say "I'll see you again" than to
+utter the curt "good-bye" which means so much in Anglo-Saxon life.
+
+They came, however, together with several others of her friends, but in
+the bustle and confusion of the depot not much of sentiment could be
+uttered, and, though she felt that she was going for a long stay, she
+was prodigal of promises to return soon.
+
+Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the
+jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in
+the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy
+which the situation needed. "Av ye don't mind I'll stay wid Fan," he
+said, a little more seriously, to Haney, who replied:
+
+"All right, 'tis as Fan says," and so they entered the train for the
+upward climb.
+
+Haney himself had only joy of the return. He sat at one of the windows
+of the library car and studied the prairie swells with a faint, musing
+smile, till the darkness fell, and was up early next morning, eager and
+curious, to see how the increasing altitude would affect him. Only
+towards the end of the second day after eating his dinner did he begin
+to feel oppressed.
+
+"I smell the altitude," he confessed--"me breath is shortenin' a bit,
+but 'tis good to see the peaks again."
+
+In this long ride the girl-wife dwelt dangerously on the bright face of
+Ben Fordyce. It was the thought of seeing him again that came at last to
+steal away her regret at parting from her Eastern friends. The splendor
+of the Eastern world faded at last, and she, too, soared gladly towards
+the mountains. Every doubt was swallowed up in a pleasure which was at
+once pure and beyond her control.
+
+Ben would be at the station, she was certain, for Lucius had wired to
+him the time of their arrival, and he had instantly replied. "I'll be
+there, and very glad to see you"--these words, few and simple, were
+addressed to Marshall Haney, but they thrilled her almost as if Ben had
+spoken them to her. Was he as glad to have her return as she was to meet
+him again?
+
+"A fine lad," remarked Haney, as he pocketed the envelope. "I wonder
+does he marry soon? He'd better decide now. I reckon Alice is not long
+for this climate--poor girl!"
+
+His remark, so simple in itself, pierced to the centre of Bertha's
+momentary self-deception. "I have no right to think of him. He belongs
+to Alice Heath!" But the feeling that she herself belonged to Marshall
+Haney was gone. That she owed him service was true, but since the night
+of his drunkenness she had definitely and finally abandoned all thought
+of being his wife, soul to soul, in the rite that sanctifies law. True,
+he had kept his word, he had not offended again, but the mischief was
+done. To return to the plane on which they had stood when she gave her
+promise was impossible.
+
+The day and the hour were such as make the plain lover content with his
+world. The earth, a mighty robe of closely woven velvet, mottled softly
+in variant greens, swept away to the west, under a soaring convexity of
+saffron sky, towards a cloudy altar whereon small wisps of vapor were
+burning down to golden embers, while beneath lay the dark-blue Rampart
+range. It was a world for horsemen, for free rovers, and for swift and
+tireless desert-kine. The course of winds, it lay, a play-ground for
+tempests that formed along the great divide and swept down over the
+antlike homes of men, acknowledging no barrier, exultant of their
+strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.
+
+Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
+hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
+treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
+loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
+welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
+tide of longing in her heart.
+
+As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
+the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
+seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
+sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
+from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "_There he is!_"
+
+Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
+kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
+for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.
+
+Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
+ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
+looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.
+
+"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
+his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
+forgot all their doubts and scruples--overpowered by the sense of each
+other's nearness.
+
+She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
+with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
+bringing slowly down the step.
+
+Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
+contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
+"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."
+
+Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
+black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
+spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
+over-peering peaks.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.
+
+"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
+'mobile we've heard so much about?"
+
+"Coming by fast freight."
+
+"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
+come as excess baggage."
+
+It was cool, delicious green dusk--not dark--with a small sickle of moon
+in the west, and as they drove up the broad avenue towards home the
+town, the universe, was strangely sweet and satisfying. It seemed as
+though she had been gone an age--so much had come to her--so thick was
+the crowd of new experiences standing between her going and her
+return--so swiftly had her mind expanded in these months of vivid city
+life. "I'll never go away again," she said to Ben. "This country suits
+me."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered, softly. In the most
+natural way he had put Congdon with Haney in the rear seat and had taken
+the place beside Bertha, and this nearness filled her with pleasure and
+an unwonted confusion. How big he was! and how splendid his clear,
+youthful profile seemed as it gleamed silver-white in the light of the
+big street-lamps. Never had his magnetic young body acted upon her so
+powerfully, so dangerously. His firm arm touching her own was at once a
+delight and a dread. She was all woman at last, awake, palpitant with
+love's full-flooding tide--bewildered, dizzy with rapture. Speech was
+difficult and her thought had neither sequence nor design.
+
+Fordyce was under restraint also, and the burden of the talk fell upon
+Congdon, who proceeded in his amusingly hit-or-miss way to detail the
+important or humorous happenings, of the town, and so they rolled along
+up the wide avenue to the big stone steps before the looming, lamp-lit
+palace which they called home.
+
+Ben sprang out first, glad of another opportunity to take Bertha's hand,
+a clasp that put the throbbing pain back in her bosom--filling her with
+a kind of fear of him as well as of herself--and without waiting for the
+Captain she ran up the walk towards the wide doorway where Miss Franklin
+stood in smiling welcome.
+
+Her greeting over, the young wife danced about the hall, crying: "Oh,
+isn't it big and fine! And aren't you glad it's our own!" She appeared
+overborne by a returning sense of security and ownership, and ran from
+room to room with all the ecstasy and abandon of a child--but she
+stopped suddenly in the middle of her own chamber as if a remorseless
+hand were clutching at her heart. "But it is _not_ mine!--I must give it
+all up!"
+
+Thrusting this intruding thought away, she hurried back to the library,
+where the men were seated at ease, sipping some iced liquor in gross
+content.
+
+Haney was beaming. "It makes me over new to sniff this air again," he
+was saying. "'Tis a bad plan to let go your hold on mountain air. Me
+lungs have contracted a trifle, but they'll expand again. I'll be riding
+a horse in a month."
+
+Ben was sympathetic, but had eyes only for Bertha, whose improvement (in
+mind as in bearing) astonished and delighted him. Her trip, coming just
+at the period when her observation was keenest and her memory most
+tenacious, had subtly, swiftly ripened her. Wrought upon by a thousand
+pictures, moved by strange words and faces, unconsciously changing to
+the color of each new conception, deriving sweetness and charm from
+every chance-heard strain of music and poetry, she had opened like a
+rose.
+
+The middle-aged are prone to go about the world carrying their habits,
+their prejudices, and their ailments with them to return as they went
+forth; but youth like Bertha's adventures out into the world eager to be
+built upon, ready to be transformed from child to adult, as it would
+seem, in a day.
+
+"She has achieved new distinction!" Ben exulted as he watched her moving
+about the room, so supple, so powerful, and so graceful, but, though he
+was careful not to utter one word of praise, he could not keep the glow
+of admiration from his eyes.
+
+An hour later as he said good-night and went away with Congdon, his
+heart burned with secret, rebellious fire. "Was it not hateful that this
+glorious girl should be doomed to live out the sweetest, most alluring
+of her years with a gross and crippled old man?" To leave her under the
+same roof with Mart Haney seemed like exposing her to profanation and
+despair.
+
+They were hardly out of the gate before Congdon broke forth in open
+praise of her. "When Mart dies, what a witching morsel for some man!"
+
+Fordyce did not answer on the instant, and when he did his voice was
+constrained. "You don't think he's in immediate danger of it--do you?"
+
+"Quite the contrary. He looks to be on the upgrade; but it's a safe bet
+she outlives him, and then think of her with a hundred thousand dollars
+a year to spend! Talk about honey-pots!--and flies!" After a moment's
+silence he added, musingly: "Funny how one's ideas change. A year ago I
+thought she was deeply indebted to him; now I feel that with all his
+money he can't possibly repay her for what she's giving up on his
+account. And yet his chink has made her what she is. Money is a weird
+power when applied to a woman. Tiled bath-rooms, silk stockings and
+bonnets work wonders with the sex. She's improved mightily on this
+trip."
+
+After leaving Congdon, Ben went to his apartment and telephoned Alice to
+say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
+own roof in good repair.
+
+"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
+the invalid gossip.
+
+"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
+They both seem very glad to get home."
+
+"He's made a mistake. He can't live here--I am perfectly sure of it. How
+is she?"
+
+"Very well--and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
+with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
+particularly."
+
+Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
+and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
+at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
+monstrous, incredible.
+
+He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
+whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
+It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm--she called to
+him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
+predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
+but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
+flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
+mysterious potency and romance of the West--typifying its amazing
+resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
+roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
+direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
+into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
+phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
+capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
+those which a shallow personality would make--they sprang rather from
+the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.
+
+"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
+of the highest culture," he concluded.
+
+That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
+knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
+seeking ways to possess her of his love--on the contrary, he was
+resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
+respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
+the beginning--why should I not?--enjoying her companionship as any
+honest man may do."
+
+The question of his relation to Alice was not so easily settled. She had
+come to irritate him now. Her changeable, swift-witted, moody,
+hysterical invalidism had begun to wear upon him intolerably. Everything
+she did was wrong. It was brutal even to admit this, but he could no
+longer conceal it either from himself or from her. It was deeply, sadly
+painful to recall the promise, the complete confidence and happiness
+with which they had both started towards the West. How sure of her
+recovery they had been, how gay and confident of purpose! Now she not
+only refused to listen to his demand for an early marriage, but hampered
+and annoyed him in a hundred ways. As he walked the silent night he was
+forced to acknowledge that she had been right in delaying their union.
+And yet how dependent upon him she was. Her life was so tragically
+inwound with his that to think of shaking away her hand seemed the act
+of a sordid egoist.
+
+"And even were I free, nothing is solved."
+
+The situation took on the insoluble and the tragic. In the fashion of
+well-bred, soundly nurtured American youth he had thought of such
+complications only as subjects for novelists. "There must be
+concealment, but not duplicity, in my attitude," he decided. He longed
+for the constant light of Bertha's face, the frequent touch of her hand.
+Her laughter was so endlessly charming, her step so firm, so light, so
+graceful. The grace of her bosom--the sweeping line of her side--
+
+He stopped there. In that direction lay danger. "She trusts me, and I
+will repay her trust. She has chosen me to be her adviser, putting her
+wealth in my hands!--Well, why not? We will see whether an honorable man
+cannot carry forward even so difficult a relationship as this. I will
+visit her every day, I will enjoy her hospitality as freely as Congdon,
+and I will fulfil my promise to Alice--if she asks it of me."
+
+But deep under the sombre resolution lay an unuttered belief in his
+future, in his happiness--for this is the prerogative of youth. The dim
+mountains, the sinking crescent moon, and the silence of the plain all
+seemed somehow to prophesy both happiness and peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+
+It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
+in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
+the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
+luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
+new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
+admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
+select.
+
+It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
+intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
+speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
+that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
+unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
+and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
+every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
+the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
+with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
+but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
+Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
+tired."
+
+"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.
+
+"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
+you're not to keep this up."
+
+Haney put in a quiet word. "She will _not_. Sure, she cannot. There'll
+be nothin' left for to-morrow."
+
+Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
+had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
+and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
+powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."
+
+At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
+business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
+tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
+mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
+wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
+the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
+honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.
+
+In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
+recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
+against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
+was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
+anything evil of her--why should she be condemned?
+
+In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
+herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
+as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
+bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
+like to leave him alone. Come and see us."
+
+She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
+of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
+coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
+respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
+East.
+
+"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
+garden awaiting dinner.
+
+"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
+clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
+smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
+went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked--enough to
+buy out a full-sized hotel."
+
+Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
+and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
+salient experiences--excepting, of course, her grapple with the
+degenerate artist.
+
+"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"
+
+She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
+we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
+of Utes if it hadn't been for him. _When in doubt ask Lucius_, was our
+motto."
+
+She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
+trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
+hard to run somebody else's life--I've found that out."
+
+And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
+like a hen with a red rag on her tail--divided in his mind like. As for
+Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."
+
+They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
+give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
+necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
+meeting they spoke of Alice--that is to say, Haney with invariable
+politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
+"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
+seems more and more despondent."
+
+This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
+and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
+woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
+with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
+dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
+a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
+herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
+a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
+smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
+out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
+appeared to be improving.
+
+This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
+joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
+attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
+He said nothing directly--at first--but she was able to interpret all
+too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
+Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
+ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
+clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
+and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
+eyes.
+
+One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
+and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
+the move like a flibberty-bidget."
+
+She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
+anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.
+
+He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
+of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
+y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."
+
+She went to her room, with his voice--so humbly penitent and
+resigned--lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
+which his amorous mood had laid upon her.
+
+She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
+of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
+they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
+evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
+talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
+deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
+always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
+ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
+delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
+recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
+embarrass her.
+
+And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
+were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
+definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
+and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.
+
+To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
+choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
+thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
+much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
+defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
+her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
+To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
+entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out--"I can't, I
+can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
+under indictment as an adventuress.
+
+She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
+who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
+one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
+hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
+anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."
+
+On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
+as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
+would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed--but that,
+too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
+moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
+profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
+to make her schooling possible?
+
+Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
+delight grew along each path--thickly interwoven--and decision became
+each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
+having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
+mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
+insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
+girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
+troubled woman.
+
+She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
+relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
+other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
+definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
+positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
+in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
+acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
+strong and graceful body.
+
+"I must go away--for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
+think it over."
+
+And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
+indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
+this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
+required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
+dulness to which she must return?
+
+Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
+dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
+bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
+came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"
+
+She replied: "To the ranch--to think things over."
+
+The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
+when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."
+
+She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
+return.
+
+No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
+very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
+and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
+to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
+said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
+flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
+man enter her hotel door--but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
+thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.
+
+"What thing?" she asked.
+
+"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."
+
+"That's my notion--I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
+answered.
+
+"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
+needs you--we all need you. It'll kill him."
+
+"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
+brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+"Because I've no right to Mart's money."
+
+"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
+catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
+don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."
+
+"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."
+
+"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
+converted him--as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
+something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
+_see_ you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
+run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
+he gets happy all the way through--I know, for I feel just the same."
+
+There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
+dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
+ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
+whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
+act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
+stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
+used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
+Golden Eagle Hotel.
+
+She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
+hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
+This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
+"He's gone back to his old business."
+
+The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
+money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
+saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
+I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
+I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
+splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
+she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
+eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
+half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
+the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
+cried at the same time--it was painful to see them thus abused.
+
+Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
+which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
+look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
+and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
+she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
+confronted her.
+
+Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
+began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
+gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.
+
+He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
+his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
+wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
+your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
+you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
+must be yours."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"He is dead!" he replied.
+
+Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
+and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
+eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
+prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
+she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
+her open window.
+
+She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
+till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
+night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
+irrevocably made.
+
+She shuddered again--not in grief, but in terror--as she relived the
+vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
+the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
+there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
+help me." And yet to return to Chicago--after having played the grand
+lady--would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
+cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
+and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
+should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
+city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.
+
+In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
+returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
+herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
+determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
+the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
+also--and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
+of Ben's growing indifference--all these perplexities made the coming of
+sunlight a mockery.
+
+She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
+saddened. One thing was plain--Ben should come no more to visit her--for
+Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
+In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+
+Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"
+to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness
+when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too
+well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her
+doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose
+to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,
+generously, the claims of youth and health--admitting that she and
+Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire
+for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force
+which binds the generations together.
+
+"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she
+asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a
+spiteful, hopeless invalid--I hate myself, I despise my body and
+everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat
+chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world--tired
+of everything--and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"
+
+These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to
+permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood
+of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover
+whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him
+when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no
+other solace, the day no other aim.
+
+In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew that
+her morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away her
+vital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweet
+sleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain.
+"I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higher
+self.
+
+She did not question Ben's honor--he was of those who keep faith. "He
+has no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,
+and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him to
+bind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of a
+wife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." She
+revolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart was
+elsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit of
+his wife's arms--and yet she could not give him up.
+
+As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burned
+with even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such perilous
+sublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitant
+should do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, and
+on the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in some
+supersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.
+
+She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last her
+nobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech with
+Haney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the young
+lovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over all
+barriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generous
+enough of soul to wish to prevent.
+
+Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morning
+paper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." She
+lay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was to
+dress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical with
+her mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,
+hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.
+
+It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching the
+gardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,
+inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."
+
+"I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to you
+alone."
+
+"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen--'tis not
+for me to boss the gardener."
+
+She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin
+her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,
+irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.
+
+He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,
+miss?"
+
+"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath--I walked too fast, I
+think."
+
+"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.
+
+"No, my trouble is all in my mind--I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,
+with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a
+nice long talk about symptoms--it's so comforting. How are _you_ feeling
+these days?"
+
+Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse
+luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree
+that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
+Bertha's moody silence.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
+sea-level?"
+
+"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
+age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
+of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."
+
+She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
+should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people--shutting
+them off from happiness?"
+
+He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
+mane--what?--who?"
+
+"I mean Bertha."
+
+"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"
+
+She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
+just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
+they are."
+
+His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her--and yet I think
+I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
+your hand on a sore spot--ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
+the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.
+
+"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."
+
+"That's true, too--but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
+happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
+don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
+conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."
+
+"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
+intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
+gone as far as that?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
+already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
+the gossips are even now busy with her name."
+
+He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
+man?--tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.
+
+She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
+She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
+time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
+reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
+picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
+must not happen! We must make way for them--you and I. We cumber the
+path."
+
+He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging
+eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
+watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
+something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
+even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
+him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
+arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
+gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.
+
+"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
+them--observe that. We are the ones to blame--we who are crippled and in
+the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
+spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
+our own miserable selves?"
+
+He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
+stammered, huskily.
+
+"But they _won't_ wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
+Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
+you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
+and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
+plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
+other from the very first night they met--I felt it that day we first
+rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
+his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
+respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
+hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
+He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
+her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
+earth for me! What do _you_ expect to gain by holding to a wife's
+garment when she--the woman--is gone?"
+
+The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
+without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
+been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
+purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
+him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
+to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
+wife--but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
+he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
+only as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,
+but now every hope died within him.
+
+Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard
+task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but
+the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it
+away. I knew she liked the lad--I had no doubt the lad liked her--but I
+did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet--but I will
+not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an
+old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the
+ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her
+from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where
+she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've
+brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It
+rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these
+things--me money--would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've
+been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always
+lived--till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that
+could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss--I know she has that in her
+soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and
+a well man I could folly her--but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk
+with her this night--" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with
+piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"
+
+She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw
+looming before her. "No--I lacked the courage."
+
+A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you
+have said to me?"
+
+"No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."
+
+"Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with
+them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick
+woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,
+and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.
+Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl--but ye have in Ben, for I
+know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of
+women."
+
+"Please don't misunderstand me--it is to keep them both what they are,
+good and true, that I come to you--we must not tempt them to evil."
+
+"I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may
+be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I
+could see they admired her--but she turned them down easily. She's no
+weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account--the more shame to me."
+
+"Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her
+heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.
+
+He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and
+gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence--the
+lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the
+desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced
+his heart.
+
+Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in the
+parchment setting of her skin.
+
+"Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that love
+had never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been my
+life, my only interest--and now--as he begins to forget--Oh, I can't
+bear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, burying
+her face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in the
+tempest of it.
+
+Haney turned and looked at her in silence--profoundly stirred to pity by
+her sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spoke
+his voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.
+
+"'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tis
+well ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must go
+from this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort that
+I have not--'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as I
+have done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,
+good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against me
+without care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I take
+the rain and the sun."
+
+Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely over
+her face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."
+
+"Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is a
+long time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'so
+long' and better luck."
+
+"You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.
+
+"Not at all, miss--I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."
+
+As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, his
+brow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strength
+and love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.
+
+While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see him
+at once, and he responded without delay.
+
+He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney had
+profoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lamp
+whose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled with
+instant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, and
+without waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as a
+pensioner in this house. You should be in your own home--our home--where
+I could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this private
+hospital--that's what it is."
+
+She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in a
+few days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to further
+delay.
+
+"Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."
+
+She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,
+but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, she
+answered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girl
+just yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a bad
+atmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn't
+be kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you get
+settled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or two
+more of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and a
+tremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forth
+with sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marry
+some nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself and
+me?"
+
+He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaim
+against her going on.
+
+She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You know
+perfectly well I'm never going to get better--I do, if you don't. I may
+linger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but a
+querulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me--I
+won't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go on
+alone--even for a little way."
+
+Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting his
+arm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,
+reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,
+dearest--you must not! You're not yourself to-day."
+
+"Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, I
+mean all I say--you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusions
+now. I'll never be well again--and you must know it."
+
+"Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You're
+really much better than you were last week."
+
+"No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change of
+climate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been a
+mistake. Let me go back to Chester--I'm afraid to die out here. I can't
+bear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonely
+and alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills--perhaps I can
+reconcile myself to death there--to sink into the earth on this plain is
+too dreadful."
+
+He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This is
+only a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you--I
+have such days--everybody has these hours of depression, but we must
+fight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were your
+husband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I could
+help you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,
+let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."
+
+She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished his
+counter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:
+"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You are
+lashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do not
+realize what you are saying. I am too old for you--Now listen--it's
+true! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well for
+ten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced when
+I should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay for
+years--that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bear
+to let my youth pass dully--and now it's gone! Wait!--I've deceived you
+in other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous and
+selfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and it
+is a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just to
+have you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want to
+say--you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolish
+sense of honor that keeps you loyal to me--I don't want that--I won't
+have it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted a
+ring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Go
+and be happy."
+
+He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you are
+crazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in his
+eyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."
+
+"No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying--I have
+made my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned his
+words against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."
+
+"I didn't mean that--you know what I meant. All you say is morbid and
+unreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sick
+fancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you of
+your madness."
+
+She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes
+wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her
+health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she
+exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again--and when
+you do, I will say _no_."
+
+He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find words
+for reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad--and yet all
+that she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that she
+was uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible--a bridal veil
+over that face was horrifying to think upon.
+
+She went on: "Now run away--I'm going to cry in a moment and I don't
+want you to see me do it. Please go!"
+
+He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety.
+"I am going to send Julia to you instantly."
+
+"No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me--nobody
+can, but you--and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going home
+to Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye--and go."
+
+He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightly
+clinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (for
+the first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+
+After Alice Heath's carriage had driven away, Haney returned to his
+chair, and with eyes fixed upon the distant peaks gave himself up to a
+review of all that the sick woman had said, and entered also upon a
+forecast of the game.
+
+He was not entirely unprepared for her revelation. He was, indeed, too
+wise not to know that Bertha must sometime surely find in another and
+younger man her heart's hunger, but his wish had set that dark day far
+away in the future. Moreover, he had relied on her promise to confide in
+him, and it hurt him to think that she had not fulfilled her pledge; yet
+even in this he sought excuses for her.
+
+"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far
+better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense
+of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His
+wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening
+between them.
+
+This day had shown a black sky to him, even before Alice Heath's
+disturbing call, for Bertha had been darkly brooding at breakfast, and
+silent at lunch, and immediately after rising from the table had gone
+away alone, without a word of explanation to any member of her
+household. She had not even taken her dogs with her, and her face was
+set and almost sullen as she passed out of the door and down the walk.
+All this was so unlike her that Mart was greatly troubled. It gave
+weight and significance to every word of Alice Heath's warning.
+
+Bertha was gone till nearly six o'clock, and her mood seemed no whit
+lightened as she entered the gate and came slowly up the walk. To Mart's
+humbly spoken query, "What troubles ye, darlin'?" she made no reply, but
+went at once to her room.
+
+The old gambler seemed pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in
+his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy
+among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home
+was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should be served.
+If she were unhappy, of what value were these soft rugs, these savory
+dishes, this shining silver? There was, in truth, something mocking and
+terrifying in the swift, well-trained action of the servants, who went
+about their tasks unmoved and apparently unacquainted with any change in
+the mind of their young mistress.
+
+In the kitchen the cook was carefully compounding the soup while
+watching the roast. Lucius, deft and absorbed, was preparing the table,
+arranging the coffee service and deciding upon the china. On the seat
+under the pear-trees Miss Franklin was chatting with Mrs. Gilman, and in
+the barn the coachman could be heard giving the horses their evening
+taste of green grass--"and yet how empty, aimless, and foolish it all is
+if Bertha is unhappy," thought the master.
+
+He grew alarmed for fear she would not come down; but at last he heard
+her light step on the stairs, and when she came in view his dim eyes
+were startled by the transformation in her. She had put on the plainest
+of her gowns, and she wore no jewels. By other ways which he felt but
+could not analyze she expressed some portentous shift of mood. He could
+not define why, but her step scared him, so measured and resolute it
+seemed.
+
+She called to her mother and Miss Franklin and then asked, "Has dinner
+been announced?"
+
+Her tone was quiet and natural, and Mart was relieved. He answered with
+attempt at jocularity, "Lucius is this minute winkin' at me over the
+soup-tureen."
+
+As they took seats at the table Mrs. Gilman exclaimed, "Why, dearie,
+where did you dig up that old waist?"
+
+"Will it do to visit Sibley in?"
+
+"No indeed! I should say not. When you go back there I want you to wear
+the best you've got. They'll consider it an insult if you don't."
+
+A faint smile lighted Bertha's pale face. "I don't think they'll take it
+so hard as all that."
+
+"Are you goin' to Sibley?" asked Mart, an anxious tone in his voice.
+
+"I thought of it. Mother is going over to-night, and I rather guess I'll
+run over with her. I've never been back, you see, since that night."
+
+There was something ominous in her restraint, in her abstraction of
+glance, and especially in her lack of appetite. She took little account
+of her guests and seemed profoundly engaged upon some inward
+calculation. The beautifully spread table, which would have thrilled her
+a few short weeks ago, was powerless to even hold her gaze, and it was
+Lucius (deft and watchful) who brought the meal to a successful
+conclusion--for the mother was awed and helpless in the presence of the
+queenly daughter whom wealth had translated into something almost too
+high and shining for her to lay hand upon.
+
+Miss Franklin did her best, but she was not a person of light and
+dancing intellectual feet, and she had never understood Haney, anyhow.
+Altogether it was a dismal and difficult half-hour.
+
+When the coffee came on Bertha rose abruptly, saying, "Come out into the
+garden, Mart, I've got something to say to you."
+
+He obeyed with a sense of being called to account, and as they walked
+slowly across the grass, which the light of a vivid orange sunset had
+made transcendently green, he glanced to the west with foreboding that
+this was the last time he should look upon the kingly peak at sunset
+time. A flaming helmet of cloud shone upon the chief, and all the lesser
+heights were a deep, purple bank out of which each serrate summit rose
+without perspective, sharply set against the other like a monstrous
+silhouette of cardboard.
+
+It should have been indeed a very sweet and odorous and peaceful hour.
+The murmur of the water from the fountain had the lulling sound of a
+hive of bees as they settle to rest, and to the suffering man it seemed
+impossible that this, his cherished world, could change to the black
+chaos which the loss of his adorable wife would bring upon it.
+
+The settee was of wire, and curved so that when they had taken seats
+they faced each other, and the sight of her, so slender, so graceful, so
+womanly, filled him with a fury of hate against the assassin who had
+torn him to pieces, making him old before his time, a cripple, impotent,
+inert, and scarred.
+
+Bertha did not wait for him to begin, and her first words smote like
+bullets. "Mart, I'm going back to Sibley."
+
+He looked at her with startled eyes--his brow wrinkling into sorrowful
+lines. "For how long?"
+
+"I don't know--it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things
+over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."
+
+"For God's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice
+was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without
+ye now. Don't go--that way."
+
+"I've _got_ to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I
+don't know about living with you any more."
+
+"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little
+longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man--but tell me the truth. Can't
+you stay with me--as we are?"
+
+She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I
+married you for your money, Mart--it ain't true--but the evidence is all
+against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out
+and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you--feel about me as
+you do--but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up--I
+don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the
+house--all my nice things--the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was
+fun to run the kitchen--now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact
+is, none of it seems mine."
+
+His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all
+because of what I said last night--"
+
+She stopped him. "No, it ain't that--it ain't your fault, it's mine.
+Something's gone wrong with _me_. I love this home, and my dogs and
+horses and all--and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to
+me--now that's the fact, Mart."
+
+"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."
+
+"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my
+mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and
+think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my
+return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of
+the range."
+
+"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.
+'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you--but you must let me
+give you some of me money--'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let
+me share it with you me heart will break entirely."
+
+"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart--I owe you more than I can ever
+pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."
+
+In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.
+"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something
+I should have known long since."
+
+Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's
+the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always
+shines. You love him, Bertie--and I don't blame you--"
+
+A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up,
+her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd
+plumb forgot about his call."
+
+"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.
+
+Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came
+hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them
+both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he
+announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just
+twenty minutes in which to thump you."
+
+Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they
+moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued:
+"Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why
+didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."
+
+"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.
+
+Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went
+into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There
+was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new
+conceptions, new duties.
+
+Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in
+the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His
+examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent
+had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he
+was, and upon his judgment she must rest.
+
+For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so
+far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into
+fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.
+"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from
+here as quickly as you can--but don't excite him. Don't let him exert
+himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and
+peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food--and above
+all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at
+all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to
+sea-level--if he'll go--and take care of him. His heart will run along
+all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."
+
+"He hates to leave--he says he won't leave," she explained.
+
+The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his
+choice of roads"--he used an expressive gesture--"up or down. One leads
+to the New Jerusalem and is short--as he'll find out if he stays here.
+Good-night! I must get that train."
+
+"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did
+you leave any medicine?"
+
+He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of
+little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."
+
+She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at
+last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.
+
+Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated
+in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a glass to his lips. He was
+stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old
+gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save
+his one faithful servant--and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep
+pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning
+became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to
+desert him now was impossible.
+
+Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she
+put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you
+worse?"
+
+He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's
+opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out,
+darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the
+count--but I'm--still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that
+sawbones the power of mind over matter--the ould croaker!"
+
+He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then,
+with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.
+"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like
+Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis
+true, but I'll surprise him yet."
+
+"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.
+
+He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly
+at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high
+country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."
+
+Her decision was ready. "All right, then _we go_!"
+
+He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it,
+sweetheart?"
+
+"I did, Mart--I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by
+you--till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."
+
+The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're God's
+own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here--I'm not
+worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and
+look after the mines."
+
+Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's
+up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for
+you here--I didn't, really!"
+
+"It's all wrong, I'm afraid--all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord
+knows I need you worse than ever."
+
+"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside
+where the air is better."
+
+Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so,
+leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk
+where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of
+the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"
+warned Haney--"at any rate, not to-night."
+
+They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these
+beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called
+round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly--this mandate of
+the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more
+helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this
+garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the
+heart's action?
+
+The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last
+to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the
+clouds--and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her
+mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30
+she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the
+moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not
+share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then
+confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.
+
+Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing
+himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If
+the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks,
+anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me
+own home and so end it all comfortably?"
+
+This was so simple--and yet he spent most of the night fighting the
+desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so
+sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand
+on his hair--now and again. "She's only a child--she can wait ten years
+and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to
+wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in
+the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the
+consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so
+that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."
+
+To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so
+that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will
+not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly,
+so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or
+Ben."
+
+"Can I visit the mine once more?" he had asked Steele. "No," the doctor
+had replied. "To go a thousand feet higher than this would be fatal."
+
+As he mused on this he began to feel the wonder of the body in which he
+dwelt. That a machine so bulky and so gross could be so delicate that a
+change in the pressure of the atmosphere might be fatal astonished him.
+"I'll soon know," he said, "for I cross the range to-morrow."
+
+The dark shadow of the unseen world, once so dim and far, now rose
+formidable as a mountain on the horizon of his thought. It was so
+difficult to leave the house in which he had found peace and a strange
+kind of happiness (the happiness of a soldier home on parole,
+convalescent and content under the apple-trees)--it was very hard--and
+the tenderness, the care, to which his little wife had returned and
+which filled his heart with sweetness, added to his irresolution.
+
+He fell into deep sleep at last, still in debate with himself.
+
+He woke quietly next morning, like a child, and as his eyes took in the
+big room in which he had slept for a year, surrounded by such luxury as
+he had never dreamed of having (even for a day), life seemed very easy
+of continuance, and Steele a mistaken egotist, a foul destroyer of men's
+peace; but as he rose to dress and saw himself in the glass, the figure
+he presented decided his hand. Was this Mart Haney--this unshaven,
+haggard, and wrinkled old man?
+
+Leaning close to the mirror, he studied his face as if it were a mask.
+Deep creases ran down on either side of the nose, giving to his gaze the
+morose expression of an aged, slavering mastiff. His nerveless cheeks
+depended. His neck was stringy. Puffy sacs lay under the eyes, and the
+ashen pallor of his skin told how the heart was laboring to maintain
+life's red current in its round.
+
+As he looked his decision was taken. "Mart, the game has run mostly in
+your favor for twenty-five years--but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old
+gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards
+and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a
+year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her."
+
+And yet, though crippled and gray, death was somehow more dreadful to
+him at this moment than when in his remorseless and powerful young
+manhood he had looked again and again into the murderous eyes of those
+who were eager to shed his blood. He shivered at the thought of the dark
+river, as those whose limbs having grown pale and thin dread the cold
+wind of the night.
+
+"I wonder is the mother over there waitin' fer me?" he half whispered.
+"If ye are, your soul will be floating far above me in the light, while
+I--burdened by me sins--must wallow below in purgatory. But I go, and
+the divil take his toll."
+
+There was not much preparation to be made. His will was written, fully
+attested, and filed in a safe place. His small personal belongings he
+was willing to leave in Bertha's hands. It was hardest of all to vanish
+without a word of good-bye to any soul, but this was essential to his
+plan. "No one must suspect design in me departure," he muttered. "I must
+drop out--_by accident_. I must cut loose during the day, too--no night
+trips for me--in a way that will look natural. If Steele knows his
+business, Mart Haney will go out of the game on the summit, if not, 'tis
+easy for a cripple to stagger and fall from a rock. Thank God, I leave
+her as I found her--small credit to me in that."
+
+Lucius, coming in soon after, found his master unexpectedly cheerful and
+vigorous.
+
+In answer to his query, the gambler said: "I take me medicine, Lucius,
+like a Cheyenne. 'Tis all in the game. Some man must lose in order that
+another may win. The wheel rolls and the board is charged in favor of
+the bank. Damn the man that squeals when the cards fall fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+
+Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
+haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
+his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation--mixed with
+humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
+the jumpin'-off place."
+
+"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"
+
+"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
+want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
+mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
+mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
+because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."
+
+This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
+to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place--its
+possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
+care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
+some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."
+
+This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
+you go and tell him yourself?"
+
+"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
+shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
+smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
+all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
+and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
+stairs ag'in."
+
+The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
+too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
+go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
+the house."
+
+In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
+Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
+splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
+broke forth: "Ye _must_ stay here, darlin'--never mind me. 'Tis a sin
+and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old--"
+
+"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
+he said no more.
+
+They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
+life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
+the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
+while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
+change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
+talk it all over."
+
+For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
+look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
+voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
+orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
+came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
+Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
+mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
+hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
+each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
+purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
+overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
+lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.
+
+Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
+north ran the western way--a trail with no returning footprints; and the
+thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
+the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
+grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
+mate.
+
+To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
+from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
+own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
+so."
+
+Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
+where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
+Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
+Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
+from the cliff."
+
+Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
+lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
+been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
+action typified. The individual is of little value--the race alone
+counts.
+
+He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
+in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
+exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
+believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."
+
+"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same--for me, anyhow.
+I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'--I _don't_ ask it. Stay
+you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
+Stay on, darlin'--'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."
+
+She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
+mind is made up--I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
+little lady, so don't fuss."
+
+The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
+remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
+nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
+better for a sick man than this."
+
+She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
+Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish--I tried
+to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."
+
+"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
+me exile--but I hate to drag ye down with me."
+
+"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
+be honest, I kind o' like the East."
+
+At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
+carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
+seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
+to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."
+
+He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
+childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."
+
+She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
+stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!
+
+Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
+was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
+hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
+visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness--the
+beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
+tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
+pain.
+
+At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
+shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
+peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"
+
+She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
+ain't able."
+
+"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.
+
+"Yes--Dr. Steele came last night and examined him--"
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He told us to 'get out' of here--quick."
+
+He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
+matter?"
+
+"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away--down the
+slope--to-morrow."
+
+"Not to stay?"
+
+"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."
+
+He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
+seemed so happy and so much better, too."
+
+"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
+The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."
+
+"And he positively ordered you to go below?"
+
+"Yes--he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute--if he stayed."
+
+In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
+for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
+"And you are going with him?"
+
+"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"
+
+He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
+would be to shorten his life.
+
+"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.
+
+"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
+leave me here--but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
+is," she added. "He sure needs me now."
+
+"What are you going to do with the house?"
+
+"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
+look after all his business just the same--"
+
+"I can't do that."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
+mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
+finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."
+
+"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
+lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
+tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm--we are depending on
+you."
+
+His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
+the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
+she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully--as if the
+words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
+deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
+means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
+of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."
+
+She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
+her. "You mustn't say that--you've got to stay with Alice."
+
+"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
+home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
+walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
+to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
+mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
+cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
+won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
+going to live?"
+
+"I don't know--maybe in Chicago--maybe in New York."
+
+"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
+life--I will not!"
+
+"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart--I can't see you any
+more--now."
+
+He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
+mean by _now_? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
+have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
+and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
+mean--something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
+Do you? Is that your meaning?"
+
+She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know--Yes, I do
+know--it ain't right for me--for you to say these things to me while I
+am Mart Haney's wife."
+
+He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
+graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
+to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
+belong to me."
+
+She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
+of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
+conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
+as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
+each other--don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
+love her--I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
+why she has returned my ring--there is nothing further for me to say to
+her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
+claim you."
+
+"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."
+
+"Then why don't you?"
+
+"Because he needs me."
+
+"So do I need you."
+
+"But not the way--I mean he is sick and helpless."
+
+He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
+part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
+intensity.
+
+She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
+herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
+listen, to yield--and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
+thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
+brought back her sterner self.
+
+"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
+touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"
+
+He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
+the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"
+
+She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
+despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"
+
+Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
+rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
+to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
+anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
+hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+Marshall Haney was a brave man, and his resolution was fully taken, but
+that final touch of Bertha's hand upon his arm very nearly unnerved him.
+His courage abruptly fell away, and, leaning back against the cushions
+of his carriage, with closed eyelids (from which the hot tears dripped),
+he gave himself up to the temptation of a renewal of his life. It was
+harder to go, infinitely harder, because of that impulsive, sweet
+caress. Her face was so beautiful, too, with that upward, tender,
+pitying look upon it!
+
+While still he sat weak and hesitant, a roughly dressed man of large and
+decisive movement stopped and greeted him. "Hello, Mart, how are you
+this fine day?"
+
+Haney put his tragic mask away with a stroke of his hand, and hastily
+replied: "Comin' along, Dan, comin' along. How are things up on the
+peak?"
+
+"Still pretty mixed," replied the miner, lightly; then, with a further
+look around, he stepped a little nearer the wheel. "Hell's about to
+break loose again, Mart."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I can't go into details, and I mustn't be seen talking with you, but
+Williams is in for trouble. Tell him to reverse engine for a few weeks.
+Good-day," and he walked off, leaving the impression of having been sent
+to convey a friendly warning.
+
+Haney seized upon this message. His resolution returned. His voice took
+on edge and decision. "Oscar," he called quickly, "drive me down to the
+station, I want to get that ten-thirty-seven train."
+
+As the driver chirruped to his horses and swung out into the street,
+Marshall Haney, with full understanding that this was to be his eternal
+farewell, turned and looked up, hoping to catch a last glimpse of his
+wife's sweet face at the window. A sign, a smile, a beckoning, and his
+purpose might still have faltered, but the recall did not take place,
+and facing the west he became again the man of will. When the carriage
+drew up to the platform he gave orders to his coachman as quietly as
+though this were his usual morning ride. "Now, Oscar, you heard what
+that friend of mine said?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, forget it."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+"But tell Mrs. Haney I've gone up to the mine. You can say to her that
+Williams sent for me. You can tell her, but to no one else, what you
+heard Dan say. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"All right, that stands. Now you go home and wait till about
+twelve-thirty. Then go down for Mrs. Haney."
+
+The coachman, a stolid, reliable man, well trained to his duties, did
+not offer to assist his master, but sat in most approved alertness upon
+his box while Haney painfully descended to the walk.
+
+The train was about to move, and the conductor had already signalled the
+engineer to "go ahead," but at sight of the gambler, whom he knew,
+stopped the train and helped Haney aboard. "A minute more and you would
+have been left. Going up to the mine, I reckon?"
+
+They were still on the platform as Mart answered, "Yes, I'm due to take
+a hand in the game up there." He said this with intent to cover his
+trail.
+
+He was all but breathless as he dropped into a seat near the door. The
+sense of leaden weakness with which he had come to struggle daily had
+deepened at the moment into a smothering pain which threatened to blind
+him.
+
+"I must be quiet," he thought--"I will not die in the car." There seemed
+something disgraceful, something ignominious in such a death.
+
+Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter
+where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all
+concerned."
+
+Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had
+given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful
+stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only
+suspected from Steele's word of caution.
+
+They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse
+grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him
+passed away.
+
+The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window,
+very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along
+whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of
+Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney
+heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the
+sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the
+pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but
+through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay
+Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason
+out.
+
+One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring
+as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain
+and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself.
+They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not
+succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance
+he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys.
+I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear
+the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."
+
+Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His
+mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She
+will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no
+matter--before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."
+
+He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his
+thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to
+those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her
+seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the
+exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and
+his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and
+graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the
+first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how
+basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he
+said, fervently.
+
+Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in
+his--and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order
+that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His
+throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was
+inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake,
+darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."
+
+Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp
+turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer
+camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where
+the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of
+exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to
+die--up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the
+sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled
+like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.
+
+At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the
+conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling
+hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him
+to let the mine go and to return by the next train.
+
+He was too nerveless of fingers to put the sheet back within its
+envelope, and so thrust it, a crumpled mass, into his pocket. It was as
+if her hand was at his shoulder, her voice in his ear, but he did not
+falter. To go back now would be but a renewal of his torture. There
+could not come a better time to go--to go and leave no suspicion of his
+purpose behind him.
+
+Just over the summit, at a bare little station, the train was held for
+orders, and Haney, who was again suffocating and almost blind, took
+another dose of the mysterious drug, and with its effect returned to a
+dim perception of his surroundings. He was able vaguely to recall that a
+trail which began just back of the depot mounted the hill towards his
+largest mine. A desire to see Williams, his faithful partner, his most
+loyal friend, came over him, and, rising to his feet, he painfully crept
+down the aisle to the rear of the car and dropped off unnoticed, just as
+the conductor's warning cry started a rush for the train.
+
+As the last coach disappeared round the turn the essential bleak
+loneliness of the place returned. The station seemed deserted by every
+human being, even the operator was lost to sight, and the gambler,
+utterly solitary, with clouded brain and laboring breath, turned towards
+the height, his left leg dragging like a shackle.
+
+For the first half-mile the way was easy, and by moving slowly he
+suffered less pain than he had expected. Around him the frost-smitten
+aspens were shivering in the wind, their sparse leaves dangling like
+coins of red-and-yellow gold, and all the billowing land below, to the
+west, was iridescent with green and flame-color and crimson. A voiceless
+regret, a dim, wide-reaching, wistful sadness came over him, but did not
+shake his resolution. He had but to look down at his crippled body to
+know that the beauty of the world was no longer his to enjoy. His days
+were now but days of pain.
+
+He had always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this
+range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he
+mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he
+had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high
+above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air
+came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the
+solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his
+challenging march towards death.
+
+At the first sharp up-raise in the way his heart began to pound and he
+swayed blindly to and fro, unable to proceed. For an instant he looked
+down in dismay at the rocky, waiting earth, a most inhospitable grave. A
+few minutes' rest against a tree, and his brain cleared. "Higher--I must
+go higher," he said to himself; "they'll find me here."
+
+As he rose he could see the town spread wide on the hill-tops beneath
+him--the cabins mere cubes, the mill a child's toy. He could discern men
+like ants moving to and fro as if in some special excitement--but he did
+not concern himself with the cause. His one thought was to mount--to
+blend with the firs and the rocks. He drew the phial from his pocket and
+held it in his hand in readiness, with a dull fear that the chemical
+would prove too small, too weak, to end his pain.
+
+It was utterly silent and appallingly lonely on this side of the great
+peak. Hunters were few and prospectors were seldom seen. These
+upward-looping trails led to no mine--only to abandoned prospect
+holes--for no mineral had ever been found on the western slope. The
+copses held no life other than a few minute squirrels, and no sound
+broke the silence save the insolent cry of an occasional jay or
+camp-bird. To die here was surely to die alone and to lie alone, as the
+fallen cedar lies, wrought upon by the wind and the snows and the rain.
+
+Nevertheless, his suicidal idea persisted. It had become the one final,
+overpowering, directing resolution. There is no passion more persistent
+than that which leads to self-destruction. In the midst of the blinding
+swirl of his thought he maintained his purpose to put himself above the
+world of human effort and to become a brother of the clod, to mix
+forever with the mould.
+
+Slowly he dragged himself upward, foot by foot, seeking the friendly
+shelter and obscurity of a grove of firs just above him. Twice he sank
+to his knees, a numbing pain at the base of his brain, his breath
+roaring, his lips dry, but each time he rose and struggled on, eager to
+reach the green and grateful shelter of the forest, filled with desire
+to thrust himself into its solitude; and when at last he felt the chill
+of the shadow and realized that he was surely hidden from all the world,
+he turned, poised for an instant on a mound where the trail doubled
+sharply, gave one long, slow glance around, then hurled himself down the
+rocky slope. Even as he leaped his heart seemed to burst and he fell
+like a clod and lay without further motion. It was as if he had been
+smitten in flight by a rifle-ball.
+
+Around him the small animals of the wood frolicked, and the jay called
+inquiringly, but he neither saw nor heard. He was himself but a gasping
+creature, with reason entirely engaged in the blind struggle which the
+physical organism was instinctively making to continue in its wonted
+ways. All the world and all his desires, save a longing for his fair
+young wife, were lost out of his mind, and he thought of Bertha only in
+a dim and formless way--feeling his need of her and dumbly wondering why
+she did not come. In final, desperate agony, he lifted the phial of
+strychnine to his lips, hoping that it might put an end to his
+suffering; but before this act was completed a sweet, devouring flood of
+forgetfulness swept over him, his hand dropped, and the unopened bottle
+rolled away out of his reach. Then the golden sunlight darkened out of
+his sky, and he died--as the desert lion dies--alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon
+his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves--palm upward
+as if to show its emptiness. A bird--the roguish gray magpie--had stolen
+away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no
+sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his
+face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite
+the name of Marshall Haney.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30318 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30318 ***</div>
+
+<h1>MONEY MAGIC</h1>
+
+<h2>By HAMLIN GARLAND</h2>
+
+<h3>SUNSET EDITION</h3>
+
+<h3>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS<br />
+NEW YORK AND LONDON</h3>
+
+<h3>COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Clerk of the Golden Eagle</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney Changes Heart</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Bertha Yields to Temptation</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Haney Meets an Avenger</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Upward Flight</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Haney Palace</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Repulses an Enemy</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Receives an Invitation</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">Bertha Meets Ben Fordyce</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Ben Fordyce Calls on Horseback</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Ben Becomes Adviser to Mrs. Haney</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Alice Heath Has a Vision</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Yellow Cart</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">The Jolly Send-off</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Mart's Visit to His Sister</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">A Dinner and a Play</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Becomes a Patron of Art</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Portrait is Discussed</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Farther East</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">Bertha Meets Manhattan</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">Bertha Makes a Promise</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">The Serpent's Coil</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Flight</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">The Haneys Return to the Peaks</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Decision</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. <span class="smcap">Alice Visits Haney</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney's Sentence</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. <span class="smcap">Virtue Triumphs</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney's Last Trail</span></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MONEY MAGIC</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
+dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
+thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
+shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
+generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
+the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
+south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
+when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
+the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.</p>
+
+<p>It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
+cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
+of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
+grass and grain spring up like magic.</p>
+
+<p>For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
+and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
+laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
+giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
+aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
+clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
+life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
+Creede.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
+cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
+and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
+of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
+put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
+sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
+Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
+was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
+general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
+hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm&mdash;therefore Bertha, who
+would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
+tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
+straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes&mdash;wistful when in
+repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
+to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
+sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
+here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
+a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was her habit to leave her demonstrations&mdash;even her
+sentences&mdash;unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
+hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
+failing powers. She had been handsome once&mdash;but the heat of the stove,
+the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
+daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
+of womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
+You see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
+schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
+dreams&mdash;of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
+half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
+last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
+this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.</p>
+
+<p>"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
+to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
+Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
+stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
+put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
+the Eagle.</p>
+
+<p>He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
+carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He began by saying to Bertha:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
+When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
+floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
+like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
+attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
+like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
+day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
+I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
+work so hard&mdash;that's all that troubles me at the present time."</p>
+
+<p>Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
+age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
+man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
+bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
+or flush&mdash;she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
+where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
+the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
+place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
+is too public."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
+anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."</p>
+
+<p>The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
+I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
+you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
+let me know&mdash;they won't repeat it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
+of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."</p>
+
+<p>This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
+on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
+to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
+handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
+without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
+necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
+and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
+expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
+his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
+middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
+the girl a certain sweetness came into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
+spend Sunday&mdash;seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
+his chance o' grace."</p>
+
+<p>His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
+circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
+Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."</p>
+
+<p>The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
+me&mdash;I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
+the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
+jest.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
+said, in a low and deeply significant tone:</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
+Haney&mdash;not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you&mdash;you can
+boss my ranch any day."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
+eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
+diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
+and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
+The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Mart&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to butt in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
+replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
+remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
+walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
+encounter with the girl had put into his blood.</p>
+
+<p>It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
+weeks&mdash;leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
+chance to see this child&mdash;this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
+and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her&mdash;to
+buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
+weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
+that she would one day be on his side.</p>
+
+<p>When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl&mdash;of
+carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
+when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
+fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
+time, but a Catholic&mdash;in training at least&mdash;and the words he had planned
+to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
+lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.</p>
+
+<p>He was a desperate character&mdash;a man of violence&mdash;and none too delicate
+in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
+mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
+weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
+unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
+his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
+answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
+then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
+"Stay on the farm, me lad&mdash;'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
+the back of your neck than to fill a cell at Ca&ntilde;on City."</p>
+
+<p>In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
+visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
+collected all notes remorselessly&mdash;and it was in this way that he had
+acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
+mines&mdash;"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
+It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
+determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
+came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
+honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
+sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
+heart with a strange delight.</p>
+
+<p>He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
+doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
+before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
+new-found grace.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron&mdash;as his mother used to
+do&mdash;and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
+chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.</p>
+
+<p>"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
+a seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
+Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
+mother didn't make&mdash;for she was Irish."</p>
+
+<p>"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
+can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid&mdash;and then down here we have my
+son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."</p>
+
+<p>"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
+vegetables&mdash;it's still a matter of ham and eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
+of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
+working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest&mdash;a vacation, I'm
+thinkin'."</p>
+
+<p>"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
+of taking it."</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
+She should be in a home of her own."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
+to hiring anybody to fill her place&mdash;it would take a man to do her
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
+she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen next November."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems like a woman of twenty."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
+down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a little queen," declared Haney.</p>
+
+<p>It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
+had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
+proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
+glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
+to trouble you, my dear woman&mdash;if anny debt presses, let me know, and
+I'll lift it for ye."</p>
+
+<p>The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
+feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
+our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
+obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't like to think of you here for another year&mdash;and Bertie
+should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
+passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
+house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
+for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
+hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
+welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
+inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
+a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."</p>
+
+<p>She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
+"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
+in his intentions.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;you're so old&mdash;I mean so much older&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
+what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
+have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."</p>
+
+<p>This turned the current of her emotion&mdash;she gasped. "One hundred
+thousand dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
+younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
+I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'&mdash;all you need to
+do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
+Denver&mdash;or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
+on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
+I came this time to ask her to go back with me."</p>
+
+<p>"What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
+take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
+place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
+said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
+her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
+terror. She feared a man of such power&mdash;a man who could in a single
+moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
+wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
+he sat there talking to her&mdash;and she in her apron and her hair in
+disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
+enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
+apologized incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, I appreciate your kindness&mdash;you've always been a good
+customer&mdash;one I liked to do for&mdash;but I'm all upset&mdash;I can't get my
+wits&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
+coming. Don't hurry at all&mdash;at all."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried out, leaving him alone&mdash;with the clock, the cat, and the
+hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
+Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
+into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.</p>
+
+<p>Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
+wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
+disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
+breath&mdash;clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.</p>
+
+<p>She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
+with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
+dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know&mdash;what Captain Haney just said to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
+was moved by her mother's white, awed face.</p>
+
+<p>"He wants you!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
+"Well, he can't have me!"</p>
+
+<p>With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
+moved to argue.</p>
+
+<p>"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
+mines."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
+posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler&mdash;not this summer," she ended,
+decisively.</p>
+
+<p>"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
+was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
+Think of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
+makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out of his mine&mdash;and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
+needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
+is his, anyway. Did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha eyed her mother closely&mdash;with cool, bright, accusing eyes&mdash;for a
+moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
+you&mdash;no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
+marry most anybody to give you a rest&mdash;but, mother, Captain Haney is
+forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
+his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
+there's Ed."</p>
+
+<p>The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
+into something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
+No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
+Haney has killed his man."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
+over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance&mdash;and my heart's so
+bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
+want you to marry him if you don't want to&mdash;I'm not asking you to. You
+know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man&mdash;and I get awfully
+discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
+without any security."</p>
+
+<p>One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
+pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
+burdens of her stewardship.</p>
+
+<p>"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," replied the girl.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
+and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
+the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
+and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
+guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
+our little hotel for a year&mdash;to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
+the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
+weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
+put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
+of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
+by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
+lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
+bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
+coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
+defensive.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
+hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother&mdash;" She arrested herself and
+went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
+new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
+honorable.</p>
+
+<p>The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
+the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
+consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
+would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
+travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
+things she could discern&mdash;but of the larger life which money could open
+to her she could only vaguely dream.</p>
+
+<p>The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
+life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
+camps about them.</p>
+
+<p>As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
+a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
+doors forever.</p>
+
+<p>When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
+she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
+commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
+change in her mood.</p>
+
+<p>This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
+later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
+wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."</p>
+
+<p>Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
+He came on the run, alert for trade.</p>
+
+<p>"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
+drying to cinders over here."</p>
+
+<p>The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
+joking."</p>
+
+<p>"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.</p>
+
+<p>She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
+he brought a choice slice in to her.</p>
+
+<p>She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me&mdash;not yet." Her
+tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that&mdash;before
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"Like what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
+waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
+over alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
+least a consideration of his proposal.</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. "Good-bye&mdash;till next Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
+face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
+something very winning.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
+gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
+trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
+the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
+polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
+Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
+long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
+dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
+camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
+came as lookers-on.</p>
+
+<p>On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
+usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
+and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
+glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
+opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
+crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
+and the games of his halls were reported honest.</p>
+
+<p>To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
+gambler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
+maidenhood&mdash;and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
+kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
+else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
+he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
+invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
+singular sweetness&mdash;all the more alluring because of its rarity&mdash;and the
+warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
+County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
+admired among the miners.</p>
+
+<p>The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
+was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
+"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
+despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
+to clean house."</p>
+
+<p>Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
+would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
+business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
+well serve their wish as any other&mdash;better, indeed, for no man can
+accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
+business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
+matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
+thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."</p>
+
+<p>He no longer thought of her as his victim&mdash;as something to be ruthlessly
+enjoyed&mdash;he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
+in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
+she has me on me knees&mdash;the witch. Me mind is filled with her."</p>
+
+<p>All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
+saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.</p>
+
+<p>At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
+rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
+click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears&mdash;he
+was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
+written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
+on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
+in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
+be too good for her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He roused himself to a touch on his elbow. One of his agents had a new
+offer for the two saloons. It was still less than he considered the
+business worth, but in his softened mood he said, "It goes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Make out your papers," replied the other man, with almost equal
+brevity.</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of the evening the gambler sat above his lay-out with
+mingled feelings of relief and regret. After all, he was in command
+here. He knew this business, and he loved the companionship and the
+admiration of the men who dropped round by his side to discuss the camp
+or the weather, or to invite him to join a hunting trip. He felt himself
+to be one of the chief men of the town, and that he could at any time
+become their Representative if he chose. For some years (he couldn't
+have told why) he had taken on a thrift unknown to him before, and had
+been attending strictly to business. He now saw that it must have been
+from a foreknowledge of Bertha. In him the superstitions of both miner
+and gambler mingled. The cards had run against him for three years, now
+they were falling in his favor. "I will take advantage of them," he
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the crowd thinned out, and at one o'clock only a few inveterate
+poker-players and one or two young fellows who were still "bucking" the
+roulette wheel remained and, calling one of his men to take charge,
+Haney nodded to Williams and they went out on the street.</p>
+
+<p>As he reached the cold, crisp, deliciously rarefied air outside, he took
+off his hat and involuntarily looked up at the stars blazing thick in
+the deep-blue midnight sky. With solemn voice he said to his partner:
+"Well, 'Spot,' right here Mart Haney's saloon business ends. We're all
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Williams felt that his partner was acting rashly. "Oh, I wouldn't say
+that! You may get into it again."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;the little girl and her mother won't stand for it, and, besides,
+what's the use? I don't need to do it, and if I'm ever going to see the
+world now is my chance. I'm goin' back East to discover how many
+brothers and sisters I have livin'. The old father is dodderin 'round
+somewheres back there. I'll surprise him, too. Now, have those papers
+all made out ready to sign by eleven o'clock to-morrow. I'm goin' down
+the valley on the noon train."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Mart, but you're makin' a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind, me bucko. 'Tis me own game, and the mines will take all
+the gray matter you can spare."</p>
+
+<p>As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
+"Hello, Mart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Mag; what's doing?"</p>
+
+<p>She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the
+moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad
+as that? What's t' old man doin' these days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Servin' time," she answered, bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I'd forgotten. Well, take care
+o' yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of
+the woman's misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his
+younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed
+that he didn't hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his
+brothers he gained by chance. "They're all great boozers," he said, in
+summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo&mdash;came to see me at the
+stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered
+brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about
+seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother&mdash;a nice girl. Dad
+sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and
+then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal
+column, I hear of them."</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other
+poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the
+time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and
+saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his
+father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and
+this was due to Bertie's influence) he earnestly desired to help his
+family out of their mire.</p>
+
+<p>"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother
+left us."</p>
+
+<p>As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
+The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy
+majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring
+in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting
+above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in
+many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
+his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
+seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.</p>
+
+<p>She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
+register.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
+weather we've had since I came to town."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you let me know?"</p>
+
+<p>She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
+to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
+I've sent her out to the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not running the house alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, cert!&mdash;that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
+in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
+three years."</p>
+
+<p>He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
+Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"I've sold out&mdash;signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
+forever."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business&mdash;not a
+little bit."</p>
+
+<p>He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
+saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
+capitalist&mdash;and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
+bending a keen glance upon her.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
+not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
+supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
+and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
+her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
+wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
+accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
+truculently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's at supper&mdash;want to see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"See him? No! And I don't want <i>you</i> to see him! He's too free with you,
+Bert; I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with <i>him</i>, Ed&mdash;I'd
+hate to see your remains afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
+unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me&mdash;and now
+here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
+What's the meaning of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.</p>
+
+<p>He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
+sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's sold out&mdash;clean as a whistle."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
+Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly&mdash;"don't
+you dare!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
+you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
+you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
+'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."</p>
+
+<p>He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down&mdash;fer that&mdash;old
+tout, I'll kill you both."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
+came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
+weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
+throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:</p>
+
+<p>"If you really meant that!&mdash;but you don't, you're only talking to hear
+yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
+chewing the rag, anyway&mdash;this is my busy day."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
+hands clinched. "Don't you do it&mdash;that's all!" he finally snarled.
+"You'll wish you hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
+feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
+anybody just yet."</p>
+
+<p>His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
+don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
+mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"But it riled me like the devil to think&mdash;" he began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
+sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
+your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
+wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand&mdash;now shake, and run."</p>
+
+<p>His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
+"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.</p>
+
+<p>She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
+a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
+goods," she said, and they took the hint.</p>
+
+<p>When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
+counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
+hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
+a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
+far corner of the dining-room&mdash;a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
+was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
+out-stretched in sympathy&mdash;and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
+for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
+shook with silent sobs.</p>
+
+<p>The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
+matter, Bertie; are you sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no&mdash;but I'm worried&mdash;about mother."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't heard anything&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
+have quit here a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
+pure she'll pick up right away&mdash;you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
+done work enough&mdash;and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
+abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
+you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
+young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if mother is no worse."</p>
+
+<p>Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
+but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
+he apologized for its shortcomings&mdash;"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
+it <i>should</i> be."</p>
+
+<p>She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
+know you were an Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>"I am, and proud of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in this rig," he protested.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
+a call."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
+and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
+and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
+eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
+She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
+engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
+at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
+upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
+and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.</p>
+
+<p>"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
+about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
+Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
+miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"That was right&mdash;only you should have sent for me."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
+demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here&mdash;in the
+office they were on more equal terms&mdash;but she enjoyed in a subconscious
+way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
+quiet authority in his voice&mdash;even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
+towards which they were driving he began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
+to-morrow&mdash;that's the day set&mdash;but I want to say that I've been cleaning
+house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
+this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
+drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
+planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
+this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old&mdash;I'm no older than I
+was at twenty-one, sure&mdash;and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
+He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
+smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
+day we'll be of an age."</p>
+
+<p>Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
+silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
+partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
+rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'&mdash;Which road now?"</p>
+
+<p>She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
+great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.</p>
+
+<p>The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
+exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
+lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
+time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'&mdash;whether you come to
+me or not."</p>
+
+<p>All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
+changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
+sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
+her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
+far, far behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
+tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
+devils," he admitted&mdash;"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
+wouldn't go to school&mdash;not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
+well&mdash;and we fished and played ball and went to the circus&mdash;" He
+chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
+lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
+I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
+since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
+and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
+same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
+I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
+Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."</p>
+
+<p>"I like it&mdash;but I'd like to see the rest of the country."</p>
+
+<p>"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."</p>
+
+<p>She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once&mdash;went on one of
+these excursion tickets."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you like it there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
+worst ever&mdash;it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
+door of the big places."</p>
+
+<p>"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush&mdash;if you will."</p>
+
+<p>Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
+such hotels&mdash;There's our ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
+pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."</p>
+
+<p>"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
+planted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
+sentimental speech.</p>
+
+<p>The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
+of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
+house&mdash;a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
+temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees&mdash;thriftily
+green&mdash;and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
+husbandry of the owner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
+rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
+comfort to her&mdash;it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
+of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
+that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
+father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
+drowse.</p>
+
+<p>Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
+overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
+her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
+forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
+to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
+you say so, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
+bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
+cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
+is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
+house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
+little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
+her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
+drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
+her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
+fine. They brace right up to the situation, and&mdash;and everybody's nice to
+us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
+you were&mdash;and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
+things were going."</p>
+
+<p>The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
+an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."</p>
+
+<p>The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
+think. I'm afraid to leave this to you&mdash;it's an awful temptation to a
+girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
+ought to marry."</p>
+
+<p>She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
+"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's so old&mdash;for you."</p>
+
+<p>"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
+the case is this: he's sold out up there&mdash;cleared out his saloon
+business&mdash;and all for <i>me</i>. Think o' that&mdash;and I hadn't given him a word
+of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
+don't&mdash;I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
+know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
+to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
+answer yet awhile&mdash;time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
+another week if I want to."</p>
+
+<p>The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
+streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
+girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
+Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
+that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
+said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
+lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
+hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
+would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
+understand her mood&mdash;perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
+a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now&mdash;I could
+do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
+whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."</p>
+
+<p>If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
+mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
+as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
+peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
+have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."</p>
+
+<p>"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.</p>
+
+<p>This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
+profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
+admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
+suddenly to him, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You're good to me&mdash;and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
+to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to&mdash;some time&mdash;not
+now&mdash;next spring, maybe."</p>
+
+<p>He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
+softening emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"You've made Mart Haney over new&mdash;so you have! As sure as God lets me
+live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
+regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
+trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat&mdash;the stir of
+his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
+taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
+with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
+right spot this time."</p>
+
+<p>With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
+this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
+Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
+quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
+whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
+Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
+most sentimental of men&mdash;it is said); and now that he had been surprised
+into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
+pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
+his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
+his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
+associates of a lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
+brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
+of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
+he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.</p>
+
+<p>"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Haney nodded, without smiling.</p>
+
+<p>His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
+in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
+drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
+rampage for two days&mdash;crazy as a loon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
+like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
+bust-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"He don't seem to&mdash;or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
+he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
+your guard."</p>
+
+<p>They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
+Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
+began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
+years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
+consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
+put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
+with me&mdash;God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
+I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
+of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
+entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
+he had no fear&mdash;only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
+repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
+he'd drop it."</p>
+
+<p>He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
+grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
+Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
+bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
+home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
+find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
+the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
+greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
+nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.</p>
+
+<p>The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
+yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
+taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
+violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
+shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
+thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
+uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.</p>
+
+<p>The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
+hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
+face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
+by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
+excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
+palm pressed to his breast, stood silent&mdash;curiously silent&mdash;his lips
+white with his effort at self-control.</p>
+
+<p>At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
+old man? Are you hurt bad?"</p>
+
+<p>His lips moved&mdash;they listened&mdash;as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
+boys. Here's where I quit."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
+Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
+it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete&mdash;I'm torn to pieces&mdash;I'm
+all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl&mdash;that's all I ask."</p>
+
+<p>Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
+gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
+the crowd out.</p>
+
+<p>Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
+Bertie&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
+significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
+they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
+the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
+satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
+command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
+girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
+Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
+let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
+is it, Mart?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
+patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
+intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
+and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
+torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner&mdash;Haney was indeed
+his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
+riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
+Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
+the bar-room&mdash;and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
+became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
+curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>To him stepped a man&mdash;one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
+attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
+lamp-post. Want to see?"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
+had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
+tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
+never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
+friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
+his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
+'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
+and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
+buckshot&mdash;just when he was takin' a wife&mdash;is hellish."</p>
+
+<p>His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
+revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
+watch beside his friend.</p>
+
+<p>The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
+softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
+tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
+changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
+who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.</p>
+
+<p>This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
+office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
+of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
+his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
+"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
+here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
+shortcoming.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
+wire him to see her&mdash;and bring her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."</p>
+
+<p>It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
+them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
+who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
+all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
+he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
+woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
+does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
+Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain&mdash;just the
+mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she come? Can she get away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
+here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
+calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes&mdash;you can bet high on that. I'm
+only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
+an air of waiting&mdash;waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
+checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
+doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life&mdash;he
+had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
+and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
+me&mdash;here. I want her to have all I've got&mdash;<i>everything</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>At another time he said: "Get the judge&mdash;have everything ready!"</p>
+
+<p>They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
+in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
+resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
+weakness persisted heroically&mdash;till even the doctor's throat filled with
+sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
+into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
+Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
+pull through, with her help."</p>
+
+<p>To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
+was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
+wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
+at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
+chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
+watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
+rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
+drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
+barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.</p>
+
+<p>About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
+leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."</p>
+
+<p>Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
+it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
+I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
+hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
+every resource&mdash;forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.</p>
+
+<p>A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
+man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
+I've no strength to waste&mdash;'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
+here&mdash;to marry us&mdash;" And with this request the priest was forced to be
+content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
+as he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
+ceremony must be legal&mdash;I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
+protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
+and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
+life.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
+partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
+be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
+if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
+the Church."</p>
+
+<p>Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
+with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
+every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
+her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
+Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
+don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."</p>
+
+<p>From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
+faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
+records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
+that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
+Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
+afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
+better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
+possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha was eating her supper, after a hard day's work in her little
+hotel, when a little yellow envelope was handed to her. The words of the
+message were few, but they were meaning-full: "Come at once. Mart hurt,
+not expected to live." It was signed by Williams. While still she sat
+stunned and hesitant, under the weight of this demand, another and much
+more explicit telegram came: "Johnson, superintendent, is ordered to
+fetch you with special train. Don't delay. Mart needs you&mdash;is calling
+for you. Come at once!"</p>
+
+<p>The phrase "is calling for you" reached her heart&mdash;decided her. She
+rose, and, with a word of explanation to her housekeeper, put on her
+hat, and threw a cloak over her arm. "I've got to go to Cripple. Captain
+Haney is sick, and I've got to go to him. I don't know when I'll be
+back," she said. "Get along the best you can." Her face was white but
+calm, and her manner deliberate. "Send word to mother that Mart is hurt,
+and I've gone up to see him. Tell her not to worry."</p>
+
+<p>To her night clerk, who had come on duty, she quietly remarked: "I
+reckon you'll have to look after things to-morrow. I'll try to get back
+the day after. If I don't, Lem Markham will take my place." While still
+she stood arranging the details of her business a short, dark man
+stepped inside the door, and very kindly and gravely explained his
+errand. "I'm Johnson, the division superintendent. They've telegraphed
+me for a special, and I'm going to take you up myself. Mart is a friend
+of mine," he added, with some feeling.</p>
+
+<p>She thanked him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together
+they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive
+coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of
+spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short
+caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and
+the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up
+speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to
+the girl: "I guess you'd better take my chair; it's bolted to the floor,
+and you can hang on when we go round the curves."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed instantly, and with her small hands gripping the arm-rests of
+the rude seat cowered in silence, while the clambering monster rushed
+and roared over the level lands and labored up the grades, shrieking now
+and again, as if in mingled pain and warning. Johnson and the brakeman,
+for the most part, kept to the lookout in the turret, and the girl rode
+alone&mdash;rode far, passing swiftly from girlhood to womanhood, so full of
+enforced meditation were the hours of that ride. It seemed that she was
+leaving something sweet and care-free behind her, and it was certain
+that she was about to face death. She had one perfectly clear
+conception, and that was that the man who had been most kind to her, and
+to whom she had given her promise of marriage, was dying and needed
+her&mdash;was calling for her through the night.</p>
+
+<p>Burdened with responsibility from her childhood, accustomed to make her
+own decisions, she had responded to this prayer, knowing dimly that this
+journey denoted a new and portentous experience&mdash;a fundamental change in
+her life.</p>
+
+<p>She had admired and liked Haney from the first, but her feeling even yet
+was very like that of a boy for a man of heroic statue&mdash;her regard had
+very little of woman's passion in it. She was appalled and benumbed by
+the thought that she was soon to look upon him lying prone. That she
+might soon be called upon to meet those bold eyes closing in death she
+had been warned, and yet she did not shrink from it. The nurse, latent
+in every woman, rose in her, and she ached with desire of haste, longing
+to lay her hand upon the suffering man in some healing way. His
+kindness, his gentleness, during the days of his final courtship had
+sunk deep&mdash;his generosity had been so full, so free, so unhesitating.</p>
+
+<p>She thought of her mother, and as a fuller conception of the alarm and
+anxiety she would feel came to her, she decided to send her a telegram.
+"She will know it was my duty to go," she decided. "As for the
+hotel&mdash;what does it matter now?" Nothing seemed to matter, indeed, save
+the speed of her chariot.</p>
+
+<p>The night was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down
+out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning
+encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with
+taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be
+otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on
+one other point&mdash;this journey committed her to Marshall Haney. There
+could be no further hesitation. "Some time, soon, if he lives, I must
+marry him," she thought, and the conception troubled her with a new
+revelation of what that relationship might mean. She felt suddenly very
+small, very weak, and very helpless. "He must be good to me," she
+murmured. And then, as the words of his prayer to her came back, she
+added: "And I'll be good to him."</p>
+
+<p>Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the
+busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this
+moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed
+a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through
+the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown
+stars.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as
+the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end
+of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff
+and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of
+passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back.</p>
+
+<p>Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still
+here&mdash;and waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became
+alert, clear-brained. "How is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bad."</p>
+
+<p>"What's it all about? How did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go
+ahead&mdash;straight."</p>
+
+<p>He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the
+border, and who has no nice shading in act or word.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the
+night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now."</p>
+
+<p>That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but
+that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her
+dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to
+shudder at the sight of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to
+tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies."</p>
+
+<p>The girl drew away. "Not this minute&mdash;to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to
+do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said
+this.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom
+swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching
+her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything
+is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a
+civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a
+Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied
+good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He
+says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers
+or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little
+sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can
+refuse, specially as it makes his dying&mdash;" He stopped there.</p>
+
+<p>The street was silent as they drew up to the saloon door, and only
+Slater and one or two of his friends were present when Bertha walked
+into the bar-room, erect as a boy, her calm, sweet face ashen white in
+the electric light. For an instant; she stood there in the middle of the
+floor alone, her big dark eyes searching every face. Then Judge Brady, a
+kindly, gray-haired man, advanced, and took her hand. "We're very glad
+to see you," he gravely said, introducing himself. Williams, who had
+entered the inner room, returned instantly to say: "Come, he's waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word the bride entered the presence of her groom, and the
+doctor, bending low to the gambler, said: "Be careful now, Mart. Don't
+try to rise. Be perfectly still. Bertie has come."</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned with a smile&mdash;a tender, humorous smile&mdash;and whispered:
+"Bertie, acushla mavourneen, come to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the watchers withdrew, leaving them alone, and the girl, bending
+above him, kissed him. "Oh, Captain, can't I do something? I <i>must</i> do
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, darlin', ye can. You can marry me this minute, and ye shall. I'm
+dyin', girl&mdash;so the doctor says. I don't feel it that way; but, anyhow,
+we take no chances. All I have is for you, and so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand ever his lips. "You must be quiet. I understand, and I
+will do it&mdash;but only to make you well." She turned to the door, and her
+voice was clear as she said to those who waited: "I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have Father Kearney?" asked Williams.</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards Haney. "Just as he says."</p>
+
+<p>The stricken miner, ghastly with the pain brought on by movement,
+responded to the doctor's question, only by a whisper: "The
+priest&mdash;first."</p>
+
+<p>The girl heard, and her fine, clear glance rested upon the face of the
+priest. Tears were on her cheeks, but a kind of exultation was in her
+tone as she said: "I am willing, father."</p>
+
+<p>With a look which denoted his appreciation of the girl's courage, the
+priest stepped forward and led her to her place beside her bridegroom.
+She took Haney's big nerveless hand in her firm grasp, and together they
+listened to the solemn words which made them husband and wife. It seemed
+that the gambler was passing into the shadow during the opening prayer,
+but his whispered responses came at the proper pauses, and only when the
+final benediction was given, and the priest and the judge fell back
+before the rush of the young doctor, did the wounded man's eyes close in
+final collapse. He had indeed reached the end of his endurance.</p>
+
+<p>The young wife spoke then, imperiously, almost fiercely, asking: "Why is
+he lying here? This is no place for him."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor explained. "We were afraid to move him&mdash;till you came. In
+fact, he wouldn't let me move him. If you say so now, we will take him
+up." With these words the watchers shifted their responsibility to her
+shoulders, uttering sighs of deep relief. Whatever happened now, Mart's
+will had been secured. At her command they lifted the table on which her
+husband lay, and the wife walked beside it, unheeding the throngs of
+silent men walling her path. Every one made way for her, waited upon
+her, eager to serve her, partly because she was Marshall Haney's wife,
+but more because of her youth and the brave heart which looked from her
+clear and candid eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She showed no hesitation now, gave out no word of weakness; on the
+contrary, she commanded with certainty and precision, calling to her aid
+all that the city afforded. Not till she had summoned the best surgeons
+and was sure that everything had been done that could be done did she
+permit herself to relax&mdash;or to think of rest or her mother.</p>
+
+<p>When she had sunk to sleep upon a couch beside her husband's bed,
+Williams, with a note of deep admiration, demanded of the surgeon:
+"Ain't she a little Captain? Mart can't die now, can he? He's got too
+much to live for."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HANEY PALACE</h3>
+
+
+<p>One day early in the following summer a tall, thin man, with one
+helpless side, entered the big luminous hall of the Antlers Hotel at the
+Springs, upheld by a stalwart attendant, and accompanied by a
+sweet-faced, calm-lipped young woman. This was Marshall Haney and his
+young wife Bertha, down from the mountain for the first time since his
+illness, and those who knew their story and recognized them, stood aside
+with a thrill of pity for the man and a look of admiration for the girl,
+whose bravery and devotion had done so much to bring her husband back to
+life and to a growing measure of his former strength.</p>
+
+<p>Marshall Haney was, indeed, but a poor hulk of his stalwart self. One
+lung had been deeply torn, his left shoulder was almost wholly disabled,
+and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was
+not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened&mdash;"gentled,"
+as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern
+and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep
+horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a
+mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look&mdash;older and more
+military. It was plain, also, that he leaned upon his keen-eyed,
+impassive little wife, who never for one moment lost her hold upon
+herself or her surroundings. Her flashing glances took note of
+everything about her, and her lips were close-set and firm.</p>
+
+<p>Williams, ugly and wordless as ever, followed them with a proud smile
+till they entered the handsome suite of rooms which had been reserved
+for them. "There's nothing too good for Marshall Haney and his
+side-partner," he exulted to the bell-boy.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, Mart, with a look of reverence at his young bride, replied:
+"She's airned it&mdash;and more!"</p>
+
+<p>A sigh was in his voice and a singular appeal in his big eyes as he sank
+into an easy-chair. "I believe I do feel better down here; my heart
+seems to work aisier. I'm going to get well now, darlin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you are," she answered, in the tone of a daughter; then
+added, with a smile: "I like it here. Why not settle?"</p>
+
+<p>To her Colorado Springs was a dazzling social centre. The beauty of the
+homes along its wide streets, the splendor of its private carriages,
+affected her almost as deeply as the magnitude and glory of Denver
+itself; but she was not of those who display their weaknesses and
+diffidence. She ate her first dinner in the lofty Antlers dining-hall
+with quiet dignity, and would not have been particularly noticed but for
+Haney, who was well-known to the waiters of the hotel. Her association
+with him had made her a marked figure in their mountain towns, and she
+was accustomed to comment.</p>
+
+<p>She met the men who addressed her with entire fearlessness and candor
+(she was afraid only of women in good clothes), speaking with the easy
+slanginess of a herder, using naturally and unconsciously the most
+picturesque phrases of the West. Her speech was incisive and
+unhesitating, yet not swift. She never chattered, but "you bet" and "all
+right" were authorized English so far as she was concerned. "They say
+you can't beat this town anywhere for society, and I sure like the looks
+of what we've seen. Suppose we hang around this hotel for a while&mdash;not
+too long, for it's mighty expensive." Here she smiled&mdash;a quick, flashing
+smile. "You see, I can't get used to spending money&mdash;I'm afraid all the
+time I'll wake up. It's just like a dream I used to have of finding
+chink&mdash;I always came to before I had a chance to handle it and see if it
+was real."</p>
+
+<p>Haney answered, indulgently: "'Tis all real, Bertie. I'll show you that
+when I'm meself again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I believe it&mdash;at least, part of the time," she retorted. "But I'll
+have to flash a roll to do it&mdash;checks are no good. I could sign a
+million checks and not have 'em seem like real money. I'm from Missouri
+when it comes to cash."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman, who had always stood in bewilderment and wonder of her
+daughter, was entirely subject now. She and Williams usually moved in
+silence, like adoring subjects in the presence of their sovereigns. They
+had no doubts whatsoever concerning the power and primacy of gold; and
+as for Haney himself, his unquestioning confidence in his little wife's
+judgment had come to be like an article of religious faith.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast on the second day of her stay Bertha ordered a carriage,
+and they drove about the town in the brilliant morning sunshine, looking
+for a place to build. She resembled a little home-seeking sparrow. Every
+cosey cottage was to her an almost irresistible allurement. "There's a
+dandy place, Captain," she called several times. "Wouldn't you like a
+house like that?"</p>
+
+<p>He, with larger notions, shook his head each time. "Too small, Bertie.
+We've the right to a fine big place&mdash;like that, now." He nodded towards
+a stately gray-stone mansion, with the sign "For Sale" planted on its
+lawn.</p>
+
+<p>She was aghast. "Gee! what would we do with a state-house like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Live in it, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"It would need four chamber-maids and two hired men to take care of a
+place like that. And think of the money it would spoil to stock it with
+furniture!" Nevertheless, she gazed at it longingly. "I'd sure like that
+big garden and that porch. You could sit on that porch and see the
+mountains, couldn't you? But my ears and whiskers, the expense of
+keeping it!"</p>
+
+<p>They passed on to other and less palatial possibilities, and returned to
+the hotel undecided. The two women, bewildered and weary, diverged and
+discussed the matter of dress till the mid-day meal.</p>
+
+<p>"I like being rich," remarked the young wife, as they took their seats
+in the lovely dining-room, and looked about at the tables so shining, so
+dainty. "It would be fun to run a house like this, don't you think?" She
+addressed her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious, no! Think of the bill for help and the worry of looking
+after all this silver! No, it's too splendid for us."</p>
+
+<p>Haney still retained enough of his ancient humor to smile at them. "I'd
+rather see you manage that big stone house with the porch which I'm
+going to buy."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it?" said Bertha, while Mrs. Gilman stared at him over
+her soup.</p>
+
+<p>He went on quietly. "Sure! Me mind's made up. You want the garden and I
+like the porch; so 'phone the agent after dinner, and we'll go up and
+see to it this very afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes expanded. "I'd like
+just once to see the <i>inside</i> of a house like that. It must be half as
+big as this hotel&mdash;but to own it! You're crazy, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>The remote possibility of walking through that wonderful mansion took
+away the young wife's appetite, and she became silent and reflective in
+the face of a delicious fried chicken. The magic of her husband's wealth
+began to make itself most potently felt.</p>
+
+<p>Haney insisted on smoking a cigar in the lobby. Bertha took her mother
+away to talk over the tremendous decision which was about to be thrust
+upon them. "We want a house," said she, decisively, "but not a palace
+like that. What would we do with it? It scares me up a tree to think of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he was only joking," Mrs. Gilman agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see the porch would be fine for him," Bertha went on. "But,
+jiminy spelter, we'd all be lost in the place!"</p>
+
+<p>Haney called Williams to his side, and told him of the house. "It's a
+big place, but I want it. Go you and see the agent. My little girl needs
+a roof, and why not the best?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" replied Williams, with conviction. "She's entitled to a castle.
+You round up the women, and I'll do the rest."</p>
+
+<p>The house proved to be even more splendid and spacious than its exterior
+indicated, and Bertha walked its wide halls with breathless delight.
+After a hurried survey of the interior, they came out upon the broad
+veranda, and lingered long in awe and wonder of the outlook. To the west
+lay a glorious garden of fruits and flowers; a fountain was playing over
+the rich green grass; high above the tops of the pear and peach trees
+(which made a little copse) rose the purple peaks of the Rampart range.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't it great!" exclaimed Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned to the agent with a tense look on his pale face&mdash;a look of
+exultant power.</p>
+
+<p>"Make out your papers," said he, quietly. "We take the place&mdash;as it
+stands."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was overwhelmed by this flourish of the enchanter's wand&mdash;but
+only for a moment. No sooner was the contract signed than she roused
+herself as to a new business venture. "Well, now, the first thing is
+furniture. Let's see! There is some carpets and curtains in the place,
+isn't there? And a steel range. It's up to me to rustle the balance of
+the outfit together right lively."</p>
+
+<p>And so she set to work quite as she would have done in outfitting a new
+hotel&mdash;so many beds, so many chairs in a room, so many dressers, and
+soon had a long list made out and the order placed.</p>
+
+<p>She spent every available moment of her time for the next two days
+getting the kitchen and dining-room in running order, and when she had
+two beds ready insisted on moving in. "We can kind o' camp out in the
+place till we get stocked up. I'm crazy to be under our own roof."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, almost as eager as she, consented, and on the third day they
+drove up to the door, dismissed their hired coachman, and stepped inside
+the gate&mdash;master and mistress of an American chateau.</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned, and, with misty eyes and a voice choked with happiness,
+said: "Well, darlin', we have it now&mdash;the palace of the fairy stories."</p>
+
+<p>"It's great," she repeated, musingly; "but I can't make it seem like a
+home&mdash;mebbe it'll change when I get it filled with furniture, but the
+garden is sure all right."</p>
+
+<p>They took their first meal on the porch overlooking the mountains,
+listening to the breeze in the vines. It was heavenly sweet after the
+barren squalor of their Cripple Creek home, and they did little but gaze
+and dream.</p>
+
+<p>"We need a team," Bertha said, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Buy one," replied Haney.</p>
+
+<p>So Bertha bought a carriage and a fine black span. This expenditure
+involved a coachman, and to fill that position an old friend of
+Williams'&mdash;a talkative and officious old miner&mdash;was employed. She next
+secured a Chinese cook, the best to be had, and a girl to do the
+chamber-work. They were all busy as hornets, and Bertha lived in a glow
+of excitement every waking hour of the day&mdash;though she did not show it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney's check-book was quite as wonderful in its way as Aladdin's lamp,
+and little by little the women permitted themselves to draw upon its
+magic. The shining span of blacks, with flowing manes and champing bits,
+became a feature of the avenue as the women drove up and down on their
+never-ending quest for household luxuries&mdash;they had gone beyond mere
+necessities. Mart usually went with them, sitting in the carriage while
+they "visited" with the grocery clerks and furniture dealers. They were
+very popular with these people, as was natural.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Mrs. Haney" became at once the subject of endless
+comment&mdash;mostly unfavorable; for Mart's saloon-made reputation was
+well-known, and the current notion of a woman who would marry him was
+not high. She was reported, in the alien circles of the town, to be a
+vulgar little chamber-maid who had taken a gambler for his money at a
+time when he was supposed to be on his death-bed, and her elevation to
+the management of a palatial residence was pointed out as being
+"peculiarly Western-American."</p>
+
+<p>The men, however, were much more tolerant of judgment than their women.
+They had become more or less hardened to seeing crude miners luxuriating
+in sudden, accidental wealth; therefore, they nodded good-humoredly at
+Haney and tipped their hats to his pretty wife with smiles. As bankers,
+tradesmen, and taxpayers generally they could not afford to neglect a
+citizen possessed of so much wealth and circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman presented a letter of introduction to the nearest church of
+her own persuasion, and went to service quite as unassumingly as in
+Sibley, and was greeted by a few of the ladies there cordially and
+without hint of her son-in-law's connections. Two or three, including
+the pastor's wife, made special effort to cultivate her acquaintance by
+calling immediately, but they were not of those who attracted Bertha;
+and though she showed them about the house and answered their questions,
+she did not promise to call. "We're too busy," she explained. "I haven't
+got more than half the rooms into shape, and, besides, we're to have my
+brother's folks down from the Junction&mdash;we're on the hustle all day
+long."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. She had been quite besieged by her former neighbors in
+Sibley, who found it convenient to "put up with the Haneys" while
+visiting the town. They were, in fact, very curious to study her in her
+new and splendid setting; and though some of them peeked and peered amid
+the beds, and thumped the mattresses in vulgar curiosity, the young
+housewife merely laughed. All her life had been spent among folk of this
+directly inquisitive sort. She expected them to act as they did, and,
+being a hearty and generous soul, as well as a very democratic one, she
+sent them away happy.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, she won praise from all who came to know her. But that small
+part of the Springs&mdash;alien and exclusive&mdash;which considered itself higher
+if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the
+gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined
+to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback"
+as she met them on the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this critical comment Bertha remained, happily, unconscious, and
+it is probable that she would soon have won her way to a decent circle
+of friends had not Charles Haney descended upon them like a plague. Mart
+had been receiving letters from this brother, but had said nothing to
+Bertha of his demands. "Charles despised me when he met me in Denver,"
+he explained to Williams. "I was busted at the time, ye mind." He
+winked. "And now when he reads in the papers that Mart Haney is rich, he
+comes down on me like a hawk on a June bug. 'Tis no matter. He may
+come&mdash;I'll not cast him out. But he does not play with me
+double-eagles&mdash;not he!"</p>
+
+<p>Charles Haney was not fitted to raise his brother's wife in the social
+scale, for he belonged to that marked, insistent variety of actor to be
+distinguished on trains and in the lobbies of hotels&mdash;a fat, sleek,
+loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while
+ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in
+illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of
+those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and
+brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their
+first meeting.</p>
+
+<p>She amazed him. He had expected a woman of his own class&mdash;an
+adventuress, painted, designing; and to find this sweet little
+girl&mdash;"why, she's too good for Mart," he concluded, and shifted his
+hollow pretensions of sympathy from his brother to his sister-in-law.
+Before the first evening of his visit closed he sought opportunity to
+tell her, in hypocritic sadness, that Mart was a doomed man, and that
+she would soon be free of him. Bertha was disturbed by his gaze and
+repelled by his touch, but tried to like him on Mart's account. His
+mouthing disgusted her, and the good-will with which Haney greeted his
+brother turned into bitterness as the boaster and low wit began to
+display himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We all grew up in the street or in the saloon," Haney sadly remarked,
+"and you finished your education in the variety theatre, I'm thinking."</p>
+
+<p>The actor took this as a joke, and with a grin retorted: "That's better
+than running a faro-layout."</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno; a good quiet game has its power to educate a man," replied the
+gambler.</p>
+
+<p>That night, as she was preparing the Captain for bed, he remarked, with
+a sigh: "Life is a quare game! I mind Charley well as a cute little
+yellow-haired divil, always laughing, always in mischief, and me chasin'
+after him&mdash;a big slob of a boy. I used to carry him up an' down the
+tenement stairs. I learned him to skate&mdash;and now here he is drinkin'
+himself puffy, whilst I am an old broken-down hack at forty-five." He
+looked up at her with a sheen of tears in his eyes. "Darlin', 'tis a
+shame to be leanin' on you."</p>
+
+<p>She put her arm around his big grizzled head and drew it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You can lean hard, Mart. I'm standin' by."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine,
+straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young
+life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me any
+longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, now, no more of that!" she warned. "When I have cause to knock,
+you won't need no ear-trumpet. Put up your hoof." He obeyed, and,
+stooping swiftly, she began to unlace the shoe which he could no longer
+reach. Her manner was that of a daughter who tyrannizes over an
+indulgent father. Her admiration and gratitude, so boyish once, were now
+replaced by an affection in which the element of sex had small place,
+and his love for her sprang also from a source far removed from the
+fierce instinct which first led him to seek her subduing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Charles Haney had no scruples. From the moment of his first meeting with
+his brother's young wife he determined to make himself "solid" with her.
+Convinced that Mart was not long for this world, he set to work to win
+Bertha's favor, for this was the only way to harvest the golden fortune
+she controlled.</p>
+
+<p>"Mart is just fool enough and contrary enough to leave every cent of his
+money to her." Here he placed one finger against his brow. "Carlos, here
+is where you get busy. It's us to the haberdasher. We shine."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all his boasting, he was not only an actor out of an
+engagement, but flat broke, badly dressed, and in sorry disrepute with
+managers. "I've been playing in a stock company in San Francisco," he
+had explained, "and I'm now on my way to New York to produce a play of
+my own. Hence these tears. I need an 'angel.'"</p>
+
+<p>He distinctly said "the first of the month" in this announcement, but as
+the days went by he only settled deeper into the snug corners of the
+Haney home, making no further mention of his triumphal eastward
+progress. On the contrary, he had the air of a regular boarder, and
+turned up promptly for meals, rotund and glowing in the opulence of his
+brother's hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>On the strength of his name he found favor with the tailors, and
+bourgeoned forth a few days later in the best cloth the shops afforded,
+and strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock before Bertha,
+keeping up meanwhile a pretension of sympathy and good-fellowship with
+Mart.</p>
+
+<p>In this he miscalculated; for Bertha, youthful as she seemed, was
+accustomed, as she would say, to "standing off mashers," and her
+impassive face and keen, steady eyes fairly disconcerted the libertine.
+"For Mart's sake, we'll put up with him," she said to her mother. "He's
+a loafer; but I can see the Captain kind o' likes to have him
+around&mdash;for old times' sake, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his
+egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the
+dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to
+see and understand that this was his most ingratiating r&ocirc;le, and he
+played it "to the limit," as Bertha would have said.</p>
+
+<p>And yet no one in the house realized how his presence reacted against
+Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to think of a girl so obtuse that she permits a man like
+this fat, disgusting actor to dangle about her?" asked Mrs. Crego of her
+husband, who was Haney's legal adviser.</p>
+
+<p>"He's her husband's brother, you know," argued Crego.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, I can't understand her. She looks nice and sweet, and you
+say she is so; and yet here she is married to a notorious gambler, and
+associating with mountebanks and all sorts of malodorous people. Why,
+I've seen her riding down the street with the upholsterer, and Mrs.
+Congdon told me that she saw her stop her carriage in front of a cigar
+store and talk with a barber in a white jacket for at least ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Crego laughed. "What infamy! However, I can't believe even the
+upholsterer will finally corrupt her. The fact is, my dear, we're all
+getting to be what some of my clients call 'too a-ristocratic.' Bertha
+Haney is sprung from good average American stock, and has associated
+with the kind of people you abhor all her life. She hasn't begun to draw
+any of your artificial distinctions. I hope she never will. Her barber
+friend is on the same level with the clerks and grocery-men of the town.
+They're all human, you know. She's the true democrat. I confess I like
+the girl. Her ability is astonishing. Williams and Haney both take her
+opinion quite as weightily as my own."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego was impressed. "Well, I'll call on her if you really think I
+<i>ought</i> to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't. I withdraw my suggestion. I deprecate your calling&mdash;in that
+spirit. I doubt if she expects you to call. I hardly think she has
+awakened to any slights put upon her by your set. Indeed, she seems
+quite happy in the society of Thomas, Richard, and Harry."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be brutal, Allen."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not. The girl is now serene&mdash;that's the main thing; and you might
+raise up doubts and discontents in her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly shall not go near her so long as that odious actor is
+hanging about. His smirk at me the other day made me ill."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation was typical of many others in homes of equal culture,
+for Bertha's position as well as her face and manner piqued curiosity.
+After all, the town was a small place&mdash;just large enough to give gossip
+room to play in&mdash;and the sheen of Mrs. Haney's wealth made her
+conspicuous from afar, while her youth and boyish beauty had been the
+subject of admiring club talk from the very first. Haney was only an old
+and wounded animal, whose mate was free to choose anew.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me ache to see the girl go wrong," said Mrs. Frank Congdon,
+wife of a resident portrait-painter, also in delicate health (she was
+speaking to Mrs. Crego). "Think of that great house&mdash;Frank says she runs
+it admirably&mdash;filled with tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers,
+not to mention touts and gamblers&mdash;when she might be entertaining&mdash;well,
+us, for example!" She laughed at the unbending face of her friend; then
+went on: "Dr. Cronk says the mother is a sweet old lady and of good New
+England family&mdash;a constitutional Methodist, he calls her. I wish she
+kept better company."</p>
+
+<p>"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother
+was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and
+the girl boasts of it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the
+most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has
+called, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's
+picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's
+face fade out of her memory."</p>
+
+<p>"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the
+portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to
+paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers
+Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and
+was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now&mdash;his face is one
+of the saddest I ever saw&mdash;makes it all the more interesting to Frank.
+So I'm going to call&mdash;in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You
+must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.</p>
+
+<p>Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her
+social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the
+ideas and usages of Sibley Junction&mdash;that was all. She acknowledged her
+obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England
+democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the
+right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice.
+The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this
+privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her
+own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church
+associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the
+distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and
+Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are
+too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the
+revelation came to her.</p>
+
+<p>From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the
+Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that
+her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say
+proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while
+from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs,
+beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital
+infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and
+Charles&mdash;both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great
+concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her
+husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not
+merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in
+resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister
+one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's
+faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any
+other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I
+call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the
+finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's,
+and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the
+social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles,
+embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He
+had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar
+you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set'
+and quoting <i>Town Topics</i> like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little
+two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What
+d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of
+me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at
+the club fail to invite me to their houses."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a
+different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone
+beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each
+day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be
+alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell
+Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But
+his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so
+she endured.</p>
+
+<p>The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the
+town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was
+"in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr.
+Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss
+Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst
+significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her
+loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on
+his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat
+beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was
+furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence
+that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>His attentions&mdash;which were almost assaults&mdash;came at last to destroy a
+large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside
+her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him
+before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever
+she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never
+been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon
+conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his
+maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting
+himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the
+Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams
+was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's
+care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who
+paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching
+them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain,"
+Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush.
+And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until
+his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort.
+He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come
+from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no
+imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of
+his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he
+now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that
+the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such
+times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of
+mines and mining&mdash;though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded
+little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not
+go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his
+condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in
+possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put
+a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges
+there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis
+impossible&mdash;I see that&mdash;but I may live on for a long time. Already me
+mind misgives me about Bertie&mdash;she's too young to be tied up to a
+shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."</p>
+
+<p>To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry.
+She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."</p>
+
+<p>Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I
+niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency
+darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me
+out. I'm only a big nuisance."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is
+all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an
+atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never
+for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.</p>
+
+<p>This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he
+came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting
+alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart,
+feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk,
+went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her.
+Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe
+of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a
+glare of reckless desire.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want
+'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me,
+anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up
+tense and strong, silently confronting him.</p>
+
+<p>He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't
+you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his
+lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her,
+clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply
+with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell
+sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his
+balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one
+less experienced than she.</p>
+
+<p>"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stop!</i>" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you
+want to die?" The word <i>die</i> pierced the mist of his madness. "What do
+you think Mart will say to this?"</p>
+
+<p>He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered
+in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it,
+I beg&mdash;I beg!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his
+wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house
+to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are.
+You haven't fooled me any&mdash;not for a minute. I've put up with you for
+his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you,
+but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning&mdash;you <i>sabe</i>?
+It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of
+disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the
+rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He <i>was</i>
+company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I
+never see him again."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he
+sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me
+another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I
+don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but
+fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away,
+flabby and faltering, to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I
+need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I
+get to work I'll send you a check."</p>
+
+<p>Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and
+put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one
+of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get
+down to hard work. It's <i>time</i> ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but
+loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk&mdash;part of the time; but I can
+see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad
+for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you&mdash;" He was going to ask for a position&mdash;something easy with
+big pay&mdash;when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.</p>
+
+<p>As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a
+gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father,
+write and tell me how he is."</p>
+
+<p>Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in
+what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and
+went out to his carriage&mdash;alone.</p>
+
+<p>As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm
+directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a
+gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could
+live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has
+him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost
+the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train,
+as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village,
+but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy
+streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose
+belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.</p>
+
+<p>And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death,
+fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned
+all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning
+their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented
+exiles&mdash;men as well as women&mdash;who have come to enjoy their enforced stay
+here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its
+surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate
+and the water have prolonged their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at
+present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
+others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
+their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
+blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
+and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
+of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
+but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
+for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
+also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
+and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
+and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
+comfort and content.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
+desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
+Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
+a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence&mdash;"to get some good of
+their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
+avenues are luxurious homes&mdash;absurdly pretentious in some
+instances&mdash;which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
+big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
+drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
+sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
+comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
+city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
+staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
+certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
+genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
+microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
+would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
+change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
+with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
+interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
+my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
+eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
+don't <i>interest</i> me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do
+them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence.
+And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have
+always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has,
+nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the
+grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."</p>
+
+<p>"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where
+would the Congdons be?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't
+a matter of brains. It's a question of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Savoir faire.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently&mdash;" Congdon stopped
+him, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I owe you fifty&mdash;I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I
+suddenly recalled&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go
+everywhere and are welcome. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's
+all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on
+the gray matter of this family."</p>
+
+<p>"You do yourself an injustice."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your
+type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You
+mix. And Haney, for example&mdash;to return to the concrete again&mdash;Haney
+would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife,
+clever as she is, is impossible&mdash;or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she
+is."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little
+Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on
+the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her
+interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.'
+So there we stand."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The
+girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of
+a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this
+realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me
+I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments.
+Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're
+painting his portrait&mdash;why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the
+line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of
+hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women
+can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can.
+As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything&mdash;except
+borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber
+lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than
+anything else. They think her tastes are low."</p>
+
+<p>"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and
+though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he
+seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will
+admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional,
+but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act.
+Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with
+them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but&mdash;' And there the argument
+rests."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy,"
+said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would
+like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will
+never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going
+to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."</p>
+
+<p>And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with
+his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the
+portrait is nearly done," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't
+much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my
+mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to
+teach her."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he.
+"That girl's no fool&mdash;she's capable of development. She will amaze you
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to
+dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll
+we ask to meet her&mdash;the Cregos?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'd thought of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting
+a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I
+think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce
+in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is
+crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away,
+little boy, and leave the whole business to me."</p>
+
+<p>As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the
+Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic
+cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide
+old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of
+beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing
+ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a
+prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American
+ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little
+better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for
+automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the
+blazing fires of roomy hearths.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a
+state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by
+pretending to be a sculptor&mdash;and she still did occasionally model a
+figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the
+aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter,
+whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was
+making a precarious living in the Springs&mdash;precarious for the reason
+that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and
+on dark days he <i>couldn't</i> see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was
+not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as
+he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted
+his laziness and incompetency.</p>
+
+<p>Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the
+Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a
+couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their
+troubles&mdash;credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each
+of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was
+accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and
+when they needed food helped them to it.</p>
+
+<p>Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee
+reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage.
+There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the
+slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs.
+Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this
+consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.</p>
+
+<p>Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with
+flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and
+almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress),
+and so waited for further information.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mrs. Haney?" Lee began. "I'm Mrs. Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha threw the rug over Mart's knees before turning to offer her hand.
+"I'm glad to meet you," she responded, with gravity. "I've seen you on
+the street."</p>
+
+<p>Lee couldn't quite make out whether this remark was intended for
+reproach or not, but she went on, quickly: "I was just about to call.
+Indeed, I came to ask you and Mr. Haney to dine with us on Thursday."
+She nodded and smiled at Mart, who sat with impassive countenance
+listening with attention&mdash;his piercing eyes making her rather
+uncomfortable. "We dine at seven. I hope you can come."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up at her husband. "What do you say, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any objection," he answered, without warmth.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha turned, with still passive countenance. "All right," she said,
+"we'll be there. Won't you jump in and take a ride with us?"</p>
+
+<p>Lee, burning with mingled flames of resentment and humor, replied:
+"Thank you, I have another call to make&mdash;Thursday, then, at seven
+o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll connect. Much obliged," replied Bertha, and sprang into the
+carriage. "Go ahead, Dan. Good-day, Mrs. Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Lee stood for an instant in amazement at this easy, not to say
+indifferent, acceptance of her tremendous offering. "Well, if that isn't
+cool!" she gasped, and walked on thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Humor dominated her at last, and when she entered Mrs. Crego's house she
+was flushed with laughter, and recounted the words of the interview with
+so many subtle interpretations of her own that Mrs. Crego was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon did not spare herself. "Helen, she made me feel like a
+bill-collector! 'All right,' said she, 'I'll be there,' and left me
+standing in the middle of the street. You've got to come now, Helen, to
+preserve my dignity."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wild to come, really. I want to see what she'll do to us
+'professional people.' Maybe she will patronize us too."</p>
+
+<p>When Lee told Frank about it at night he failed to laugh as heartily as
+she had expected. "That's all very funny, the way you tell it, but as a
+matter of fact the girl did all she knew. She accepted your invitation
+and civilly asked you to take a ride. What more could mortal woman
+proffer?"</p>
+
+<p>"She might have invited me into the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at the moment. It was Mart's hour for a drive, and you were
+interfering with one of her duties. I think she treated you very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, she's coming, and so is Helen. It tickled Helen nearly into
+fits, of course, and she's coming&mdash;just to see me 'put to it to manage
+these wet valley bronchos.'"</p>
+
+<p>"The girl may look like a bronk, but she's got good blood in her. She'll
+hold her own anywhere," replied Congdon, with conviction.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
+for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
+experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
+the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
+She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
+husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
+street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
+which she had begun to take a settled pride.</p>
+
+<p>As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
+clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
+think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."</p>
+
+<p>"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
+in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
+go&mdash;I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
+meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
+need more doin'."</p>
+
+<p>Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
+Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
+me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me <i>cong&eacute;</i> out of
+self-respect&mdash;just to give you open road."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
+rush. Wonder what's eating him?"</p>
+
+<p>Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
+the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
+died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
+"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
+more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
+here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
+fellow here&mdash;Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
+chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
+course, I'm sorry about your father."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand&mdash;so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
+myself. I know you always despised my trade."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
+dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."</p>
+
+<p>Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
+about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
+barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
+fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
+ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
+board while I study."</p>
+
+<p>Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
+part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
+both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
+down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
+conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
+earnest conversation with a barber.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
+then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
+exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
+the line at barbers."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
+you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand such people."</p>
+
+<p>"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
+is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
+natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
+in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
+she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
+"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that&mdash;not in my
+presence."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
+down the steps to help Haney up.</p>
+
+<p>The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
+said he. "I let me little Corporal help me&mdash;sometimes for love of it,
+not because I nade it."</p>
+
+<p>He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
+and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
+was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
+trousers, and looked very well indeed&mdash;quite irreproachable.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was clad in black also&mdash;a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
+made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
+eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
+bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
+and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
+like that of an athlete.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
+followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
+hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
+concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
+walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
+chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
+pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
+ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
+had charm.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
+centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
+at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
+shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
+He's a regular kid anyway&mdash;always doing the things he ought not to do."</p>
+
+<p>In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
+looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
+nor embarrassed&mdash;on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
+else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
+husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
+it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
+about my size."</p>
+
+<p>"You're disappointed, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
+just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
+the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
+picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
+see nothin' else."</p>
+
+<p>Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
+of the painter&mdash;he puts on canvas what <i>he</i> sees, not what his patron
+sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
+artist."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
+presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
+visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
+silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
+suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
+this chill reception.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
+pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
+a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
+with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
+such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
+went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
+saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
+you. Your life seems very romantic to me."</p>
+
+<p>The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
+recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
+by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
+was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
+manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
+hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
+somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
+made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.</p>
+
+<p>They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
+felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
+of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
+at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
+curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
+found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
+sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
+rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
+intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
+furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
+in a way quite new to her.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
+magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
+Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
+things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
+under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
+been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
+the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
+devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
+domestication in a stone palace&mdash;all appealed to his imagination. Such
+things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
+most satisfying to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
+kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
+and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
+hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
+tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
+enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
+Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
+gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
+reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
+delightedly with no accusation in their eyes&mdash;except in the case of Mrs.
+Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
+and inner repugnance.</p>
+
+<p>Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
+terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
+willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
+conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
+of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
+imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
+would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
+Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
+with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
+confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
+it was a most interesting monologue.</p>
+
+<p>It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
+to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
+unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand&mdash;always
+careful not to interrupt his talk.</p>
+
+<p>As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
+contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
+"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
+tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
+America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
+last was a delight as well as an education.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
+was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
+lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
+puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
+but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
+something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
+her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
+fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
+know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
+hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
+Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.</p>
+
+<p>Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
+suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
+cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
+her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
+compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
+them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
+grateful charm.</p>
+
+<p>Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
+Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
+by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
+such an opportunity for doing good."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
+and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
+to help&mdash;I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
+when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
+Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one&mdash;he's only
+twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
+can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
+Congdon has told you of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
+
+<p>"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
+have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
+was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
+help me."</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
+much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
+very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
+all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.</p>
+
+<p>When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
+enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
+became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
+been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
+appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
+but to us you seem typical of the West."</p>
+
+<p>What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
+which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
+revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
+insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
+laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
+descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
+the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
+flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
+heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
+conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
+intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
+which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
+among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
+in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
+gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
+meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
+in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
+habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
+a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
+never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
+built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
+the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
+art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
+cultivated speech.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
+side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
+your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."</p>
+
+<p>Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
+with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
+music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
+explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
+acquirement."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang&mdash;as Bertha had never
+heard any one sing&mdash;certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
+made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
+handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
+Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
+sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
+girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
+splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
+toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
+splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
+her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
+came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.</p>
+
+<p>He sang other songs&mdash;tunes not worthy of him&mdash;but ended with a ballad
+called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell&mdash;a song so stern, so strange, so
+inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
+his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
+voice. Her horizon&mdash;her emotional horizon&mdash;was of a sudden extended, and
+she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
+and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
+the others cheered&mdash;her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
+to applaud.</p>
+
+<p>Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
+have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
+ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
+and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
+to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past&mdash;as it caused
+Bertha to forecast the future.</p>
+
+<p>While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
+his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
+hastened to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
+directness.</p>
+
+<p>"It's early yet," replied her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
+the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
+the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
+truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
+merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
+weakened by that tearing charge of shot.</p>
+
+<p>Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
+"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
+soon."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I used to&mdash;I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
+horse, so we mostly drive."</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
+We ride every morning&mdash;a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
+rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
+answered. "I'd like to&mdash;but&mdash;Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
+and then she gave him her hand in parting.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
+said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
+responded: "I certainly shall do so."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
+of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
+brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
+a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
+most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
+beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
+background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
+charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music&mdash;quite the
+best she had ever heard. The evening&mdash;so simple, almost commonplace, to
+her hostess&mdash;was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.</p>
+
+<p>She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
+comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
+right. Crego's the fine man&mdash;we do well to make him our lawyer." As
+Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
+Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno&mdash;them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
+little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
+McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
+girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
+has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
+make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
+that&mdash;'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
+lad&mdash;as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
+man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
+she waits till she gets well."</p>
+
+<p>To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
+was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened&mdash;all that
+had been said.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
+just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
+urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
+library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
+supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
+noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
+I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
+there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
+apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
+husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
+the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
+chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
+out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
+moonlit.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
+short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
+much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
+with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
+sparks of fire from that radiant hour.</p>
+
+<p>She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
+fibres and reaches of another world&mdash;the world of art, and that
+indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
+splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
+jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
+flattering and alluring.</p>
+
+<p>She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
+older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
+elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
+devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
+young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
+"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
+don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
+laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
+time over our blunders."</p>
+
+<p>She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
+like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
+self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
+reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
+imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
+genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
+of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
+companionship.</p>
+
+<p>What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
+what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
+stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.</p>
+
+<p>The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
+pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
+expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
+such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
+Haney's side that summer night&mdash;now so far away&mdash;was momentous, but its
+import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
+just passed.</p>
+
+<p>She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
+sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
+mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
+achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
+life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ben Fordyce and his affianced bride rode home talking of the Haneys.
+"Aren't they deliciously Western!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Haney certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite
+soberly; "she's like a quail&mdash;so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her
+devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter
+than a wife, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're great fun if you don't feel sorry for him as I do," Alice
+thoughtfully responded. "They say he was magnificent as a gambler. He
+admitted to me to-night that he longed to go back to the camp, but that
+he had promised his wife and mother-in-law not to do so. I never ran a
+gambling-saloon, but I can imagine it would be exciting as a play all
+the time, can't you? Here, as he said to me, he can only sit in the sun
+like a lizard on a log. It must seem wonderful to her&mdash;having all this
+money and that big castle of a house. Don't you think so? Wasn't she
+reticent! She hardly uttered a word the whole evening. Some way I feel
+sorry for them both. They can't be happy. Don't you see that? It is
+plain she doesn't love him as a wife should, while he worships her. When
+she's away he is helpless. 'I'm no gairdner,' he said, pathetically; 'I
+was raised on the cobble-stones. I wouldn't know a growin' cabbage from
+a squash.' So you see he can't pass his time in gardening."</p>
+
+<p>Ben's reply was a question. "I wonder if she would ride with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we would do better not to follow up the acquaintance, Ben. It's
+all very interesting to meet them as we did to-night, but they are
+impossible socially&mdash;that you must admit. If there is any possibility of
+our settling down here I suppose we must be careful to do the right
+thing from the start."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was a little irritated by this. "If I'm to settle here as a lawyer I
+can't draw social distinctions of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not&mdash;as a lawyer. Of course, you ought to know Haney; but for
+me to ride or drive with Mrs. Haney is quite a different matter.
+However, I don't really care. She attracts me, and, so far as I know, is
+just a nice little uncultivated woman. We might call on her in the
+morning, and see if she can go with us. It will commit us; but really,
+Ben, I am not going to drag Eastern conventions into this fresh big
+country. I'm willing to risk the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you take that view of it," said Ben.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Bertha was in the yard when they rode up to the gate next morning.
+Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a
+handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of
+young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the
+dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch,
+was watching her with a proud smile.</p>
+
+<p>Alice glanced at her lover with admiration in her eyes. "What a glorious
+creature she really is!"</p>
+
+<p>Seeing visitors at her gate, Bertha came down without confusion to say
+good-morning, and to ask them to dismount.</p>
+
+<p>Ben, with doffed cap, replied by saying: "We've come to ask you to ride
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up at him composedly. "Haven't a saddle, and I don't know
+that any of our horses are broken. But come again to-morrow, and I'll
+have an outfit."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time like the present. Let me ride down to the barn and
+bring one up," volunteered Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't need to do that, I'll 'phone. I didn't really expect you," she
+explained. "Get off and come in a few minutes, and I'll see what I can
+hustle together for an outfit. I haven't rode a lick since I left
+Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>Ben helped Alice to dismount, and Bertha led her to the house while he
+tethered the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"What a superb place you have here!" exclaimed Alice. "It is one of the
+best in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"We bought it for the porch," calmly replied the girl. "The Captain
+likes to sit where he can see the mountains. I'm not entirely done with
+the outfitting yet, but it beats a barn."</p>
+
+<p>Haney rose as they drew near, and smilingly greeted his visitors. "I
+should be out gatherin' the peanuts and harvestin' the egg-plants, but
+the dinner last night, not mentionin' Congdon's pink liquor, kept me
+awake till two."</p>
+
+<p>"Moral: Stick to Irish whiskey&mdash;or Scotch," laughed Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"I will. These strange liquors are not for strong men like ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Ben took a seat at his invitation, while Bertha went in to 'phone for a
+horse and to "dig up" a riding-skirt. Alice was eager to see the
+interior of the house, but held her curiosity in check by walking about
+the beautiful garden, which ran to the very edge of a deep ravine. The
+trees hid the base of the mountain peaks, whose immitigable crags took
+on added majesty from the play of the delicate near-by branches against
+their distant rugged slopes.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a magnificent outlook here, Captain Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis so, and I try to be content with it; but it's hard for one who has
+roamed the air like a hawk all his life to be content with ridin' a
+wooden horse. I couldn't endure it if it weren't for me wife."</p>
+
+<p>His big form rested in his chair with a ponderous inertness which was a
+telltale witness to his essential helplessness. His left hand still
+failed to participate in the movements of his right, and yet, as he
+showed, he could, by special effort of will, use it. "I'm gaining all
+the time&mdash;but slowly," he went on. "I want to make a trip back up to the
+mines, and I think I'll be able to do it soon." He put aside his own
+troubles. "And you, miss, I hope the climate is doing you good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, yes," she brightly responded. "I feel stronger every day."</p>
+
+<p>Ben at the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for
+Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha
+returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as
+distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening,
+fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited
+too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new
+treatment which they had discussed.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and see the house," said Bertha, in brusque invitation. "It
+isn't ship-shape yet. I wanted to do it all myself, but I find it's a
+big proposition to go up against. It sure is. But I like it. I'd like
+nothing better than running a big hotel&mdash;not too big, but just big
+enough. I tell the Captain that when our mines 'pinch out' I'll go to
+Denver and start a hotel."</p>
+
+<p>She was quite communicative, but not at ease as she led them from room
+to room. Her manner was rather that of one seeking to conceal
+trepidation, and her fluency seemed a little out of character.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, she was trying to make the best possible impression on these
+people, whose sincere interest she felt; but with Ben's eyes fixed upon
+her so constantly, and a knowledge of Alice's delicate wit to trouble,
+she was more deeply embarrassed than ever before in her life. It was not
+her habit to blush or stammer, and she did not do so now, but she was
+carried out of her wonted reticence.</p>
+
+<p>"As I say, we bought the place for the porch. I didn't realize what I
+was being let into&mdash;if I had I might have shied. We're practically lost
+in the place. Except when some of the people come down from camp, we're
+alone. My mother helps out some, but she's up at the ranch a good deal."
+She opened the library door, and led the way before an easel, on which
+stood a huge canvas. "Here's the picture Mr. Congdon is paintin' of the
+Captain. I wanted him taken with his hat on, but Mr. Congdon said no,
+and his word went. I don't know whether I like this or not. It's got me
+twisted."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon had been after psychology rather than costume, that was evident
+at a glance, for the clothing counted for little in the portrait. Out of
+the shadow the face peered sadly, yet with a kind of ferocity, too&mdash;a
+look which made Alice Heath recoil from the man. In a certain way the
+artist had taken advantage of Mart's helplessness and loneliness. He had
+caught the sadness, sullenness, and remorselessness of his sitter rather
+than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned
+with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good
+likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a
+cracker-jack piece of work," he ended.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha replied: "I suppose it is, and yet I can't see it. I'd rather it
+looked the way the Captain used to when he came down to the Junction.
+I'm sorry to have his sickness painted in that way."</p>
+
+<p>"That can't be helped. These artists are queer cattle; you can't drive
+'em," Ben remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha smiled. "He wants to paint me now. 'Not on your life' says I.
+'You'd be doing double stunts with my freckles, and I won't stand for
+it.'" She laughed. "No sir-ree, I don't let any artist tip my freckles
+edgewise just to see how flip he is at it. I like Mr. Congdon, but I
+don't trust him&mdash;he's too much of a joker."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon she led the way to the second floor, and showed them the
+furniture, which was mostly very costly and very bad, and at last said:
+"The third story is pretty empty yet. I don't know just what I'm going
+to do with it." She was looking at Alice. "I wish you'd come over and
+help me decide some day."</p>
+
+<p>"What fun!" cried Alice, speaking on the impulse. "I'd like to very
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," Bertha went on, "my folks have always been purty poor, and
+I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know
+any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all
+to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled
+quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell
+me&mdash;except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did
+give me a few points on the library, which ain't so bad, we think; but
+all the rest of it I had to dig out myself, and it's slow work. But I
+guess we better go down; my horse will be here in a few minutes." Then,
+with lowered voice, she added: "I can't stay out but a little while. The
+Captain dreads to have me leave him even to go down-town. I hadn't ought
+to go at all."</p>
+
+<p>Ben began to perceive a real slavery in her life, and reassured her.
+"I'm glad you're coming. It will do you good, and it will be a pleasure
+to us too. We'll only be away an hour."</p>
+
+<p>As they returned to the porch, Bertha put her hand on Haney's shoulder,
+in the manner of one man to another, saying: "I'm going for a little
+ride with these people, Captain, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a
+subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart
+responded to it.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's horse proved to be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with
+the ease and celerity of a boy&mdash;riding astride, in the mountain fashion.
+"I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all
+the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything
+more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the
+saddle, her face glowing, her hair blown across her face.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, a timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was
+always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A
+pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at
+them&mdash;so young, so vigorous, and so blithe.</p>
+
+<p>"I should be sitting with Captain Haney on the porch," she thought, with
+bitterness. "I am out of place here."</p>
+
+<p>The words which passed between Bertha and her cavalier meant little, but
+their glances meant much. It was, indeed, a fateful ride. The liking,
+the deep interest, born of their first meeting, swept irresistibly into
+admiration. Their faces turned towards each other, youth to youth, as
+naturally as flowers swing towards the light.</p>
+
+<p>They fell into argument over saddles, over the difference between his
+manner of riding and her own. Her speech, so direct, so full of quaint
+slang, enchanted him, and Alice soon found herself the third party. And
+when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a
+clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
+out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
+gait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
+became anxious at once.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race&mdash;I can see that; and I'd
+really like to see her ride&mdash;she sits her horse so beautifully."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
+road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
+with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
+a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
+she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
+interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
+physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
+sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
+and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
+her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
+disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
+some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
+youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was&mdash;a broken thing. The
+divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
+vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
+month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
+the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
+skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
+hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
+Ben was receiving lessons from her&mdash;absorbed and jocular.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
+landscape&mdash;a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
+rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
+deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
+beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
+Alice, let's make our home here."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"</p>
+
+<p>The horse that Bertha rode was prancing and foaming, eager for a renewal
+of the race, and Ben, seeing it, cried out: "Shall we go round by the
+hanging rock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm willing!" answered Bertha, her eyes shining with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Alice shook her head. "I think I'll let you young things go your own
+gait, and I'll poke along back towards home."</p>
+
+<p>Ben rode near her, searching her face anxiously. "You're not tired&mdash;are
+you, sweetness?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I would be if I took that big circuit. But never mind me, I
+like to poke."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he answered, quite relieved, "we'll meet you at the
+bridge." And off they dashed with furious clatter, leaving her to slowly
+retrace her lonely way, feeling very tired, very old, and very sad.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was perfectly, perilously happy. It was almost her first escape
+from the brooding care and weight of Haney's presence. She felt as she
+used to feel when speeding away on swift gallop to the ranch with some
+companion as care-free as herself. Since that fateful day when her
+mother fell ill and Marshall Haney asked her to marry him, she had not
+been permitted an hour's holiday. Even when absent from her husband her
+mind carried an inescapable picture of his loneliness and helplessness,
+and no complete relaxation had come with her temporary freedom. This
+day, this hour, she was suddenly free from care, from pain, from all
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>She considered this feeling due to the saddle and to the clear air of
+the morning. "I will ride every day," she declared to Ben, with shining
+face, as they drew their horses to a walk. "I don't know when I've
+enjoyed a ride so much. I can't see why I haven't been out before. I
+used to ride a good lot; lately I've dropped it."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll call for you every morning," he replied. "As Alice gets stronger,
+we can go up into the ca&ntilde;ons and take long rides."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll let her ride in the cart
+with the Captain, and take our dinner, and we'll all go up the North
+Ca&ntilde;on some day, and eat picnic dinner there."</p>
+
+<p>"Good idea," he said, accepting her disposition of Alice without even
+mental dissent. "That will be jolly fun."</p>
+
+<p>They planned this and other excursions, with no sense of leaving any one
+behind or of cutting across conventional boundaries. Their native
+honesty and innocence of any ill intention prevented even a suspicion of
+danger, and by the time they joined Alice at the bridge they were on
+terms of intimacy and good-fellowship which seemed to rise from years of
+long acquaintance. Ben had promised to help her select a horse, and she
+had agreed to bring the Captain to call on Alice, who was staying with
+some friends not far away.</p>
+
+<p>This change in Bertha's manner extended to Alice, who returned it in
+kind. The guilelessness which shone from the young wife's clear eyes was
+unmistakable. She was growing handsome, too. The flush of blood in her
+cheeks had submerged her freckles, and Alice began to realize how the
+poor child's devotion to Marshall Haney had reacted against her native
+good health. "She is but a child even now," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was sitting on the porch where they had left him, the collie at
+his feet, but at sight of them returning he rose and hobbled slowly down
+the walk, his heart filled with tenderness and admiration for his wife.
+He had never ridden with her, but he had once seen her mounted, and one
+of his expressed wishes had been that he might be able to sit a saddle
+once more and ride by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and stay to dinner!" he called, hospitably, and Bertha eagerly
+seconded the invitation.</p>
+
+<p>But Alice replied: "I'm pretty tired; I think I'll go home. You can stay
+if you like, Ben."</p>
+
+<p>Ben, smitten with sudden contrition, quickly said: "Oh no; I will go
+with you. I'm afraid you've ridden too far."</p>
+
+<p>She protested against this, for Bertha's relief. "Not at all. It's a
+good tiredness. It's been great fun."</p>
+
+<p>And with promises of another expedition of the same sort they rode away,
+while Bertha and Haney remained at the gate to examine the new horse.</p>
+
+<p>As little Mrs. Haney re-entered the house with her husband the day
+seemed to lose its magical brightness, and to decline to a humdrum,
+shadowless flare. The house became cold and gloomy and the day empty.
+For the first time since its purchase she mentally asked herself: "What
+will I do now?" It was as if some ruling motive had suddenly been
+withdrawn from her life.</p>
+
+<p>This empty, aching spot remained with her all through the day, even when
+she took Haney for his drive down-town, and only disappeared for a few
+moments as they met young Fordyce on the street. It troubled her as she
+returned to the house, and she was glad that Williams came in to take
+supper with them, for his talk of the mine diverted her and deeply
+interested her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Williams eyed his boss critically. "You're gainin', Captain. You'll soon
+be able to make camp again."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, but the doctor says my heart's affected and it wouldn't be
+safe for me to go any higher&mdash;for a while."</p>
+
+<p>Williams smiled at Bertha. "Better send the missus, then. The men all
+have a great idea of her. They say she's a kind of mascot. McGonnigle
+asks me every time what she thinks of our new shaft. I've a kind of
+reverence for her judgment myself. They say women kind o' feel their way
+to a conclusion. Now, I'd like her to pass judgment on our work in <i>The
+Diamond Ace</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to go up," said Bertha. But, in truth, she was no longer
+thinking of the mine: she was considering how she might make her table
+look as pretty as Mrs. Congdon's. Her first dissatisfaction with her own
+way of life filled her mind. "I must have some of those candles," she
+said to herself, while the men were still intent upon the mine. Her
+first step towards social conformity was at this moment taken.</p>
+
+<p>She felt herself akin to these people, and this assertion, subconscious
+and unuttered, brought something between Marshall Haney and herself. It
+was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was
+perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the
+Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the
+ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge
+she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day,
+though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, now piteously
+dependent upon her.</p>
+
+<p>He managed his morning paper very well, but when she read aloud to him
+he almost always went to sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
+Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
+waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
+had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
+nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
+weakness of will not native to her.</p>
+
+<p>Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
+with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
+As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
+a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
+her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.</p>
+
+<p>As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
+did ye have a good ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye did not&mdash;Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
+repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
+mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
+better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
+get ready at your ease."</p>
+
+<p>The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
+afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
+day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
+lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.</p>
+
+<p>"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
+in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
+buy the friends you really care for.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
+had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
+explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
+again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
+mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
+and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
+call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
+little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
+listened to me gabble," he added.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend&mdash;a rather handsome
+house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
+blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
+her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
+Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
+Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
+don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
+and then. I'm glad you came."</p>
+
+<p>"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
+delicate face was wrinkled and withered.</p>
+
+<p>Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
+"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork&mdash;nothing permanently depresses
+me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
+of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
+a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, indeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
+me out&mdash;I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay <i>down</i> more than three
+days."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
+"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
+hand. "How are ye the day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
+Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
+one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."</p>
+
+<p>Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
+o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
+had just sighted the camp of the robbers."</p>
+
+<p>Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
+must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
+that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
+in those days."</p>
+
+<p>"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
+and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
+revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
+You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."</p>
+
+<p>Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
+anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
+things she cares to see."</p>
+
+<p>Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
+in your ears?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
+protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
+exquisite profile?" he thought.</p>
+
+<p>The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
+Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
+boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
+of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
+of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
+respect?</p>
+
+<p>Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
+be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
+sighted us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
+furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
+discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
+advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
+and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals&mdash;if she has any."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
+"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
+poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
+off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
+that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
+man do it."</p>
+
+<p>The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
+social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
+go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
+up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
+she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
+glowing and her face alight.</p>
+
+<p>"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
+horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
+boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
+'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
+day."</p>
+
+<p>Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
+with us to-day."</p>
+
+<p>As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
+their return&mdash;patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
+resentful within.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear Ca&ntilde;on, but Ben was quick to say:
+"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
+sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
+and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
+the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
+unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
+plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
+racing, no circuits with her&mdash;and yet outwardly and in reality she was
+deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.</p>
+
+<p>Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
+luncheon&mdash;Bertha was learning to call it that&mdash;the outing ended in a
+rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
+showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
+and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.</p>
+
+<p>Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
+single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
+they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
+"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
+knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
+awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
+thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
+know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
+to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
+before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
+running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
+pertinent. What can I help you on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know. Alice"&mdash;she spoke the word with a little
+hesitation&mdash;"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
+that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church&mdash;a little&mdash;and I'm helping
+up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
+some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
+pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
+down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are women who do that and nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
+as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
+sitting around."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
+We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
+thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
+they come, but they don't stay&mdash;they don't seem comfortable. They are
+all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
+used to. And the people next door here&mdash;well, they don't neighbor at
+all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
+church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
+your wealth is a barrier."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
+go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
+this money I might put on airs; but I haven't&mdash;I've just married into
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly&mdash;almost accusingly.</p>
+
+<p>Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
+Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
+discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
+I&mdash;And so when the word came that he was hurt&mdash;and wanted me&mdash;I went."
+Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
+great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
+fine man in spite of&mdash;" He broke off.</p>
+
+<p>She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
+mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
+before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."</p>
+
+<p>He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers&mdash;I'm
+a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
+that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
+crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor&mdash;he never let a crooked deal
+pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
+and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
+face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
+Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"</p>
+
+<p>His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
+gambler rather than a miner."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
+the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
+in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
+count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."</p>
+
+<p>The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
+confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
+His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
+responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
+pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
+her&mdash;the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
+to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
+power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
+their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
+potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
+pupil, before him.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
+and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man&mdash;he has your legal
+business, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
+she despises us&mdash;that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
+ain't legal advice I want&mdash;it's something else. I don't know what it is.
+Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
+life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
+take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
+to me?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer&mdash;and a very young
+one at that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."</p>
+
+<p>"What am I, then?"</p>
+
+<p>The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
+the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
+scholar."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."</p>
+
+<p>She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
+trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
+tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
+but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
+down."</p>
+
+<p>This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
+tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
+shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
+me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."</p>
+
+<p>Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
+self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now&mdash;the quality which
+attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
+the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
+took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
+settee.</p>
+
+<p>Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
+believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
+care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
+little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
+when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
+misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
+maybe she's right&mdash;maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
+given her a good deal, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
+going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
+and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
+spread out before us&mdash;Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
+from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
+comin'. I used to work hard&mdash;you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
+used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
+though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
+and twist me two thumbs&mdash;and one of them bog-spavined, at that."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
+Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!&mdash;I
+mean luncheon, ma'am&mdash;I'm lately instructed."</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
+twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
+eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."</p>
+
+<p>Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
+continued to be very personal&mdash;it could not be prevented, for each of
+these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
+feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
+thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
+the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
+self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
+struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
+careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
+first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
+wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
+reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
+trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
+Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
+spirit of the meal.</p>
+
+<p>At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
+lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
+I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
+you'll be able to do it."</p>
+
+<p>Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
+Crego?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
+to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
+not above nodding when me own wife passes by."</p>
+
+<p>Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
+Crego."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
+paid well&mdash;as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
+advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."</p>
+
+<p>Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
+would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
+and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."</p>
+
+<p>Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
+loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."</p>
+
+<p>He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
+quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
+Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
+it profitable to ye."</p>
+
+<p>Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
+anyway&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
+I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
+besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
+if you have definitely decided against him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
+Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
+good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
+harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."</p>
+
+<p>Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients&mdash;at least,
+a <i>young</i> lawyer can't."</p>
+
+<p>Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
+up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
+has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
+high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
+defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
+fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
+luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
+had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
+go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
+I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
+mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
+to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
+me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
+for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
+was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won&mdash;I
+almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
+sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
+another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
+gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
+the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
+takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
+an equal chance with me&mdash;else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
+rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
+is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
+above&mdash;if there is such&mdash;is there to see that we all have a show for our
+ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."</p>
+
+<p>Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
+spirit. She was not of his faith&mdash;quite the contrary. She was a
+fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
+to understand his point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
+game, but to keep them <i>out</i> of the game. I had too much faith in me
+luck to ever weaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
+instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
+plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
+put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
+says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
+turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
+knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
+considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
+me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
+but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
+that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces&mdash;I don't complain. I
+take me chances. Now"&mdash;here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
+lightened&mdash;"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"</p>
+
+<p>Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
+me to get busy."</p>
+
+<p>"And ye expect to marry soon?"</p>
+
+<p>This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
+people listening&mdash;a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
+perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
+housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
+little stronger."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
+"here's <i>your</i> chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
+We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
+by that."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
+of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
+your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
+sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
+more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
+liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
+offer&mdash;provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
+across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
+she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
+I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.</p>
+
+<p>They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
+quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
+Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
+business here."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
+takes me eye."</p>
+
+<p>Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
+glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
+like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
+little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
+business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
+we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
+pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
+first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
+glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
+satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
+her home.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
+the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
+of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
+could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
+right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
+solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
+going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
+the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
+place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
+immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
+horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
+to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
+said.</p>
+
+<p>He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
+social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
+inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely&mdash;especially
+if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
+responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
+arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
+bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
+with them&mdash;or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"</p>
+
+<p>"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"</p>
+
+<p>"If any evil comes of this&mdash;and there will be sorrow in it&mdash;you'll be
+morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
+who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
+and not be hurt by it."</p>
+
+<p>The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
+has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
+Haney&mdash;he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
+be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
+has pleased Haney&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it&mdash;I'm
+perfectly sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
+of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
+took up his paper and walked away from her.</p>
+
+<p>She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
+news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
+either. What do you think, Frank?"</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
+right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
+tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
+Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
+whole thing over."</p>
+
+<p>"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
+they choose to make, and I mostly think they can&mdash;ten generations of
+Quaker ancestry&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But the people there don't know their ancestry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
+is <i>taken</i> with Ben&mdash;it's all her plan."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
+true as steel."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. My prophetic soul&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
+straightforward as a boy of twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
+Ben and his singing that night here."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
+say such a thing&mdash;even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
+believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
+create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p>He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
+I are friends. I like him immensely&mdash;too much to think of running such a
+frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
+peril."</p>
+
+<p>Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
+deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
+warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
+whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
+granted."</p>
+
+<p>So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
+couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
+am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
+first time they called at his office.</p>
+
+<p>Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
+pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
+for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
+entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
+accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
+second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
+practice a long time."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
+replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
+Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
+signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it has."</p>
+
+<p>"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."</p>
+
+<p>"They do," Haney agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
+This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
+face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
+this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
+in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
+being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
+It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
+they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
+and it's really due to you."</p>
+
+<p>She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
+like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
+looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."</p>
+
+<p>"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
+often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
+full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
+hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
+easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
+me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
+have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
+turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
+own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
+Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
+Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
+in the West."</p>
+
+<p>Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
+Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.</p>
+
+<p>She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
+Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
+doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
+young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
+might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
+of the Captain's wife.</p>
+
+<p>Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
+years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
+possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
+innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
+been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid&mdash;which she knew
+and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
+to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
+is flooded with sunshine&mdash;a static world in appearance. But how will it
+be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
+sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
+other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
+unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
+spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
+filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
+"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
+stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
+conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
+of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
+ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
+will rise&mdash;and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
+you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
+me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
+Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
+to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
+girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."</p>
+
+<p>"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
+widow?"</p>
+
+<p>She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
+different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
+acceptable to the really best people."</p>
+
+<p>"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
+rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
+would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."</p>
+
+<p>"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.</p>
+
+<p>"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
+more interesting woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
+men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
+I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
+friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
+their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
+gambler. Isn't that so, now?"</p>
+
+<p>She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
+talk about it any more&mdash;at present." And at this moment there passed
+before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
+mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
+the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
+shadow&mdash;disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
+the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
+the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.</p>
+
+<p>This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
+later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
+presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
+the cause of his wounding?</p>
+
+<p>This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
+They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
+rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
+say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
+predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
+comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
+reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
+or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
+comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
+entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
+still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
+are ever in our thoughts in slumber.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
+was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
+sake&mdash;and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
+are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
+Dutch aunt."</p>
+
+<p>Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
+going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
+they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
+guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
+this retainer from Captain Haney."</p>
+
+<p>He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
+hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
+When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
+possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
+here and pay our way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ben!"&mdash;there was a wail in her voice&mdash;"I don't seem to gain as I
+should! I'm completely tired out to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
+exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
+office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
+I keep a house&mdash;your house&mdash;in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
+it&mdash;not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."</p>
+
+<p>He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
+so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
+time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
+wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
+girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
+lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
+down into these detestable moods."</p>
+
+<p>Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
+Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
+about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
+a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
+cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
+been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
+didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"</p>
+
+<p>When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
+her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.</p>
+
+<p>"I always have something on my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
+your mind. Do I know what it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
+is urging an immediate marriage."</p>
+
+<p>Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
+not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
+here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
+it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
+not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
+is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
+socially with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
+the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
+little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
+some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
+to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rats!"</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
+now; your cheeks are blazing."</p>
+
+<p>"With wrath&mdash;not health."</p>
+
+<p>"At me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
+Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
+getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
+younger to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's because I'm angry."</p>
+
+<p>"What about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon became solemn&mdash;grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
+been making some of your tactful remarks."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
+you to do."</p>
+
+<p>He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
+by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
+candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held&mdash;apparently; for Alice
+was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
+and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously&mdash;except his
+portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
+not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
+tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
+Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
+but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
+fates&mdash;generally the humorous ones&mdash;pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
+him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
+long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
+give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
+left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.</p>
+
+<p>In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
+description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
+mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
+me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
+'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
+does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her&mdash;put a spell over
+her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
+thing with her&mdash;and she was <i>such</i> a good girl. How could you,
+Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
+her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
+have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
+"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
+I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
+over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
+the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
+appearing suddenly at the door &agrave; la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
+of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
+I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
+hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
+me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
+this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
+ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
+crime of this kind unless&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
+then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
+Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
+made Mrs. Henry turn pale.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
+you to the police.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'</p>
+
+<p>"'So it is&mdash;with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
+thinks I've hypnotized her?'</p>
+
+<p>"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
+truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
+door&mdash;particularly as everything was quiet inside."</p>
+
+<p>His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
+before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
+of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
+all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
+spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
+didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
+'phoned the police."</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
+so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
+expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
+burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
+he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
+story&mdash;he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
+don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"For good and all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
+rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," she said, simply.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
+his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
+investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
+mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
+Ben's just the boy to do this."</p>
+
+<p>Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
+start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
+called low&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
+business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
+different with Ben, who is just starting."</p>
+
+<p>Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"How bad do you need it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
+looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
+the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
+Congdon perceived it.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
+able to buy or rent and keep house&mdash;or I didn't till Haney made this
+offer."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he come to make it?"</p>
+
+<p>His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
+himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
+and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
+misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
+come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
+thinks I am at once able and honest."</p>
+
+<p>"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
+said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
+too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.</p>
+
+<p>She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
+any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
+dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
+"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
+were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
+don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
+her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
+A wonder it wasn't with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S YELLOW CART</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort&mdash;just what he
+needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to
+his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law
+journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys
+regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal
+for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This
+filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the
+carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the
+afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost
+daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated
+Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was,
+as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing
+the outcome of it all.</p>
+
+<p>"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs.
+Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled
+under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly
+yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing
+rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but
+her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came
+into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired
+feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases
+which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of
+her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little
+niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.</p>
+
+<p>At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required
+a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding
+(the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume
+the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but
+she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And
+he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the
+first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong
+and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll
+wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."</p>
+
+<p>These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with
+such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like
+some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant
+and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out,
+glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old
+Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did
+not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and
+called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign
+of his growing inertness.</p>
+
+<p>And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice
+suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.
+He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha
+persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and
+if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego),
+found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to
+be&mdash;as they were&mdash;innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume
+the r&ocirc;le of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the
+suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben
+one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study&mdash;to
+prepare yourself for other clients&mdash;when they come."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do
+get in an hour or two every day."</p>
+
+<p>"But you ought to study <i>six</i> hours every day. Aren't the traditions of
+Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax,
+and study in the light of pine knots all night?"</p>
+
+<p>He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.
+But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy,
+Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I
+really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.
+Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they
+are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."</p>
+
+<p>"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but
+I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've
+always felt that yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.
+Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of
+course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would
+be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"</p>
+
+<p>"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you
+know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."</p>
+
+<p>It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual
+way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in
+case he should forget&mdash;as he was likely to do&mdash;and allude to "Bertha" in
+her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely
+said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her&mdash;I mean I'm sorry she
+can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is
+improving very rapidly."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through
+the town library&mdash;a book every other day, she tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"Novels, I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.
+Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised
+her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've
+suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."</p>
+
+<p>He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the
+look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to assume the position of mentor
+as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual
+supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her
+daily life as absolutely as a husband&mdash;more absolutely, in fact; for she
+obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these
+facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his
+feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and
+therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal
+anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her
+upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously
+about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one
+of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening
+to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to
+take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to
+render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite
+differently about that.</p>
+
+<p>"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says,
+she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made
+man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex
+is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my
+father's ability?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to
+draw from."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but her father was an educated man&mdash;a civil engineer, she tells me,
+who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an
+inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor&mdash;they nearly all do."</p>
+
+<p>"But the mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's
+broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so
+bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I
+think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she
+did&mdash;barbers and railway hands, and all that&mdash;and be what she is to-day.
+If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have
+gone far."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.
+Congdon.</p>
+
+<p>"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"</p>
+
+<p>"And his legatee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."</p>
+
+<p>They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying
+something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why
+she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over
+Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."
+She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going
+to make it as pretty as I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben
+wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like
+the girl."</p>
+
+<p>Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course
+I'll come. Who else will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the missus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really
+promises to be smart!"</p>
+
+<p>Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be
+smart&mdash;Mrs. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.
+Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and
+she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this
+town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's
+doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your
+life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't
+think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is
+putting her on?"</p>
+
+<p>"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was."</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain was in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the
+end. Poor old Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she
+pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old
+way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.
+He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these
+things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special
+license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then
+she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it.
+I'm not going to keep it,' she said."</p>
+
+<p>"That was for effect," remarked Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes
+and say such things."</p>
+
+<p>Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,'
+then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is
+nothing, intellect is nothing&mdash;it's all a question of whether we're
+good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so
+hard to please."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.</p>
+
+<p>"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I
+accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and
+commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the
+hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was
+she dressed?"</p>
+
+<p>"In perfect good taste&mdash;almost too good. She looked like one of Joe
+Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries
+that sort of thing well&mdash;she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could
+have a year in Paris&mdash;wow!&mdash;well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted
+Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination.
+I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus
+far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public.
+But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting
+power."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the
+reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you
+look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney,
+we better put on our swellest ginghams."</p>
+
+<p>Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she
+was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her
+for a long time&mdash;since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed
+since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it
+was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a
+vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to
+their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me
+only failing health, and dares not speak."</p>
+
+<p>She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too
+long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she
+despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And
+she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face,
+and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a
+smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant
+as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOLLY SEND-OFF</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in
+outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young
+wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner.
+She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a
+high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her
+critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university
+who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette
+up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns.
+Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which
+revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed the
+growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and
+turquoise&mdash;not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of
+all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as
+she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr
+to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually
+uncertain of step.</p>
+
+<p>Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he
+greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of
+his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with
+a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called
+beautiful&mdash;and by him&mdash;had been outside the circle of her most daring
+hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of
+musical bells&mdash;entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his
+right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry
+clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one
+said&mdash;except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain
+down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with
+his napkin and his fork.</p>
+
+<p>The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on
+her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice&mdash;half-laughing, but tender
+also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning
+my salary while you're gone."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times,
+but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you&mdash;and
+Alice&mdash;come with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out
+of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll pay you wages just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and
+I can't think of going without her."</p>
+
+<p>This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her
+face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table
+was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the
+great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a
+graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She
+vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of
+the best the world over&mdash;that it was of a part and interfused with the
+dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be <i>au fait</i>,"
+Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath <i>knows</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego, who sat nearly opposite, stared at the girl in stupefaction.
+"She makes me feel dowdy," she had confessed to Lee in the
+dressing-room. "Why didn't you warn me to come in my best? Who has been
+coaching her? Alice Heath, I suppose." She now wondered as sharply over
+the girl's manner; for Bertha, carried out of herself by Ben's word of
+praise, felt no desire to drink or to eat, and her reticence and the
+delicacy of her appetite conferred a distinction which concealed her
+lack of small talk, and protected her from the criticism to which
+exuberance of manner ordinarily exposed her.</p>
+
+<p>She was deeply impressed, too, with Ben's management of the waiters, and
+with the ease and skill with which he supported Alice in carrying
+forward the courses. It was a revelation of training which instructed
+her absurdly, for her mind was quick to link and compare. It leaped so
+swiftly and so subtilely along connecting lines of thought that a hint
+alone sufficed to set in motion a hundred latent memories and inherited
+aptitudes. Her father had been a man of native refinement, and she
+possessed unstirred deeps of character, as Alice now well understood.
+And from her end of the table she glanced often at the sweetly smiling
+girl-wife whose beauty abashed Haney. At last she said to him: "Your
+wife is very lovely to-night, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment; then replied, slowly: "She is. She's as fine as
+anny queen!" Then after another pause, added: "And the more shame to me,
+being what I am! She's a good girl, miss, true as steel. Never a word of
+complaint or a frown. She bears with me like an angel."</p>
+
+<p>"You're doing a great deal for her."</p>
+
+<p>His face lightened. "So she says. I mean to do more. I mean to show her
+the world. That's the only comfort I have; my money is giving her nice
+clothes and a home as good as anny, and to-night I feel 'tis giving her
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"But she is worth while, even without the money."</p>
+
+<p>"True," he quickly said. "But I take comfort in the consideration that
+had I not carried her away she'd be in Sibley Junction this night."</p>
+
+<p>"Sibley Junction! Can this radiant young creature sitting there at the
+head of my table be the clerk of the Golden Eagle Hotel?" thought Alice.
+"Money is magical! No wonder we all work for it&mdash;and worship it!"</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was both early and short, in order that Bertha and the
+Captain might take the train at ten o'clock. And as they were to have
+the drawing-room in the sleeping-car (Ben's suggestion), they went
+directly to the coach in their party clothes. And so it happened that
+this little woman, who had never occupied a berth in a Pullman, entered
+her compartment in the robes of a princess.</p>
+
+<p>Alice had suggested a maid, but Bertha would not hear to that; but she
+was willing that their coachman should go along to help the Captain. Ben
+had interposed here, and said: "You need some one used to travelling. I
+know a colored fellow who is out of service just now, and would like to
+come to you. He's a good, reliable man, and a fine nurse." So she had
+engaged him. He was on the platform as they drove up&mdash;a slight, quiet
+man, of gentle speech and indeterminable age, who took charge of the
+Captain at once, as if he had been his servant for years.</p>
+
+<p>Alice said good-bye at the carriage door, but Ben went with them into
+the coach. And in the excitement of getting to the train and into the
+car Bertha had been able to forget the sick feeling about her heart. But
+now, as he turned and said, "It's nearly time to start," and held out
+his hand in parting, a desolation, a loneliness, a helpless hunger swept
+over her, the like of which had never anguished her before.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you were going too!" she faltered, her speech broken and full of
+sad cadences.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, was tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I
+can't&mdash;I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and
+kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and,
+so stumbling and shaken, vanished from her sight.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she remained standing in the aisle, the touch of his lips
+still clinging to her cheek, surprised, full of bewildered defence;
+then, as reckless of on-lookers as he had been, she rushed to the window
+in swift attempt to catch a final glimpse of him. But in vain; he had
+hurried away without looking back, her look of wonder and surprise still
+dazzling him with its significance. A kiss with him, as with her, had
+never been a thing lightly given or received, and this caress, so simple
+to others, sprang from an impulse that was elemental. That he had both
+shocked and angered her he fully believed; but the arch of her brows,
+the wistful curve of her lips, and the pretty, almost childish, push of
+her hands against his breast were still so appealingly vivid that he
+entered the carriage and took his seat beside Alice with a kind of
+rebellious joy hot in his blood.</p>
+
+<p>However, as his passion ebbed his uneasiness deepened, and he went to
+his room that night with a feeling that his connection with the Haneys,
+so profitable and so pleasant, was in danger of being irremediably
+broken off. "She will be justified in refusing ever to see me again," he
+groaned. And in this spirit of self-condemnation and loneliness he took
+up his work next day.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's self-revelation was slower. She was so young and so innately
+honest and good that no sense of guilt attached to the pleasure she felt
+in the sudden revelation that this splendid young man loved her&mdash;a
+pleasure which grew as the first shock of the parting, the pain, and the
+surprise wore away. "He likes me! He said I was beautiful! He kissed
+me!" These were the rounds in the ladder of her ascent, and she was
+carried high, only to fall into despair. For was she not leaving him and
+all the pleasant people she had come so recently to know&mdash;hurrying away
+into darkness with a crippled man, old before his time, out into a world
+of which she knew little&mdash;for which, at this moment, she cared nothing?</p>
+
+<p>She went back, a few moments later, with this sorrow written on her
+face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for
+bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness
+mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this&mdash;me, that could
+once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take care of you!" she cried, in swift contrition. Turning almost
+fiercely to the valet, she said: "You can go, I'll 'tend to him!"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain stopped her gently. "No, darlin', Ben's right; I'm too
+clumsy and heavy for you. I need just such a handy man. Now, now! Let
+be!... Go ahead, Lucius, strip off these monkey-fixens, and dom the man
+that gets me into them again."</p>
+
+<p>Efficient as she was, the girl could not but admit that Lucius was
+better able to serve her husband than herself. He was both deft and
+strong; and though the swaying of the car troubled his master, he
+steadied him and guided him and stowed him away as featly as if it were
+the fiftieth instead of the first time; then, with a few words of
+explanation to the wife, he quietly withdrew, and shut the door with a
+final touch of considerate care which was new to her.</p>
+
+<p>She would have been less troubled by him had he been a black man, but he
+was not. He seemed more like a Spaniard, and his grizzled mustache,
+yellowish skin, and big dreamy black eyes lent him a curious
+distinction, and the thought that he was to take her place as crutch and
+cane to the Captain gave her a sense of uselessness which she had not,
+up to this moment, confessed.</p>
+
+<p>His suggestions, combined to the minute instructions of Miss Franklin,
+enabled her to get to her bunk in fair order, but no sleep came to her
+for hours. She longed for her mother more childishly than at any time
+since her marriage. She reproached herself for not bringing Miss
+Franklin. "Why did I come at all?" she wailed, in final accusation.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a time when the thought of this trip&mdash;of Chicago, New
+York, and Washington&mdash;was big in her mind, but it was so no longer.
+These great cities were but names&mdash;empty sounds compared to the
+realities she was leaving: her splendid house, her horses and dogs&mdash;and
+her daily joy in Ben Fordyce. She did not put these visits in their
+highest place, not even when remembering his parting kiss, but she dwelt
+upon the inspiriting morning drives, the talks in the mellow-tinted,
+sunshine-lighted office. She recalled the lunches they took together and
+the occasional wild gallops up the ca&ntilde;on&mdash;these she treasured as the
+golden realities, for the loss of which she was even now heart-sick.</p>
+
+<p>One thought alone steadied her&mdash;gave her a kind of resignation: the
+Captain wanted to find his sisters, to revisit the scenes of his youth,
+and it was her duty to go with him. And in this somewhat dreary comfort
+she fell asleep at last.</p>
+
+<p>She was awakened next morning by a pleasant voice saying: "The first
+call for breakfast has been made, Mrs. Haney." And she looked up to find
+Lucius peering in at the door with serious, kindly eyes. He added,
+formally: "If I can assist you in any way call me, and please let me
+know when you are ready to have me come in."</p>
+
+<p>His speech was so precise and his manner so perfect that Bertha was
+puzzled and a little embarrassed by them. It seemed abnormal to have a
+hired servant so polished, so thoughtful. She dressed hurriedly, while
+the Captain yawned and talked between his yawning. "That yellow chap is
+sure handy. I wish I'd had him before; 'twould have saved you a power o'
+work and worry. Did ye sleep last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very well. I hope you did. You can't complain of the bunk."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis luxurious&mdash;'tis so! But there's nothing like the west side of
+Colorado Avenue, after all, or a bed of pine boughs beside a roaring
+mountain stream. 'Twas a fine little supper Ben gave us last night."</p>
+
+<p>The level lands awed and depressed the mountain girl. They seemed to
+type the flat and desolate spiritual world into which she was entering,
+and the ride seemed interminable, carrying her every hour farther from
+the scenes and sounds to which her love clung. She was bitterly
+homesick, and nothing seemed to promise comfort. She gazed with
+lack-lustre eyes on the towns and rivers along the way, and she entered
+the great inland metropolis by the lake with dread and a deepening sense
+of her inexperience and youth.</p>
+
+<p>On the neighboring track stood the return sleepers headed for the hills,
+and she acknowledged a wild desire to take her place among the jocund
+folk who stood on the observation-platform exchanging good-byes with
+friends. Thunderous, smothering, and vast the city seemed as they drove
+through it on their way to the hotel, and upon reaching her room she
+flung herself down on her bed and sobbed in a frenzy of homesickness.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled,
+and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius
+went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would
+soon be over.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye
+sick?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child,
+and made no further answer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still
+at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an
+hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet
+insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at
+a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten
+as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart,
+and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it
+was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the
+Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were
+tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood,
+not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll
+take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive
+and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the
+World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is,
+bedad."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the
+moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"A lady! Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"A certain Mrs. Brent&mdash;a friend of Miss Franklin's."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave
+me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out.</p>
+
+<p>She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion
+to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the
+cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing
+it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor&mdash;I
+mean Miss Franklin&mdash;has been writing to me about you. You're just in
+time to come to a little dinner of mine&mdash;don't make any engagement for
+to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up
+the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that
+the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it?" asked the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of Miss Franklin's&mdash;sounds just like her voice, but I think
+she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here
+at eleven."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up
+the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off."</p>
+
+<p>"There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>The gambler looked at him humorously. "Ye must be a mind-reader."</p>
+
+<p>A tap on the door called the man out, and when he returned he bore a
+telegram. "For you, Captain," he said, presenting it on the salver.</p>
+
+<p>The gambler took it with sudden apprehension in his face. "I hope
+there's no trouble at the mine," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, leaning over his shoulder, read it first. "It's from Ben!" she
+called, joyously. "Ain't it just like him?"</p>
+
+<p>This message seemed a little bit foolish to Haney.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Just to say hello! All well here. Have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Fordyce.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<p>To Bertha it made all the difference between sunshine and shadow. She
+thrilled to it as if it had been a voice. "He knew I'd be homesick, and
+so he sent this to cheer me up," she said. And in this she was right.
+Her shoulders lifted and her face cleared. "Come on, Captain, if we're
+going."</p>
+
+<p>As they came down the elevator, men in buttons met them, and attended
+them to the door, and turned them over to still other uniformed
+attendants, who were fain to help them into the auto-car; for Lucius had
+managed to convey to the hotel a proper sense of his employer's money
+value. He himself was always close to his master's side, for lately
+Haney had taken to stumbling at unexpected moments, and his increasing
+bulk made a fall a real danger.</p>
+
+<p>A thrill of delight, of elation, ran through the young wife as she
+glanced up and down Chicago's proudest avenue. It conformed to her
+notion of a city. The level park, flooded with spring sunshine, was
+walled on the west by massive buildings, while to the east stretched the
+shining lake. From here the city seemed truly cosmopolitan. It had
+dignity and wealth of color, and to the girl from Sibley Junction was
+completely satisfying&mdash;almost inspiring.</p>
+
+<p>It was uplifting also to be attended to a splendid auto-car by willing,
+alert servants, and to feel that the passers-by were all envious of her
+careless ease. Bertha forgot her homesickness, and took her seat in the
+spirit of one who is determined to have the worth of her money (for once
+anyhow), and the pedestrians, if they had any definite notion of her at
+all, probably said: "There goes a rich old cattle king and his pretty
+daughter. It's money that makes the 'mobile go."</p>
+
+<p>She held to this pose for half an hour, while they threaded the tumult
+of Wabash Avenue, and, crossing the river, swept up the Lake Shore
+Drive. But the lake filled her with other thoughts. "I wish we had this
+at the Springs," she said. "This is fine!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have our share," answered he. "If we had this at our door, there
+wouldn't be anything left to go to."</p>
+
+<p>They whizzed through the park, and down another avenue into the thick
+tangle of traffic, which scared them both, and so back to the hotel, the
+Captain saying: "My! my! but she has grown. 'Tis twenty years since I
+took this turn."</p>
+
+<p>In some strange way Bertha had drawn courage, resolution, pride, and
+ambition from what she saw on this short ride. That she was in a car and
+mistress of it was in itself a marvellous distinction, and the thought
+of what she would have been&mdash;as a "round-tripper" from Sibley
+Junction&mdash;added to her pleasure and pride. She was always doing sums in
+her head now. Thus: "Suppose our excursion does cost twenty dollars per
+day; that's only one hundred and fifty per week, six hundred per month,
+and our income is ten times that, and more." She had not risen above the
+habit of calculation, but she was fast rising to higher levels of
+expenditure.</p>
+
+<p>She met Mrs. Brent with something of this mood in her manner, but was
+instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least
+resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully
+the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, and her lips smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're a child," she said&mdash;"a mere babe! Dorothy didn't tell me
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha stiffened a little, and Mrs. Brent laughingly added: "Please
+don't be offended&mdash;I am really surprised." And then her manner became so
+winning that before the Western girl realized it she had given her
+consent to join a dinner-party the following night. "Come early, for we
+are to go to the theatre afterwards. I'll have some of the university
+people in to see you. Miss Franklin has made us all eager to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was
+curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor
+kept her from openly rebelling.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he
+said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf&mdash;when the time served;
+but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to
+keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they
+parted very good friends.</p>
+
+<p>As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and,
+going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's
+big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's
+well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman,
+and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
+gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
+life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
+I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
+They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>" And she went out,
+leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
+brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
+said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
+sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
+he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
+would it do to slide over and see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
+and the dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
+can hardly get to it with a machine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
+anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
+the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
+jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
+two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
+fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
+it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
+which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
+older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
+patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
+all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."</p>
+
+<p>The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
+lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
+homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
+away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Franklin will see after it."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
+to housekeeping&mdash;it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
+minute!"</p>
+
+<p>This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
+Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
+the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
+each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the
+driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned
+abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting
+block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house&mdash;a relic
+of the old-time city.</p>
+
+<p>The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at
+this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the
+seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At
+the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or
+two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the
+specification," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door,
+and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"That's me," the woman retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this
+minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so
+like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.</p>
+
+<p>As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old
+sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me
+mouth."</p>
+
+<p>"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in
+anticipation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook her hand&mdash;the kiss was out of his inclination&mdash;and responded in
+the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke
+out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's with you in the carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Haney, bedad."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, it is not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's too young and pretty&mdash;and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints,
+man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the
+eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."</p>
+
+<p>"The same to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I get little chance to practise it these days."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the same here."</p>
+
+<p>"But how came ye hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and
+one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."</p>
+
+<p>She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and
+sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in&mdash;I'm not perticular."</p>
+
+<p>"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into
+something like sweetness and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."</p>
+
+<p>As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home
+and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on
+a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this
+association. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a
+fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was
+disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said
+bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out
+and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no
+way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of
+her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same
+squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me
+brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"</p>
+
+<p>The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck
+in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of
+luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.
+The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with
+children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the
+air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the
+ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other
+the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all
+its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly
+moved Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs
+are her's."</p>
+
+<p>"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put
+in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now&mdash;sure it's the very one we used to
+fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied&mdash;tears of
+pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye&mdash;it's to
+see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us,
+Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"She was!" he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand
+in better light to-day I'm thinkin'&mdash;though the father did the best he
+knew."</p>
+
+<p>"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders
+now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine
+lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust
+of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good
+humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was
+charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she
+could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was
+like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less
+of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The
+deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this
+woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest,
+leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into
+the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle was a small bent man, with a black beard, a pale serious face
+and speculative eyes. He looked like a wondering, rather cautious animal
+as he came in. He wore a cheap gray suit and a celluloid collar, and was
+as careless in his way as his wife. It was plain that he was gentle,
+absent-minded, and industrious.</p>
+
+<p>He listened to his wife's voluble explanations in silence, inwardly
+digesting all that was said, then shook hands&mdash;still without a word. And
+when all these preliminaries were over he laid his hat aside and ran his
+fingers through his thin hair with a perplexed and troubled gesture,
+asking, irrelevantly: "How's the weather out there?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody saw the humor of this but his wife, who explained: "Pat is a
+fiend on the weather. He was raised on a farm, ye see, and he can't get
+over it. I say to him: 'What difference does the state o' the weather
+make to you, that's under a roof all day?' But divil a change does it
+make in him. The first thing in the morning he turns to the weather
+report."</p>
+
+<p>McArdle's eyes showed traces of a smile. "If it weren't for the papers
+and the weather reports, me days would be alike. But sit by," he added,
+hospitably, waving his hand towards the table, on which the dinner was
+steaming.</p>
+
+<p>They were drawing up to the board when a puffing and blowing, and the
+furious clatter of feet announced the inrushing of the children.</p>
+
+<p>Not the mother's shrill whooping, but the sight of the strange guests,
+transformed them into mutes. The carriage outside had filled them with
+wild alarms, but the sight of their parents alive, and entertaining
+guests of shining quality, was almost as satisfyingly unusual as death
+and a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>They were a noisy, hearty throng, and Bertha's heart went out to poor
+Patrick McArdle, who sat amid the uproar, silent, patient, the heroic
+breadwinner for them all. No wonder he was old before his time. Slowly
+her antipathy died out. She began to find excuses even for the mother.
+To feed such a herd of little pigs and calves, even out of wooden
+troughs, would require much labor; to keep them buttoned, combed, and
+fit for school was an appalling task. "Mart must help these folks," she
+said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle had nothing to say during the meal, and Bertha could see that
+his family did not expect him to do more than answer a plain question.
+Indeed, the children created a hubbub that quite cut off any connected
+intercourse, and Fan, with a grin of despair, at last said: "They'll be
+gorged in a few minutes, and then we'll have peace."</p>
+
+<p>"This is what lack of money means," Bertha was thinking. And her house,
+her automobile, her horses, became at the moment as priceless, as
+remote, as crown jewels and papal palaces. Then, conversely, she grew to
+a larger conception of the possibilities which lay in sixty thousand
+dollars a year. Not only did it lift her and all hers above the heat and
+mire and distress of the world of toil, it enabled them to help others.</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly the children filled their stomachs, and, seizing each a piece of
+cake or pie, withdrew, leaving the old folks and their guests in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, McArdle, taking a pipe from his pocket and knocking it
+absent-mindedly on the seat of the chair, dryly remarked: "Now that we
+can hear ourselves think, let's have it all over again. Who air ye, and
+why air ye here?"</p>
+
+<p>Being told a second time that this was his brother-in-law, a miner from
+Colorado, he shook hands all over again, and accepted Mart's cigar with
+careful fingers, as if fearing to drop and break the precious thing.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha said: "I think we'd better be going, Captain. Our carriage is
+outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious Peter," cried Mrs. McArdle, "I forgot all about it! Is he by
+the day or by the hour?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart answered, with an amused smile. "Well, now, I don't know. I think
+by the hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're makin' a big bluff, Mart. We're properly impressed," said his
+sister. "Go pay him off, and save the money."</p>
+
+<p>McArdle put in a query. "You must have a good thing out there?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis enough to pay me carriage hire," answered Mart. And his tone
+satisfied McArdle, who, with reflective eye on Bertha, puffed away at
+his cigar, while Mart gave his promise to call again. "I'll come over
+and get you all, and take you to the theatre in me auto-car," he said,
+as he rose. "But we must be going now."</p>
+
+<p>Fan was beginning to perceive in him more and more of the man of power
+and substance, and her manner changed. "Ye were always the smartest of
+the lot of us, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was not. Charles was the bright boy."</p>
+
+<p>"So he was, but he was lazy. That was why he took up with
+play-acting&mdash;'tis an easy job."</p>
+
+<p>"Even that is too much work for him," remarked McArdle.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon that's right," laughed Mart, as he turned towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come again, if ye find time," called Fan, as they went down the steps.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle, with his cigar in his hand, waved it in a sign of parting. And
+so their visit to the McArdles closed.</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned to his silent and thoughtful wife, and said, with a great
+deal of meaning in his voice: "Well, now, what do you think of that for
+a fine litter of pups?"</p>
+
+<p>"They seem hearty."</p>
+
+<p>"They do. 'Tis on such that the future of the ray-public rests." And
+then he added: "Sure, Bertie, it gripped me heart to see the mother's
+old chair!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>A DINNER AND A PLAY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
+principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
+the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
+about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
+and explained that they were going out there to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
+house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
+gown."</p>
+
+<p>"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
+But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
+saleslady to fit you out."</p>
+
+<p>"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
+of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
+you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
+another."</p>
+
+<p>Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
+you don't use it to buy things?"</p>
+
+<p>Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
+several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
+Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
+his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
+quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
+helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
+gesture decided momentous questions.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
+had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
+buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
+that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
+round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
+there, she glowed with pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
+sincerity. "This is our smartest model&mdash;perfectly exclusive and new.
+Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."</p>
+
+<p>While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
+Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
+took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."</p>
+
+<p>"So do. Anything goes&mdash;for her, Lucius."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
+a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
+attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
+room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
+little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
+having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
+Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
+she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
+earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
+a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
+therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
+wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
+sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'&mdash;he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
+daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
+But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
+was in the days before his accident I don't know&mdash;they say he was a
+terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now&mdash;a pathetic
+figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
+very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
+and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
+maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
+been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
+in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
+Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
+and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
+want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
+saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
+as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
+to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
+steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
+had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
+scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
+Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
+centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
+institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
+interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
+in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
+the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
+demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
+of movement&mdash;not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
+Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
+Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
+estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
+assemble round his hearthstone&mdash;an actual stone, by the way&mdash;the people
+he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
+afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
+in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
+call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
+West Side&mdash;one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
+"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
+floor which their friends called Congress Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
+he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
+girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
+Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
+She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
+her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
+companion, and that I'm not ready to do&mdash;at present."</p>
+
+<p>After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
+friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
+"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
+few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.</p>
+
+<p>Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
+Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
+Honey Gulch."</p>
+
+<p>"Honest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hope to die!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
+after dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, that would be too cruel&mdash;to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
+theatre. So be on hand at 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, sharp."</p>
+
+<p>In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
+good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
+soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
+auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
+colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
+for them (it was Lucius in his new suit&mdash;he was playing all the parts).
+Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
+lieu of broncos?"</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>are</i> branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"</p>
+
+<p>She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
+and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
+Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
+sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
+second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
+so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
+came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
+one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
+Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
+helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
+way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
+delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
+for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
+accustomed to big things&mdash;it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
+moved her.</p>
+
+<p>In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
+crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
+Bertha was glad to find them alone&mdash;she had expected to face a room full
+of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
+coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
+Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
+now&mdash;I don't know why I should."</p>
+
+<p>This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
+and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her&mdash;that is to say, the
+ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
+the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
+Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
+started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
+their hostess's description.</p>
+
+<p>As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
+talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
+had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
+listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
+making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
+round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
+circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
+her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
+dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
+regard. She did not entirely trust any of them&mdash;not even her host.
+Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
+been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
+the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
+at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
+thought we might need him."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
+conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
+improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
+tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
+How long is it since he was hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"About eight months."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
+frame."</p>
+
+<p>"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"Who put him together&mdash;Steele, of Denver?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, a man in Cripple."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure he was the right man?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the best I could get."</p>
+
+<p>"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
+you don't object&mdash;not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
+build and years&mdash;he tells me he's only forty-five&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
+people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
+afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
+of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
+Haney first came to Sibley&mdash;so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
+He, too, seemed young then; now he was old&mdash;old and feeble&mdash;a man to be
+advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
+corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
+girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
+love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons&mdash;and yet she
+was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
+conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
+she said little to express it.</p>
+
+<p>The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
+woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
+most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
+wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
+his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
+breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
+awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
+into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
+in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
+suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
+as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
+no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
+loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband&mdash;old, coarse,
+brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
+tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover&mdash;virile, handsome and
+unscrupulous&mdash;wins the tortured woman's soul&mdash;and they flee, leaving the
+usual note behind.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
+husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
+warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
+D." And so the curtain fell.</p>
+
+<p>Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
+began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
+miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
+And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
+starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
+of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
+or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
+ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
+author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
+"Isn't that comical!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
+he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
+the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'?"</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
+have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
+still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
+not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
+taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
+a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
+Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
+affair."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
+replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
+her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
+turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
+had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
+He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
+needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
+forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
+singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
+problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
+temptations&mdash;she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
+nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
+of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
+encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
+camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
+the artists&mdash;all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
+girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
+evil history.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
+and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
+house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
+been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
+repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
+become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
+I cannot love him as a wife should."</p>
+
+<p>Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
+perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
+repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
+older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
+lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
+emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
+waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
+said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
+Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
+better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
+was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
+peaks.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
+doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
+him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
+sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
+long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
+night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
+age and helplessness.</p>
+
+<p>"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
+don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
+condition."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
+old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
+loose I'll let you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha, deeply engrossed in the conceptions called up by this visit, did
+not feel like calling upon the Mosses, even though they were almost next
+door. She was troubled, too, with a feeling of helplessness in the use
+of a pen. She wanted to write to Fordyce, but was afraid to do so,
+knowing that a letter would disclose her ignorance of polite forms; but
+this, instead of discouraging her, roused her to a determination to
+learn. This was the saving clause in her character. She acknowledged
+shortcomings, but not defeats. Here again she was of the spirit that
+lifts the self-made man.</p>
+
+<p>The Congdons had been most generous of letters of introduction, and in
+addition to those to Mrs. Brent and the Mosses, Bertha was in possession
+of two or three envelopes addressed to people in New York City,
+presumably artists also, as they bore the names of certain studios. The
+note to Moss was unaffected and simple in itself, quite innocent of any
+qualification, but the letter which had privately preceded it was in the
+true Congdon vein, and Moss, like Mrs. Brent, did not delay his call.
+His card was in the Haney box when they returned. "Sorry to miss you.
+Come into my studio at five if you can," he had pencilled on the back.</p>
+
+<p>"Your artistic bunch," Congdon had written, "won't mind meeting one of
+the most successful and picturesque of our gamblers, Marshall Haney,
+especially as the walls of his big house are bare and his wife is
+pretty. They are ripping types, old man; not in the 'best society,' you
+understand, but I know you'll like 'em. Be as good to 'em as you can
+without involving anybody. Little Mrs. Haney is a corker. Good start on
+a self-made career. They're both unsophisticated in a way, and a little
+real sympathy will drag their secret history to the light. Do a sketch
+of her for me. She's likely to be famous. Haney is rolling in dough
+these days&mdash;(miner)&mdash;and she's bound for some whooping big thing, I
+don't know what, but she's like a country boy with a stirring ambition.
+It wouldn't surprise me to see her on Fifth Avenue one of these days.
+With these few burning words I commend them into your plastic hands.
+Don't let Sammy paint her, for God's sake. Oh yes, I worked 'em for a
+couple of canvases. What do you think. In this buoyant climate we all
+move. Yours in the velvet."</p>
+
+<p>With such a letter before him Joe Moss awaited his amazing guests with
+impatience, cautioning the few who were in the secret not to dodge when
+the Captain reached for his pocket-handkerchief. "And, above all, you
+are to praise Colorado and condemn the East as a place of residence."
+Joe prided himself on his <i>savoir faire</i> and on his apparel, which had
+nothing about it to distinguish the sculptor. "In fact," he often said,
+"there <i>are</i> people who say I'm not a sculptor. Be that as it may, I
+manage by daily care to look like a clerk in a hardware store."</p>
+
+<p>And he did. He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and
+trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand
+tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red
+tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we
+melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be
+distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always included Julia, his
+wife, in this way (although she never "modelled a lick"), for she wrote
+all his letters, made out all his checks, and took charge of him
+generally. Some said his success was due to her management. She was a
+dark-eyed, smiling little woman, exquisite in her dress and brisk in her
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Their studio occupied the whole north side of the attic of a big office
+building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst
+of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his
+choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture.
+I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my
+way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to
+make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business
+men, not to avoid them. I like the roar of trade."</p>
+
+<p>The Haneys, therefore, led by the sagacious Lucius, soon found
+themselves in the Wisconsin Block, and shooting aloft in a bronze
+elevator that seemed fired from a cannon ("express to the 10th floor"),
+with nothing to suggest art in the men or in the signs about them. On
+the thirteenth story they alighted, and, walking up one flight of
+stairs, found themselves at the end of a bright hall, before a door
+which bore, in simple gold letters, "Jos. Moss, Sculptor." Bertha heard
+laughter within, and her heart misgave her. It was not easy for her to
+meet these artist folk. Of business men, miners, railway managers she
+was unafraid, but these people who joke and bully-rag each other and
+talk high philosophy one minute and gossip the next, like the Congdons,
+were "pretty swift" for her. After a moment's pause she said to the
+Captain, "They can't kill us; here goes!" and knocked gently.</p>
+
+<p>Moss himself opened the door, and his cordial, "How de do, Mrs. Haney,"
+established him in her mind at once as a good fellow. He was quite as
+direct as Congdon. "I'm glad to see you," he said to the Captain. "Come
+in." He looked keenly at Lucius, who composedly explained himself. "The
+Captain is a little lame, and I just came along to see that he got here
+all right. I'll be back at 5.30."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened into a big room, which was darkened at the windows and
+lighted by shaded electric globes. It was cool and bare in effect.
+Around a small table in a far corner a half-dozen people were sitting.
+Mrs. Moss, who was pouring tea, rose in her place at the tea-urn as her
+husband approached, and cordially shook hands with her guests. "I'm very
+glad you came. Please tell me how you'll have your tea," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was accustomed to take her tea "any old way," and said so, being
+influenced by Mrs. Moss' candid eyes and merry smile. Haney, with a
+queer feeling of being on the stage as a character in a play, sank
+heavily into the chair at his hostess' right hand and said: "I never
+took tea in my life, but I'm not dodgin' anything you mix."</p>
+
+<p>Joe earnestly protested. "Don't do it, Captain, there's some Scotch down
+cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss indicated one or two other dimly seen faces about her and
+introduced their owners in a most casual manner while she compounded a
+hot drink for her Western guest.</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been in our horrible town, Mr. Haney?" she asked,
+heedful of Joe's warning.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"You're just 'passing through,' I presume&mdash;that's the way all Colorado
+people do."</p>
+
+<p>Haney smiled. He was getting the drift of her remarks. "'Tis natural,
+ma'am; for, you see, 'tis a long run and a heavy grade, and hard to
+side-track on the way."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, to whom Moss addressed himself, was candidly looking about
+her&mdash;profoundly interested in what she saw. Dim forms in bronze and
+plaster stood on shelves, brackets, and pedestals, and at the end of the
+long room a big group of figures writhed as if in mortal combat. It was
+a work-shop&mdash;that was evident even to her&mdash;with one small nook devoted
+to tea and talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to poke about?" he asked, anticipating her request.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would," she bluntly replied.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't much to see," he said. "I'm the kind of sculptor who works
+on order. I believe in the 'art for service' idea, and when I get an
+order I fill it as well as I can, make it as beautiful as I can, and
+send it out on its mission. I'd like to model mantel-pieces and
+andirons, because they are seen and actually influence people's lives.
+What I started to say was this: my stuff all goes out&mdash;my real stuff; my
+fool failures stay by me&mdash;this thing, for instance." He indicated the
+big clump of nude forms. "I had an 'idea' when I started, but it was too
+ambitious and too literary. Moreover, it isn't democratic. It don't gibe
+with the present. I'd be a wild-animal sculptor if I knew enough about
+them."</p>
+
+<p>It was a profoundly moving experience for this raw mountain-bred girl to
+stand there beside that colossal group while the man who had modelled it
+took her into his confidence. There was no affectation in Moss's candor.
+He had come to a swift conclusion that Congdon had attempted to let him
+into a trap, for Bertha's reticence and dignity quite reassured him. If
+she had uttered a single one of the banal compliments with which
+visitors "kill" artists he would have stopped short; but she didn't, she
+only looked, and something in her face profoundly interested him.
+Suddenly she turned and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"It don't mean anything&mdash;now. Originally I intended it to mean 'The
+Conquest of Art by the Spirit of Business,' or something like that. I
+started it when I was fresh from Paris, and wore a red tie and a pointed
+beard. I keep it as a record of the folly into which exotic instruction
+will lead a man. If I were to go at it now I'd turn the whole thing
+around&mdash;I'd make it 'Art Inspiring Business.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not follow his thought entirely, but she felt herself in the
+presence of a serious problem and listening to something deep down in
+the heart of a strong man. Here was another world&mdash;not an altogether
+strange world, for Congdon had also talked to her of his work&mdash;but a
+world so far removed from her own life that it seemed some other planet.
+"How well he talks," she thought. "Like a book."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming she is," he was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of
+her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he had picked
+up.</p>
+
+<p>They wandered up and down the long room while he showed her tiles for
+mantel decoration, bronze cats' heads for door-knobs, and curious and
+lovely figures for lamps and ash-trays. "I take a shy at 'most
+everything," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you sell these?" she asked, indicating some designs for electric
+desk-lamps.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "Sometimes&mdash;not as often as I'd like to."</p>
+
+<p>"How much are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty dollars each."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take them both," she said, and her pulse leaped with the pride of
+being a patron of art.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see here, Mrs. Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a
+salesman&mdash;not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I
+try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it.
+"Don't take 'em&mdash;wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad
+anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I
+never saw a mountain lion outside the Zoo."</p>
+
+<p>"They're lions, all right. I want 'em, and I know the Captain will like
+'em." She stepped back to call Haney. But finding him surrounded by all
+of the other callers (they had "got him going" telling stories of his
+wild life in the West), she turned to the sculptor with a smile, saying:
+"Never mind, <i>I</i> know they're what he needs&mdash;if he don't." And Moss,
+recalling Congdon's description of the Haneys' material condition,
+answered: "Very well, if you insist; but I really feel as though I had
+played a confidence game on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you fix 'em up with lights?" she asked, eager as a child. "I mean
+right now."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly." He unscrewed a couple of small bulbs from a near-by
+bracket, and, putting them into place on the lamps, turned on the
+current. She laughed out in delight. One of the lions was playing with
+the stem which supported the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
+upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other&mdash;a counterpart, or
+nearly so in pose&mdash;had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
+clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.</p>
+
+<p>"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
+piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
+ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
+West. Shameful, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
+mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
+<i>right</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
+summer and try to meet it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
+Colorado."</p>
+
+<p>"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
+Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
+moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
+sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
+I'll do something we can send out to him&mdash;if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by a sketch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
+veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
+head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
+dainty, very sweet, and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my wife's sister&mdash;a quick study from life&mdash;just the kind of thing
+Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
+was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
+boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
+when it was done.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
+this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
+even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
+dreadful, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
+with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
+her seem again the untaught girl she really was.</p>
+
+<p>As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
+her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
+defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
+doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
+than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
+straight&mdash;that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
+'the house'&mdash;that is, the bank&mdash;is protected. My machines was always
+straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
+'fixed' in me favor."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
+burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
+going."</p>
+
+<p>He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
+explained, and dutifully rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
+getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
+She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
+to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.</p>
+
+<p>"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
+he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
+about those delightful games of chance."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
+full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.</p>
+
+<p>As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
+view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
+came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
+handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
+"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
+good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
+voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
+as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
+These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
+last to her.</p>
+
+<p>Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
+gambling talk at the studio. "Why <i>must</i> he always go back to that?" she
+asked, hotly.</p>
+
+<p>They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
+while the Captain discussed his sister and her family. "I'll do
+something for Fan," he said. "She's a different sort from Charles.
+McArdle seems a hard-workin' chap, the kind that a little help wouldn't
+spile. What do you think of buyin' them a bit of a house somewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha listened with a languor of interest new to her, and when he
+repeated his question and asked her if she were tired, she answered:
+"Yes; and I think I'll go to bed early to-night. It's been a hard day."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Joe Moss was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native
+West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions
+as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it
+was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or
+something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech.
+He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working the
+Thorwaldsen trick: find some fine site out there, some wall of rock
+close to the railway, and hew out a monster grizzly or mountain lion.
+The railway could then advertise it, you see; trains could stop there
+'five minutes to permit a view of Moss's Lion'; they could use a cut of
+it on all their folders. If there was a spring near by they could
+advertise the water and bottle it, a picture of my lion on the label.
+Ah, it is a fine scheme!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis so," said Haney. "I wonder nobody thought of it before."</p>
+
+<p>"It takes a Yankee, after all, to plan new suspender buttons," the
+sculptor replied. And all the time he talked his hands were dabbling,
+his thumbs gouging, his dibble cutting and smoothing.</p>
+
+<p>Haney watched him with amused glance. "Sure, I didn't know ye went at it
+so. I thought ye chipped each picture out o' stone." And when the
+process of molding in plaster was explained to him, he said: "'Tis like
+McArdle's trade entirely. He takes a rise in the world since I know he's
+an artist like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What is his 'line'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pattern-maker for a stove foundry."</p>
+
+<p>Moss beamed. "Just what I'd like to be if they'd only pay a little more
+wages and furnish a better place to work."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha never knew when he was in earnest, so habitually mocking was his
+tone. But she grew towards a perception of his ideal, and dimly
+apprehended in him a mind far beyond any she had ever known. Mrs. Moss,
+almost as reticent as Mrs. Haney herself, came and went about the studio
+brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail,
+moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
+insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
+stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
+speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
+motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
+Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
+school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
+expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.</p>
+
+<p>One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
+measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
+of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
+line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
+Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
+the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
+the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face&mdash;let
+the neck at least suggest the woman below."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
+here is spring-time&mdash;just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
+line must be kept free from any earthiness."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
+painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
+the summer."</p>
+
+<p>They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
+clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
+considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
+momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
+"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
+called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
+his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
+precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
+freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
+of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
+politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
+too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
+work with Joe, so that it needn't be any trouble to you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, her wealth still new upon her, had no suspicion of the motives
+of those who addressed her, was deeply flattered by this request, and as
+Moss made no objection, she consented.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into
+troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet,
+or something like that&mdash;not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't
+droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When
+you're as old and blas&eacute; as Humiston there, you'll have a right to ponder
+the mysteries, but not now. You and I are young, thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Humiston was dabbling at his small canvas swiftly, lightly, as unmoved
+by his fellow-artist as if his voice were the wind in the casement. He
+was a tall, sickly looking man with grizzled hair, and pale, deeply
+lined face. He was fresh from Paris with a small exhibition of his
+pictures, which were very advanced, as Mrs. Moss privately explained to
+Bertha. "And he's rather bitter against Americans because they don't
+appreciate his work. But Joe asks: 'Why should they?' They're
+undemocratic&mdash;little high-keyed 'precious' bits; pictures for other
+artists, not real paintings, or they are unacceptable otherwise. He's a
+wonderful technician, though, and he'll make an exquisite sketch of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The Western girl-wife was completely fascinated by this small, dusky,
+dim, and richly colored heart of the fierce and terrible city whose
+material bulk alone is known to the world. To go from the crash and roar
+of the savage streets into this studio was like climbing from the level
+of the water in the Black Ca&ntilde;on to the sunlit, grassy peaks where the
+Indian pink blossoms in silence. She was of the aspiring nature. She had
+commonly played with children older than herself. She had read books she
+could not understand. She had always reached upward, and here she found
+herself surrounded by men and women who excited her imagination as
+Congdon had done. They helped her forget the doubt of herself and her
+future, which was gnawing almost ceaselessly in her brain, and she was
+sorry when Moss said to her: "Come in once more, to-morrow, and see me
+do the real sculptor's act. No, don't look at it" (he flung a cloth over
+his work); "you may look at it to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"May I see my picture?" she asked of Humiston.</p>
+
+<p>He turned the easel towards her without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Good work!" cried Moss.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something
+exquisite."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a
+dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it
+isn't me."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the
+way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor
+to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at
+the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and
+Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so
+violently that Bertha shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in <i>all</i> her fine poses," he
+complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture
+as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to
+send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs.
+Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak
+points."</p>
+
+<p>"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered
+Humiston, readily.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do you don't speak of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? You don't call out the defects of your 'hardware,' do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss interposed. "That's just what he does do, and it hurts trade.
+I think I'll take Mrs. Haney over to see the pictures myself."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston brightened. "Very well; but you must all lunch with me. You're
+about the only civilized people I know in this crazy town, and I need
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Bertha. "It's our treat. You all come over and eat with us."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, who had been keeping in the background, now came forward. "I
+second that motion," he heartily said. "We don't get a chance every day
+to feed a bunch of artists."</p>
+
+<p>"You can have that pleasure any day here," said Moss. "Our noses are
+always over the bars, waiting."</p>
+
+<p>When she emerged from the gallery an hour later Bertha enjoyed an
+exalted sense of having been carried through some upper, serener world,
+where business, politics, and fashion had little place. It was "only a
+dip," as Mrs. Moss said&mdash;just to show the way; but it set the girl's
+brain astir with half-formed, disconnected aspirations. Only as she
+re-entered the hotel (the centre of obsequious servants) did she become
+again the wife of Marshall Haney, and Mrs. Moss, noting the eager
+attention of the waiters, was amazed and delighted at the look of calm
+command which came over the girl's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Art is fine and sweet as a side issue," said Julia to her husband, as
+they were going in, "but money makes the porters jump."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, composed and serious, seated her guests at a table which had
+been reserved for her near a window and charmingly decorated with
+flowers. She put Moss at her left hand and Humiston at her right, and as
+the Eastern man settled into place, he said: "Really, now, this isn't so
+bad." His experienced eye had noted the swift flocking of the waiters,
+and with cynical amusement he commented upon it. "These people must
+<i>smell</i> of money!" and in his heart acknowledged that he and Moss were
+not so very different from the servitors, after all. "They're out for
+tens, we're after thousands; that's the main point of difference."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, once the cutlets were served, was able to give attention to the
+talk&mdash;Humiston's talk (he was celebrated as a monologist), for he had
+resumed the discussion into which he and Moss had fallen. "I don't
+believe in helping people to study art. I don't believe in charity. This
+interfering with the laws of the universe that kill off the crippled and
+the weakly is pure sentimentalism that will fill the world with
+deformed, diseased, and incapable persons."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a vile reactionary!" cried Moss.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not&mdash;I'm for the future. I want to see the world full of beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Physical beauty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, physical beauty. I want to see vice and crime and crooked limbs
+and low brows die out&mdash;not perpetuated. I believe in educating the
+people to the lovely in line and color."</p>
+
+<p>As he pursued this line of inexorable argument Bertha looked at him in
+wonder. Did he mean what he said? His burning eyes seemed sincere&mdash;and
+yet he did not fail to accept a second helping of the mushrooms. There
+was power in the man. He pushed the walls of her intellectual world very
+wide apart. He came from a strange, chaotic region&mdash;from a land where
+ordinary modes and motives seemed lost or perverted. He took a delight
+in shocking them all. Morality was a convention&mdash;a hypocritic agreement
+on the part of the few to reserve freedom to themselves at the expense
+of the many. "Art is impossible to little people, to those who starve
+the big side of their nature, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. Look at the real
+people&mdash;Rachel, Wagner, Turner, Bernhardt, and a thousand others. Were
+they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and
+petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the
+West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few
+petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow
+where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed
+normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained&mdash;no license,
+no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, to be personal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too well balanced."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. You <i>talk</i> like a man of power, but model like a cursed
+niggling prude. You're bitten with the new madness. You're the Bryan of
+art. 'The dear people' is your cry. Damn the people! They don't know a
+good thing when they see it. Why consider the millions? Consider the
+few, those who have the taste and the dollars. That's the way all the
+big men of the past had to do. Look at Rubens and Michael Angelo and
+Titian&mdash;all the big bunch; they were all frank, gross feeders, lovers of
+beauty, defiant of conventions."</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten where he sat, but he was not neglecting his hostess. He
+took a satanic satisfaction in seeing her lovely eyes widen and glow as
+he went on. Subtly flattering her by including her among the very few
+who could understand his ideals, he seemed to draw her apart to his
+side&mdash;appealing to her for support against the coarse and foolish hosts
+represented by the Mosses, while Marshall Haney sat in a kind of stupor,
+his eyes alone speaking, as if to ask: "What the divil is the little man
+with the cough so hot about?"</p>
+
+<p>Moss, accustomed to Humiston's savage diatribes, roared out objections
+or laughed him to scorn, while Mrs. Moss tried her best to turn the mad
+artist's mind upon more suitable subjects. He had been deeply hurt and
+financially distressed by the failure of his exhibits in Pittsburg and
+Chicago, and was now taking it out on his friends. His passion, his
+bitter, vengeful cry against the ignorant masses of the world was
+something Bertha had read about, but never felt; but she quivered now
+with the half-disclosed fury of the disappointed austere soul.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be possible that this savage man, so worn and ill, had painted
+those dim, vague pictures of flower-like girls whose limbs were involved
+in blossoming vines?</p>
+
+<p>He concluded at last: "The only place in the world to-day for an artist
+is Paris. In no other city can he live his own life in frank fulness,
+and find patrons who see the subtlest meaning of a line."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was tired of all this&mdash;mentally weary and confused; and she felt
+very grateful to Mrs. Moss, who came to the rescue the moment Humiston
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Mrs. Haney, that is the end of Professor Jerry Spoopendyke's
+lecture on the undesirability of America as a place of residence&mdash;<i>for
+him</i>. Of course, he don't mind selling his pictures just to enlighten
+our night of ignorance, but as for going to Sunday-school or keeping the
+decalogue, that's our job."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston had the grace to smile. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Haney, I have
+been a fool. But that monkey over there&mdash;Joe Moss&mdash;provoked me with his
+accursed heresies about the democracy of art. Art has no democracy, and
+democracy will never have an art&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, there!" warned Moss, "you said all that before."</p>
+
+<p>The painter wrenched himself away and turned to Bertha. "You <i>are</i>
+coming to New York, Mrs. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said. "We may."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do, don't fail to let me know. I would like to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Bertha, "I'll send you a line." And her frank smile
+made him sorry to say good-bye even for the day.</p>
+
+<p>As Mart was going up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all
+kinds of people to make up a world&mdash;Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the
+t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin'
+a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end I dunno."</p>
+
+<p>When alone in her room, Bertha's mind again reverted to Ben Fordyce. As
+she compared him with Humiston, he seemed handsomer and more boyishly
+frank than ever. What did Joe Moss mean by calling Mr. Humiston "blas&eacute;."
+She had seen that word in novels and it always meant something wicked.
+How could this weary, sick man be wicked? She pitied him and wished to
+help him. "Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to.
+Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does
+this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks
+poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money
+was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize. That the waiters and
+clerks buzzed round her because she was rich, she knew; but that these
+men, who talked of beauty and the higher life, could flatter her with
+attentions with a base motive was incredible.</p>
+
+<p>She was shrewd as her Yankee forbears, but she was also an idealist, and
+these artist folk now seemed to her the highest types she had ever known
+or was likely to know. She felt the mystery and the power in Humiston's
+personality, and his bitter and rebellious, almost blasphemous, words
+were counterpoised by his paintings, which she acknowledged to be
+beautiful&mdash;too beautiful for her to comprehend. He looked like a man of
+sorrow and weary of battle, and she longed to know more about him. When
+he was not fierce he was melancholy; evidently his life had been a
+failure. "Why shouldn't I buy some of his pictures?" she asked herself.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the answer to any such question had been, "Can we afford it?"
+but now another and deeper query came in answer, like an echo: "Is it
+right to spend Mart Haney's money? I am only his trained nurse, not his
+wife," and she now knew that she could not be his wife. She shrank from
+the weight of his hand, and each day made clearer the wide spaces of
+years, of family, of ideals, which lay between them. The kiss Ben
+Fordyce had pressed upon her lips had brought this revelation. But of
+this she was not yet aware; she was only conscious of a growing dread of
+the future. Her duties as his nurse were lightening. Lucius, indeed, now
+took many of her tasks upon himself, and she no longer helped him with
+his shoes or coat, and, what was still more significant, she could not
+calmly think of going back to these wifely services.</p>
+
+<p>She dwelt treacherously on Haney's own admission: that she had been in a
+sense entrapped. He had believed himself a dying man at the time, and
+she had been too excited, too exalted by the lurid romance of the scene
+to be clear about anything save the wish and the will to save him; and
+now she knew that at bottom of all her willingness to serve him lay the
+consciousness that he was on his death-bed. Afterwards he had been to
+her only a big-hearted, generous friend, in need of love and
+companionship. This understanding had made it easy for her to prepare
+his meals, to help him, as a nurse would help him, to dress and undress.
+She had lost all of the fear and much of the admiration in which she
+used to greet him as he swung into the office of her little hotel. He
+had become to her an invalid, a child to be jollied and humored, and yet
+respected; for no one could have been kinder or more scrupulously just
+than he. And it was the recollection of all his acts of self-sacrifice
+and loving patience which gave her assurance that he would never require
+obedience, though he might sue for it.</p>
+
+<p>Her danger lay in herself. "If he <i>does</i> ask me to be his real
+wife&mdash;then I must either agree or leave. It won't be right for me to
+take all these benefits unless&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And with this thought, the big house in the Springs, the sleek horses,
+their shining carriages, the auto-car, her dresses, the service of the
+big hotel, and the consideration her husband's money gave to her, all
+assumed a new and corrupting lustre. She was growing accustomed to
+luxury and the thought of giving it up made her shiver like one who
+faces a plunge into a dark night and an icy river. Besides, her
+sacrifice would involve others. Her mother, her brother, were already
+roundly ensnared in Mart's bounty.</p>
+
+<p>Her head was aching with it all, when a comforting thought came to her.
+It was not necessary to decide it at that moment, and with a sigh of
+relief she threw it aside and sat down to write a letter to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have written before, but I've been jumped right into the
+middle of things here. The letters Frank Congdon gave me took me into an
+artistic bunch about as gay and queer as Frank is, but they've been
+mighty nice to me. I've been setting for my bust to Mr. Moss, who is a
+sculptor. He has a big studio clear on the top of one of the tallest
+blocks here and has some dandy lamps and things. I've bought some to
+bring back. I met a Mr. Humiston there from New York, and he made a
+sketch of me&mdash;wants me to see his studio in New York. I don't know
+whether I'll go on or let Mart go with Lucius. Lucius is all right&mdash;I
+don't see how I got on without him. He knows everything. I wish I had
+half the education he's got. He's up on all the society ways and puts me
+on. For instance, he told me the nice thing would be to give a dinner to
+this artist push and to the people that Dorothy give me a letter to, and
+I'm going to do it. Lucius will look out for the whole thing. You should
+see the way the waiters tend. I reckon Lucius has told 'em we're made of
+money. I'm afraid we're getting spoilt, Muzz. It would be pretty tough
+to go back to the hotel now, wouldn't it?</p>
+
+<p>"We went to see Mart's sister, Fanny. Her house was a sight. It was
+clean enough, but littered&mdash;well, litter is no name for it&mdash;but she's a
+good old thing and so is McArdle. He sat and looked at us the whole time
+like a turkey blind in one eye&mdash;never said a word the whole time but
+'pass the p-taties.' I liked him though. He's a kind of sculptor,
+too&mdash;makes patterns for all these little acorns and leaves and
+do-funnies on stoves. They've got forty-'leven children and need help
+and I'm perfectly willing Mart should help 'em. We're looking up houses
+now. He's going to buy a place for 'em on the west side. Wednesday night
+I went to see the Doctor Brents, Dorothy's friends. They had a
+dinner&mdash;very nice, but they all kind o' sat 'round and waited for us to
+perform. I guess they thought we were mountain lions. But they didn't
+make much out o' me. They was one chap there with goggles who looked at
+Mart like an undertaker. He's a scientific doctor&mdash;one of these fellers
+that invent new ways of doing things. His name is Halliday. I liked Dr.
+Brent pretty well&mdash;but Mrs. Brent only so-so. The doctor wants to
+'dagnose' Mart's case&mdash;says it won't cost a cent. We all went to a show
+at night and the Captain was just about petered to a point. He's better
+though. The lower altitude helps his circulation. I guess his heart <i>is</i>
+affected. He's afraid now he won't ever be able to go back to the mines.
+He wants to slide on to New York and see his father and wants me to
+go&mdash;but I'd rather come home&mdash;I'm homesick for the hills. They're nice
+to me here&mdash;but I want to see the old Peak once more. Tell" (here she
+wrote "Ben" and blotted it) "tell Mr. Fordyce that we're all right and
+to keep us posted every day. We see by the papers that the mine-owners
+are going to throw the unions out of business. If they try that they'll
+be war again. We'll be home soon&mdash;or at least I will. I'm getting
+home-sicker every minute as I write."</p>
+
+<p>She added a postscript. "Don't show my letters to <i>any one</i>. I wish I'd
+'a' had a little more schooling."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FARTHER EAST</h3>
+
+
+<p>Haney visibly brightened as the days went by, and took long rides in his
+auto, sometimes with Bertha, sometimes alone with Lucius, and now and
+then with some old acquaintance, who, having seen his name in the paper,
+ventured to call. They were not very savory characters, to tell the
+truth, and he did not always introduce them to Bertha, but as his health
+improved he called upon a few of the more reputable of them,
+billiard-table agents, and the like of that, and to these proudly
+exhibited his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha had hitherto accepted this with boyish tolerance, but now it
+irritated her. Some of these visitors presumed on her husband's past and
+treated her with a certain freedom of tone and looseness of tongue which
+made plain even to her unsuspecting nature that they put no high value
+on her virtue&mdash;in fact, one fellow went so far as to facetiously ask,
+"Where did Mart find you? Are there any more out there?" And she felt
+the insult, though she did not know how to resent it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, so astute in many things, saw nothing out of the way in this
+off-hand treatment of his wife. He would have killed the man who dared
+to touch her, and yet he stood smilingly by while some chance
+acquaintance treated her as if she had been picked out of a Denver
+gutter. This threw Bertha upon her own defence, and at last she made
+even impudence humble itself. She carried herself like a young warrior,
+sure of her power and quick of defence.</p>
+
+<p>She refused to invite her husband's friends to lunch, and the first real
+argument she had thus far held with him came about in this way. She
+said, "Yes, you can ask Mr. Black or Mr. Brown to dinner, but I won't
+set at the same table with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they're not the kind of men I want to eat with," she bluntly
+replied. "They're just a little too coarse for me."</p>
+
+<p>"They're good business men and have fine homes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do they invite you to their homes?"</p>
+
+<p>"They do not," he admitted, "but they may&mdash;after our dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucius says it's their business to lead out&mdash;and he knows. I don't mind
+your lunching these dubs every day if you want to, but I keep clear of
+'em. I tell you those!"</p>
+
+<p>And so it fell out that while she was going about with the Mosses and
+their kind, Mart was explaining to Black and Brown that his wife "was a
+little shy." "You see she grew up in the hills like a doe antelope, and
+it's hard for her to get wonted to the noise of a great city," he
+laboriously set forth, but at heart he did not blame her. He was coming
+to find them a little "coarse" himself.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston was deeply enthralled by Bertha's odd speech, her beauty, her
+calm use of money, and lingered on day by day, spending nearly all his
+time at Moss's studio or at the hotel, seeking Mrs. Haney's company. He
+had never met her like, and confessed as much to Moss, who jocularly
+retorted: "That's saying a good deal&mdash;for you've seen quite a few."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston ignored this thrust. "She has beauty, imagination, and immense
+possibilities. She don't know herself. When she wakes up to her power,
+then look out! She can't go on long with this old, worn-out gambler."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Haney isn't such a beast as you make him out. Bertha told me he had
+never crossed her will. He's really very kind and generous."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be true, and yet he's a mill-stone about her neck. It's a
+shame&mdash;a waste of beauty&mdash;for the girl is a beauty."</p>
+
+<p>It was with a sense of relief that Moss heard Bertha say to his wife: "I
+guess I've had enough of this. It's me to the high ground to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going on to the metropolis?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it. I'm hungry for the peaks&mdash;and, besides, our horses
+need exercise. I think I'll pull out for the West to-morrow and leave
+the Captain and Lucius to go East together. I don't believe I need New
+York."</p>
+
+<p>To this arrangement Haney reluctantly consented. "You're missin' a whole
+lot, Bertie. I don't feel right in goin' on to Babylon without ye. I
+reckon you'd better reconsider the motion. However, I'll not be gone
+long, and if I find the old Dad hearty I may bring him home with me.
+He's liable to be livin' with John Donahue. Charles said he was a
+shiffless whelp, and there's no telling how he's treating the old man.
+Anyhow, I'll let you know."</p>
+
+<p>She relented a little. "Ma'be I ought to go. I hate to see you starting
+off alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure now! don't ye worry, darling. Lucius is handy as a bootjack, and
+we'll get along fine. Besides, I may come back immegitly, for them
+mine-owners are cooking a hell-broth for us all. Havin' a governor on
+their side now, they must set out to show their power."</p>
+
+<p>Ben kept them supplied with home papers, and as Bertha took up one of
+these journals she found herself played upon by familiar forms and
+faces. The very names of the streets were an appeal. She saw herself
+sporting with her hounds, riding with Fordyce over the flowery Mesa, or
+facing him in his sun-bright office discussing the world's events and
+deciding upon their own policies and expenditures. She grew very
+homesick as these pleasant, familiar pictures freshened in her vision,
+and her faith in Ben's honesty and essential goodness came back to her.
+Moreover her mind was not at rest regarding Haney; much as she longed to
+go home, she felt it her duty to remain with him, and as she lay in her
+bed she thought of him with much the same pity a daughter feels for a
+disabled father. "He's given me a whole lot&mdash;I ought to stay by him."</p>
+
+<p>She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce
+alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to
+go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when she returned
+to the Springs.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain ways in which books instruct women&mdash;and men, too, for
+that matter&mdash;but there are other and more vital processes in which only
+experience (individual or inherited) teaches. In her desultory reading,
+little Mrs. Haney, like every other citizen, had taken imaginative part
+in many murders, seductions, and marital infidelities; and yet the
+motives for such deeds had never before seemed human. Now the dark
+places in the divorce trials, the obscure charges in the testimony of
+deserted wives, were suddenly illumined. She realized how easy it would
+be to make trouble between Mart and herself. She understood the stain
+those strangers in the car could put upon her, and she trembled at the
+mere thought of Mart's inquiring eyes when he should know of it. Why
+should he know of it? It was all over and done with. There was only one
+thing to do&mdash;forget it.</p>
+
+<p>Surely life was growing complex. With bewildering swiftness the
+experiences of a woman of the world were advancing upon her, and she,
+with no brother or father to be her guard, or friend to give her
+character, with a husband whose very name and face were injuries, was
+finding men in the centres of culture quite as predatory as among the
+hills, where Mart Haney's fame still made his glance a warning. These
+few weeks in Chicago had added a year to her development, but she dared
+not face Ben Fordyce alone&mdash;not just yet&mdash;not till her mind had cleared.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her doubt of herself and of him a message came which
+made all other news of no account. He was on his way to Chicago to
+consult Mart (so the words ran), but in her soul she knew he was coming
+to see her. Was it to test her? Had he taken silence for consent? Was he
+about to try her faith in him and her loyalty to her husband?</p>
+
+<p>His telegram read: "Coming on important business." That might mean
+concerning the mine&mdash;on the surface; but beneath ran something more
+vital to them both than any mine or labor war, something which developed
+in the girl both fear and wonder&mdash;fear of the power that came from his
+eyes, wonder of the world his love had already opened to her. What was
+the meaning of this mad, sweet riot of the blood&mdash;this forgetfulness of
+all the rest of the world&mdash;this longing which was both pleasure and
+pain, doubt and delight, which turned her face to the West as though
+through a long, shining vista she saw love's messenger speeding towards
+her?</p>
+
+<p>Sleep kept afar, and she lay restlessly turning till long after
+midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and
+her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She
+rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical
+weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever known
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was also up and about, an hour ahead of his schedule, sure that
+Ben's business concerned the mine. "It's the labor war breaking out
+again," he repeated. "I feel it in my bones. If it is, back I go, for
+the boys will be nading me."</p>
+
+<p>They went to the station in their auto-car, but, at Bertha's suggestion,
+Mart sent Lucius in to meet their attorney and to direct him where to
+find them. The young wife had a feeling that to await him at the gate
+might give him a false notion of her purpose. She grew faint and her
+throat contracted as if a strong hand clutched it as she saw his tall
+form advancing, but almost instantly his frank and eager face, his clear
+glance, his simple and cordial greeting disarmed her, transmuted her
+half-shaped doubts into golden faith. He was true and good&mdash;of that she
+was completely reassured. Her spirits soared, and the glow came back to
+her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce, looking up at her, was filled with astonishment at the picture
+of grace and ease which she presented, as she leaned to take his hand.
+She shone, unmistakable mistress of the car, while Haney filled the r&ocirc;le
+of trusted Irish coachman.</p>
+
+<p>As he climbed in, the young lawyer remarked merrily, "I don't know
+whether I approve of this extravagance or not." He tapped the car door.</p>
+
+<p>"It's mighty handy for the Captain," she replied. "You see he can't get
+round in the street-cars very well, and he says this is cheaper than
+cabs in the long run."</p>
+
+<p>"It has never proved economical to me; but it <i>is</i> handy," he answered,
+with admiration of her growing mastery of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>And so with something fiercely beating in their hearts these youthful
+warriors struggled to be true to others&mdash;fighting against themselves as
+against domestic traitors, while they talked of the mine, the state
+judiciary, the operators, and the unions. Their words were impersonal,
+prosaic of association, but their eyes spoke of love as the diamond
+speaks of light. Ben's voice, carefully controlled, was vibrant with the
+poetry that comes but once in the life of a man, and she listened in
+that perfect content which makes gold and glory but the decorations of
+the palace where adoration dwells.</p>
+
+<p>The great, smoky, thunderous city somehow added to the sweetness of the
+meeting&mdash;made it the more precious, like a song in a tempest. It seemed
+to Ben Fordyce as if he had never really lived before. The very need of
+concealment gave his unspoken passion a singular quality&mdash;a tang of the
+wilding, the danger-some, which his intimacy with Alice had never
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>The Haneys' suite of rooms at the hotel called for comment. "Surely
+Haney is feeling the power of money&mdash;but why not; who has a better right
+to lovely things than Bertha?" Then aloud he repeated: "How well you're
+looking&mdash;both of you! City life agrees with you. I never saw you look so
+well."</p>
+
+<p>This remark, innocent on its surface, brought self-consciousness to
+Bertha, for the light of his glance expressed more than admiration; and
+even as they stood facing each other, alive to the same disturbing
+flush, Lucius called Haney from the room, leaving them alone together.
+The moment of Ben's trial had come.</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds the young wife waited in breathless silence for him to
+speak, a sense of her own wordlessness lying like a weight upon her.
+Into the cloud of her confusion his voice came bringing confidence and
+calm. "I feel that you have forgiven me&mdash;your eyes seem to say so. I
+couldn't blame you if you despised me. I won't say my feeling has
+changed, for it hasn't. It may be wrong to say so&mdash;it is wrong, but I
+can't help it. Please tell me that you forgive me. I will be happier if
+you do, and I will never offend again." His accent was at once softly
+pleading and manly, and, as she raised her eyes to his in restored
+self-confidence, she murmured a quaint, short, reassuring phrase: "Oh,
+that's all right!" Her glance, so shy, so appealing, united to the
+half-humorous words of her reply, were so surely of the Mountain-West
+that Ben was quite swept from the high ground of his resolution, and his
+hands leaped towards her with an almost irresistible embracing impulse.
+"You sweet girl!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" she said, starting back in alarm&mdash;"don't!"</p>
+
+<p>His face changed instantly, the clear candor of his voice reassured her.
+"Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I&mdash;that
+my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his
+self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their
+love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will
+give you all her time next summer&mdash;if you wish her to do so."</p>
+
+<p>She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
+day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann&mdash;I don't see how people can
+talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
+for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
+with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
+Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
+association&mdash;you are improving very fast."</p>
+
+<p>Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do mean it. No one would know&mdash;to see you here&mdash;that you had not
+enjoyed all the advantages."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
+grin. They're onto my game all right."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases&mdash;they like to
+hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
+or&mdash;or lacking in&mdash;in charm."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
+relief Bertha retreated&mdash;almost fled to her room&mdash;leaving the two men to
+discuss their business.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
+was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
+own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
+husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
+submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
+She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
+dress&mdash;with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
+she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration&mdash;"I will
+be loyal to the men"&mdash;and Ben's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
+Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
+mine-operators."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
+Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
+that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
+heart is with the red-neckers&mdash;just where it was. Owning a paying mine
+has not changed me heart to a stone."</p>
+
+<p>Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
+with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
+kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
+order to be on hand."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the rush?" said Haney; "stay on a day or two and see the town
+with us&mdash;'tis a great show."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, re-entering at this moment in her shining gown, put the young
+attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on
+the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and,
+besides&mdash;Alice is not very well."</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of Alice's name Bertha's glance wavered and her eyelids
+fell. She did not urge him to stay, and Haney spoke up, heartily: "I'm
+sorry to hear she's not well. She was pretty as a rose the night of the
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"She lives on her nerves," Ben replied, falling into sadness. "One day
+she's up in the clouds and dancing, the next she's flat in her bed in a
+darkened room unwilling to see anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the way of the White Death," thought Haney, but he spoke
+hopefully: "Well, spring is here and a long summer before her&mdash;she'll be
+herself against October."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust so," said Ben, but Bertha could see that he was losing hope and
+that his life was being darkened by the presence of the death angel.</p>
+
+<p>Haney changed the current of all their thinking by saying to Bertha: "If
+you are minded to go home, now is your chance, acushla. You can return
+with Mr. Fordyce, while Lucius and I go on to New York the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she cried out in a panic. "No, I am going with you&mdash;I want to
+see New York myself," she added, in justification. The thought of the
+long journey with Ben Fordyce filled her with a kind of terror, a
+feeling she had never known before. She needed protection against
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Haney, "that's settled. Now let's show Mr. Fordyce the
+town."</p>
+
+<p>Ben put aside his doubt and went forth with them, resolute to make a
+merry day of it. He seemed to regain all his care-free temper, but
+Bertha remained uneasy and at times abnormally distraught. She spoke
+with effort and listened badly, so busily was she wrought upon by
+unbidden thoughts. The question of her lover's disloyalty to Alice
+Heath, strange to say, had not hitherto troubled her&mdash;so selfishly, so
+childishly had her own relationship to him filled her mind. She now saw
+that Alice Heath was as deeply concerned in Ben's relationship to her as
+Haney, and the picture of the poor, pale, despairing lady, worn with
+weeping, persistently came between her and the scenes Mart pointed out
+on their trips about the city. Did Alice know&mdash;did she suspect? Was that
+why she was sinking lower and lower into the shadow?</p>
+
+<p>With these questions to be answered, as well as those she had already
+put to herself concerning Mart, she could not enjoy the day's outing.
+She rode through the parks with cold hands and white lips, and sat amid
+the color and bustle and light of the dining-room with only spasmodic
+return of her humorous, girlish self. The love which shone from Ben's
+admiring eyes only added to her uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>She was very lovely in a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young
+bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx&mdash;the distraction upon her brow
+somehow adding to the charm of her face&mdash;and Ben thought her the most
+wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command
+was she. "Could any one," he thought, "be more swiftly adaptable?"</p>
+
+<p>They went to the theatre, and her beauty and her curiously unsmiling
+face aroused the admiration and curiosity of many others of those who
+saw her. At last, under the influence of the music, her eyes lost their
+shadow and grew tender and wistful. She ceased to question herself and
+gave herself up to the joy of the moment. The play and the
+melody&mdash;hackneyed to many of those present&mdash;appealed to her imagination,
+liberating her from the earth and all its concerns. She turned to Ben
+with eyes of rapture, saying, "Isn't it lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>And he, to whom the music was outworn and a little shoddy, instantly
+agreed. "Yes, it is very beautiful," and he meant it, for her pleasure
+in it brought back a knowledge of the charm it had once possessed.</p>
+
+<p>They dined together at the hotel, but the thought of Ben's departure
+brought a pang into Bertha's heart, and she fell back into her uneasy,
+distracted musing. She was being tempted, through her husband, who
+repeated with the half-forgetfulness of age and weakness, "You'd better
+go back with Mr. Fordyce, Bertie," but there was something stronger than
+her individual will in her reply&mdash;some racial resolution which came down
+the line of her good ancestry, and with almost angry outcry she
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use talking that! I'm going with you," and with this she
+ended the outward siege, but the inward battle was not closed till she
+had taken and dropped the hand her lover held out in parting next
+morning, and even then she turned away, with his eyes and the tender
+cadences of his voice imprinted so vividly on her memory that she could
+not banish them, and she set face towards the farther East with the
+contest of duty and desire still going forward in her blood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
+forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
+floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
+pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
+farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
+trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
+weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
+they all live?</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
+the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
+slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
+to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
+heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
+great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
+I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
+Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
+plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me&mdash;poor girl! I'd
+like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
+up, too."</p>
+
+<p>Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
+obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
+her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
+beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
+magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
+thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
+to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
+splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
+thirty years ago&mdash;rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
+broken steak or a half-eaten roll&mdash;and she could imaginatively enter
+into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.</p>
+
+<p>"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle&mdash;"'sure the
+mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
+him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
+drop in on him and surprise him with a check"&mdash;at the moment he forgot
+that he was old and a cripple&mdash;"just to let him know the divil hadn't
+claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
+arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
+see you; he might say the divil had got <i>you</i>&mdash;but he couldn't pity
+me."</p>
+
+<p>She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
+deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
+like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
+naturally locoes me to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the only place to spend money&mdash;so the boys tell me. I've never
+been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
+man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
+fine swamp to lose a thief in."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I did so&mdash;and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
+desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
+chances."</p>
+
+<p>Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
+were but empty boasting&mdash;so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
+that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
+potency of gold!&mdash;could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
+flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
+eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
+as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
+streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
+wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
+splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
+her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
+from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God&mdash;one derived
+from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.</p>
+
+<p>They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
+spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
+where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
+do it to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was tired, too&mdash;mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
+alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
+with the Troy directory.</p>
+
+<p>Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
+took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
+Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
+and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
+brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
+of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
+after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
+pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
+"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here&mdash;and I've earned many a dime
+sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
+said; "I don't know why&mdash;I had all the chance there was. I've been
+moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that&mdash;I'll say I tuck it
+as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
+alone&mdash;it spiled me nerve&mdash;I let the other felly do the drinkin'."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
+proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
+plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
+shouted, "'Tis old Otto&mdash;just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"</p>
+
+<p>Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
+off me alretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mart Haney&mdash;you remember Mart Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
+Vell, vell&mdash;you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"My wife," said Haney.</p>
+
+<p>Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
+draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
+you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what."</p>
+
+<p>"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce&mdash;aind dot
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
+up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
+what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn&mdash;so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
+be clad to see you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know his address?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."</p>
+
+<p>"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
+directory&mdash;Chon Donahue, barkeep."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
+the boys are livin' here now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
+vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
+are teadt&mdash;many are teadt," he added, on second thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
+machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
+talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
+lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
+I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
+these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
+can't cheat a boy&mdash;he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
+of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
+right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
+broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
+whole long day&mdash;not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
+up with the Injuns."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
+She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
+studying the scenes of his boyhood&mdash;her own childhood had been almost as
+humble, almost as cheerless&mdash;and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
+the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
+commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
+much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
+opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
+very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
+with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
+with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
+importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
+Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
+he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
+her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
+call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
+under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
+it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
+relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
+young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
+easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
+readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
+reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
+which she received what was said to her&mdash;something indefinably alert and
+self-masterful without being self-conscious&mdash;gave her a mysterious
+charm.</p>
+
+<p>She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
+and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
+She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
+of interest&mdash;even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
+Kate&mdash;more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
+her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
+buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
+if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
+with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
+London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
+and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
+folk live in one place?</p>
+
+<p>Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
+they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
+herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
+for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
+when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
+Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
+alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
+her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
+the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
+foreign capital.</p>
+
+<p>It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp&mdash;a
+palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
+glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
+Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
+conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
+and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
+masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
+say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
+while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
+comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
+"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
+were put at his command.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
+higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
+and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
+when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
+looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
+windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
+the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
+can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
+notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
+which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
+carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
+get a car."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
+like me."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
+again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
+was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
+angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
+bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
+timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
+race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
+with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans&mdash;and all others
+who have them not&mdash;struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
+distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
+display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
+not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
+people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
+diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
+from the scramble on the pave.</p>
+
+<p>Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
+heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
+grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
+had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
+auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
+handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
+and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
+therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
+little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
+door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
+old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
+broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
+me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
+'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
+cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
+play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
+was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
+in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
+wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
+packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
+room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
+free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
+this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
+indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
+keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
+ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, I'll go down."</p>
+
+<p>"They dress for dinner, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they? What'll I wear?"</p>
+
+<p>He considered a moment. "Any light silk&mdash;semi-dress will do. I'll send a
+maid in to help you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful&mdash;it was paternal;
+for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
+colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
+cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
+of adaptability&mdash;was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
+both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
+in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
+him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
+prejudice against both black and red men.</p>
+
+<p>The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
+exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
+deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
+a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
+the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
+zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
+Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
+eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.</p>
+
+<p>Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
+bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
+tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
+appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
+lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
+women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
+they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
+beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
+very shy.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
+to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but&mdash;to
+miss me sleep&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
+just about all in, myself."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
+time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
+heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
+Lucius will take ye."</p>
+
+<p>"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
+We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
+kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."</p>
+
+<p>This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
+by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
+endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
+'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
+receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
+complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
+that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
+thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
+live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
+great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
+This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
+turned off Broadway.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
+special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
+quieter now till November."</p>
+
+<p>They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
+in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
+most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
+nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
+of a rank with Paris and London&mdash;the gateway city of the nation, where
+the Old World meets and mingles with the New.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE</h3>
+
+
+<p>As for Marshall Haney, as he went about New York and Brooklyn in search
+of his relations, he was astounded at the translation of the Irish
+laborer into something else. "In my time, when I left Troy, all the work
+in the streets was done by 'micks,' as they called 'em. Now they're
+gone&mdash;whisked away as ye'd sweep away a swarm of red ants, and here's
+these black Dagos in their places. Where's the Irishman gone&mdash;up or
+down? That's what's eatin' me. Is he dead or translated to a higher
+speer? 'Tis a mysterious dispensation, and troubles me much."</p>
+
+<p>He found a good many Donahues in Brooklyn, and plenty of them
+barkeepers; and after he'd pulled up half a dozen times at these
+"joints" Bertha began to pout. She didn't like such places; and as they
+were riding in a showy auto-car (the grandest Lucius could secure), they
+were pretty middling noticeable. At last she said, more sharply than she
+had ever spoken to him before: "Mart, I don't want any more of this. If
+you want to visit all the saloons in Brooklyn, I don't. Here's where I
+get out."</p>
+
+<p>He was instantly remorseful. "I was thinkin' of that myself, Bertie.
+Lucius and I will go on alone. We'll send you back to the hotel in the
+'mobile whilst we take a hack."</p>
+
+<p>Half doubting, half glad, she consented to this arrangement, and was
+soon whirling back towards the ferry, her guilty feeling giving place to
+a sense of relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her
+shoulders&mdash;for a moment. She began to understand that half the pleasure
+she had taken in her hours with Moss and Humiston lay in the freedom
+from her husband's over-shadowing presence. He was not a man to be
+ignored, as she had seen wives ignore and put aside their meek partners.
+Marshall Haney even yet was a dominating personality, even though his
+family affairs were so insistent and so difficult to manage or explain.
+If the father came her joy in her home would be gone, and yet she had no
+right to refuse him shelter.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time she was less sure of her place in the world, now that
+she was alone. She had the feeling that if anything were to happen&mdash;if
+the motorman should demand his pay at the door, or the hotel-keeper
+refuse to go her bond, she would be helpless. The Captain, for all his
+shortcomings and physical disability, was master of every situation. He
+had been schooled by stern powers, and his capabilities of defence were
+still equal to almost any need.</p>
+
+<p>On the ferry-boat she found herself surrounded by the swarms of people
+who are forever calculating expenditures, who never desert a garment,
+and who finger a nickel lovingly; and she caught them looking at her as
+upon one of those who enjoy without earning it the product of their
+toil. They made way for her, as she got down and walked to the railing,
+as they would have done for a millionaire's daughter, a little surlily,
+and she divined without understanding this enmity, but was too exalted
+by the glittering bay, with its romance of ship and sea and shore and
+town, to very much mind what her threadbare fellow-passengers thought of
+her. These dark-hulled, ocean-going vessels, these alien flags, widened
+her horizon&mdash;deepened her sense of the earth's wonder and the wide-flung
+nerves of national interest. From this sea-level she looked up in fancy
+to her brother's ranch near Sibley as at a cabin on a mountain-side. How
+still and faint and far it seemed at the moment!</p>
+
+<p>At the word of the chauffeur she climbed back into her car, returning to
+the isolation which money now provided for her. And so, girt about with
+velvet and costly wood and gilding, she rode up through the tearing
+throngs of the wharf, whirling past cars and trucks, outspeeding cabs
+and carriages, protected by a gambler's name, royally isolated and
+defensible by his money. As she spun through Fifth Avenue, so smooth of
+pave, so crowded, so sparkling, so far-reaching in its suggestions of
+security and power, the girl's soul entered upon a new and fierce phase
+of its struggle.</p>
+
+<p>It was a larger and more absorbing fairy story than any in the <i>Arabian
+Nights</i>. Without Marshall Haney, without the gold he brought, she could
+never have even looked upon this scene. She would at this moment have
+been standing inside her little counter at the Golden Eagle, selling
+cigars to some brakeman or cowboy. Ed Winchell would be coming to ask
+her, as usual, to marry him, and her mother would still be toiling in
+the hot kitchen or be at rest in her grave. Did ever Aladdin's lamp
+translate its owner farther or lift him higher? Was not her refusal to
+be Marshall Haney's wife the basest ingratitude?</p>
+
+<p>Not merely so, but the girl felt in herself potentialities not yet drawn
+upon, unlimited capabilities leading towards the accomplishment of good.
+Money had not merely the magic of exalting, educating, refining, and
+ennobling the individual (herself); it had radiating, transforming power
+for others. It could diffuse warmth like a flame, and send forth joy
+like a bell. "With it I am safe, strong: I can help the poor. Without it
+I am only a struggling girl, like millions of others, with no chance and
+no power to aid those who suffer." But at this point her love re-entered
+and her sense of right was confused. After all the heart ruled.</p>
+
+<p>At the hotel entrance the head porter was waiting to help her out, and
+the chauffeur, without a word or look of reminder, puffed away, secure
+in the reputation Lucius had given to Haney. As she went to her room the
+maid met her with gentle solicitude, and, after attending to her needs,
+considerately withdrew, leaving her deep-sunk in troubled musing.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the coming of Ben Fordyce she had accepted all that Haney gave her
+as from one good friend to another. Once having satisfied herself that
+the money was clean of any taint from gambling-hall and saloon, she had
+not hesitated to use it. But now something was rising within her which
+changed the current of her purpose. Haney was no longer before the bar
+of her conscience; the soul under question was her own. Dimly, yet with
+ever-growing definiteness, she saw the moment of decision approach. She
+must soon decide whether to continue on the smooth, broad highway with
+Haney, or to return to the mountain-trail from which he had taken her.</p>
+
+<p>While still she sat sombrely looking out over the city's roofs,
+Humiston's card was brought to her, and at the moment, in her loneliness
+and doubt, he seemed like an old friend. "Tell him to come up," she
+said, with instant cordiality, and her face shone with innocent pleasure
+when she met him. "I'm mighty glad to see you," she frankly said, in
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>He misconceived her feeling, and took advantage of it to retain her
+hand. "I assure you I am delighted to find <i>you</i> again."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd forgot us."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes expressed a bold admiration as he answered: "I have done
+nothing but remember you. I've been in Pittsburg (only got back to town
+yesterday), and here I am." He looked about. "Where is the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her hand. "He's out looking for his father. He'll return
+soon. He's liable to look in any minute now."</p>
+
+<p>"You are lovelier than ever. How is the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well. He gets tired fairly easy, but he feels better than he
+did."</p>
+
+<p>His look of eager intensity embarrassed her. After a little pause, he
+remarked: "I am holding you to your promise. Can't you come over to my
+studio this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not to-day. I must be here when the Captain comes. He may bring the
+old father along, and he'd feel lost if I should be gone. Maybe I could
+come to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bring the Captain unless you have to&mdash;he'll be bored," he said,
+in the hope that she would get his full meaning. "I want to introduce
+you to some friends of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't do that!" she protested. "I'm afraid of your friends&mdash;they're
+all so way-wised while I am hardly bridle-broke."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not fear," he replied; "you are most to be envied. No one can
+have more than health, wealth, and youth and beauty. I would not
+hesitate to introduce you anywhere." His admiration was so outspoken, so
+choicely worded, that she could not distrust him, though Mrs. Moss had
+more than once hinted to her that he was not to be entirely honored. "He
+isn't a man to be careless with," she had once said, and yet he seemed
+so high-minded, so profoundly concerned with the beautiful world of art.
+How could a single-hearted Western girl believe ill of him? He could
+not be evil in the ways in which men were wicked in Sibley. His
+sensitive face was too weary and his eyes too sad.</p>
+
+<p>He was adroit enough to make his call short, and withdrew, leaving a
+very pleasant impression in her mind. She felt distinctly less lonely,
+now that she knew he was in the city, and she was still at the window
+musing about him when Haney returned, bringing his father with him.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Haney interested and amused her in spite of her
+perplexities&mdash;he was so quaintly of the old type of Irishman and so
+absurdly small to be the father of a giant. He carried a shrewd and
+kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
+line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
+calmer.</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
+dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
+awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
+retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me&mdash;after the day he first
+thrun me down, the big gawk."</p>
+
+<p>Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
+'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"</p>
+
+<p>Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
+warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
+"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
+is green&mdash;the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
+to the tooth-factory."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."</p>
+
+<p>"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
+baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
+and be gay."</p>
+
+<p>Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
+may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
+man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
+prospect in&mdash;so don't fuss."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
+'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
+at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
+take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
+recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
+telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
+said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
+'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
+every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
+So here he is&mdash;scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
+gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
+left the old sod." Here his face became sadly tender. "I wish the mother
+was alive, too; I'd make her rustle in silks, so I would. Heaven rest
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>The father's face grew suddenly accusing in line. "Ye waited too long,
+ye vagabond. Yer change of heart comes too late."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it&mdash;I know it! But I could never find time till a man with a
+shotgun pointed the way to it. Now I have all the time there is, and
+she's gone."</p>
+
+<p>In this moment of passing shadow Bertha caught a glimpse of the
+significance of the scene&mdash;of the wonder, almost alarm, which filled the
+old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the
+room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and
+green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness
+of the silk tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>The old man touched a gilded chair tenderly, and Mart cried out: "Lay
+hold, man, 'twill not rub off! Sit down and look about ye! Out with your
+new pipe and smoke up!"</p>
+
+<p>He took a seat with forced confidence, and looked about him. "I wish
+Donahue and Kate could see this."</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned a quietly humorous eye on Bertha. "Not this trip. I couldn't
+manage Kate," he explained. "She looks like Fan&mdash;only more so; and she
+has a litter o' young Donahues would make ye wonder could the world have
+room for them all."</p>
+
+<p>Haney the elder had something more than the bog-trotter in him, for as
+he grew towards a little more assurance that Mart would not be thrown
+out of his hotel for non-payment of bills, he settled down to enjoy his
+glass of rare whiskey and a costly cigar with an assumption of ease that
+almost deceived the maid, though Lucius, being in the secret, watched
+him anxiously for fear he might expectorate on the rug.</p>
+
+<p>Mart had some "p'otographs" of his house in the Springs, and showed them
+to Patrick. "Do ye see yerself smokin' a pipe on that porch?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not," the father energetically replied. "I see meself goin' the
+rounds of that garden with a waterin'-pot and a pair of shears."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought ye was a bricklayer, or is it a billiard-marker?" asked Mart,
+with quizzical look.</p>
+
+<p>"I can turn me hand to anny honest work," he replied, with dignity. "An'
+can ye say as much?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot," confessed Mart. "Had ye put a club to me back and foorced me
+to a trade, sure I'd be layin' brick in Troy this day."</p>
+
+<p>This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was
+false, and yet here sat Mart&mdash;a gentleman. While still he puzzled over
+the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart
+turned to Bertha. "Do ye mind the old man's spendin' the rest of his
+days with us, darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're the doctor, Mart. It's your house, not mine."</p>
+
+<p>He felt the change in her. "Oh no, it isn't; it's <i>our</i> house. I never
+would have had it only for you." He paused a moment. "The dad is a
+well-meaning old rascal, and I'll go bail he don't do mischief."</p>
+
+<p>Patrick took this up. "He is so, and he means to kape to his own way of
+life. If I go West, me b'y, 'tis on wages as a gardener&mdash;and, bedad,
+I'll draw 'em reg'ler, too. I'd like well to go West ('twould rejice me
+to see Fan and McArdle), and I don't object to spendin' a year with you
+in Coloraydo, but don't think Patrick Haney is to be pinsioner on anny
+one, not even his son."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's heart vibrated in sympathy with this note of independence, and
+she heartily said: "I hope you will come, Mr. Haney. The Captain is
+alone a good deal, and you'd be a comfort to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll consider," the old man said. "I must have time to rea-lize it," he
+quaintly added. "I must smoke me pipe in me own garret once more, and
+talk it all over with Kate and the Donahues." He refused to stay to
+dinner with them (which was a relief to Lucius), and went away jaunty as
+a bucko from County Clare.</p>
+
+<p>He was no sooner gone from the room than Bertha turned to her husband,
+and said: "Mart, I want to talk things over with you."</p>
+
+<p>Something in her voice, as well as in the words, made him turn quickly
+and regard her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What about? What is it, darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have something on my mind, and I've got to spit it out before I can
+rest to-night. I've just about decided to leave you. I don't feel right
+livin' with you."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her steadily, but a gray pallor began to show on his face.
+He asked, quietly: "Do ye mean to go fer good?"</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was beating fast, but she bravely faced him. "Yes, Mart, I
+don't feel right living with you, and spending your money the way I've
+been doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? It isn't mine&mdash;it's yours. Ye airn every cent ye spend."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!" she cried, passionately. "Now that you're getting better
+and Lucius has come, I'm not even a nurse."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll send him away."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; he's worth more than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not listen to such talk, Bertie. Ye well know you're the thing
+most precious to me. I can't live without ye." His voice thickened. "For
+God A'mighty's sake, don't say such things; they make me heart shake! Me
+teeth are chatterin' this minute! Ye're jokin'; say you don't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do. Don't you see that I can't stay and let you do things for me
+like this"&mdash;she indicated their apartment&mdash;"when I do so little to earn
+it all? Mart, I've got to be honest about it. I can't let you spend any
+more money on me. Help your own people, and let me go. I do nothing to
+pay for what you do for me. It's better for me to go."</p>
+
+<p>She could not bring herself to be as explicit as she should have been,
+but he was not far from understanding her real meaning, as he brokenly
+replied: "I've been afraid of this, my girl. I've thought of it all. The
+money I spend fer ye is but a small part of my debt. You say you do
+nothing for me. Why, darlin', every time you come into the room or smile
+at me you do much for me! I'm a selfish old wolf, but I'm not so bad as
+you think I am. If anny nice young felly comes along&mdash;a good square
+man&mdash;I'll get off the track; but I want you to let me stay near you as
+long as I live." His voice was hoarse with pleading. "Ye're all I have
+in the world; all I live for now is to make you happy. Don't pull away
+now, when me old heart has grown all round ye. I can't live and I
+daren't die without ye&mdash;now that's the eternal truth. Darlin', promise
+ye won't go&mdash;yet awhile."</p>
+
+<p>Wordless, as full of pain as he, she sat silently weeping, unable to
+carry out her resolution&mdash;unable to express the change which had come
+into her life.</p>
+
+<p>He went on. "I mark the difference between us. I see ye goin' up while I
+am goin' down. My heart is big with pride in ye. You belong with people
+like the Congdons and the Mosses&mdash;whilst I am only an old broken-down
+skate. I'm worse than you know. I went down to Sibley first with hell in
+me heart towards you, but that soon passed away&mdash;I loved ye as a man
+should love the girl he marries&mdash;and I love ye now as I love the saints.
+I wouldn't mar your young life fer anything in this world&mdash;'tis me wish
+to lave you as beautiful and fresh as I found you, and to give you all I
+have besides&mdash;so stay with me, if you can, till the other man comes."
+Here a new thought intruded. "Has he come now? Tell me if he has. Did ye
+find him in Chicago? Be honest, darlin'."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she answered. "It isn't that. It's just because&mdash;because it
+don't seem right."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ye must stay with me," he said, "and don't worry about not doing
+things for me. You do things for me every minute&mdash;just by being in the
+world. If I can see ye or hear ye I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
+from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
+ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
+left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
+ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"</p>
+
+<p>She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.</p>
+
+<p>His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
+say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no; I like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
+that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
+don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
+out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
+voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
+me&mdash;now&mdash;I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
+name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
+is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
+die&mdash;I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
+Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SERPENT'S COIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
+Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
+ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
+alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
+the libertine demands novelty&mdash;where struggle is essential, and to
+conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
+and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
+won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him&mdash;pleased him. "She is no silly
+kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
+a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
+far, and I will be her guide&mdash;unless I have lost my cunning. She will
+share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."</p>
+
+<p>He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
+smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
+have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
+gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
+place. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own this
+work-shop are out; they'll be in soon."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."</p>
+
+<p>"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases upon
+the walls&mdash;not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay in
+America being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own.
+"I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.
+Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,
+for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,
+wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railway
+fare."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't you
+come with us for a ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bring
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. I
+despise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America&mdash;except
+you. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a few
+minutes, and I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outside
+the hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."</p>
+
+<p>He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of my
+pictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,
+there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think better
+of the West&mdash;of America. I feel that you will find something in my
+pictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, he
+added: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anything
+but the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you&mdash;you are
+so aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. You
+would spur a man to big things."</p>
+
+<p>They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,
+embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by his
+voice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked round
+him. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold and
+depressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den in
+Paris. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiest
+days have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerful
+manner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see his
+paintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your word
+and dine with you&mdash;perhaps this very night."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonder
+at the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.</p>
+
+<p>He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to a
+belief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artist
+feelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost as
+lonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, but
+Haney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair for
+you," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked of
+the West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and his
+essentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish that
+they might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," he
+insisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With your
+beauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, you
+could reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worth
+more to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anything
+in this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show you
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbing
+of her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctive
+distrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners and
+cowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back in
+growing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all the
+barriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of the
+eagle&mdash;now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray sea
+to slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willing
+to sit beside her and talk&mdash;he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.</p>
+
+<p>The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and his
+theories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portrait
+in the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.
+Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flattering
+not to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joined
+them in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had known
+Humiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry's
+amusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"</p>
+
+<p>He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the little
+gallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other men
+have been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've gone
+on refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line to
+color, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.
+The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only now
+and then that a man, or a woman <i>feels</i> what I'm after&mdash;and so I live. I
+hold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."</p>
+
+<p>He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what she
+thought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of them
+home he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," he
+sharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yet
+used: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused of
+patronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spite
+of all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderful
+artist?</p>
+
+<p>She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I've
+got a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones on
+which my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit&mdash;they are
+too 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to show
+them to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,
+consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."</p>
+
+<p>His gentle <i>camaraderie</i>, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when he
+took her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did not
+stumble at the crossing she was stirred&mdash;not as Ben's hand had moved
+her, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderful
+that she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in the
+midst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the company
+of one of the chief artists of the world?</p>
+
+<p>Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of the
+city, and explained to her that American dealers had no real
+appreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,
+and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the same
+in Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect of
+these densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."</p>
+
+<p>The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and out
+with friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha into
+the farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.
+No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the other
+paintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall and
+partly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the inner
+temple. Enter."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not well
+lighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:
+"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to show
+my masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothing
+unusual in the experience.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits of
+excelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent over
+some canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one with
+care. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stood
+a large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back with
+eyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was in
+the new Salon&mdash;here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited in
+this rotten town."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a
+nude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,
+rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and to
+the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught
+her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a
+defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female
+form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And
+then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
+beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
+he placed another canvas before her&mdash;something so unrefined, so animal,
+so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
+looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
+a degenerate demon&mdash;an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
+the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha stared at it&mdash;fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
+It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
+thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
+upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
+look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
+revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
+tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
+burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
+affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
+wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
+herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
+slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
+brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
+the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
+he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
+Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
+ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
+Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
+the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
+in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
+and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
+and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
+sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
+vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?</p>
+
+<p>She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
+head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
+as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
+glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
+for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
+one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
+a letter from Humiston&mdash;a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
+hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
+sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
+a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
+you to see them as I painted them&mdash;in pure artistic delight. You
+misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
+remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."</p>
+
+<p>Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
+beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
+relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
+experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
+shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
+quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
+near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
+before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
+decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
+leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
+little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
+trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben&mdash;these men she knew and respected.
+Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
+dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
+men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
+go home&mdash;to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Bertie, I'm ready&mdash;or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
+father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."</p>
+
+<p>"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
+impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
+me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
+goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
+have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next
+express."</p>
+
+<p>The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the
+Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a
+military camp.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public
+dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her,
+and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she
+had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than
+asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."</p>
+
+<p>"We can put it in," said Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't do without you now," added Mart.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't
+particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in
+command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't
+assumed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a
+plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a
+steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it
+right with you&mdash;and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Mart&mdash;only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to
+do. He's <i>too</i> handy&mdash;if anything."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the
+price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you
+in on the mine."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay
+with me; my wants are few."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many
+times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all
+your life? Tell us your ambition&mdash;maybe we can help you."</p>
+
+<p>He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions
+once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as
+I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know
+exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my
+profession it was different&mdash;I was always being cursed for presumption."</p>
+
+<p>"What was your profession?" asked Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"I studied law&mdash;and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I
+didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got
+a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He
+stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.</p>
+
+<p>Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber
+like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong
+way."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point
+upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as
+you have been doing&mdash;as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything
+about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very
+satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled&mdash;you're adjutant-general
+of the Haneys' forces."</p>
+
+<p>After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told
+us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."</p>
+
+<p>Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do
+anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius,
+won't ye do that?'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's
+services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face
+and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of
+his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the
+trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have
+misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto,
+but in the spirit of the trained nurse.</p>
+
+<p>This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after
+a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western
+town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled
+away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance
+of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious
+Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of
+upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up
+Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights,
+with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and
+sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled
+bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had
+threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the
+mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of
+human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and
+very remote.</p>
+
+<p>Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her
+mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In
+all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he
+frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with
+regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into
+their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me
+down&mdash;I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius
+sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in
+the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten
+fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis
+a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the
+faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"
+Bertha said.</p>
+
+<p>"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."</p>
+
+<p>"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the
+road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis
+not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern
+streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than
+when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of
+our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls,
+and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon
+the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a
+gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come
+back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a
+wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was
+strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely,
+troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to
+catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his
+shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the
+limited express.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world
+like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a
+visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody
+travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the
+matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of
+the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their
+ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man
+of his own level, and they held long confabulations together&mdash;the
+colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in
+which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window,
+dreaming of the past.</p>
+
+<p>As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing
+the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the
+pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was
+as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on
+which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made
+all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through
+which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those
+high places.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time&mdash;by
+reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of
+New York&mdash;it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had
+once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She
+liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a
+pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and
+say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he
+even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely
+your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.
+I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly
+luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.</p>
+
+<p>There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the
+culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far
+from anything &aelig;sthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved
+the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was
+about to leave the East for the West&mdash;perhaps to abandon the town for
+the village&mdash;she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto
+been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.
+New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content
+to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.</p>
+
+<p>That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the
+city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes,
+especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the
+East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver
+sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's
+Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and
+glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and
+especially of music and the drama&mdash;all these came back one by one to
+claim a place beside her peaks and ca&ntilde;ons, sharing the glory of the
+purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto
+loved so single-heartedly and so well.</p>
+
+<p>She saw Sibley now for what it was&mdash;a village almost barren of beauty&mdash;a
+good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there
+to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to
+do here&mdash;in the East. I can't stand Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of
+Ben&mdash;but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited
+opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun
+to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul,
+with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with
+her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.
+She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien
+to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting
+her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned
+upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were
+aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and
+wise.</p>
+
+<p>Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night
+at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go
+stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So
+Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be
+over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father
+hurried away in joyous relief.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he
+confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him
+unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like
+palin' a red onion to him&mdash;nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was
+getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him.
+The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had
+not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn
+away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they
+infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new
+barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or
+coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were
+leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard
+unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees&mdash;which no one was
+allowed to climb.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden&mdash;and this was onerous to
+the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again.
+However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations
+among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross
+them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had
+to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast
+to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed
+tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed.
+"We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole
+time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon
+with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."</p>
+
+<p>But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."</p>
+
+<p>Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the
+roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer.
+Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and
+p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it&mdash;snappin'
+and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."</p>
+
+<p>His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said:
+"'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped
+in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle
+having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought
+of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly
+less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour
+necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a
+certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father&mdash;a man
+inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was
+gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and
+took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small
+in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.</p>
+
+<p>There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and
+Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you
+gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you
+fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't
+put it on a charity basis&mdash;just sold the house on long time."</p>
+
+<p>"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucius did not appear to hear.</p>
+
+<p>They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf,
+the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go
+over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not
+yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing.
+"Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up
+before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in
+without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought
+upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe,
+here's Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows,
+but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a
+coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my
+arm&mdash;my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with
+frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared,
+'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and
+the West.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our
+machine."</p>
+
+<p>"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming
+due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop
+and let art wag."</p>
+
+<p>Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did&mdash;that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now;
+I'll work to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night is the Hall's circus party."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool,
+clear air."</p>
+
+<p>Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he
+reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
+and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
+fishing or swimming.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained&mdash;"took a
+contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
+to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
+money&mdash;now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
+can't breathe country air&mdash;had to work all day Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
+children's summer suits."</p>
+
+<p>"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
+when I was a child&mdash;and that was a buff."</p>
+
+<p>All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
+how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
+'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
+"I'll secure one this week."</p>
+
+<p>Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
+hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
+school-children&mdash;even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
+turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
+pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
+powers of money&mdash;it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
+wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
+could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.</p>
+
+<p>Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
+Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
+deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
+crystalline.</p>
+
+<p>On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
+green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
+water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
+of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
+far away.</p>
+
+<p>Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
+a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
+boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
+type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
+look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."</p>
+
+<p>His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination&mdash;not because she cared to see
+Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his
+concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful
+was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about
+the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the
+city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him,
+angered him.</p>
+
+<p>She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till
+their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's
+private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his
+fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl
+who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure,
+he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time
+I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she
+is to fulfil her place in the world&mdash;and be happy."</p>
+
+<p>She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go
+further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or
+sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art
+that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative&mdash;home
+decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need
+of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know
+several highly successful women decorators&mdash;but I wouldn't advise that
+work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative
+sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it
+over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show
+at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I
+missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."</p>
+
+<p>Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly
+romantic to us&mdash;the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you
+have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a
+visit."</p>
+
+<p>Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of
+pleading; then she answered: "Yes&mdash;but then, you see, it isn't really
+mine&mdash;it's the Captain's."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours by marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what people say&mdash;but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no
+right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
+moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
+Frank Congdon&mdash;he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
+with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
+is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
+gambler."</p>
+
+<p>She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
+saloon&mdash;when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
+promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
+and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
+didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
+comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
+the saloon money&mdash;and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
+I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
+straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
+though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
+way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
+account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
+in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."</p>
+
+<p>She ignored the implied compliment and went on:</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
+man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
+and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
+know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he complain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits&mdash;but I'm
+afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
+game."</p>
+
+<p>In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
+trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
+it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
+you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
+handsome figure before his&mdash;accident."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
+his trade&mdash;and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
+of the whole business&mdash;for me&mdash;I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
+big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
+sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I
+married him for his money&mdash;I liked him then, and, besides&mdash;well, I
+<i>thought</i> I was doing the right thing&mdash;but now&mdash;well, I'm guessing." She
+ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her
+secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to
+her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her
+there.</p>
+
+<p>With sincere sympathy, he said: "We all do wrong at times that good may
+come out of it. You could not foresee the future&mdash;the best of us can
+<i>only guess</i> at the effect of any action. You did the best you knew at
+the moment. The question you have to face now has only slight relation
+to the past. No one can enter wholly into another's perplexity&mdash;I'm not
+even sure of a single one of my inferences&mdash;but if you are thinking
+of&mdash;separation, I would say, meet this crisis as bravely as you met the
+other. But I don't believe we should decide any such question selfishly.
+I am not of those who always seek the side on which lies personal
+happiness, because a happiness that is essentially selfish won't last.
+The Captain lives only for you&mdash;any one can see that. What he does for
+you springs from deep affection. What would happen to him&mdash;if you left
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and watched her subduing her tears; then added: "I
+won't say I was unprepared for what you've said, for the entire
+relationship, from our first meeting, seemed too abnormal to be
+altogether happy. Money will buy a great many desirable things, but it
+has its limits. At the same time, it is too much to expect of you&mdash;If
+your feeling for him has changed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His delicacy, his sympathy for her, was made apparent by the unusual
+hesitation of his speech, and she would have broken down completely had
+not Julia Moss called out: "Joe, turn on the lights&mdash;it's getting dark."</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of Bertha's emotion, he did not immediately do as he was
+bidden. "I wish you'd talk this over with Julia," he ended gently;
+"she's a very wise little woman."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha shook her head. "I didn't intend to talk it over with you. I
+don't know what possessed me. I had no business to say what I did."</p>
+
+<p>He reassured her. "All you've told me and the part I've guessed is quite
+safe. I will not even permit Julia to share your confidence till you are
+willing to speak to her yourself."</p>
+
+<p>As he slowly lighted the studio Bertha was surprised and a little
+troubled to find that two or three other visitors had slipped in through
+the dusk, and were grouped about the tea-table, and that the Captain was
+again the centre of an eager-eyed group. "They treat him as if he were
+an Eskimo," she thought bitterly, and rose to join the circle and
+protect him from their inquisition.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was feeling extremely well, and talked with so much of his old
+time vigor and slash of epithet that his little audience was quite
+entranced. He enlarged upon the experiences of a year he had spent in
+Alaska. "Mining up there in them days made gambling slow business," he
+said. (He had told Bertha that he had made an attempt to get out of "the
+trade," but she was content to have him put it on less self-righteous
+grounds.) He contrived to make his hearers feel very keenly the
+pitiless, long-drawn ferocity of that sunless winter. He made it plain
+why men in that far land came together in vile dens to drink and gamble,
+and Moss glowed with the wonder and delight of those great boys who
+could rush away to the arctic edge of the world and die with laughing
+curses on their lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you all do it for?" he asked, bluntly. "For money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Partly&mdash;but more for the love of doing something hard. No man but a
+miser punishes himself for love of gold&mdash;it's for love of what the stuff
+will buy, that men fight the snows."</p>
+
+<p>While Haney talked of these things Bertha's eyes were musingly turned on
+the face of the sculptor, and her mind was far from the scenes which
+Mart so vividly described. This side of his life no longer amused
+her&mdash;on the contrary she shrank from any disclosure of his savage
+career. She was now as unjust in her criticism as she had been fond in
+her admiration, and when with darkening brow she cut short his garrulous
+flow of narrative Julia perceived her displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>Haney apologized, handsomely. "It's natural for the ould bedraggled
+eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he
+used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's
+weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now,
+as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I
+want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind o' wish
+to live 'em all over again. Bertie knows me weakness. I would talk
+forever did she lave me go on; but 'tis no blame to her&mdash;it was a cruel,
+bad, careless life."</p>
+
+<p>"When I come West," said Moss, sincerely, "we'll go camping together,
+and every night by the fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
+your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
+going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
+the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
+briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
+right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
+above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
+examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
+because I know him&mdash;I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
+Springs."</p>
+
+<p>"What'll I do if he's worse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him back here or go to sea level&mdash;only beware of high passes."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
+experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
+parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
+in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
+half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
+plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
+with his epoch-making wars.</p>
+
+<p>As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
+the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
+than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
+thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness&mdash;the strife
+was individual, the problems personal&mdash;and at last, weary of question,
+of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
+Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
+There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
+freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
+she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.</p>
+
+<p>She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
+secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
+intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
+out with lavish hand.</p>
+
+<p>Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
+too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
+dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy gang, to the
+theatre&mdash;Patrick Haney as much of a boy as his grandsons, McArdle alone
+being unhappy as well as uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>She went about the shops, buying with reckless hand treasures for the
+house in the Springs, and this gave her husband more satisfaction than
+any other extravagance, for each article seemed a gage of the permanency
+of his home. In support of her mood he urged her to even larger
+expenditures. "Buy, buy like a queen," he often commanded, as she mused
+upon some choice. "Take the best!"</p>
+
+<p>There was instruction as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring
+with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her
+r&ocirc;le as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses,
+her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To
+them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways
+as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well
+as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She
+was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured
+Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with
+almost equal gusto&mdash;and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the
+outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate women in the world.</p>
+
+<p>And yet every day made her less tolerant of the crippled old man at her
+side. She did not pout or sulk or answer him shortly, but she often
+forgot him&mdash;failed to answer him&mdash;not out of petulance or disgust, but
+because her mind was busy with other people. Gradually, without
+realizing it, she got into the habit of leaving him to amuse himself, as
+he best could, for she knew he did not specially care for the pursuits
+which gave her the keenest joy. In consequence of this unintentional
+neglect he very naturally fell more and more into the hands of the
+bar-room spongers who loitered about the hotel corridors. He dreaded
+loneliness, and it was to keep his companions about him that he became a
+spendthrift in liquors. Sternly and deliberately temperate during his
+long career as a gambler, he fell at last into drinking to excess, and
+on one unhappy afternoon returned to Bertha quite plainly drunk.</p>
+
+<p>She was both startled and disgusted by this sign of weakness, and he was
+not so blinded by the mist of his potations but that he perceived the
+shrinking reluctance of her touch as she aided Lucius in lifting him
+into the bed. His inert, lumpish form was at the moment hideously
+repulsive to her, and physical contact with him a dreaded thing. What
+was left if he lost that self-control which had made him admirable? She
+had always been able to qualify his other shortcomings by saying, "Well,
+anyhow, he don't drink." She could boast of this no longer.</p>
+
+<p>It was a most miserable night for her. At dinner she was forced to lie
+about him (for the first time), and she did it so badly that Joe Moss
+divined her trouble and came generously to her aid with a long and
+amusing story about Whistler.</p>
+
+<p>The play to which she took her guests did not help her to laughter, for
+it set forth with diabolic skill the life of a woman who loathed her
+husband, dreaded maternity, and hated herself&mdash;a baffling, marvellously
+intricate and searching play&mdash;meat for well people, not for those
+mentally ill at ease or morally unstable. Of a truth, Bertha saw but
+half of it and comprehended less, for she could not forget the leaden
+hands and flushed face of the man she called husband&mdash;and whom she had
+left in his bed to sleep away his hours of intoxication. She pitied him
+now&mdash;but in a new fashion. Her compassion was mixed with contempt, and
+that showed more clearly than any other feeling could the depth to which
+Marshall Haney had sunk.</p>
+
+<p>When she came home at midnight she listened at his door, but did not
+enter, for Lucius&mdash;skilled in all such matters&mdash;reported the Captain to
+be "all right."</p>
+
+<p>She went to her own room in a more darkly tragic mood than she had ever
+known before. Her punishment, her time for trouble, had begun. "I reckon
+I'm due to pay for my fun," she said to herself, "but not in the way
+I've been figuring on." Haney seemed at the moment a complete physical
+ruin, and the change which his helplessness wrought in her was most
+radical.</p>
+
+<p>His deeply penitent mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as
+much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have
+preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast,"
+he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand
+and me tongue twisted&mdash;and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having
+nothing to do but trade lies with a lot of flat-bottomed loafers in a
+gaudy bar-room. But don't worry, darlin', right here old Mart pulls up.
+You'll not see anny more of this. Forget it, dear-heart&mdash;won't you now?"</p>
+
+<p>She promised, of course, but the chasm between them was widened, and a
+fear of his again yielding to temptation cut short her stay in the city,
+for Lucius warningly explained: "The Captain is settling into a corner
+of the bar-room with a gang of sponging blackguards around him, and
+every day makes it less easy for him to break away. I'd advise going
+home," he ended, quietly. "The Springs is a safer place for him now."</p>
+
+<p>The hyenas were beginning to prowl around the disabled lion, and this
+the faithful servant knew even better than the wife.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, home we go," she replied, and the thought of "home" was both
+sweet and perilous.</p>
+
+<p>Haney met her decision with pathetic, instant joy. "I'm ready, I was
+only waitin'," he said. "After all, your own shack is better than a
+pearl palace in anny town, and it's gettin' hot besides."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha parted from the Mosses with keen sorrow. Joe had come to be like
+an elder brother to her&mdash;a brother and a teacher, and, next to Ben
+Fordyce, was more often in her thought than any other human being. She
+had lost part of her awe of him, but her affection had deepened as she
+came to understand the essential manliness and simplicity of his
+character. He redeemed the artist-world from the shame men like Humiston
+had put upon it.</p>
+
+<p>As she entered for the last time the studio in which she had spent so
+many happy hours and from whose atmosphere of work and high endeavor she
+had derived so much mental and moral development she was sad, and this
+sadness lent a beauty to her face that it had never before attained. She
+looked older, too; and contrasting her with the girl who had first
+looked in at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a
+year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to
+know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns,
+but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the
+expression of security and power.</p>
+
+<p>He greeted her as usual with a frank nod and (his hands being free from
+clay) advanced to shake hands. "Don't tell me you've come to say
+good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what," she curtly said. "It's up to me to take the Captain home.
+He's getting into bad habits lying around this hotel."</p>
+
+<p>His face clouded. "I've been afraid of that," he answered, gently. "Yes,
+you'd better go home. It's harder for a man to have a good, easy time
+than it is for a woman. But sit down, Julia will be in soon; you mustn't
+go without seeing her."</p>
+
+<p>After some further talk on trains and other common-places she became
+abruptly personal. "I've been having a whole lot of fun buying things
+and planting dollars, but I'm beginning to see an end to that kind of
+business. After you've got your house filled up with furniture and
+jimcracks, what you going to do then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burn 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"And begin all over again? You can't buy out the town. It's a real
+circus for a while, but I can see there's a limit to it. Once you find
+out you can just go down here to one of these jewelry-stores and order
+anything you want&mdash;you don't want anything. Here I am with a lot of
+money that ain't mine, having a gay whirl spending it, but I can see my
+finish right now. To go on in this line would take all the fun out of
+life. What am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Moss took a seat and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. I used
+to think if I had money I'd start out and 'do good to people,' but I'm
+not at all sure that charity isn't all a damned impertinence. A couple
+of years ago I would have said go in for 'Neighborhood Settlements,'
+free libraries, 'Noonday Rests,' 'Open-air Funds,' and all the rest of
+it, but now I ask, 'Why?' We've had our wave of altruism, and I'm
+inclined to think a wave of selfishness would do us all good&mdash;but you're
+too young to be bothered with these problems. Go home and be happy while
+you can. Enjoy your gold while it glitters. Work is my only fun&mdash;real,
+enduring fun&mdash;and I'm not a bit sure <i>that</i> will last. Whatever you do,
+be yourself. Don't try to be what you think I or some one else would
+like to have you. I like you because you are so straight-forwardly
+yourself; I shall be heart-broken if you take on the disease of the age
+and begin to prate of your duty."</p>
+
+<p>She listened to him with only partial comprehension of his meaning, but
+she answered: "I was brought up to think duty was the whole works."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and your teacher meant duty to God, duty to others. Well, there's
+duty to one's self. The war of money and duty is the biggest mix of our
+day. It's simpler to be poor; then all you've got to worry about is
+bread and shoes and shingles."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it. Sometimes I wish I was back in the Golden Eagle, where
+I&mdash;" she ended in mid-sentence.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "You sound like a middle-aged financier who mourns (tattooed
+with dollar-marks) for the days when he used to husk corn at seventy
+cents a day." She saw the humor of this, but was aware that without a
+knowledge of Ben Fordyce Joe could not understand her problem, therefore
+she abandoned her search for light and leading. "Well, anyhow, right
+here I quit what you fellows call civilization. I hate to lose you and
+Julia and the rest of the folks, but it's me to the high hills. You'll
+never know how much you've helped me."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you'll never know how thoroughly we've <i>done</i> you. An
+evil-minded person would say we'd worked you for dinners and drives most
+shameful. However, if you have enjoyed our company as thoroughly as
+we've delighted in your champagne and birds, we'll cry quits. All my
+theories of art and life I advance <i>gratis</i>. I ought to do something
+handsome for you&mdash;you've listened so divinely."</p>
+
+<p>Underneath his banter Moss was sincerely moved. It was hard to say
+good-bye to this curious, earnest, seeking mind, this unspoiled child in
+whose face the world was being reflected as in a magical mirror. He
+loved her with frank affection&mdash;a pure passion that was more intimate
+than fraternal love and more exalted, in a sense, than the selfish,
+devouring passion of the suitor. It would have been difficult for him to
+say what his relationship to her at the moment was. It was more than
+friendship, more than brotherly care, and yet it was definably less than
+that of the lover.</p>
+
+<p>Julia came in and was quite as outspoken in her regret, and both refused
+to say good-bye at the moment. "We'll see you at the station," they
+said, and Bertha went away, feeling the pain of parting less keen by
+reason of this promise.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, as the hour for departure came near, she hoped they would
+not come. It was less difficult to say "I'll see you again" than to
+utter the curt "good-bye" which means so much in Anglo-Saxon life.</p>
+
+<p>They came, however, together with several others of her friends, but in
+the bustle and confusion of the depot not much of sentiment could be
+uttered, and, though she felt that she was going for a long stay, she
+was prodigal of promises to return soon.</p>
+
+<p>Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the
+jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in
+the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy
+which the situation needed. "Av ye don't mind I'll stay wid Fan," he
+said, a little more seriously, to Haney, who replied:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, 'tis as Fan says," and so they entered the train for the
+upward climb.</p>
+
+<p>Haney himself had only joy of the return. He sat at one of the windows
+of the library car and studied the prairie swells with a faint, musing
+smile, till the darkness fell, and was up early next morning, eager and
+curious, to see how the increasing altitude would affect him. Only
+towards the end of the second day after eating his dinner did he begin
+to feel oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I smell the altitude," he confessed&mdash;"me breath is shortenin' a bit,
+but 'tis good to see the peaks again."</p>
+
+<p>In this long ride the girl-wife dwelt dangerously on the bright face of
+Ben Fordyce. It was the thought of seeing him again that came at last to
+steal away her regret at parting from her Eastern friends. The splendor
+of the Eastern world faded at last, and she, too, soared gladly towards
+the mountains. Every doubt was swallowed up in a pleasure which was at
+once pure and beyond her control.</p>
+
+<p>Ben would be at the station, she was certain, for Lucius had wired to
+him the time of their arrival, and he had instantly replied. "I'll be
+there, and very glad to see you"&mdash;these words, few and simple, were
+addressed to Marshall Haney, but they thrilled her almost as if Ben had
+spoken them to her. Was he as glad to have her return as she was to meet
+him again?</p>
+
+<p>"A fine lad," remarked Haney, as he pocketed the envelope. "I wonder
+does he marry soon? He'd better decide now. I reckon Alice is not long
+for this climate&mdash;poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>His remark, so simple in itself, pierced to the centre of Bertha's
+momentary self-deception. "I have no right to think of him. He belongs
+to Alice Heath!" But the feeling that she herself belonged to Marshall
+Haney was gone. That she owed him service was true, but since the night
+of his drunkenness she had definitely and finally abandoned all thought
+of being his wife, soul to soul, in the rite that sanctifies law. True,
+he had kept his word, he had not offended again, but the mischief was
+done. To return to the plane on which they had stood when she gave her
+promise was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The day and the hour were such as make the plain lover content with his
+world. The earth, a mighty robe of closely woven velvet, mottled softly
+in variant greens, swept away to the west, under a soaring convexity of
+saffron sky, towards a cloudy altar whereon small wisps of vapor were
+burning down to golden embers, while beneath lay the dark-blue Rampart
+range. It was a world for horsemen, for free rovers, and for swift and
+tireless desert-kine. The course of winds, it lay, a play-ground for
+tempests that formed along the great divide and swept down over the
+antlike homes of men, acknowledging no barrier, exultant of their
+strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
+hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
+treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
+loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
+welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
+tide of longing in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
+the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
+seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
+sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
+from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "<i>There he is!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
+kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
+for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.</p>
+
+<p>Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
+ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
+looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
+his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
+forgot all their doubts and scruples&mdash;overpowered by the sense of each
+other's nearness.</p>
+
+<p>She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
+with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
+bringing slowly down the step.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
+contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
+"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
+black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
+spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
+over-peering peaks.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.</p>
+
+<p>"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
+'mobile we've heard so much about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Coming by fast freight."</p>
+
+<p>"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
+come as excess baggage."</p>
+
+<p>It was cool, delicious green dusk&mdash;not dark&mdash;with a small sickle of moon
+in the west, and as they drove up the broad avenue towards home the
+town, the universe, was strangely sweet and satisfying. It seemed as
+though she had been gone an age&mdash;so much had come to her&mdash;so thick was
+the crowd of new experiences standing between her going and her
+return&mdash;so swiftly had her mind expanded in these months of vivid city
+life. "I'll never go away again," she said to Ben. "This country suits
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered, softly. In the most
+natural way he had put Congdon with Haney in the rear seat and had taken
+the place beside Bertha, and this nearness filled her with pleasure and
+an unwonted confusion. How big he was! and how splendid his clear,
+youthful profile seemed as it gleamed silver-white in the light of the
+big street-lamps. Never had his magnetic young body acted upon her so
+powerfully, so dangerously. His firm arm touching her own was at once a
+delight and a dread. She was all woman at last, awake, palpitant with
+love's full-flooding tide&mdash;bewildered, dizzy with rapture. Speech was
+difficult and her thought had neither sequence nor design.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was under restraint also, and the burden of the talk fell upon
+Congdon, who proceeded in his amusingly hit-or-miss way to detail the
+important or humorous happenings, of the town, and so they rolled along
+up the wide avenue to the big stone steps before the looming, lamp-lit
+palace which they called home.</p>
+
+<p>Ben sprang out first, glad of another opportunity to take Bertha's hand,
+a clasp that put the throbbing pain back in her bosom&mdash;filling her with
+a kind of fear of him as well as of herself&mdash;and without waiting for the
+Captain she ran up the walk towards the wide doorway where Miss Franklin
+stood in smiling welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Her greeting over, the young wife danced about the hall, crying: "Oh,
+isn't it big and fine! And aren't you glad it's our own!" She appeared
+overborne by a returning sense of security and ownership, and ran from
+room to room with all the ecstasy and abandon of a child&mdash;but she
+stopped suddenly in the middle of her own chamber as if a remorseless
+hand were clutching at her heart. "But it is <i>not</i> mine!&mdash;I must give it
+all up!"</p>
+
+<p>Thrusting this intruding thought away, she hurried back to the library,
+where the men were seated at ease, sipping some iced liquor in gross
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was beaming. "It makes me over new to sniff this air again," he
+was saying. "'Tis a bad plan to let go your hold on mountain air. Me
+lungs have contracted a trifle, but they'll expand again. I'll be riding
+a horse in a month."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was sympathetic, but had eyes only for Bertha, whose improvement (in
+mind as in bearing) astonished and delighted him. Her trip, coming just
+at the period when her observation was keenest and her memory most
+tenacious, had subtly, swiftly ripened her. Wrought upon by a thousand
+pictures, moved by strange words and faces, unconsciously changing to
+the color of each new conception, deriving sweetness and charm from
+every chance-heard strain of music and poetry, she had opened like a
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>The middle-aged are prone to go about the world carrying their habits,
+their prejudices, and their ailments with them to return as they went
+forth; but youth like Bertha's adventures out into the world eager to be
+built upon, ready to be transformed from child to adult, as it would
+seem, in a day.</p>
+
+<p>"She has achieved new distinction!" Ben exulted as he watched her moving
+about the room, so supple, so powerful, and so graceful, but, though he
+was careful not to utter one word of praise, he could not keep the glow
+of admiration from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later as he said good-night and went away with Congdon, his
+heart burned with secret, rebellious fire. "Was it not hateful that this
+glorious girl should be doomed to live out the sweetest, most alluring
+of her years with a gross and crippled old man?" To leave her under the
+same roof with Mart Haney seemed like exposing her to profanation and
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>They were hardly out of the gate before Congdon broke forth in open
+praise of her. "When Mart dies, what a witching morsel for some man!"</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce did not answer on the instant, and when he did his voice was
+constrained. "You don't think he's in immediate danger of it&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite the contrary. He looks to be on the upgrade; but it's a safe bet
+she outlives him, and then think of her with a hundred thousand dollars
+a year to spend! Talk about honey-pots!&mdash;and flies!" After a moment's
+silence he added, musingly: "Funny how one's ideas change. A year ago I
+thought she was deeply indebted to him; now I feel that with all his
+money he can't possibly repay her for what she's giving up on his
+account. And yet his chink has made her what she is. Money is a weird
+power when applied to a woman. Tiled bath-rooms, silk stockings and
+bonnets work wonders with the sex. She's improved mightily on this
+trip."</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Congdon, Ben went to his apartment and telephoned Alice to
+say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
+own roof in good repair.</p>
+
+<p>"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
+the invalid gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
+They both seem very glad to get home."</p>
+
+<p>"He's made a mistake. He can't live here&mdash;I am perfectly sure of it. How
+is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&mdash;and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
+with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
+particularly."</p>
+
+<p>Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
+and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
+at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
+monstrous, incredible.</p>
+
+<p>He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
+whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
+It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm&mdash;she called to
+him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
+predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
+but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
+flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
+mysterious potency and romance of the West&mdash;typifying its amazing
+resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
+roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
+direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
+into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
+phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
+capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
+those which a shallow personality would make&mdash;they sprang rather from
+the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
+of the highest culture," he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
+knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
+seeking ways to possess her of his love&mdash;on the contrary, he was
+resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
+respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
+the beginning&mdash;why should I not?&mdash;enjoying her companionship as any
+honest man may do."</p>
+
+<p>The question of his relation to Alice was not so easily settled. She had
+come to irritate him now. Her changeable, swift-witted, moody,
+hysterical invalidism had begun to wear upon him intolerably. Everything
+she did was wrong. It was brutal even to admit this, but he could no
+longer conceal it either from himself or from her. It was deeply, sadly
+painful to recall the promise, the complete confidence and happiness
+with which they had both started towards the West. How sure of her
+recovery they had been, how gay and confident of purpose! Now she not
+only refused to listen to his demand for an early marriage, but hampered
+and annoyed him in a hundred ways. As he walked the silent night he was
+forced to acknowledge that she had been right in delaying their union.
+And yet how dependent upon him she was. Her life was so tragically
+inwound with his that to think of shaking away her hand seemed the act
+of a sordid egoist.</p>
+
+<p>"And even were I free, nothing is solved."</p>
+
+<p>The situation took on the insoluble and the tragic. In the fashion of
+well-bred, soundly nurtured American youth he had thought of such
+complications only as subjects for novelists. "There must be
+concealment, but not duplicity, in my attitude," he decided. He longed
+for the constant light of Bertha's face, the frequent touch of her hand.
+Her laughter was so endlessly charming, her step so firm, so light, so
+graceful. The grace of her bosom&mdash;the sweeping line of her side&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped there. In that direction lay danger. "She trusts me, and I
+will repay her trust. She has chosen me to be her adviser, putting her
+wealth in my hands!&mdash;Well, why not? We will see whether an honorable man
+cannot carry forward even so difficult a relationship as this. I will
+visit her every day, I will enjoy her hospitality as freely as Congdon,
+and I will fulfil my promise to Alice&mdash;if she asks it of me."</p>
+
+<p>But deep under the sombre resolution lay an unuttered belief in his
+future, in his happiness&mdash;for this is the prerogative of youth. The dim
+mountains, the sinking crescent moon, and the silence of the plain all
+seemed somehow to prophesy both happiness and peace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S DECISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
+in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
+the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
+luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
+new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
+admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
+select.</p>
+
+<p>It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
+intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
+speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
+that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
+unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
+and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
+every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
+the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
+with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
+but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
+Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
+tired."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
+you're not to keep this up."</p>
+
+<p>Haney put in a quiet word. "She will <i>not</i>. Sure, she cannot. There'll
+be nothin' left for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
+had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
+and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
+powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."</p>
+
+<p>At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
+business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
+tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
+mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
+wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
+the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
+honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
+recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
+against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
+was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
+anything evil of her&mdash;why should she be condemned?</p>
+
+<p>In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
+herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
+as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
+bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
+like to leave him alone. Come and see us."</p>
+
+<p>She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
+of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
+coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
+respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
+garden awaiting dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
+clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
+smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
+went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked&mdash;enough to
+buy out a full-sized hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
+and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
+salient experiences&mdash;excepting, of course, her grapple with the
+degenerate artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"</p>
+
+<p>She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
+we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
+of Utes if it hadn't been for him. <i>When in doubt ask Lucius</i>, was our
+motto."</p>
+
+<p>She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
+trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
+hard to run somebody else's life&mdash;I've found that out."</p>
+
+<p>And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
+like a hen with a red rag on her tail&mdash;divided in his mind like. As for
+Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."</p>
+
+<p>They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
+give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
+necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
+meeting they spoke of Alice&mdash;that is to say, Haney with invariable
+politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
+"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
+seems more and more despondent."</p>
+
+<p>This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
+and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
+woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
+with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
+dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
+a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
+herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
+a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
+smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
+out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
+appeared to be improving.</p>
+
+<p>This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
+joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
+attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
+He said nothing directly&mdash;at first&mdash;but she was able to interpret all
+too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
+Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
+ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
+clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
+and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
+and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
+the move like a flibberty-bidget."</p>
+
+<p>She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
+anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.</p>
+
+<p>He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
+of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
+y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."</p>
+
+<p>She went to her room, with his voice&mdash;so humbly penitent and
+resigned&mdash;lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
+which his amorous mood had laid upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
+of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
+they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
+evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
+talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
+deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
+always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
+ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
+delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
+recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
+embarrass her.</p>
+
+<p>And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
+were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
+definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
+and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
+choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
+thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
+much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
+defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
+her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
+To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
+entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out&mdash;"I can't, I
+can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
+under indictment as an adventuress.</p>
+
+<p>She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
+who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
+one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
+hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
+anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
+as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
+would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed&mdash;but that,
+too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
+moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
+profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
+to make her schooling possible?</p>
+
+<p>Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
+delight grew along each path&mdash;thickly interwoven&mdash;and decision became
+each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
+having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
+mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
+insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
+girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
+troubled woman.</p>
+
+<p>She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
+relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
+other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
+definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
+positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
+in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
+acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
+strong and graceful body.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go away&mdash;for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
+think it over."</p>
+
+<p>And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
+indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
+this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
+required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
+dulness to which she must return?</p>
+
+<p>Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
+dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
+bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
+came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>She replied: "To the ranch&mdash;to think things over."</p>
+
+<p>The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
+when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."</p>
+
+<p>She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
+return.</p>
+
+<p>No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
+very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
+and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
+to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
+said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
+flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
+man enter her hotel door&mdash;but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
+thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"What thing?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my notion&mdash;I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
+needs you&mdash;we all need you. It'll kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
+brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I've no right to Mart's money."</p>
+
+<p>"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
+catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
+don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."</p>
+
+<p>"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
+converted him&mdash;as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
+something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
+<i>see</i> you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
+run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
+he gets happy all the way through&mdash;I know, for I feel just the same."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
+dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
+ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
+whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
+act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
+stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
+used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
+Golden Eagle Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
+hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
+This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
+"He's gone back to his old business."</p>
+
+<p>The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
+money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
+saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
+I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
+I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
+splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
+she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
+eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
+half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
+the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
+cried at the same time&mdash;it was painful to see them thus abused.</p>
+
+<p>Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
+which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
+look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
+and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
+she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
+confronted her.</p>
+
+<p>Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
+began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
+gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.</p>
+
+<p>He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
+his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
+wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
+your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
+you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
+must be yours."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead!" he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
+and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
+eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
+prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
+she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
+her open window.</p>
+
+<p>She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
+till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
+night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
+irrevocably made.</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered again&mdash;not in grief, but in terror&mdash;as she relived the
+vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
+the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
+there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
+help me." And yet to return to Chicago&mdash;after having played the grand
+lady&mdash;would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
+cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
+and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
+should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
+city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.</p>
+
+<p>In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
+returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
+herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
+determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
+the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
+also&mdash;and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
+of Ben's growing indifference&mdash;all these perplexities made the coming of
+sunlight a mockery.</p>
+
+<p>She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
+saddened. One thing was plain&mdash;Ben should come no more to visit her&mdash;for
+Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
+In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>ALICE VISITS HANEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"
+to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness
+when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too
+well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her
+doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose
+to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,
+generously, the claims of youth and health&mdash;admitting that she and
+Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire
+for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force
+which binds the generations together.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she
+asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a
+spiteful, hopeless invalid&mdash;I hate myself, I despise my body and
+everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat
+chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world&mdash;tired
+of everything&mdash;and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"</p>
+
+<p>These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to
+permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood
+of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover
+whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him
+when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no
+other solace, the day no other aim.</p>
+
+<p>In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew that
+her morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away her
+vital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweet
+sleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain.
+"I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higher
+self.</p>
+
+<p>She did not question Ben's honor&mdash;he was of those who keep faith. "He
+has no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,
+and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him to
+bind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of a
+wife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." She
+revolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart was
+elsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit of
+his wife's arms&mdash;and yet she could not give him up.</p>
+
+<p>As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burned
+with even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such perilous
+sublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitant
+should do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, and
+on the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in some
+supersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last her
+nobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech with
+Haney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the young
+lovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over all
+barriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generous
+enough of soul to wish to prevent.</p>
+
+<p>Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morning
+paper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." She
+lay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was to
+dress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical with
+her mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,
+hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching the
+gardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,
+inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to you
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen&mdash;'tis not
+for me to boss the gardener."</p>
+
+<p>She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin
+her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,
+irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,
+miss?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath&mdash;I walked too fast, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my trouble is all in my mind&mdash;I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,
+with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a
+nice long talk about symptoms&mdash;it's so comforting. How are <i>you</i> feeling
+these days?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse
+luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree
+that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
+Bertha's moody silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
+sea-level?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
+age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
+of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
+should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people&mdash;shutting
+them off from happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
+mane&mdash;what?&mdash;who?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean Bertha."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
+just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
+they are."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her&mdash;and yet I think
+I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
+your hand on a sore spot&mdash;ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
+the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, too&mdash;but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
+happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
+don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
+conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
+intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
+gone as far as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
+already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
+the gossips are even now busy with her name."</p>
+
+<p>He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
+man?&mdash;tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.</p>
+
+<p>She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
+She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
+time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
+reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
+picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
+must not happen! We must make way for them&mdash;you and I. We cumber the
+path."</p>
+
+<p>He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging
+eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
+watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
+something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
+even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
+him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
+arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
+gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.</p>
+
+<p>"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
+them&mdash;observe that. We are the ones to blame&mdash;we who are crippled and in
+the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
+spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
+our own miserable selves?"</p>
+
+<p>He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
+stammered, huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"But they <i>won't</i> wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
+Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
+you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
+and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
+plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
+other from the very first night they met&mdash;I felt it that day we first
+rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
+his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
+respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
+hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
+He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
+her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
+earth for me! What do <i>you</i> expect to gain by holding to a wife's
+garment when she&mdash;the woman&mdash;is gone?"</p>
+
+<p>The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
+without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
+been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
+purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
+him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
+to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
+wife&mdash;but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
+he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
+only as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,
+but now every hope died within him.</p>
+
+<p>Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard
+task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but
+the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it
+away. I knew she liked the lad&mdash;I had no doubt the lad liked her&mdash;but I
+did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet&mdash;but I will
+not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an
+old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the
+ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her
+from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where
+she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've
+brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It
+rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these
+things&mdash;me money&mdash;would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've
+been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always
+lived&mdash;till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that
+could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss&mdash;I know she has that in her
+soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and
+a well man I could folly her&mdash;but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk
+with her this night&mdash;" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with
+piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw
+looming before her. "No&mdash;I lacked the courage."</p>
+
+<p>A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you
+have said to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with
+them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick
+woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,
+and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.
+Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl&mdash;but ye have in Ben, for I
+know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't misunderstand me&mdash;it is to keep them both what they are,
+good and true, that I come to you&mdash;we must not tempt them to evil."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may
+be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I
+could see they admired her&mdash;but she turned them down easily. She's no
+weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account&mdash;the more shame to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her
+heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and
+gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence&mdash;the
+lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the
+desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in the
+parchment setting of her skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that love
+had never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been my
+life, my only interest&mdash;and now&mdash;as he begins to forget&mdash;Oh, I can't
+bear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, burying
+her face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in the
+tempest of it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned and looked at her in silence&mdash;profoundly stirred to pity by
+her sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spoke
+his voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tis
+well ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must go
+from this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort that
+I have not&mdash;'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as I
+have done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,
+good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against me
+without care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I take
+the rain and the sun."</p>
+
+<p>Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely over
+her face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is a
+long time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'so
+long' and better luck."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, miss&mdash;I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."</p>
+
+<p>As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, his
+brow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strength
+and love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see him
+at once, and he responded without delay.</p>
+
+<p>He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney had
+profoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lamp
+whose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled with
+instant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, and
+without waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as a
+pensioner in this house. You should be in your own home&mdash;our home&mdash;where
+I could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this private
+hospital&mdash;that's what it is."</p>
+
+<p>She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in a
+few days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to further
+delay.</p>
+
+<p>"Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."</p>
+
+<p>She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,
+but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, she
+answered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girl
+just yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a bad
+atmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn't
+be kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you get
+settled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or two
+more of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and a
+tremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forth
+with sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marry
+some nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself and
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaim
+against her going on.</p>
+
+<p>She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You know
+perfectly well I'm never going to get better&mdash;I do, if you don't. I may
+linger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but a
+querulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me&mdash;I
+won't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go on
+alone&mdash;even for a little way."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting his
+arm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,
+reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,
+dearest&mdash;you must not! You're not yourself to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, I
+mean all I say&mdash;you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusions
+now. I'll never be well again&mdash;and you must know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You're
+really much better than you were last week."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change of
+climate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been a
+mistake. Let me go back to Chester&mdash;I'm afraid to die out here. I can't
+bear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonely
+and alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills&mdash;perhaps I can
+reconcile myself to death there&mdash;to sink into the earth on this plain is
+too dreadful."</p>
+
+<p>He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This is
+only a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you&mdash;I
+have such days&mdash;everybody has these hours of depression, but we must
+fight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were your
+husband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I could
+help you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,
+let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."</p>
+
+<p>She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished his
+counter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:
+"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You are
+lashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do not
+realize what you are saying. I am too old for you&mdash;Now listen&mdash;it's
+true! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well for
+ten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced when
+I should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay for
+years&mdash;that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bear
+to let my youth pass dully&mdash;and now it's gone! Wait!&mdash;I've deceived you
+in other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous and
+selfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and it
+is a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just to
+have you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want to
+say&mdash;you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolish
+sense of honor that keeps you loyal to me&mdash;I don't want that&mdash;I won't
+have it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted a
+ring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Go
+and be happy."</p>
+
+<p>He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you are
+crazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in his
+eyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying&mdash;I have
+made my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned his
+words against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that&mdash;you know what I meant. All you say is morbid and
+unreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sick
+fancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you of
+your madness."</p>
+
+<p>She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes
+wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her
+health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she
+exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again&mdash;and when
+you do, I will say <i>no</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find words
+for reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad&mdash;and yet all
+that she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that she
+was uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible&mdash;a bridal veil
+over that face was horrifying to think upon.</p>
+
+<p>She went on: "Now run away&mdash;I'm going to cry in a moment and I don't
+want you to see me do it. Please go!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety.
+"I am going to send Julia to you instantly."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me&mdash;nobody
+can, but you&mdash;and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going home
+to Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye&mdash;and go."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightly
+clinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (for
+the first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>After Alice Heath's carriage had driven away, Haney returned to his
+chair, and with eyes fixed upon the distant peaks gave himself up to a
+review of all that the sick woman had said, and entered also upon a
+forecast of the game.</p>
+
+<p>He was not entirely unprepared for her revelation. He was, indeed, too
+wise not to know that Bertha must sometime surely find in another and
+younger man her heart's hunger, but his wish had set that dark day far
+away in the future. Moreover, he had relied on her promise to confide in
+him, and it hurt him to think that she had not fulfilled her pledge; yet
+even in this he sought excuses for her.</p>
+
+<p>"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far
+better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense
+of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His
+wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>This day had shown a black sky to him, even before Alice Heath's
+disturbing call, for Bertha had been darkly brooding at breakfast, and
+silent at lunch, and immediately after rising from the table had gone
+away alone, without a word of explanation to any member of her
+household. She had not even taken her dogs with her, and her face was
+set and almost sullen as she passed out of the door and down the walk.
+All this was so unlike her that Mart was greatly troubled. It gave
+weight and significance to every word of Alice Heath's warning.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was gone till nearly six o'clock, and her mood seemed no whit
+lightened as she entered the gate and came slowly up the walk. To Mart's
+humbly spoken query, "What troubles ye, darlin'?" she made no reply, but
+went at once to her room.</p>
+
+<p>The old gambler seemed pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in
+his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy
+among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home
+was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should be served.
+If she were unhappy, of what value were these soft rugs, these savory
+dishes, this shining silver? There was, in truth, something mocking and
+terrifying in the swift, well-trained action of the servants, who went
+about their tasks unmoved and apparently unacquainted with any change in
+the mind of their young mistress.</p>
+
+<p>In the kitchen the cook was carefully compounding the soup while
+watching the roast. Lucius, deft and absorbed, was preparing the table,
+arranging the coffee service and deciding upon the china. On the seat
+under the pear-trees Miss Franklin was chatting with Mrs. Gilman, and in
+the barn the coachman could be heard giving the horses their evening
+taste of green grass&mdash;"and yet how empty, aimless, and foolish it all is
+if Bertha is unhappy," thought the master.</p>
+
+<p>He grew alarmed for fear she would not come down; but at last he heard
+her light step on the stairs, and when she came in view his dim eyes
+were startled by the transformation in her. She had put on the plainest
+of her gowns, and she wore no jewels. By other ways which he felt but
+could not analyze she expressed some portentous shift of mood. He could
+not define why, but her step scared him, so measured and resolute it
+seemed.</p>
+
+<p>She called to her mother and Miss Franklin and then asked, "Has dinner
+been announced?"</p>
+
+<p>Her tone was quiet and natural, and Mart was relieved. He answered with
+attempt at jocularity, "Lucius is this minute winkin' at me over the
+soup-tureen."</p>
+
+<p>As they took seats at the table Mrs. Gilman exclaimed, "Why, dearie,
+where did you dig up that old waist?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will it do to visit Sibley in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed! I should say not. When you go back there I want you to wear
+the best you've got. They'll consider it an insult if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>A faint smile lighted Bertha's pale face. "I don't think they'll take it
+so hard as all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you goin' to Sibley?" asked Mart, an anxious tone in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of it. Mother is going over to-night, and I rather guess I'll
+run over with her. I've never been back, you see, since that night."</p>
+
+<p>There was something ominous in her restraint, in her abstraction of
+glance, and especially in her lack of appetite. She took little account
+of her guests and seemed profoundly engaged upon some inward
+calculation. The beautifully spread table, which would have thrilled her
+a few short weeks ago, was powerless to even hold her gaze, and it was
+Lucius (deft and watchful) who brought the meal to a successful
+conclusion&mdash;for the mother was awed and helpless in the presence of the
+queenly daughter whom wealth had translated into something almost too
+high and shining for her to lay hand upon.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin did her best, but she was not a person of light and
+dancing intellectual feet, and she had never understood Haney, anyhow.
+Altogether it was a dismal and difficult half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>When the coffee came on Bertha rose abruptly, saying, "Come out into the
+garden, Mart, I've got something to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed with a sense of being called to account, and as they walked
+slowly across the grass, which the light of a vivid orange sunset had
+made transcendently green, he glanced to the west with foreboding that
+this was the last time he should look upon the kingly peak at sunset
+time. A flaming helmet of cloud shone upon the chief, and all the lesser
+heights were a deep, purple bank out of which each serrate summit rose
+without perspective, sharply set against the other like a monstrous
+silhouette of cardboard.</p>
+
+<p>It should have been indeed a very sweet and odorous and peaceful hour.
+The murmur of the water from the fountain had the lulling sound of a
+hive of bees as they settle to rest, and to the suffering man it seemed
+impossible that this, his cherished world, could change to the black
+chaos which the loss of his adorable wife would bring upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The settee was of wire, and curved so that when they had taken seats
+they faced each other, and the sight of her, so slender, so graceful, so
+womanly, filled him with a fury of hate against the assassin who had
+torn him to pieces, making him old before his time, a cripple, impotent,
+inert, and scarred.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not wait for him to begin, and her first words smote like
+bullets. "Mart, I'm going back to Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with startled eyes&mdash;his brow wrinkling into sorrowful
+lines. "For how long?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things
+over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice
+was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without
+ye now. Don't go&mdash;that way."</p>
+
+<p>"I've <i>got</i> to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I
+don't know about living with you any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little
+longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man&mdash;but tell me the truth. Can't
+you stay with me&mdash;as we are?"</p>
+
+<p>She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I
+married you for your money, Mart&mdash;it ain't true&mdash;but the evidence is all
+against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out
+and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you&mdash;feel about me as
+you do&mdash;but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up&mdash;I
+don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the
+house&mdash;all my nice things&mdash;the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was
+fun to run the kitchen&mdash;now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact
+is, none of it seems mine."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all
+because of what I said last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped him. "No, it ain't that&mdash;it ain't your fault, it's mine.
+Something's gone wrong with <i>me</i>. I love this home, and my dogs and
+horses and all&mdash;and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to
+me&mdash;now that's the fact, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my
+mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and
+think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my
+return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of
+the range."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.
+'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you&mdash;but you must let me
+give you some of me money&mdash;'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let
+me share it with you me heart will break entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart&mdash;I owe you more than I can ever
+pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."</p>
+
+<p>In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.
+"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something
+I should have known long since."</p>
+
+<p>Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's
+the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always
+shines. You love him, Bertie&mdash;and I don't blame you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up,
+her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd
+plumb forgot about his call."</p>
+
+<p>"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came
+hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them
+both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he
+announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just
+twenty minutes in which to thump you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they
+moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued:
+"Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why
+didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."</p>
+
+<p>"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went
+into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There
+was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new
+conceptions, new duties.</p>
+
+<p>Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in
+the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His
+examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent
+had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he
+was, and upon his judgment she must rest.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so
+far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into
+fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.
+"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from
+here as quickly as you can&mdash;but don't excite him. Don't let him exert
+himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and
+peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food&mdash;and above
+all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at
+all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to
+sea-level&mdash;if he'll go&mdash;and take care of him. His heart will run along
+all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."</p>
+
+<p>"He hates to leave&mdash;he says he won't leave," she explained.</p>
+
+<p>The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his
+choice of roads"&mdash;he used an expressive gesture&mdash;"up or down. One leads
+to the New Jerusalem and is short&mdash;as he'll find out if he stays here.
+Good-night! I must get that train."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did
+you leave any medicine?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of
+little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."</p>
+
+<p>She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at
+last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated
+in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a glass to his lips. He was
+stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old
+gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save
+his one faithful servant&mdash;and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep
+pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning
+became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to
+desert him now was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she
+put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you
+worse?"</p>
+
+<p>He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's
+opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out,
+darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the
+count&mdash;but I'm&mdash;still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that
+sawbones the power of mind over matter&mdash;the ould croaker!"</p>
+
+<p>He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then,
+with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.
+"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like
+Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis
+true, but I'll surprise him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly
+at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high
+country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."</p>
+
+<p>Her decision was ready. "All right, then <i>we go</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it,
+sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did, Mart&mdash;I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by
+you&mdash;till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."</p>
+
+<p>The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're God's
+own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here&mdash;I'm not
+worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and
+look after the mines."</p>
+
+<p>Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's
+up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for
+you here&mdash;I didn't, really!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all wrong, I'm afraid&mdash;all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord
+knows I need you worse than ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside
+where the air is better."</p>
+
+<p>Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so,
+leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk
+where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of
+the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"
+warned Haney&mdash;"at any rate, not to-night."</p>
+
+<p>They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these
+beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called
+round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly&mdash;this mandate of
+the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more
+helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this
+garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the
+heart's action?</p>
+
+<p>The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last
+to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the
+clouds&mdash;and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her
+mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30
+she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the
+moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not
+share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then
+confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing
+himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If
+the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks,
+anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me
+own home and so end it all comfortably?"</p>
+
+<p>This was so simple&mdash;and yet he spent most of the night fighting the
+desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so
+sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand
+on his hair&mdash;now and again. "She's only a child&mdash;she can wait ten years
+and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to
+wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in
+the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the
+consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so
+that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."</p>
+
+<p>To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so
+that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will
+not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly,
+so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or
+Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I visit the mine once more?" he had asked Steele. "No," the doctor
+had replied. "To go a thousand feet higher than this would be fatal."</p>
+
+<p>As he mused on this he began to feel the wonder of the body in which he
+dwelt. That a machine so bulky and so gross could be so delicate that a
+change in the pressure of the atmosphere might be fatal astonished him.
+"I'll soon know," he said, "for I cross the range to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The dark shadow of the unseen world, once so dim and far, now rose
+formidable as a mountain on the horizon of his thought. It was so
+difficult to leave the house in which he had found peace and a strange
+kind of happiness (the happiness of a soldier home on parole,
+convalescent and content under the apple-trees)&mdash;it was very hard&mdash;and
+the tenderness, the care, to which his little wife had returned and
+which filled his heart with sweetness, added to his irresolution.</p>
+
+<p>He fell into deep sleep at last, still in debate with himself.</p>
+
+<p>He woke quietly next morning, like a child, and as his eyes took in the
+big room in which he had slept for a year, surrounded by such luxury as
+he had never dreamed of having (even for a day), life seemed very easy
+of continuance, and Steele a mistaken egotist, a foul destroyer of men's
+peace; but as he rose to dress and saw himself in the glass, the figure
+he presented decided his hand. Was this Mart Haney&mdash;this unshaven,
+haggard, and wrinkled old man?</p>
+
+<p>Leaning close to the mirror, he studied his face as if it were a mask.
+Deep creases ran down on either side of the nose, giving to his gaze the
+morose expression of an aged, slavering mastiff. His nerveless cheeks
+depended. His neck was stringy. Puffy sacs lay under the eyes, and the
+ashen pallor of his skin told how the heart was laboring to maintain
+life's red current in its round.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked his decision was taken. "Mart, the game has run mostly in
+your favor for twenty-five years&mdash;but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old
+gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards
+and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a
+year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her."</p>
+
+<p>And yet, though crippled and gray, death was somehow more dreadful to
+him at this moment than when in his remorseless and powerful young
+manhood he had looked again and again into the murderous eyes of those
+who were eager to shed his blood. He shivered at the thought of the dark
+river, as those whose limbs having grown pale and thin dread the cold
+wind of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder is the mother over there waitin' fer me?" he half whispered.
+"If ye are, your soul will be floating far above me in the light, while
+I&mdash;burdened by me sins&mdash;must wallow below in purgatory. But I go, and
+the divil take his toll."</p>
+
+<p>There was not much preparation to be made. His will was written, fully
+attested, and filed in a safe place. His small personal belongings he
+was willing to leave in Bertha's hands. It was hardest of all to vanish
+without a word of good-bye to any soul, but this was essential to his
+plan. "No one must suspect design in me departure," he muttered. "I must
+drop out&mdash;<i>by accident</i>. I must cut loose during the day, too&mdash;no night
+trips for me&mdash;in a way that will look natural. If Steele knows his
+business, Mart Haney will go out of the game on the summit, if not, 'tis
+easy for a cripple to stagger and fall from a rock. Thank God, I leave
+her as I found her&mdash;small credit to me in that."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius, coming in soon after, found his master unexpectedly cheerful and
+vigorous.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to his query, the gambler said: "I take me medicine, Lucius,
+like a Cheyenne. 'Tis all in the game. Some man must lose in order that
+another may win. The wheel rolls and the board is charged in favor of
+the bank. Damn the man that squeals when the cards fall fair."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>VIRTUE TRIUMPHS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
+haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
+his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation&mdash;mixed with
+humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
+the jumpin'-off place."</p>
+
+<p>"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
+want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
+mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
+mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
+because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."</p>
+
+<p>This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
+to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place&mdash;its
+possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
+care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
+some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."</p>
+
+<p>This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
+you go and tell him yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
+shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
+smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
+all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
+and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
+stairs ag'in."</p>
+
+<p>The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
+too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
+go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
+Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
+splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
+broke forth: "Ye <i>must</i> stay here, darlin'&mdash;never mind me. 'Tis a sin
+and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
+he said no more.</p>
+
+<p>They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
+life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
+the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
+while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
+change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
+talk it all over."</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
+look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
+voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
+orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
+came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
+Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
+mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
+hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
+each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
+purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
+overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
+lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.</p>
+
+<p>Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
+north ran the western way&mdash;a trail with no returning footprints; and the
+thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
+the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
+grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
+mate.</p>
+
+<p>To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
+from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
+own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
+so."</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
+where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
+Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
+Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
+from the cliff."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
+lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
+been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
+action typified. The individual is of little value&mdash;the race alone
+counts.</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
+in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
+exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
+believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same&mdash;for me, anyhow.
+I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'&mdash;I <i>don't</i> ask it. Stay
+you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
+Stay on, darlin'&mdash;'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
+mind is made up&mdash;I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
+little lady, so don't fuss."</p>
+
+<p>The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
+remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
+nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
+better for a sick man than this."</p>
+
+<p>She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
+Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish&mdash;I tried
+to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
+me exile&mdash;but I hate to drag ye down with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
+be honest, I kind o' like the East."</p>
+
+<p>At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
+carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
+seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
+to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."</p>
+
+<p>He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
+childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."</p>
+
+<p>She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
+stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
+was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
+hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
+visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness&mdash;the
+beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
+tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
+shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
+peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
+ain't able."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Dr. Steele came last night and examined him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told us to 'get out' of here&mdash;quick."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away&mdash;down the
+slope&mdash;to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."</p>
+
+<p>He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
+seemed so happy and so much better, too."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
+The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."</p>
+
+<p>"And he positively ordered you to go below?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute&mdash;if he stayed."</p>
+
+<p>In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
+for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
+"And you are going with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"</p>
+
+<p>He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
+would be to shorten his life.</p>
+
+<p>"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
+leave me here&mdash;but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
+is," she added. "He sure needs me now."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
+look after all his business just the same&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
+mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
+finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
+lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
+tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm&mdash;we are depending on
+you."</p>
+
+<p>His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
+the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
+she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully&mdash;as if the
+words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
+deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
+means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
+of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."</p>
+
+<p>She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
+her. "You mustn't say that&mdash;you've got to stay with Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
+home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
+walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
+to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
+mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
+cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
+won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
+going to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;maybe in Chicago&mdash;maybe in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
+life&mdash;I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart&mdash;I can't see you any
+more&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
+mean by <i>now</i>? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
+have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
+and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
+mean&mdash;something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
+Do you? Is that your meaning?"</p>
+
+<p>She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know&mdash;Yes, I do
+know&mdash;it ain't right for me&mdash;for you to say these things to me while I
+am Mart Haney's wife."</p>
+
+<p>He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
+graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
+to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
+belong to me."</p>
+
+<p>She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
+of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
+conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
+as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
+each other&mdash;don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
+love her&mdash;I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
+why she has returned my ring&mdash;there is nothing further for me to say to
+her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
+claim you."</p>
+
+<p>"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he needs me."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I need you."</p>
+
+<p>"But not the way&mdash;I mean he is sick and helpless."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
+part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
+herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
+listen, to yield&mdash;and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
+thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
+brought back her sterner self.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
+touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"</p>
+
+<p>He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
+the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"</p>
+
+<p>She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
+despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
+rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
+to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
+anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
+hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Marshall Haney was a brave man, and his resolution was fully taken, but
+that final touch of Bertha's hand upon his arm very nearly unnerved him.
+His courage abruptly fell away, and, leaning back against the cushions
+of his carriage, with closed eyelids (from which the hot tears dripped),
+he gave himself up to the temptation of a renewal of his life. It was
+harder to go, infinitely harder, because of that impulsive, sweet
+caress. Her face was so beautiful, too, with that upward, tender,
+pitying look upon it!</p>
+
+<p>While still he sat weak and hesitant, a roughly dressed man of large and
+decisive movement stopped and greeted him. "Hello, Mart, how are you
+this fine day?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney put his tragic mask away with a stroke of his hand, and hastily
+replied: "Comin' along, Dan, comin' along. How are things up on the
+peak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still pretty mixed," replied the miner, lightly; then, with a further
+look around, he stepped a little nearer the wheel. "Hell's about to
+break loose again, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the latest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go into details, and I mustn't be seen talking with you, but
+Williams is in for trouble. Tell him to reverse engine for a few weeks.
+Good-day," and he walked off, leaving the impression of having been sent
+to convey a friendly warning.</p>
+
+<p>Haney seized upon this message. His resolution returned. His voice took
+on edge and decision. "Oscar," he called quickly, "drive me down to the
+station, I want to get that ten-thirty-seven train."</p>
+
+<p>As the driver chirruped to his horses and swung out into the street,
+Marshall Haney, with full understanding that this was to be his eternal
+farewell, turned and looked up, hoping to catch a last glimpse of his
+wife's sweet face at the window. A sign, a smile, a beckoning, and his
+purpose might still have faltered, but the recall did not take place,
+and facing the west he became again the man of will. When the carriage
+drew up to the platform he gave orders to his coachman as quietly as
+though this were his usual morning ride. "Now, Oscar, you heard what
+that friend of mine said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But tell Mrs. Haney I've gone up to the mine. You can say to her that
+Williams sent for me. You can tell her, but to no one else, what you
+heard Dan say. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, that stands. Now you go home and wait till about
+twelve-thirty. Then go down for Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>The coachman, a stolid, reliable man, well trained to his duties, did
+not offer to assist his master, but sat in most approved alertness upon
+his box while Haney painfully descended to the walk.</p>
+
+<p>The train was about to move, and the conductor had already signalled the
+engineer to "go ahead," but at sight of the gambler, whom he knew,
+stopped the train and helped Haney aboard. "A minute more and you would
+have been left. Going up to the mine, I reckon?"</p>
+
+<p>They were still on the platform as Mart answered, "Yes, I'm due to take
+a hand in the game up there." He said this with intent to cover his
+trail.</p>
+
+<p>He was all but breathless as he dropped into a seat near the door. The
+sense of leaden weakness with which he had come to struggle daily had
+deepened at the moment into a smothering pain which threatened to blind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be quiet," he thought&mdash;"I will not die in the car." There seemed
+something disgraceful, something ignominious in such a death.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter
+where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had
+given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful
+stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only
+suspected from Steele's word of caution.</p>
+
+<p>They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse
+grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him
+passed away.</p>
+
+<p>The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window,
+very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along
+whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of
+Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney
+heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the
+sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the
+pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but
+through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay
+Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason
+out.</p>
+
+<p>One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring
+as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain
+and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself.
+They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not
+succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance
+he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys.
+I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear
+the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."</p>
+
+<p>Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His
+mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She
+will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no
+matter&mdash;before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."</p>
+
+<p>He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his
+thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to
+those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her
+seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the
+exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and
+his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and
+graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the
+first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how
+basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he
+said, fervently.</p>
+
+<p>Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in
+his&mdash;and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order
+that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His
+throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was
+inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake,
+darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp
+turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer
+camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where
+the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of
+exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to
+die&mdash;up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the
+sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled
+like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.</p>
+
+<p>At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the
+conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling
+hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him
+to let the mine go and to return by the next train.</p>
+
+<p>He was too nerveless of fingers to put the sheet back within its
+envelope, and so thrust it, a crumpled mass, into his pocket. It was as
+if her hand was at his shoulder, her voice in his ear, but he did not
+falter. To go back now would be but a renewal of his torture. There
+could not come a better time to go&mdash;to go and leave no suspicion of his
+purpose behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Just over the summit, at a bare little station, the train was held for
+orders, and Haney, who was again suffocating and almost blind, took
+another dose of the mysterious drug, and with its effect returned to a
+dim perception of his surroundings. He was able vaguely to recall that a
+trail which began just back of the depot mounted the hill towards his
+largest mine. A desire to see Williams, his faithful partner, his most
+loyal friend, came over him, and, rising to his feet, he painfully crept
+down the aisle to the rear of the car and dropped off unnoticed, just as
+the conductor's warning cry started a rush for the train.</p>
+
+<p>As the last coach disappeared round the turn the essential bleak
+loneliness of the place returned. The station seemed deserted by every
+human being, even the operator was lost to sight, and the gambler,
+utterly solitary, with clouded brain and laboring breath, turned towards
+the height, his left leg dragging like a shackle.</p>
+
+<p>For the first half-mile the way was easy, and by moving slowly he
+suffered less pain than he had expected. Around him the frost-smitten
+aspens were shivering in the wind, their sparse leaves dangling like
+coins of red-and-yellow gold, and all the billowing land below, to the
+west, was iridescent with green and flame-color and crimson. A voiceless
+regret, a dim, wide-reaching, wistful sadness came over him, but did not
+shake his resolution. He had but to look down at his crippled body to
+know that the beauty of the world was no longer his to enjoy. His days
+were now but days of pain.</p>
+
+<p>He had always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this
+range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he
+mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he
+had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high
+above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air
+came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the
+solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his
+challenging march towards death.</p>
+
+<p>At the first sharp up-raise in the way his heart began to pound and he
+swayed blindly to and fro, unable to proceed. For an instant he looked
+down in dismay at the rocky, waiting earth, a most inhospitable grave. A
+few minutes' rest against a tree, and his brain cleared. "Higher&mdash;I must
+go higher," he said to himself; "they'll find me here."</p>
+
+<p>As he rose he could see the town spread wide on the hill-tops beneath
+him&mdash;the cabins mere cubes, the mill a child's toy. He could discern men
+like ants moving to and fro as if in some special excitement&mdash;but he did
+not concern himself with the cause. His one thought was to mount&mdash;to
+blend with the firs and the rocks. He drew the phial from his pocket and
+held it in his hand in readiness, with a dull fear that the chemical
+would prove too small, too weak, to end his pain.</p>
+
+<p>It was utterly silent and appallingly lonely on this side of the great
+peak. Hunters were few and prospectors were seldom seen. These
+upward-looping trails led to no mine&mdash;only to abandoned prospect
+holes&mdash;for no mineral had ever been found on the western slope. The
+copses held no life other than a few minute squirrels, and no sound
+broke the silence save the insolent cry of an occasional jay or
+camp-bird. To die here was surely to die alone and to lie alone, as the
+fallen cedar lies, wrought upon by the wind and the snows and the rain.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, his suicidal idea persisted. It had become the one final,
+overpowering, directing resolution. There is no passion more persistent
+than that which leads to self-destruction. In the midst of the blinding
+swirl of his thought he maintained his purpose to put himself above the
+world of human effort and to become a brother of the clod, to mix
+forever with the mould.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he dragged himself upward, foot by foot, seeking the friendly
+shelter and obscurity of a grove of firs just above him. Twice he sank
+to his knees, a numbing pain at the base of his brain, his breath
+roaring, his lips dry, but each time he rose and struggled on, eager to
+reach the green and grateful shelter of the forest, filled with desire
+to thrust himself into its solitude; and when at last he felt the chill
+of the shadow and realized that he was surely hidden from all the world,
+he turned, poised for an instant on a mound where the trail doubled
+sharply, gave one long, slow glance around, then hurled himself down the
+rocky slope. Even as he leaped his heart seemed to burst and he fell
+like a clod and lay without further motion. It was as if he had been
+smitten in flight by a rifle-ball.</p>
+
+<p>Around him the small animals of the wood frolicked, and the jay called
+inquiringly, but he neither saw nor heard. He was himself but a gasping
+creature, with reason entirely engaged in the blind struggle which the
+physical organism was instinctively making to continue in its wonted
+ways. All the world and all his desires, save a longing for his fair
+young wife, were lost out of his mind, and he thought of Bertha only in
+a dim and formless way&mdash;feeling his need of her and dumbly wondering why
+she did not come. In final, desperate agony, he lifted the phial of
+strychnine to his lips, hoping that it might put an end to his
+suffering; but before this act was completed a sweet, devouring flood of
+forgetfulness swept over him, his hand dropped, and the unopened bottle
+rolled away out of his reach. Then the golden sunlight darkened out of
+his sky, and he died&mdash;as the desert lion dies&mdash;alone.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When they found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon
+his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves&mdash;palm upward
+as if to show its emptiness. A bird&mdash;the roguish gray magpie&mdash;had stolen
+away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no
+sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his
+face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite
+the name of Marshall Haney.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30318 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #30318 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30318)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Money Magic
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2009 [EBook #30318]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONEY MAGIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Yingling, Bethanne M. Simms, Mary Meehan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                MONEY MAGIC
+
+                             By HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+SUNSET EDITION
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+      II. MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+     III. BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+      IV. HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+       V. BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+      VI. THE HANEY PALACE
+
+     VII. BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+    VIII. BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+      IX. BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+       X. BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+      XI. BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+     XII. ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+    XIII. BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+     XIV. THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+      XV. MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+     XVI. A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+    XVII. BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+   XVIII. BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+     XIX. THE FARTHER EAST
+
+      XX. BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+     XXI. BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+    XXII. THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+   XXIII. BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+    XXIV. THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+     XXV. BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+    XXVI. ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+   XXVII. MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+  XXVIII. VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+    XXIX. MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+
+
+MONEY MAGIC
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+
+Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
+dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
+thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
+shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
+generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
+the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
+south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
+when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
+the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.
+
+It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
+cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
+of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
+grass and grain spring up like magic.
+
+For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
+and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
+laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
+giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
+aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
+clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
+life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
+Creede.
+
+Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
+cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
+and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
+of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
+put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
+sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.
+
+At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
+Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
+was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
+general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
+hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm--therefore Bertha, who
+would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
+tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
+straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes--wistful when in
+repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
+to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.
+
+"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
+sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
+here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
+a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived--"
+
+It was her habit to leave her demonstrations--even her
+sentences--unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
+hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
+failing powers. She had been handsome once--but the heat of the stove,
+the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
+daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
+of womanhood.
+
+"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
+You see--"
+
+She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
+schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
+dreams--of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
+half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
+last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
+this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.
+
+"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
+to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
+Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
+stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while--"
+
+The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
+put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
+the Eagle.
+
+He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
+carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
+mouth.
+
+He began by saying to Bertha:
+
+"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
+When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
+floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
+like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.
+
+"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
+attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
+like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
+day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
+I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
+work so hard--that's all that troubles me at the present time."
+
+Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
+age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
+man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
+bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
+or flush--she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
+where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
+the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.
+
+"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
+place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
+is too public."
+
+"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
+anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."
+
+The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
+I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
+you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
+let me know--they won't repeat it."
+
+"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
+of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."
+
+This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
+on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
+to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
+handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
+without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
+necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
+and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
+expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
+his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
+middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
+the girl a certain sweetness came into it.
+
+"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
+spend Sunday--seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
+his chance o' grace."
+
+His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
+circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.
+
+Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
+Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."
+
+The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
+me--I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
+the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
+jest.
+
+"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
+to-morrow."
+
+The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
+said, in a low and deeply significant tone:
+
+"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
+Haney--not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you--you can
+boss my ranch any day."
+
+The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
+eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
+diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
+and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
+The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:
+
+"Be careful, Mart--"
+
+Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."
+
+"I didn't mean to butt in--"
+
+"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
+replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
+remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
+walked away.
+
+Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
+encounter with the girl had put into his blood.
+
+It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
+weeks--leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
+chance to see this child--this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
+and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her--to
+buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
+weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
+that she would one day be on his side.
+
+When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl--of
+carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
+when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
+fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
+time, but a Catholic--in training at least--and the words he had planned
+to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
+lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.
+
+He was a desperate character--a man of violence--and none too delicate
+in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
+mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
+weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
+unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.
+
+"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
+his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
+answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
+then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
+"Stay on the farm, me lad--'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
+the back of your neck than to fill a cell at Cańon City."
+
+In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
+visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
+collected all notes remorselessly--and it was in this way that he had
+acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
+mines--"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
+It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
+determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
+came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
+honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
+sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
+heart with a strange delight.
+
+He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
+doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
+before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
+new-found grace.
+
+Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron--as his mother used to
+do--and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
+chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.
+
+"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
+a seat beside him.
+
+"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
+Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
+mother didn't make--for she was Irish."
+
+"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
+can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid--and then down here we have my
+son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."
+
+"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
+vegetables--it's still a matter of ham and eggs."
+
+"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.
+
+"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
+of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
+working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest--a vacation, I'm
+thinkin'."
+
+"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
+of taking it."
+
+"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
+She should be in a home of her own."
+
+"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
+to hiring anybody to fill her place--it would take a man to do her
+work."
+
+"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
+she?"
+
+"Eighteen next November."
+
+"She seems like a woman of twenty."
+
+"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
+down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
+conversation.
+
+"She's a little queen," declared Haney.
+
+It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
+had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
+proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
+glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
+to trouble you, my dear woman--if anny debt presses, let me know, and
+I'll lift it for ye."
+
+The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
+feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
+our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
+obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."
+
+"But I don't like to think of you here for another year--and Bertie
+should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
+passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
+house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
+for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
+hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
+welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
+inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.
+
+"What do you mean, Captain?"
+
+The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
+a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."
+
+She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
+"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"
+
+"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
+in his intentions.
+
+"But--but--you're so old--I mean so much older--"
+
+"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
+what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
+have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."
+
+This turned the current of her emotion--she gasped. "One hundred
+thousand dollars!"
+
+He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
+younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
+I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'--all you need to
+do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
+Denver--or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
+on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
+I came this time to ask her to go back with me."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
+take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
+place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."
+
+The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
+said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
+her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
+terror. She feared a man of such power--a man who could in a single
+moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
+wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
+he sat there talking to her--and she in her apron and her hair in
+disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
+enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
+apologized incoherently.
+
+"Captain, I appreciate your kindness--you've always been a good
+customer--one I liked to do for--but I'm all upset--I can't get my
+wits--"
+
+"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
+coming. Don't hurry at all--at all."
+
+She hurried out, leaving him alone--with the clock, the cat, and the
+hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
+Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
+into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.
+
+Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
+wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
+disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
+breath--clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.
+
+She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
+with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
+dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:
+
+"Do you know--what Captain Haney just said to me?"
+
+"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
+was moved by her mother's white, awed face.
+
+"He wants you!"
+
+Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
+"Well, he can't have me!"
+
+With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
+moved to argue.
+
+"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
+mines."
+
+"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
+posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler--not this summer," she ended,
+decisively.
+
+"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
+was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
+Think of that!"
+
+"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
+makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
+it?"
+
+"Out of his mine--and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
+needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
+is his, anyway. Did you know that?"
+
+Bertha eyed her mother closely--with cool, bright, accusing eyes--for a
+moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
+you--no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
+marry most anybody to give you a rest--but, mother, Captain Haney is
+forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
+his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
+there's Ed."
+
+The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.
+
+"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
+into something else."
+
+"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
+No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."
+
+"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
+Haney has killed his man."
+
+"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
+over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance--and my heart's so
+bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
+want you to marry him if you don't want to--I'm not asking you to. You
+know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man--and I get awfully
+discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
+without any security."
+
+One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
+pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
+burdens of her stewardship.
+
+"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."
+
+"I won't," replied the girl.
+
+She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
+and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
+the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
+and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
+guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
+our little hotel for a year--to see me!"
+
+This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
+the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
+weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
+put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
+of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.
+
+She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
+by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
+lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
+bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
+coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
+defensive.
+
+Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
+hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother--" She arrested herself and
+went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
+new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
+honorable.
+
+The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
+the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
+consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
+would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
+travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
+things she could discern--but of the larger life which money could open
+to her she could only vaguely dream.
+
+The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
+life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
+camps about them.
+
+As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
+a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
+doors forever.
+
+When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
+she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
+commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
+change in her mood.
+
+This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
+later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
+wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."
+
+Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
+He came on the run, alert for trade.
+
+"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
+drying to cinders over here."
+
+The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
+joking."
+
+"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.
+
+She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
+he brought a choice slice in to her.
+
+She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me--not yet." Her
+tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that--before
+people."
+
+"Like what?" he asked.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
+waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
+over alone."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
+least a consideration of his proposal.
+
+He held out his hand. "Good-bye--till next Saturday."
+
+She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
+face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
+something very winning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+
+It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
+gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
+trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
+the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
+polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
+Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
+long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
+dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
+camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
+came as lookers-on.
+
+On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
+usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
+and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
+glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
+opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
+crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
+and the games of his halls were reported honest.
+
+To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
+gambler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
+maidenhood--and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
+kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
+else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
+he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
+invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
+singular sweetness--all the more alluring because of its rarity--and the
+warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
+County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
+admired among the miners.
+
+The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
+was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
+"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
+despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
+to clean house."
+
+Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
+would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
+business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
+well serve their wish as any other--better, indeed, for no man can
+accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
+business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
+matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
+thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."
+
+He no longer thought of her as his victim--as something to be ruthlessly
+enjoyed--he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
+in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
+she has me on me knees--the witch. Me mind is filled with her."
+
+All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
+saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.
+
+At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
+rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
+click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears--he
+was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
+written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
+on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
+in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
+be too good for her--"
+
+He roused himself to a touch on his elbow. One of his agents had a new
+offer for the two saloons. It was still less than he considered the
+business worth, but in his softened mood he said, "It goes!"
+
+"Make out your papers," replied the other man, with almost equal
+brevity.
+
+During the rest of the evening the gambler sat above his lay-out with
+mingled feelings of relief and regret. After all, he was in command
+here. He knew this business, and he loved the companionship and the
+admiration of the men who dropped round by his side to discuss the camp
+or the weather, or to invite him to join a hunting trip. He felt himself
+to be one of the chief men of the town, and that he could at any time
+become their Representative if he chose. For some years (he couldn't
+have told why) he had taken on a thrift unknown to him before, and had
+been attending strictly to business. He now saw that it must have been
+from a foreknowledge of Bertha. In him the superstitions of both miner
+and gambler mingled. The cards had run against him for three years, now
+they were falling in his favor. "I will take advantage of them," he
+declared.
+
+Slowly the crowd thinned out, and at one o'clock only a few inveterate
+poker-players and one or two young fellows who were still "bucking" the
+roulette wheel remained and, calling one of his men to take charge,
+Haney nodded to Williams and they went out on the street.
+
+As he reached the cold, crisp, deliciously rarefied air outside, he took
+off his hat and involuntarily looked up at the stars blazing thick in
+the deep-blue midnight sky. With solemn voice he said to his partner:
+"Well, 'Spot,' right here Mart Haney's saloon business ends. We're all
+in."
+
+Williams felt that his partner was acting rashly. "Oh, I wouldn't say
+that! You may get into it again."
+
+"No--the little girl and her mother won't stand for it, and, besides,
+what's the use? I don't need to do it, and if I'm ever going to see the
+world now is my chance. I'm goin' back East to discover how many
+brothers and sisters I have livin'. The old father is dodderin 'round
+somewheres back there. I'll surprise him, too. Now, have those papers
+all made out ready to sign by eleven o'clock to-morrow. I'm goin' down
+the valley on the noon train."
+
+"All right, Mart, but you're makin' a mistake."
+
+"Never you mind, me bucko. 'Tis me own game, and the mines will take all
+the gray matter you can spare."
+
+As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
+"Hello, Mart!"
+
+"Hello, Mag; what's doing?"
+
+She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the
+moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won't you?"
+
+"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad
+as that? What's t' old man doin' these days?"
+
+"Servin' time," she answered, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I'd forgotten. Well, take care
+o' yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of
+the woman's misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his
+younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.
+
+It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed
+that he didn't hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his
+brothers he gained by chance. "They're all great boozers," he said, in
+summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo--came to see me at the
+stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered
+brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about
+seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"
+
+"No, I didn't know."
+
+"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother--a nice girl. Dad
+sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and
+then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal
+column, I hear of them."
+
+Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other
+poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the
+time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and
+saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his
+father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and
+this was due to Bertie's influence) he earnestly desired to help his
+family out of their mire.
+
+"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother
+left us."
+
+As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
+The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy
+majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring
+in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting
+above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in
+many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+
+Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
+his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
+seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.
+
+She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
+register.
+
+"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.
+
+"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
+weather we've had since I came to town."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know?"
+
+She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
+to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
+I've sent her out to the ranch."
+
+"You're not running the house alone?"
+
+"Why, cert!--that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
+in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
+three years."
+
+He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"
+
+"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
+Saturday."
+
+"I've sold out--signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
+forever."
+
+She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business--not a
+little bit."
+
+He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
+saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
+capitalist--and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
+bending a keen glance upon her.
+
+The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
+not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
+supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.
+
+He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
+and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
+her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
+wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
+for her.
+
+Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
+accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
+truculently.
+
+"Yes, he's at supper--want to see him?"
+
+"See him? No! And I don't want _you_ to see him! He's too free with you,
+Bert; I don't like it."
+
+She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with _him_, Ed--I'd
+hate to see your remains afterwards."
+
+"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
+unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me--and now
+here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
+What's the meaning of it?"
+
+"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.
+
+He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
+sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."
+
+"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
+retorted.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He's sold out--clean as a whistle."
+
+"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
+Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly--"don't
+you dare!"
+
+The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
+you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
+you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
+'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."
+
+He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down--fer that--old
+tout, I'll kill you both."
+
+The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
+came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
+weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
+throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:
+
+"If you really meant that!--but you don't, you're only talking to hear
+yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
+chewing the rag, anyway--this is my busy day."
+
+For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
+hands clinched. "Don't you do it--that's all!" he finally snarled.
+"You'll wish you hadn't."
+
+"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
+feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
+anybody just yet."
+
+His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
+don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."
+
+"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
+mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."
+
+"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"But it riled me like the devil to think--" he began again.
+
+"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."
+
+Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
+sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:
+
+"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
+your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
+wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand--now shake, and run."
+
+His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
+"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"
+
+"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.
+
+"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.
+
+She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
+a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
+goods," she said, and they took the hint.
+
+When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
+counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
+hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
+a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
+far corner of the dining-room--a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
+was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
+out-stretched in sympathy--and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
+for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
+shook with silent sobs.
+
+The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
+matter, Bertie; are you sick?"
+
+"Oh no--but I'm worried--about mother."
+
+"You haven't heard anything--?"
+
+"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
+have quit here a month ago."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
+pure she'll pick up right away--you'll see."
+
+"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
+done work enough--and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."
+
+Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
+abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
+you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
+office."
+
+"You're not going alone?"
+
+"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."
+
+"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
+young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"
+
+"Yes, if mother is no worse."
+
+Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
+but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
+he apologized for its shortcomings--"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
+it _should_ be."
+
+She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
+know you were an Irishman."
+
+"I am, and proud of it."
+
+"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."
+
+"Not in this rig," he protested.
+
+She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
+a call."
+
+"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.
+
+The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
+and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
+and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
+eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
+She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
+engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
+at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
+upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
+and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.
+
+"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
+behind.
+
+"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
+about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
+Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
+miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."
+
+"That was right--only you should have sent for me."
+
+She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
+demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here--in the
+office they were on more equal terms--but she enjoyed in a subconscious
+way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
+quiet authority in his voice--even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
+towards which they were driving he began to speak.
+
+"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
+to-morrow--that's the day set--but I want to say that I've been cleaning
+house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
+this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
+drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
+planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
+this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old--I'm no older than I
+was at twenty-one, sure--and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
+He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
+smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
+day we'll be of an age."
+
+Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
+silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.
+
+He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
+partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
+rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'--Which road now?"
+
+She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
+great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.
+
+The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
+exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
+lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
+time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'--whether you come to
+me or not."
+
+All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
+changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
+sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
+her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
+far, far behind her.
+
+Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
+tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
+devils," he admitted--"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
+wouldn't go to school--not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
+well--and we fished and played ball and went to the circus--" He
+chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
+lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
+I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
+since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
+and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
+same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."
+
+Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"
+
+"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
+I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
+Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."
+
+"I like it--but I'd like to see the rest of the country."
+
+"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."
+
+She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once--went on one of
+these excursion tickets."
+
+"How did you like it there?"
+
+"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
+worst ever--it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
+door of the big places."
+
+"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush--if you will."
+
+Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
+such hotels--There's our ranch."
+
+"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
+pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."
+
+"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."
+
+"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
+planted."
+
+"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
+sentimental speech.
+
+The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
+of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
+house--a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
+temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees--thriftily
+green--and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
+husbandry of the owner.
+
+Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
+rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
+comfort to her--it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
+of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
+that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
+father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
+drowse.
+
+Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
+overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
+her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
+forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
+to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
+you say so, mother."
+
+"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
+answer.
+
+Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
+bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"
+
+The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
+cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."
+
+"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
+is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
+house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
+little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."
+
+Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
+her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
+drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
+her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
+fine. They brace right up to the situation, and--and everybody's nice to
+us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
+you were--and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
+things were going."
+
+The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"
+
+"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
+an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."
+
+The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
+think. I'm afraid to leave this to you--it's an awful temptation to a
+girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
+ought to marry."
+
+She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
+"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."
+
+"But he's so old--for you."
+
+"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
+the case is this: he's sold out up there--cleared out his saloon
+business--and all for _me_. Think o' that--and I hadn't given him a word
+of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
+think?"
+
+The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then--"
+
+The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
+don't--I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
+know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
+to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
+answer yet awhile--time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
+another week if I want to."
+
+The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
+streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
+girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
+Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
+that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
+said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
+lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
+hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
+would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
+understand her mood--perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
+a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now--I could
+do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
+whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."
+
+If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
+mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
+as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
+peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
+have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."
+
+"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.
+
+This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
+profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
+admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
+suddenly to him, and said:
+
+"You're good to me--and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
+to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to--some time--not
+now--next spring, maybe."
+
+He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
+softening emotion.
+
+"You've made Mart Haney over new--so you have! As sure as God lets me
+live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+
+Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
+regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
+trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat--the stir of
+his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
+taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
+with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
+right spot this time."
+
+With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
+this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
+Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
+quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
+whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
+Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
+most sentimental of men--it is said); and now that he had been surprised
+into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
+pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
+his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
+his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
+associates of a lifetime.
+
+He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
+brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
+of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
+he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.
+
+"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."
+
+"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
+place.
+
+Haney nodded, without smiling.
+
+His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"
+
+"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.
+
+"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
+in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
+drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
+rampage for two days--crazy as a loon."
+
+"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
+like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
+bust-up?"
+
+"He don't seem to--or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
+he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
+your guard."
+
+They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
+Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
+began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
+years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
+consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
+put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
+with me--God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
+I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
+of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
+entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
+he had no fear--only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
+repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
+he'd drop it."
+
+He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
+grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
+Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
+bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
+home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
+find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
+the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
+greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
+nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.
+
+The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
+yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
+taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
+violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
+shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
+thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
+uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.
+
+The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
+hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
+face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
+by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
+excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
+palm pressed to his breast, stood silent--curiously silent--his lips
+white with his effort at self-control.
+
+At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
+old man? Are you hurt bad?"
+
+His lips moved--they listened--as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
+boys. Here's where I quit."
+
+"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
+Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
+it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"
+
+Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete--I'm torn to pieces--I'm
+all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl--that's all I ask."
+
+Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
+gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
+the crowd out.
+
+Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
+Bertie--quick!"
+
+The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
+significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
+they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
+the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
+satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
+command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
+girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
+Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
+let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
+is it, Mart?"
+
+Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
+patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
+intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
+and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
+torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner--Haney was indeed
+his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
+riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
+Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
+the bar-room--and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
+became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
+curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.
+
+To him stepped a man--one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
+attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
+lamp-post. Want to see?"
+
+For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
+had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
+tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
+never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
+friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
+his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
+'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
+and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
+buckshot--just when he was takin' a wife--is hellish."
+
+His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
+revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
+watch beside his friend.
+
+The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
+softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
+tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
+changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
+who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
+themselves.
+
+"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.
+
+This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
+office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
+of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
+his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
+"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
+here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"
+
+"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
+shortcoming.
+
+"It must be done!"
+
+"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
+wire him to see her--and bring her."
+
+"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."
+
+It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
+them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
+who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
+all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
+he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
+woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
+does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
+Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain--just the
+mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."
+
+"Will she come? Can she get away?"
+
+"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
+here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
+calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes--you can bet high on that. I'm
+only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."
+
+Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
+an air of waiting--waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
+checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
+doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life--he
+had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
+and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
+me--here. I want her to have all I've got--_everything_!"
+
+At another time he said: "Get the judge--have everything ready!"
+
+They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
+in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
+resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
+weakness persisted heroically--till even the doctor's throat filled with
+sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
+into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
+Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
+pull through, with her help."
+
+To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
+was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
+wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
+at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
+chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
+watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
+rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
+drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
+barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.
+
+About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
+leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."
+
+Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
+it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
+I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
+hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
+every resource--forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.
+
+A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
+man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
+I've no strength to waste--'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
+here--to marry us--" And with this request the priest was forced to be
+content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
+as he turned away.
+
+Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
+ceremony must be legal--I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
+protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
+and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
+life.
+
+"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
+partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
+be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
+if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
+the Church."
+
+Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
+with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
+every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
+her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
+Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
+don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."
+
+From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
+faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
+records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
+that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
+Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.
+
+"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
+afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
+better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
+possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+
+Bertha was eating her supper, after a hard day's work in her little
+hotel, when a little yellow envelope was handed to her. The words of the
+message were few, but they were meaning-full: "Come at once. Mart hurt,
+not expected to live." It was signed by Williams. While still she sat
+stunned and hesitant, under the weight of this demand, another and much
+more explicit telegram came: "Johnson, superintendent, is ordered to
+fetch you with special train. Don't delay. Mart needs you--is calling
+for you. Come at once!"
+
+The phrase "is calling for you" reached her heart--decided her. She
+rose, and, with a word of explanation to her housekeeper, put on her
+hat, and threw a cloak over her arm. "I've got to go to Cripple. Captain
+Haney is sick, and I've got to go to him. I don't know when I'll be
+back," she said. "Get along the best you can." Her face was white but
+calm, and her manner deliberate. "Send word to mother that Mart is hurt,
+and I've gone up to see him. Tell her not to worry."
+
+To her night clerk, who had come on duty, she quietly remarked: "I
+reckon you'll have to look after things to-morrow. I'll try to get back
+the day after. If I don't, Lem Markham will take my place." While still
+she stood arranging the details of her business a short, dark man
+stepped inside the door, and very kindly and gravely explained his
+errand. "I'm Johnson, the division superintendent. They've telegraphed
+me for a special, and I'm going to take you up myself. Mart is a friend
+of mine," he added, with some feeling.
+
+She thanked him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together
+they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive
+coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of
+spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short
+caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and
+the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up
+speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to
+the girl: "I guess you'd better take my chair; it's bolted to the floor,
+and you can hang on when we go round the curves."
+
+She obeyed instantly, and with her small hands gripping the arm-rests of
+the rude seat cowered in silence, while the clambering monster rushed
+and roared over the level lands and labored up the grades, shrieking now
+and again, as if in mingled pain and warning. Johnson and the brakeman,
+for the most part, kept to the lookout in the turret, and the girl rode
+alone--rode far, passing swiftly from girlhood to womanhood, so full of
+enforced meditation were the hours of that ride. It seemed that she was
+leaving something sweet and care-free behind her, and it was certain
+that she was about to face death. She had one perfectly clear
+conception, and that was that the man who had been most kind to her, and
+to whom she had given her promise of marriage, was dying and needed
+her--was calling for her through the night.
+
+Burdened with responsibility from her childhood, accustomed to make her
+own decisions, she had responded to this prayer, knowing dimly that this
+journey denoted a new and portentous experience--a fundamental change in
+her life.
+
+She had admired and liked Haney from the first, but her feeling even yet
+was very like that of a boy for a man of heroic statue--her regard had
+very little of woman's passion in it. She was appalled and benumbed by
+the thought that she was soon to look upon him lying prone. That she
+might soon be called upon to meet those bold eyes closing in death she
+had been warned, and yet she did not shrink from it. The nurse, latent
+in every woman, rose in her, and she ached with desire of haste, longing
+to lay her hand upon the suffering man in some healing way. His
+kindness, his gentleness, during the days of his final courtship had
+sunk deep--his generosity had been so full, so free, so unhesitating.
+
+She thought of her mother, and as a fuller conception of the alarm and
+anxiety she would feel came to her, she decided to send her a telegram.
+"She will know it was my duty to go," she decided. "As for the
+hotel--what does it matter now?" Nothing seemed to matter, indeed, save
+the speed of her chariot.
+
+The night was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down
+out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning
+encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with
+taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be
+otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on
+one other point--this journey committed her to Marshall Haney. There
+could be no further hesitation. "Some time, soon, if he lives, I must
+marry him," she thought, and the conception troubled her with a new
+revelation of what that relationship might mean. She felt suddenly very
+small, very weak, and very helpless. "He must be good to me," she
+murmured. And then, as the words of his prayer to her came back, she
+added: "And I'll be good to him."
+
+Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the
+busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this
+moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed
+a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through
+the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown
+stars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as
+the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end
+of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station.
+
+"Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff
+and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of
+passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back.
+
+Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still
+here--and waiting for you."
+
+Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became
+alert, clear-brained. "How is he?"
+
+"Pretty bad."
+
+"What's it all about? How did it happen?"
+
+"I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a
+carriage.
+
+Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go
+ahead--straight."
+
+He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the
+border, and who has no nice shading in act or word.
+
+"Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause.
+
+"I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the
+night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now."
+
+That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but
+that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her
+dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to
+shudder at the sight of blood.
+
+Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to
+tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies."
+
+The girl drew away. "Not this minute--to-night?"
+
+"Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to
+do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said
+this.
+
+Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom
+swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching
+her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything
+is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a
+civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a
+Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied
+good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He
+says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers
+or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little
+sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can
+refuse, specially as it makes his dying--" He stopped there.
+
+The street was silent as they drew up to the saloon door, and only
+Slater and one or two of his friends were present when Bertha walked
+into the bar-room, erect as a boy, her calm, sweet face ashen white in
+the electric light. For an instant; she stood there in the middle of the
+floor alone, her big dark eyes searching every face. Then Judge Brady, a
+kindly, gray-haired man, advanced, and took her hand. "We're very glad
+to see you," he gravely said, introducing himself. Williams, who had
+entered the inner room, returned instantly to say: "Come, he's waiting."
+
+Without a word the bride entered the presence of her groom, and the
+doctor, bending low to the gambler, said: "Be careful now, Mart. Don't
+try to rise. Be perfectly still. Bertie has come."
+
+Haney turned with a smile--a tender, humorous smile--and whispered:
+"Bertie, acushla mavourneen, come to me!"
+
+Then the watchers withdrew, leaving them alone, and the girl, bending
+above him, kissed him. "Oh, Captain, can't I do something? I _must_ do
+something."
+
+"Yes, darlin', ye can. You can marry me this minute, and ye shall. I'm
+dyin', girl--so the doctor says. I don't feel it that way; but, anyhow,
+we take no chances. All I have is for you, and so--"
+
+She put her hand ever his lips. "You must be quiet. I understand, and I
+will do it--but only to make you well." She turned to the door, and her
+voice was clear as she said to those who waited: "I am ready."
+
+"Will you have Father Kearney?" asked Williams.
+
+She turned towards Haney. "Just as he says."
+
+The stricken miner, ghastly with the pain brought on by movement,
+responded to the doctor's question, only by a whisper: "The
+priest--first."
+
+The girl heard, and her fine, clear glance rested upon the face of the
+priest. Tears were on her cheeks, but a kind of exultation was in her
+tone as she said: "I am willing, father."
+
+With a look which denoted his appreciation of the girl's courage, the
+priest stepped forward and led her to her place beside her bridegroom.
+She took Haney's big nerveless hand in her firm grasp, and together they
+listened to the solemn words which made them husband and wife. It seemed
+that the gambler was passing into the shadow during the opening prayer,
+but his whispered responses came at the proper pauses, and only when the
+final benediction was given, and the priest and the judge fell back
+before the rush of the young doctor, did the wounded man's eyes close in
+final collapse. He had indeed reached the end of his endurance.
+
+The young wife spoke then, imperiously, almost fiercely, asking: "Why is
+he lying here? This is no place for him."
+
+The doctor explained. "We were afraid to move him--till you came. In
+fact, he wouldn't let me move him. If you say so now, we will take him
+up." With these words the watchers shifted their responsibility to her
+shoulders, uttering sighs of deep relief. Whatever happened now, Mart's
+will had been secured. At her command they lifted the table on which her
+husband lay, and the wife walked beside it, unheeding the throngs of
+silent men walling her path. Every one made way for her, waited upon
+her, eager to serve her, partly because she was Marshall Haney's wife,
+but more because of her youth and the brave heart which looked from her
+clear and candid eyes.
+
+She showed no hesitation now, gave out no word of weakness; on the
+contrary, she commanded with certainty and precision, calling to her aid
+all that the city afforded. Not till she had summoned the best surgeons
+and was sure that everything had been done that could be done did she
+permit herself to relax--or to think of rest or her mother.
+
+When she had sunk to sleep upon a couch beside her husband's bed,
+Williams, with a note of deep admiration, demanded of the surgeon:
+"Ain't she a little Captain? Mart can't die now, can he? He's got too
+much to live for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE HANEY PALACE
+
+
+One day early in the following summer a tall, thin man, with one
+helpless side, entered the big luminous hall of the Antlers Hotel at the
+Springs, upheld by a stalwart attendant, and accompanied by a
+sweet-faced, calm-lipped young woman. This was Marshall Haney and his
+young wife Bertha, down from the mountain for the first time since his
+illness, and those who knew their story and recognized them, stood aside
+with a thrill of pity for the man and a look of admiration for the girl,
+whose bravery and devotion had done so much to bring her husband back to
+life and to a growing measure of his former strength.
+
+Marshall Haney was, indeed, but a poor hulk of his stalwart self. One
+lung had been deeply torn, his left shoulder was almost wholly disabled,
+and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was
+not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened--"gentled,"
+as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern
+and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep
+horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a
+mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look--older and more
+military. It was plain, also, that he leaned upon his keen-eyed,
+impassive little wife, who never for one moment lost her hold upon
+herself or her surroundings. Her flashing glances took note of
+everything about her, and her lips were close-set and firm.
+
+Williams, ugly and wordless as ever, followed them with a proud smile
+till they entered the handsome suite of rooms which had been reserved
+for them. "There's nothing too good for Marshall Haney and his
+side-partner," he exulted to the bell-boy.
+
+Thereupon, Mart, with a look of reverence at his young bride, replied:
+"She's airned it--and more!"
+
+A sigh was in his voice and a singular appeal in his big eyes as he sank
+into an easy-chair. "I believe I do feel better down here; my heart
+seems to work aisier. I'm going to get well now, darlin'."
+
+"Of course you are," she answered, in the tone of a daughter; then
+added, with a smile: "I like it here. Why not settle?"
+
+To her Colorado Springs was a dazzling social centre. The beauty of the
+homes along its wide streets, the splendor of its private carriages,
+affected her almost as deeply as the magnitude and glory of Denver
+itself; but she was not of those who display their weaknesses and
+diffidence. She ate her first dinner in the lofty Antlers dining-hall
+with quiet dignity, and would not have been particularly noticed but for
+Haney, who was well-known to the waiters of the hotel. Her association
+with him had made her a marked figure in their mountain towns, and she
+was accustomed to comment.
+
+She met the men who addressed her with entire fearlessness and candor
+(she was afraid only of women in good clothes), speaking with the easy
+slanginess of a herder, using naturally and unconsciously the most
+picturesque phrases of the West. Her speech was incisive and
+unhesitating, yet not swift. She never chattered, but "you bet" and "all
+right" were authorized English so far as she was concerned. "They say
+you can't beat this town anywhere for society, and I sure like the looks
+of what we've seen. Suppose we hang around this hotel for a while--not
+too long, for it's mighty expensive." Here she smiled--a quick, flashing
+smile. "You see, I can't get used to spending money--I'm afraid all the
+time I'll wake up. It's just like a dream I used to have of finding
+chink--I always came to before I had a chance to handle it and see if it
+was real."
+
+Haney answered, indulgently: "'Tis all real, Bertie. I'll show you that
+when I'm meself again."
+
+"Oh, I believe it--at least, part of the time," she retorted. "But I'll
+have to flash a roll to do it--checks are no good. I could sign a
+million checks and not have 'em seem like real money. I'm from Missouri
+when it comes to cash."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, who had always stood in bewilderment and wonder of her
+daughter, was entirely subject now. She and Williams usually moved in
+silence, like adoring subjects in the presence of their sovereigns. They
+had no doubts whatsoever concerning the power and primacy of gold; and
+as for Haney himself, his unquestioning confidence in his little wife's
+judgment had come to be like an article of religious faith.
+
+After breakfast on the second day of her stay Bertha ordered a carriage,
+and they drove about the town in the brilliant morning sunshine, looking
+for a place to build. She resembled a little home-seeking sparrow. Every
+cosey cottage was to her an almost irresistible allurement. "There's a
+dandy place, Captain," she called several times. "Wouldn't you like a
+house like that?"
+
+He, with larger notions, shook his head each time. "Too small, Bertie.
+We've the right to a fine big place--like that, now." He nodded towards
+a stately gray-stone mansion, with the sign "For Sale" planted on its
+lawn.
+
+She was aghast. "Gee! what would we do with a state-house like that?"
+
+"Live in it, sure."
+
+"It would need four chamber-maids and two hired men to take care of a
+place like that. And think of the money it would spoil to stock it with
+furniture!" Nevertheless, she gazed at it longingly. "I'd sure like that
+big garden and that porch. You could sit on that porch and see the
+mountains, couldn't you? But my ears and whiskers, the expense of
+keeping it!"
+
+They passed on to other and less palatial possibilities, and returned to
+the hotel undecided. The two women, bewildered and weary, diverged and
+discussed the matter of dress till the mid-day meal.
+
+"I like being rich," remarked the young wife, as they took their seats
+in the lovely dining-room, and looked about at the tables so shining, so
+dainty. "It would be fun to run a house like this, don't you think?" She
+addressed her mother.
+
+"Good gracious, no! Think of the bill for help and the worry of looking
+after all this silver! No, it's too splendid for us."
+
+Haney still retained enough of his ancient humor to smile at them. "I'd
+rather see you manage that big stone house with the porch which I'm
+going to buy."
+
+"You don't mean it?" said Bertha, while Mrs. Gilman stared at him over
+her soup.
+
+He went on quietly. "Sure! Me mind's made up. You want the garden and I
+like the porch; so 'phone the agent after dinner, and we'll go up and
+see to it this very afternoon."
+
+Bertha's bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes expanded. "I'd like
+just once to see the _inside_ of a house like that. It must be half as
+big as this hotel--but to own it! You're crazy, Captain."
+
+The remote possibility of walking through that wonderful mansion took
+away the young wife's appetite, and she became silent and reflective in
+the face of a delicious fried chicken. The magic of her husband's wealth
+began to make itself most potently felt.
+
+Haney insisted on smoking a cigar in the lobby. Bertha took her mother
+away to talk over the tremendous decision which was about to be thrust
+upon them. "We want a house," said she, decisively, "but not a palace
+like that. What would we do with it? It scares me up a tree to think of
+it."
+
+"I guess he was only joking," Mrs. Gilman agreed.
+
+"I can see the porch would be fine for him," Bertha went on. "But,
+jiminy spelter, we'd all be lost in the place!"
+
+Haney called Williams to his side, and told him of the house. "It's a
+big place, but I want it. Go you and see the agent. My little girl needs
+a roof, and why not the best?"
+
+"Sure!" replied Williams, with conviction. "She's entitled to a castle.
+You round up the women, and I'll do the rest."
+
+The house proved to be even more splendid and spacious than its exterior
+indicated, and Bertha walked its wide halls with breathless delight.
+After a hurried survey of the interior, they came out upon the broad
+veranda, and lingered long in awe and wonder of the outlook. To the west
+lay a glorious garden of fruits and flowers; a fountain was playing over
+the rich green grass; high above the tops of the pear and peach trees
+(which made a little copse) rose the purple peaks of the Rampart range.
+
+"Oh, isn't it great!" exclaimed Bertha.
+
+Haney turned to the agent with a tense look on his pale face--a look of
+exultant power.
+
+"Make out your papers," said he, quietly. "We take the place--as it
+stands."
+
+Bertha was overwhelmed by this flourish of the enchanter's wand--but
+only for a moment. No sooner was the contract signed than she roused
+herself as to a new business venture. "Well, now, the first thing is
+furniture. Let's see! There is some carpets and curtains in the place,
+isn't there? And a steel range. It's up to me to rustle the balance of
+the outfit together right lively."
+
+And so she set to work quite as she would have done in outfitting a new
+hotel--so many beds, so many chairs in a room, so many dressers, and
+soon had a long list made out and the order placed.
+
+She spent every available moment of her time for the next two days
+getting the kitchen and dining-room in running order, and when she had
+two beds ready insisted on moving in. "We can kind o' camp out in the
+place till we get stocked up. I'm crazy to be under our own roof."
+
+Haney, almost as eager as she, consented, and on the third day they
+drove up to the door, dismissed their hired coachman, and stepped inside
+the gate--master and mistress of an American chateau.
+
+Mart turned, and, with misty eyes and a voice choked with happiness,
+said: "Well, darlin', we have it now--the palace of the fairy stories."
+
+"It's great," she repeated, musingly; "but I can't make it seem like a
+home--mebbe it'll change when I get it filled with furniture, but the
+garden is sure all right."
+
+They took their first meal on the porch overlooking the mountains,
+listening to the breeze in the vines. It was heavenly sweet after the
+barren squalor of their Cripple Creek home, and they did little but gaze
+and dream.
+
+"We need a team," Bertha said, at last.
+
+"Buy one," replied Haney.
+
+So Bertha bought a carriage and a fine black span. This expenditure
+involved a coachman, and to fill that position an old friend of
+Williams'--a talkative and officious old miner--was employed. She next
+secured a Chinese cook, the best to be had, and a girl to do the
+chamber-work. They were all busy as hornets, and Bertha lived in a glow
+of excitement every waking hour of the day--though she did not show it.
+
+Haney's check-book was quite as wonderful in its way as Aladdin's lamp,
+and little by little the women permitted themselves to draw upon its
+magic. The shining span of blacks, with flowing manes and champing bits,
+became a feature of the avenue as the women drove up and down on their
+never-ending quest for household luxuries--they had gone beyond mere
+necessities. Mart usually went with them, sitting in the carriage while
+they "visited" with the grocery clerks and furniture dealers. They were
+very popular with these people, as was natural.
+
+"Little Mrs. Haney" became at once the subject of endless
+comment--mostly unfavorable; for Mart's saloon-made reputation was
+well-known, and the current notion of a woman who would marry him was
+not high. She was reported, in the alien circles of the town, to be a
+vulgar little chamber-maid who had taken a gambler for his money at a
+time when he was supposed to be on his death-bed, and her elevation to
+the management of a palatial residence was pointed out as being
+"peculiarly Western-American."
+
+The men, however, were much more tolerant of judgment than their women.
+They had become more or less hardened to seeing crude miners luxuriating
+in sudden, accidental wealth; therefore, they nodded good-humoredly at
+Haney and tipped their hats to his pretty wife with smiles. As bankers,
+tradesmen, and taxpayers generally they could not afford to neglect a
+citizen possessed of so much wealth and circumstance.
+
+Mrs. Gilman presented a letter of introduction to the nearest church of
+her own persuasion, and went to service quite as unassumingly as in
+Sibley, and was greeted by a few of the ladies there cordially and
+without hint of her son-in-law's connections. Two or three, including
+the pastor's wife, made special effort to cultivate her acquaintance by
+calling immediately, but they were not of those who attracted Bertha;
+and though she showed them about the house and answered their questions,
+she did not promise to call. "We're too busy," she explained. "I haven't
+got more than half the rooms into shape, and, besides, we're to have my
+brother's folks down from the Junction--we're on the hustle all day
+long."
+
+This was true. She had been quite besieged by her former neighbors in
+Sibley, who found it convenient to "put up with the Haneys" while
+visiting the town. They were, in fact, very curious to study her in her
+new and splendid setting; and though some of them peeked and peered amid
+the beds, and thumped the mattresses in vulgar curiosity, the young
+housewife merely laughed. All her life had been spent among folk of this
+directly inquisitive sort. She expected them to act as they did, and,
+being a hearty and generous soul, as well as a very democratic one, she
+sent them away happy.
+
+Indeed, she won praise from all who came to know her. But that small
+part of the Springs--alien and exclusive--which considered itself higher
+if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the
+gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined
+to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback"
+as she met them on the boulevard.
+
+Of all this critical comment Bertha remained, happily, unconscious, and
+it is probable that she would soon have won her way to a decent circle
+of friends had not Charles Haney descended upon them like a plague. Mart
+had been receiving letters from this brother, but had said nothing to
+Bertha of his demands. "Charles despised me when he met me in Denver,"
+he explained to Williams. "I was busted at the time, ye mind." He
+winked. "And now when he reads in the papers that Mart Haney is rich, he
+comes down on me like a hawk on a June bug. 'Tis no matter. He may
+come--I'll not cast him out. But he does not play with me
+double-eagles--not he!"
+
+Charles Haney was not fitted to raise his brother's wife in the social
+scale, for he belonged to that marked, insistent variety of actor to be
+distinguished on trains and in the lobbies of hotels--a fat, sleek,
+loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while
+ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in
+illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of
+those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and
+brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their
+first meeting.
+
+She amazed him. He had expected a woman of his own class--an
+adventuress, painted, designing; and to find this sweet little
+girl--"why, she's too good for Mart," he concluded, and shifted his
+hollow pretensions of sympathy from his brother to his sister-in-law.
+Before the first evening of his visit closed he sought opportunity to
+tell her, in hypocritic sadness, that Mart was a doomed man, and that
+she would soon be free of him. Bertha was disturbed by his gaze and
+repelled by his touch, but tried to like him on Mart's account. His
+mouthing disgusted her, and the good-will with which Haney greeted his
+brother turned into bitterness as the boaster and low wit began to
+display himself.
+
+"We all grew up in the street or in the saloon," Haney sadly remarked,
+"and you finished your education in the variety theatre, I'm thinking."
+
+The actor took this as a joke, and with a grin retorted: "That's better
+than running a faro-layout."
+
+"I dunno; a good quiet game has its power to educate a man," replied the
+gambler.
+
+That night, as she was preparing the Captain for bed, he remarked, with
+a sigh: "Life is a quare game! I mind Charley well as a cute little
+yellow-haired divil, always laughing, always in mischief, and me chasin'
+after him--a big slob of a boy. I used to carry him up an' down the
+tenement stairs. I learned him to skate--and now here he is drinkin'
+himself puffy, whilst I am an old broken-down hack at forty-five." He
+looked up at her with a sheen of tears in his eyes. "Darlin', 'tis a
+shame to be leanin' on you."
+
+She put her arm around his big grizzled head and drew it to her.
+
+"You can lean hard, Mart. I'm standin' by."
+
+"No, I'll not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine,
+straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young
+life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me any
+longer."
+
+"Now, now, no more of that!" she warned. "When I have cause to knock,
+you won't need no ear-trumpet. Put up your hoof." He obeyed, and,
+stooping swiftly, she began to unlace the shoe which he could no longer
+reach. Her manner was that of a daughter who tyrannizes over an
+indulgent father. Her admiration and gratitude, so boyish once, were now
+replaced by an affection in which the element of sex had small place,
+and his love for her sprang also from a source far removed from the
+fierce instinct which first led him to seek her subduing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+
+Charles Haney had no scruples. From the moment of his first meeting with
+his brother's young wife he determined to make himself "solid" with her.
+Convinced that Mart was not long for this world, he set to work to win
+Bertha's favor, for this was the only way to harvest the golden fortune
+she controlled.
+
+"Mart is just fool enough and contrary enough to leave every cent of his
+money to her." Here he placed one finger against his brow. "Carlos, here
+is where you get busy. It's us to the haberdasher. We shine."
+
+Notwithstanding all his boasting, he was not only an actor out of an
+engagement, but flat broke, badly dressed, and in sorry disrepute with
+managers. "I've been playing in a stock company in San Francisco," he
+had explained, "and I'm now on my way to New York to produce a play of
+my own. Hence these tears. I need an 'angel.'"
+
+He distinctly said "the first of the month" in this announcement, but as
+the days went by he only settled deeper into the snug corners of the
+Haney home, making no further mention of his triumphal eastward
+progress. On the contrary, he had the air of a regular boarder, and
+turned up promptly for meals, rotund and glowing in the opulence of his
+brother's hospitality.
+
+On the strength of his name he found favor with the tailors, and
+bourgeoned forth a few days later in the best cloth the shops afforded,
+and strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock before Bertha,
+keeping up meanwhile a pretension of sympathy and good-fellowship with
+Mart.
+
+In this he miscalculated; for Bertha, youthful as she seemed, was
+accustomed, as she would say, to "standing off mashers," and her
+impassive face and keen, steady eyes fairly disconcerted the libertine.
+"For Mart's sake, we'll put up with him," she said to her mother. "He's
+a loafer; but I can see the Captain kind o' likes to have him
+around--for old times' sake, I reckon."
+
+This was true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his
+egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the
+dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to
+see and understand that this was his most ingratiating rōle, and he
+played it "to the limit," as Bertha would have said.
+
+And yet no one in the house realized how his presence reacted against
+Bertha.
+
+"What are we to think of a girl so obtuse that she permits a man like
+this fat, disgusting actor to dangle about her?" asked Mrs. Crego of her
+husband, who was Haney's legal adviser.
+
+"He's her husband's brother, you know," argued Crego.
+
+"All the same, I can't understand her. She looks nice and sweet, and you
+say she is so; and yet here she is married to a notorious gambler, and
+associating with mountebanks and all sorts of malodorous people. Why,
+I've seen her riding down the street with the upholsterer, and Mrs.
+Congdon told me that she saw her stop her carriage in front of a cigar
+store and talk with a barber in a white jacket for at least ten
+minutes."
+
+Crego laughed. "What infamy! However, I can't believe even the
+upholsterer will finally corrupt her. The fact is, my dear, we're all
+getting to be what some of my clients call 'too a-ristocratic.' Bertha
+Haney is sprung from good average American stock, and has associated
+with the kind of people you abhor all her life. She hasn't begun to draw
+any of your artificial distinctions. I hope she never will. Her barber
+friend is on the same level with the clerks and grocery-men of the town.
+They're all human, you know. She's the true democrat. I confess I like
+the girl. Her ability is astonishing. Williams and Haney both take her
+opinion quite as weightily as my own."
+
+Mrs. Crego was impressed. "Well, I'll call on her if you really think I
+_ought_ to do so."
+
+"I don't. I withdraw my suggestion. I deprecate your calling--in that
+spirit. I doubt if she expects you to call. I hardly think she has
+awakened to any slights put upon her by your set. Indeed, she seems
+quite happy in the society of Thomas, Richard, and Harry."
+
+"Don't be brutal, Allen."
+
+"I'm not. The girl is now serene--that's the main thing; and you might
+raise up doubts and discontents in her mind."
+
+"I certainly shall not go near her so long as that odious actor is
+hanging about. His smirk at me the other day made me ill."
+
+This conversation was typical of many others in homes of equal culture,
+for Bertha's position as well as her face and manner piqued curiosity.
+After all, the town was a small place--just large enough to give gossip
+room to play in--and the sheen of Mrs. Haney's wealth made her
+conspicuous from afar, while her youth and boyish beauty had been the
+subject of admiring club talk from the very first. Haney was only an old
+and wounded animal, whose mate was free to choose anew.
+
+"It makes me ache to see the girl go wrong," said Mrs. Frank Congdon,
+wife of a resident portrait-painter, also in delicate health (she was
+speaking to Mrs. Crego). "Think of that great house--Frank says she runs
+it admirably--filled with tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers,
+not to mention touts and gamblers--when she might be entertaining--well,
+us, for example!" She laughed at the unbending face of her friend; then
+went on: "Dr. Cronk says the mother is a sweet old lady and of good New
+England family--a constitutional Methodist, he calls her. I wish she
+kept better company."
+
+"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother
+was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and
+the girl boasts of it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the
+most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has
+called, you know?"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's
+picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."
+
+"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's
+face fade out of her memory."
+
+"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the
+portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to
+paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers
+Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and
+was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now--his face is one
+of the saddest I ever saw--makes it all the more interesting to Frank.
+So I'm going to call--in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."
+
+"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You
+must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't
+you?"
+
+At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.
+
+Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her
+social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the
+ideas and usages of Sibley Junction--that was all. She acknowledged her
+obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England
+democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the
+right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice.
+The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this
+privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her
+own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church
+associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the
+distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and
+Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are
+too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the
+revelation came to her.
+
+From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the
+Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that
+her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say
+proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while
+from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs,
+beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital
+infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.
+
+Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and
+Charles--both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great
+concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her
+husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not
+merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.
+
+Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in
+resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister
+one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's
+faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any
+other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I
+call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the
+finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.
+
+Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's,
+and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the
+social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles,
+embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He
+had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar
+you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set'
+and quoting _Town Topics_ like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little
+two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What
+d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of
+me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at
+the club fail to invite me to their houses."
+
+Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a
+different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone
+beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each
+day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be
+alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell
+Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But
+his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so
+she endured.
+
+The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the
+town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was
+"in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr.
+Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss
+Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst
+significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless
+tongue.
+
+This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her
+loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on
+his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat
+beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was
+furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence
+that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.
+
+His attentions--which were almost assaults--came at last to destroy a
+large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside
+her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him
+before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever
+she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never
+been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon
+conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his
+maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting
+himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the
+Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams
+was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's
+care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who
+paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.
+
+Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching
+them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain,"
+Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush.
+And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until
+his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort.
+He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come
+from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no
+imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.
+
+Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of
+his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he
+now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that
+the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such
+times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of
+mines and mining--though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded
+little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not
+go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his
+condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in
+possession of it.
+
+"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put
+a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges
+there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis
+impossible--I see that--but I may live on for a long time. Already me
+mind misgives me about Bertie--she's too young to be tied up to a
+shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."
+
+To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry.
+She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."
+
+Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I
+niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency
+darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me
+out. I'm only a big nuisance."
+
+"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is
+all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an
+atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never
+for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.
+
+This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he
+came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting
+alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart,
+feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.
+
+Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk,
+went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her.
+Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe
+of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a
+glare of reckless desire.
+
+"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want
+'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me,
+anyhow?"
+
+She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up
+tense and strong, silently confronting him.
+
+He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't
+you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."
+
+His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his
+lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her,
+clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply
+with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell
+sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his
+balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one
+less experienced than she.
+
+"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"
+
+"_Stop!_" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you
+want to die?" The word _die_ pierced the mist of his madness. "What do
+you think Mart will say to this?"
+
+He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered
+in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.
+
+"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it,
+I beg--I beg!"
+
+She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his
+wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house
+to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are.
+You haven't fooled me any--not for a minute. I've put up with you for
+his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you,
+but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning--you _sabe_?
+It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."
+
+He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her
+feet.
+
+She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of
+disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the
+rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He _was_
+company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I
+never see him again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he
+sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me
+another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."
+
+She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I
+don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but
+fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away,
+flabby and faltering, to his brother.
+
+"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I
+need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I
+get to work I'll send you a check."
+
+Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and
+put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one
+of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get
+down to hard work. It's _time_ ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but
+loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk--part of the time; but I can
+see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad
+for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."
+
+"Can't you--" He was going to ask for a position--something easy with
+big pay--when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.
+
+As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a
+gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father,
+write and tell me how he is."
+
+Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in
+what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and
+went out to his carriage--alone.
+
+As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm
+directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a
+gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could
+live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has
+him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."
+
+Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+
+Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost
+the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train,
+as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village,
+but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy
+streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose
+belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.
+
+And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death,
+fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned
+all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning
+their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented
+exiles--men as well as women--who have come to enjoy their enforced stay
+here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its
+surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate
+and the water have prolonged their lives.
+
+Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at
+present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
+others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
+their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
+blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
+and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
+of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
+but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
+for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
+also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
+and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
+and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
+comfort and content.
+
+In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
+desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
+Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
+a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence--"to get some good of
+their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
+avenues are luxurious homes--absurdly pretentious in some
+instances--which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
+big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
+drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
+sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
+comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
+said.
+
+Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
+city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
+staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
+certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
+genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
+microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
+would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
+change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
+with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
+interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
+my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
+eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
+don't _interest_ me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do
+them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence.
+And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have
+always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has,
+nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the
+grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."
+
+"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where
+would the Congdons be?"
+
+"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't
+a matter of brains. It's a question of--"
+
+"_Savoir faire._"
+
+"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently--" Congdon stopped
+him, gravely.
+
+"I owe you fifty--I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I
+suddenly recalled--"
+
+"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go
+everywhere and are welcome. Why?"
+
+"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's
+all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on
+the gray matter of this family."
+
+"You do yourself an injustice."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your
+type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You
+mix. And Haney, for example--to return to the concrete again--Haney
+would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife,
+clever as she is, is impossible--or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she
+is."
+
+Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little
+Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."
+
+"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on
+the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her
+interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.'
+So there we stand."
+
+Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The
+girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."
+
+"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of
+a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this
+realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me
+I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments.
+Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're
+painting his portrait--why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"
+
+"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the
+line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of
+hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women
+can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can.
+As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything--except
+borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber
+lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than
+anything else. They think her tastes are low."
+
+"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and
+though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he
+seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will
+admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional,
+but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act.
+Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with
+them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but--' And there the argument
+rests."
+
+"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy,"
+said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would
+like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will
+never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going
+to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."
+
+And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with
+his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the
+portrait is nearly done," he said.
+
+"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't
+much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my
+mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to
+teach her."
+
+Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he.
+"That girl's no fool--she's capable of development. She will amaze you
+yet."
+
+"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to
+dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll
+we ask to meet her--the Cregos?"
+
+"Yes, I'd thought of them."
+
+"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting
+a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I
+think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce
+in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is
+crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away,
+little boy, and leave the whole business to me."
+
+As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the
+Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic
+cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide
+old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of
+beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing
+ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a
+prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American
+ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little
+better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for
+automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the
+blazing fires of roomy hearths.
+
+Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a
+state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by
+pretending to be a sculptor--and she still did occasionally model a
+figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the
+aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter,
+whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was
+making a precarious living in the Springs--precarious for the reason
+that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and
+on dark days he _couldn't_ see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was
+not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as
+he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted
+his laziness and incompetency.
+
+Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the
+Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a
+couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their
+troubles--credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each
+of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was
+accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and
+when they needed food helped them to it.
+
+Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee
+reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage.
+There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the
+slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs.
+Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this
+consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.
+
+Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with
+flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and
+almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress),
+and so waited for further information.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Haney?" Lee began. "I'm Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Bertha threw the rug over Mart's knees before turning to offer her hand.
+"I'm glad to meet you," she responded, with gravity. "I've seen you on
+the street."
+
+Lee couldn't quite make out whether this remark was intended for
+reproach or not, but she went on, quickly: "I was just about to call.
+Indeed, I came to ask you and Mr. Haney to dine with us on Thursday."
+She nodded and smiled at Mart, who sat with impassive countenance
+listening with attention--his piercing eyes making her rather
+uncomfortable. "We dine at seven. I hope you can come."
+
+Bertha looked up at her husband. "What do you say, Captain?"
+
+"I don't see any objection," he answered, without warmth.
+
+Bertha turned, with still passive countenance. "All right," she said,
+"we'll be there. Won't you jump in and take a ride with us?"
+
+Lee, burning with mingled flames of resentment and humor, replied:
+"Thank you, I have another call to make--Thursday, then, at seven
+o'clock."
+
+"We'll connect. Much obliged," replied Bertha, and sprang into the
+carriage. "Go ahead, Dan. Good-day, Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Lee stood for an instant in amazement at this easy, not to say
+indifferent, acceptance of her tremendous offering. "Well, if that isn't
+cool!" she gasped, and walked on thoughtfully.
+
+Humor dominated her at last, and when she entered Mrs. Crego's house she
+was flushed with laughter, and recounted the words of the interview with
+so many subtle interpretations of her own that Mrs. Crego was delighted.
+
+Mrs. Congdon did not spare herself. "Helen, she made me feel like a
+bill-collector! 'All right,' said she, 'I'll be there,' and left me
+standing in the middle of the street. You've got to come now, Helen, to
+preserve my dignity."
+
+"I'm wild to come, really. I want to see what she'll do to us
+'professional people.' Maybe she will patronize us too."
+
+When Lee told Frank about it at night he failed to laugh as heartily as
+she had expected. "That's all very funny, the way you tell it, but as a
+matter of fact the girl did all she knew. She accepted your invitation
+and civilly asked you to take a ride. What more could mortal woman
+proffer?"
+
+"She might have invited me into the house."
+
+"Not at the moment. It was Mart's hour for a drive, and you were
+interfering with one of her duties. I think she treated you very well."
+
+"Anyhow, she's coming, and so is Helen. It tickled Helen nearly into
+fits, of course, and she's coming--just to see me 'put to it to manage
+these wet valley bronchos.'"
+
+"The girl may look like a bronk, but she's got good blood in her. She'll
+hold her own anywhere," replied Congdon, with conviction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+
+For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
+for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
+experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
+the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
+She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
+husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
+street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
+which she had begun to take a settled pride.
+
+As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
+clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
+dinner."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
+think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."
+
+"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
+in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
+go--I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
+meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
+need more doin'."
+
+Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
+Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
+me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me _congé_ out of
+self-respect--just to give you open road."
+
+"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
+rush. Wonder what's eating him?"
+
+Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
+the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
+died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
+excitement.
+
+"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.
+
+He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
+"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
+more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
+here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
+fellow here--Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
+chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"
+
+"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.
+
+Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
+course, I'm sorry about your father."
+
+"I understand--so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
+myself. I know you always despised my trade."
+
+"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
+dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."
+
+Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
+about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
+barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
+fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
+ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
+board while I study."
+
+Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
+part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
+both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
+down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
+conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
+earnest conversation with a barber.
+
+Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
+then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
+exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.
+
+Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."
+
+"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
+the line at barbers."
+
+"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
+you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."
+
+"I can't understand such people."
+
+"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
+is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
+natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."
+
+Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
+in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
+she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
+"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that--not in my
+presence."
+
+"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
+down the steps to help Haney up.
+
+The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
+said he. "I let me little Corporal help me--sometimes for love of it,
+not because I nade it."
+
+He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
+and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
+was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
+trousers, and looked very well indeed--quite irreproachable.
+
+Bertha was clad in black also--a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
+made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
+eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
+bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
+and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
+like that of an athlete.
+
+"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
+followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.
+
+Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
+hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
+concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
+walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
+chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
+pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
+ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
+had charm.
+
+Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
+centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
+at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
+shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
+He's a regular kid anyway--always doing the things he ought not to do."
+
+In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
+looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
+nor embarrassed--on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
+else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
+husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
+it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
+about my size."
+
+"You're disappointed, then?"
+
+"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
+just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
+the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
+picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
+see nothin' else."
+
+Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
+of the painter--he puts on canvas what _he_ sees, not what his patron
+sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
+artist."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
+presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
+visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
+silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
+suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
+this chill reception.
+
+Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
+pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
+a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
+with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
+such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
+went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
+saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
+you. Your life seems very romantic to me."
+
+The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
+recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
+by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
+was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
+manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
+hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
+somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
+made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.
+
+They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
+felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
+of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
+at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
+curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
+found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
+sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
+rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
+intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
+furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
+in a way quite new to her.
+
+Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
+magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
+Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
+things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
+under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
+been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
+the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
+devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
+domestication in a stone palace--all appealed to his imagination. Such
+things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
+most satisfying to his taste.
+
+Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
+kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
+and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
+hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
+tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
+enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
+Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
+gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
+reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
+delightedly with no accusation in their eyes--except in the case of Mrs.
+Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
+and inner repugnance.
+
+Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
+terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
+willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
+conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
+of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
+imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
+would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
+Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
+with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
+confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
+it was a most interesting monologue.
+
+It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
+to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
+unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand--always
+careful not to interrupt his talk.
+
+As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
+contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
+"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
+tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
+America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
+last was a delight as well as an education.
+
+Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
+was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
+lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
+puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
+but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
+something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
+her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
+fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
+know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
+hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
+Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.
+
+Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
+suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
+cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
+her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
+compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
+them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
+grateful charm.
+
+Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
+Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.
+
+Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
+by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
+such an opportunity for doing good."
+
+Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"
+
+"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
+that?"
+
+"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
+and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
+else."
+
+"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
+to help--I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
+when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
+Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one--he's only
+twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
+can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
+Congdon has told you of us?"
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
+have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
+was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
+help me."
+
+This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
+much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
+very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
+all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.
+
+When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
+enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
+became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
+been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
+appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
+but to us you seem typical of the West."
+
+What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
+which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
+revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
+insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
+laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
+descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
+the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
+flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
+heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.
+
+Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
+conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
+intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
+which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.
+
+Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
+among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
+in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
+gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
+meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
+in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
+habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
+a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
+never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
+built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
+the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
+art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
+cultivated speech.
+
+When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
+side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
+your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."
+
+Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
+with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
+music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
+explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
+acquirement."
+
+His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang--as Bertha had never
+heard any one sing--certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
+made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
+handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
+Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
+sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
+girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
+splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
+toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
+splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
+her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
+came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.
+
+He sang other songs--tunes not worthy of him--but ended with a ballad
+called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell--a song so stern, so strange, so
+inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
+his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
+voice. Her horizon--her emotional horizon--was of a sudden extended, and
+she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
+and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
+the others cheered--her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
+to applaud.
+
+Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
+have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
+ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
+and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
+to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past--as it caused
+Bertha to forecast the future.
+
+While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
+his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
+hastened to him.
+
+"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
+directness.
+
+"It's early yet," replied her hostess.
+
+Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
+the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
+the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
+truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
+merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
+weakened by that tearing charge of shot.
+
+Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
+"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
+soon."
+
+Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"
+
+"I used to--I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
+horse, so we mostly drive."
+
+"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
+We ride every morning--a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
+rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."
+
+Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
+answered. "I'd like to--but--Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
+and then she gave him her hand in parting.
+
+Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
+said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
+responded: "I certainly shall do so."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
+of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
+brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
+a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
+most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
+beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
+background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
+charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music--quite the
+best she had ever heard. The evening--so simple, almost commonplace, to
+her hostess--was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.
+
+She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
+comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
+right. Crego's the fine man--we do well to make him our lawyer." As
+Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
+Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno--them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
+little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
+McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
+girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
+has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
+make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
+that--'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
+lad--as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
+man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
+she waits till she gets well."
+
+To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
+was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened--all that
+had been said.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
+just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
+urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
+library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
+supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
+noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
+I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
+there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."
+
+Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
+apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
+husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
+the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
+chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
+out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
+moonlit.
+
+A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
+short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
+much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
+with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
+sparks of fire from that radiant hour.
+
+She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
+fibres and reaches of another world--the world of art, and that
+indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
+splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
+jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
+flattering and alluring.
+
+She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
+older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
+elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
+devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
+young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
+"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
+don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
+laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
+time over our blunders."
+
+She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
+like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
+self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
+reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
+imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
+genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
+of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
+companionship.
+
+What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
+what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
+stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.
+
+The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
+pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
+expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
+such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
+Haney's side that summer night--now so far away--was momentous, but its
+import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
+just passed.
+
+She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
+sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
+mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
+achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
+life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+
+Ben Fordyce and his affianced bride rode home talking of the Haneys.
+"Aren't they deliciously Western!" she said.
+
+"Mrs. Haney certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite
+soberly; "she's like a quail--so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her
+devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter
+than a wife, don't you think so?"
+
+"They're great fun if you don't feel sorry for him as I do," Alice
+thoughtfully responded. "They say he was magnificent as a gambler. He
+admitted to me to-night that he longed to go back to the camp, but that
+he had promised his wife and mother-in-law not to do so. I never ran a
+gambling-saloon, but I can imagine it would be exciting as a play all
+the time, can't you? Here, as he said to me, he can only sit in the sun
+like a lizard on a log. It must seem wonderful to her--having all this
+money and that big castle of a house. Don't you think so? Wasn't she
+reticent! She hardly uttered a word the whole evening. Some way I feel
+sorry for them both. They can't be happy. Don't you see that? It is
+plain she doesn't love him as a wife should, while he worships her. When
+she's away he is helpless. 'I'm no gairdner,' he said, pathetically; 'I
+was raised on the cobble-stones. I wouldn't know a growin' cabbage from
+a squash.' So you see he can't pass his time in gardening."
+
+Ben's reply was a question. "I wonder if she would ride with us?"
+
+"Perhaps we would do better not to follow up the acquaintance, Ben. It's
+all very interesting to meet them as we did to-night, but they are
+impossible socially--that you must admit. If there is any possibility of
+our settling down here I suppose we must be careful to do the right
+thing from the start."
+
+Ben was a little irritated by this. "If I'm to settle here as a lawyer I
+can't draw social distinctions of that sort."
+
+"Certainly not--as a lawyer. Of course, you ought to know Haney; but for
+me to ride or drive with Mrs. Haney is quite a different matter.
+However, I don't really care. She attracts me, and, so far as I know, is
+just a nice little uncultivated woman. We might call on her in the
+morning, and see if she can go with us. It will commit us; but really,
+Ben, I am not going to drag Eastern conventions into this fresh big
+country. I'm willing to risk the Haneys."
+
+"I'm glad you take that view of it," said Ben.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bertha was in the yard when they rode up to the gate next morning.
+Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a
+handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of
+young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the
+dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch,
+was watching her with a proud smile.
+
+Alice glanced at her lover with admiration in her eyes. "What a glorious
+creature she really is!"
+
+Seeing visitors at her gate, Bertha came down without confusion to say
+good-morning, and to ask them to dismount.
+
+Ben, with doffed cap, replied by saying: "We've come to ask you to ride
+with us."
+
+Bertha looked up at him composedly. "Haven't a saddle, and I don't know
+that any of our horses are broken. But come again to-morrow, and I'll
+have an outfit."
+
+"There's no time like the present. Let me ride down to the barn and
+bring one up," volunteered Ben.
+
+"Don't need to do that, I'll 'phone. I didn't really expect you," she
+explained. "Get off and come in a few minutes, and I'll see what I can
+hustle together for an outfit. I haven't rode a lick since I left
+Sibley."
+
+Ben helped Alice to dismount, and Bertha led her to the house while he
+tethered the horses.
+
+"What a superb place you have here!" exclaimed Alice. "It is one of the
+best in the city."
+
+"We bought it for the porch," calmly replied the girl. "The Captain
+likes to sit where he can see the mountains. I'm not entirely done with
+the outfitting yet, but it beats a barn."
+
+Haney rose as they drew near, and smilingly greeted his visitors. "I
+should be out gatherin' the peanuts and harvestin' the egg-plants, but
+the dinner last night, not mentionin' Congdon's pink liquor, kept me
+awake till two."
+
+"Moral: Stick to Irish whiskey--or Scotch," laughed Ben.
+
+"I will. These strange liquors are not for strong men like ourselves."
+
+Ben took a seat at his invitation, while Bertha went in to 'phone for a
+horse and to "dig up" a riding-skirt. Alice was eager to see the
+interior of the house, but held her curiosity in check by walking about
+the beautiful garden, which ran to the very edge of a deep ravine. The
+trees hid the base of the mountain peaks, whose immitigable crags took
+on added majesty from the play of the delicate near-by branches against
+their distant rugged slopes.
+
+"You have a magnificent outlook here, Captain Haney."
+
+"'Tis so, and I try to be content with it; but it's hard for one who has
+roamed the air like a hawk all his life to be content with ridin' a
+wooden horse. I couldn't endure it if it weren't for me wife."
+
+His big form rested in his chair with a ponderous inertness which was a
+telltale witness to his essential helplessness. His left hand still
+failed to participate in the movements of his right, and yet, as he
+showed, he could, by special effort of will, use it. "I'm gaining all
+the time--but slowly," he went on. "I want to make a trip back up to the
+mines, and I think I'll be able to do it soon." He put aside his own
+troubles. "And you, miss, I hope the climate is doing you good?"
+
+"Oh, indeed, yes," she brightly responded. "I feel stronger every day."
+
+Ben at the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for
+Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha
+returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as
+distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening,
+fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited
+too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new
+treatment which they had discussed.
+
+"Come in and see the house," said Bertha, in brusque invitation. "It
+isn't ship-shape yet. I wanted to do it all myself, but I find it's a
+big proposition to go up against. It sure is. But I like it. I'd like
+nothing better than running a big hotel--not too big, but just big
+enough. I tell the Captain that when our mines 'pinch out' I'll go to
+Denver and start a hotel."
+
+She was quite communicative, but not at ease as she led them from room
+to room. Her manner was rather that of one seeking to conceal
+trepidation, and her fluency seemed a little out of character.
+
+In fact, she was trying to make the best possible impression on these
+people, whose sincere interest she felt; but with Ben's eyes fixed upon
+her so constantly, and a knowledge of Alice's delicate wit to trouble,
+she was more deeply embarrassed than ever before in her life. It was not
+her habit to blush or stammer, and she did not do so now, but she was
+carried out of her wonted reticence.
+
+"As I say, we bought the place for the porch. I didn't realize what I
+was being let into--if I had I might have shied. We're practically lost
+in the place. Except when some of the people come down from camp, we're
+alone. My mother helps out some, but she's up at the ranch a good deal."
+She opened the library door, and led the way before an easel, on which
+stood a huge canvas. "Here's the picture Mr. Congdon is paintin' of the
+Captain. I wanted him taken with his hat on, but Mr. Congdon said no,
+and his word went. I don't know whether I like this or not. It's got me
+twisted."
+
+Congdon had been after psychology rather than costume, that was evident
+at a glance, for the clothing counted for little in the portrait. Out of
+the shadow the face peered sadly, yet with a kind of ferocity, too--a
+look which made Alice Heath recoil from the man. In a certain way the
+artist had taken advantage of Mart's helplessness and loneliness. He had
+caught the sadness, sullenness, and remorselessness of his sitter rather
+than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned
+with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good
+likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a
+cracker-jack piece of work," he ended.
+
+Bertha replied: "I suppose it is, and yet I can't see it. I'd rather it
+looked the way the Captain used to when he came down to the Junction.
+I'm sorry to have his sickness painted in that way."
+
+"That can't be helped. These artists are queer cattle; you can't drive
+'em," Ben remarked.
+
+Bertha smiled. "He wants to paint me now. 'Not on your life' says I.
+'You'd be doing double stunts with my freckles, and I won't stand for
+it.'" She laughed. "No sir-ree, I don't let any artist tip my freckles
+edgewise just to see how flip he is at it. I like Mr. Congdon, but I
+don't trust him--he's too much of a joker."
+
+Thereupon she led the way to the second floor, and showed them the
+furniture, which was mostly very costly and very bad, and at last said:
+"The third story is pretty empty yet. I don't know just what I'm going
+to do with it." She was looking at Alice. "I wish you'd come over and
+help me decide some day."
+
+"What fun!" cried Alice, speaking on the impulse. "I'd like to very
+much."
+
+"You see," Bertha went on, "my folks have always been purty poor, and
+I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know
+any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all
+to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled
+quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell
+me--except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did
+give me a few points on the library, which ain't so bad, we think; but
+all the rest of it I had to dig out myself, and it's slow work. But I
+guess we better go down; my horse will be here in a few minutes." Then,
+with lowered voice, she added: "I can't stay out but a little while. The
+Captain dreads to have me leave him even to go down-town. I hadn't ought
+to go at all."
+
+Ben began to perceive a real slavery in her life, and reassured her.
+"I'm glad you're coming. It will do you good, and it will be a pleasure
+to us too. We'll only be away an hour."
+
+As they returned to the porch, Bertha put her hand on Haney's shoulder,
+in the manner of one man to another, saying: "I'm going for a little
+ride with these people, Captain, if you don't mind."
+
+"Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a
+subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart
+responded to it.
+
+Bertha's horse proved to be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with
+the ease and celerity of a boy--riding astride, in the mountain fashion.
+"I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all
+the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything
+more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the
+saddle, her face glowing, her hair blown across her face.
+
+Alice, a timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was
+always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A
+pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at
+them--so young, so vigorous, and so blithe.
+
+"I should be sitting with Captain Haney on the porch," she thought, with
+bitterness. "I am out of place here."
+
+The words which passed between Bertha and her cavalier meant little, but
+their glances meant much. It was, indeed, a fateful ride. The liking,
+the deep interest, born of their first meeting, swept irresistibly into
+admiration. Their faces turned towards each other, youth to youth, as
+naturally as flowers swing towards the light.
+
+They fell into argument over saddles, over the difference between his
+manner of riding and her own. Her speech, so direct, so full of quaint
+slang, enchanted him, and Alice soon found herself the third party. And
+when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a
+clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
+out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
+gait?"
+
+"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
+became anxious at once.
+
+"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race--I can see that; and I'd
+really like to see her ride--she sits her horse so beautifully."
+
+"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
+you."
+
+Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
+road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
+with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
+a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
+she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
+interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
+physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
+sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
+and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.
+
+When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
+her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
+disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
+some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
+youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was--a broken thing. The
+divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
+vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
+month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
+the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
+skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
+hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
+Ben was receiving lessons from her--absorbed and jocular.
+
+At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
+landscape--a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
+rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
+deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
+beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
+Alice, let's make our home here."
+
+She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."
+
+"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"
+
+The horse that Bertha rode was prancing and foaming, eager for a renewal
+of the race, and Ben, seeing it, cried out: "Shall we go round by the
+hanging rock?"
+
+"I'm willing!" answered Bertha, her eyes shining with excitement.
+
+Alice shook her head. "I think I'll let you young things go your own
+gait, and I'll poke along back towards home."
+
+Ben rode near her, searching her face anxiously. "You're not tired--are
+you, sweetness?"
+
+"No, but I would be if I took that big circuit. But never mind me, I
+like to poke."
+
+"Very well," he answered, quite relieved, "we'll meet you at the
+bridge." And off they dashed with furious clatter, leaving her to slowly
+retrace her lonely way, feeling very tired, very old, and very sad.
+
+Bertha was perfectly, perilously happy. It was almost her first escape
+from the brooding care and weight of Haney's presence. She felt as she
+used to feel when speeding away on swift gallop to the ranch with some
+companion as care-free as herself. Since that fateful day when her
+mother fell ill and Marshall Haney asked her to marry him, she had not
+been permitted an hour's holiday. Even when absent from her husband her
+mind carried an inescapable picture of his loneliness and helplessness,
+and no complete relaxation had come with her temporary freedom. This
+day, this hour, she was suddenly free from care, from pain, from all
+uneasiness.
+
+She considered this feeling due to the saddle and to the clear air of
+the morning. "I will ride every day," she declared to Ben, with shining
+face, as they drew their horses to a walk. "I don't know when I've
+enjoyed a ride so much. I can't see why I haven't been out before. I
+used to ride a good lot; lately I've dropped it."
+
+"We'll call for you every morning," he replied. "As Alice gets stronger,
+we can go up into the cańons and take long rides."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll let her ride in the cart
+with the Captain, and take our dinner, and we'll all go up the North
+Cańon some day, and eat picnic dinner there."
+
+"Good idea," he said, accepting her disposition of Alice without even
+mental dissent. "That will be jolly fun."
+
+They planned this and other excursions, with no sense of leaving any one
+behind or of cutting across conventional boundaries. Their native
+honesty and innocence of any ill intention prevented even a suspicion of
+danger, and by the time they joined Alice at the bridge they were on
+terms of intimacy and good-fellowship which seemed to rise from years of
+long acquaintance. Ben had promised to help her select a horse, and she
+had agreed to bring the Captain to call on Alice, who was staying with
+some friends not far away.
+
+This change in Bertha's manner extended to Alice, who returned it in
+kind. The guilelessness which shone from the young wife's clear eyes was
+unmistakable. She was growing handsome, too. The flush of blood in her
+cheeks had submerged her freckles, and Alice began to realize how the
+poor child's devotion to Marshall Haney had reacted against her native
+good health. "She is but a child even now," she thought.
+
+Haney was sitting on the porch where they had left him, the collie at
+his feet, but at sight of them returning he rose and hobbled slowly down
+the walk, his heart filled with tenderness and admiration for his wife.
+He had never ridden with her, but he had once seen her mounted, and one
+of his expressed wishes had been that he might be able to sit a saddle
+once more and ride by her side.
+
+"Come in and stay to dinner!" he called, hospitably, and Bertha eagerly
+seconded the invitation.
+
+But Alice replied: "I'm pretty tired; I think I'll go home. You can stay
+if you like, Ben."
+
+Ben, smitten with sudden contrition, quickly said: "Oh no; I will go
+with you. I'm afraid you've ridden too far."
+
+She protested against this, for Bertha's relief. "Not at all. It's a
+good tiredness. It's been great fun."
+
+And with promises of another expedition of the same sort they rode away,
+while Bertha and Haney remained at the gate to examine the new horse.
+
+As little Mrs. Haney re-entered the house with her husband the day
+seemed to lose its magical brightness, and to decline to a humdrum,
+shadowless flare. The house became cold and gloomy and the day empty.
+For the first time since its purchase she mentally asked herself: "What
+will I do now?" It was as if some ruling motive had suddenly been
+withdrawn from her life.
+
+This empty, aching spot remained with her all through the day, even when
+she took Haney for his drive down-town, and only disappeared for a few
+moments as they met young Fordyce on the street. It troubled her as she
+returned to the house, and she was glad that Williams came in to take
+supper with them, for his talk of the mine diverted her and deeply
+interested her husband.
+
+Williams eyed his boss critically. "You're gainin', Captain. You'll soon
+be able to make camp again."
+
+"I hope so, but the doctor says my heart's affected and it wouldn't be
+safe for me to go any higher--for a while."
+
+Williams smiled at Bertha. "Better send the missus, then. The men all
+have a great idea of her. They say she's a kind of mascot. McGonnigle
+asks me every time what she thinks of our new shaft. I've a kind of
+reverence for her judgment myself. They say women kind o' feel their way
+to a conclusion. Now, I'd like her to pass judgment on our work in _The
+Diamond Ace_."
+
+"I'd like to go up," said Bertha. But, in truth, she was no longer
+thinking of the mine: she was considering how she might make her table
+look as pretty as Mrs. Congdon's. Her first dissatisfaction with her own
+way of life filled her mind. "I must have some of those candles," she
+said to herself, while the men were still intent upon the mine. Her
+first step towards social conformity was at this moment taken.
+
+She felt herself akin to these people, and this assertion, subconscious
+and unuttered, brought something between Marshall Haney and herself. It
+was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was
+perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the
+Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the
+ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge
+she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day,
+though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, now piteously
+dependent upon her.
+
+He managed his morning paper very well, but when she read aloud to him
+he almost always went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+
+Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
+Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
+waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
+had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
+nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
+weakness of will not native to her.
+
+Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
+with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
+As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
+a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
+her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.
+
+As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
+did ye have a good ride?"
+
+"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.
+
+"Ye did not--Why not?"
+
+"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
+repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."
+
+"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
+mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
+better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
+get ready at your ease."
+
+The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
+afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
+day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
+lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.
+
+"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
+in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
+buy the friends you really care for.
+
+On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
+had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
+explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
+again to-morrow."
+
+This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
+mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
+and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
+call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
+little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
+listened to me gabble," he added.
+
+Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend--a rather handsome
+house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
+blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
+her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
+Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
+Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
+don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
+and then. I'm glad you came."
+
+"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
+delicate face was wrinkled and withered.
+
+Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
+"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork--nothing permanently depresses
+me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"
+
+Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
+of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
+a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."
+
+"Have you, indeed?"
+
+"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
+me out--I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."
+
+"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay _down_ more than three
+days."
+
+Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
+"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
+hand. "How are ye the day?"
+
+"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
+Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
+one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."
+
+Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
+o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."
+
+"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
+had just sighted the camp of the robbers."
+
+Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
+must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
+that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
+in those days."
+
+"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
+and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
+revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
+You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."
+
+Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
+anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
+things she cares to see."
+
+Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
+in your ears?"
+
+"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
+me."
+
+Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."
+
+"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
+protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.
+
+Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
+exquisite profile?" he thought.
+
+The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
+Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
+boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
+of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
+of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
+respect?
+
+Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
+be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
+sighted us?"
+
+"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.
+
+The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
+furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
+discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
+advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
+wife.
+
+"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
+and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals--if she has any."
+
+To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
+"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
+poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
+off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
+that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
+man do it."
+
+The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
+social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
+go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
+up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
+she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
+glowing and her face alight.
+
+"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.
+
+Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
+horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
+boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
+'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
+day."
+
+Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"
+
+"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
+with us to-day."
+
+As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
+their return--patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
+resentful within.
+
+Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear Cańon, but Ben was quick to say:
+"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."
+
+Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
+sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
+and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
+the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
+gone.
+
+An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
+unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
+plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
+racing, no circuits with her--and yet outwardly and in reality she was
+deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.
+
+Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
+luncheon--Bertha was learning to call it that--the outing ended in a
+rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
+showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
+and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.
+
+Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
+single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.
+
+"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
+they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
+"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."
+
+"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
+knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
+awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
+thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
+know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
+to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
+before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
+running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."
+
+"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
+pertinent. What can I help you on?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Alice"--she spoke the word with a little
+hesitation--"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
+that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church--a little--and I'm helping
+up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
+some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
+pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
+down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"
+
+"There are women who do that and nothing else."
+
+"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
+as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
+sitting around."
+
+"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."
+
+"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
+We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
+thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
+they come, but they don't stay--they don't seem comfortable. They are
+all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
+used to. And the people next door here--well, they don't neighbor at
+all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
+church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"
+
+He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
+your wealth is a barrier."
+
+"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
+go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
+this money I might put on airs; but I haven't--I've just married into
+it."
+
+"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly--almost accusingly.
+
+Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
+Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
+discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
+I--And so when the word came that he was hurt--and wanted me--I went."
+Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"
+
+He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
+great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
+fine man in spite of--" He broke off.
+
+She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
+mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
+before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."
+
+He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers--I'm
+a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
+that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
+crime."
+
+"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor--he never let a crooked deal
+pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
+and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
+face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
+Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"
+
+His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
+gambler rather than a miner."
+
+"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
+the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
+in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
+count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."
+
+The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
+confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
+His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
+responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
+pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
+her--the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
+to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
+power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
+their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
+potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
+pupil, before him.
+
+He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
+and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man--he has your legal
+business, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
+she despises us--that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
+ain't legal advice I want--it's something else. I don't know what it is.
+Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
+life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
+take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
+to me?"
+
+He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer--and a very young
+one at that."
+
+"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."
+
+"What am I, then?"
+
+The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
+the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
+scholar."
+
+"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."
+
+She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
+trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
+tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
+but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
+down."
+
+This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
+tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
+shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
+me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"
+
+"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."
+
+Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
+self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now--the quality which
+attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."
+
+The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
+the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
+took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
+settee.
+
+Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
+believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
+care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
+little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
+when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
+misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
+maybe she's right--maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."
+
+To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
+given her a good deal, Captain."
+
+"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
+going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
+and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
+spread out before us--Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
+from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
+comin'. I used to work hard--you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
+used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
+though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
+and twist me two thumbs--and one of them bog-spavined, at that."
+
+To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
+Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!--I
+mean luncheon, ma'am--I'm lately instructed."
+
+They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
+twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."
+
+Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
+eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."
+
+Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
+continued to be very personal--it could not be prevented, for each of
+these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
+feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
+thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
+the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
+self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
+struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
+careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
+first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
+wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.
+
+For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
+reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
+trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
+Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
+spirit of the meal.
+
+At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
+lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
+I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
+you'll be able to do it."
+
+Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
+Crego?"
+
+Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
+to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
+not above nodding when me own wife passes by."
+
+Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
+Crego."
+
+"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
+paid well--as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
+advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."
+
+Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
+would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
+and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."
+
+Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
+loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."
+
+Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."
+
+He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
+quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
+Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
+it profitable to ye."
+
+Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
+anyway--"
+
+"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
+office."
+
+"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
+I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
+besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."
+
+Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
+if you have definitely decided against him--"
+
+"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."
+
+Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
+Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
+good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
+harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."
+
+Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients--at least,
+a _young_ lawyer can't."
+
+Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
+up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
+has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
+high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
+defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
+fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
+luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
+had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
+go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
+I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
+mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
+to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
+me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
+for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
+was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won--I
+almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
+sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
+another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
+gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
+the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
+takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
+an equal chance with me--else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
+rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
+is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
+above--if there is such--is there to see that we all have a show for our
+ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."
+
+Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
+spirit. She was not of his faith--quite the contrary. She was a
+fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
+to understand his point of view.
+
+Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
+game, but to keep them _out_ of the game. I had too much faith in me
+luck to ever weaken."
+
+"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.
+
+"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
+instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
+plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
+put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
+says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
+turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
+knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
+considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
+me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
+but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
+that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces--I don't complain. I
+take me chances. Now"--here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
+lightened--"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"
+
+Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
+me to get busy."
+
+"And ye expect to marry soon?"
+
+This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
+people listening--a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
+perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
+housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
+little stronger."
+
+"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
+"here's _your_ chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
+We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
+by that."
+
+Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
+of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
+your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
+sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
+more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
+liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
+offer--provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
+across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
+she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
+I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."
+
+Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.
+
+They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
+quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
+Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
+business here."
+
+His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
+takes me eye."
+
+Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
+glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
+like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.
+
+The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
+little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
+business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
+we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"
+
+"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
+pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
+first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
+glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
+satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
+her home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+
+This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
+the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
+of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
+could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
+right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
+solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
+going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
+the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
+place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
+immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.
+
+Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
+horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
+to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
+said.
+
+He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
+social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
+inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely--especially
+if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
+responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
+arrangement."
+
+"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
+bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
+with them--or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"
+
+"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"
+
+"If any evil comes of this--and there will be sorrow in it--you'll be
+morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
+who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
+and not be hurt by it."
+
+The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
+has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
+Haney--he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
+be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
+has pleased Haney--"
+
+"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it--I'm
+perfectly sure."
+
+"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
+of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
+took up his paper and walked away from her.
+
+She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
+news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
+either. What do you think, Frank?"
+
+"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
+right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."
+
+"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"
+
+"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
+tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
+Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
+whole thing over."
+
+"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."
+
+"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
+they choose to make, and I mostly think they can--ten generations of
+Quaker ancestry--"
+
+"But the people there don't know their ancestry."
+
+"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."
+
+Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
+is _taken_ with Ben--it's all her plan."
+
+Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
+true as steel."
+
+"I don't care. My prophetic soul--"
+
+Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
+straightforward as a boy of twelve."
+
+"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
+Ben and his singing that night here."
+
+"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
+say such a thing--even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
+believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
+create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
+husband.
+
+He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
+I are friends. I like him immensely--too much to think of running such a
+frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
+peril."
+
+Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
+deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
+warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
+whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
+granted."
+
+So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
+couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
+am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
+first time they called at his office.
+
+Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
+pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
+for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
+entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
+accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
+second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
+practice a long time."
+
+"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
+replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
+Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
+signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."
+
+"Sure it has."
+
+"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."
+
+"They do," Haney agreed.
+
+Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
+This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
+face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
+this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
+in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
+being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
+It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
+they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
+and it's really due to you."
+
+She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
+like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
+looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."
+
+"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
+often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
+full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
+hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
+easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
+me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
+have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
+turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
+own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
+Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
+Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
+in the West."
+
+Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
+Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.
+
+She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
+Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
+doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
+young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
+might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
+of the Captain's wife.
+
+Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
+years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
+possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
+innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
+been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid--which she knew
+and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
+to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
+is flooded with sunshine--a static world in appearance. But how will it
+be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
+sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
+other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
+unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
+spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
+filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
+"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
+stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
+conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
+of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
+ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
+will rise--and then--"
+
+She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
+you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
+me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
+Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
+to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
+wife."
+
+She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
+girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."
+
+"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
+widow?"
+
+She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
+different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
+acceptable to the really best people."
+
+"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
+rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
+would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"
+
+"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."
+
+"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.
+
+"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
+more interesting woman."
+
+"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
+men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
+I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
+friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
+their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
+gambler. Isn't that so, now?"
+
+She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
+talk about it any more--at present." And at this moment there passed
+before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
+mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
+the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
+shadow--disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
+the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
+the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.
+
+This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
+later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
+presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
+the cause of his wounding?
+
+This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
+They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
+rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
+say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
+predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
+comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
+reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
+or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
+comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
+entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
+still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
+are ever in our thoughts in slumber.
+
+For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
+was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
+sake--and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
+are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
+Dutch aunt."
+
+Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
+going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
+they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
+guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
+this retainer from Captain Haney."
+
+He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
+hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
+When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
+possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
+here and pay our way?"
+
+"Oh, Ben!"--there was a wail in her voice--"I don't seem to gain as I
+should! I'm completely tired out to-night."
+
+He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
+exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
+all."
+
+"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
+office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
+I keep a house--your house--in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
+it--not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."
+
+He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
+so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
+time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
+wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
+girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.
+
+"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
+lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
+down into these detestable moods."
+
+Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
+Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
+about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
+a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"
+
+"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
+cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
+been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
+didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"
+
+When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
+her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.
+
+"I always have something on my mind."
+
+"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
+your mind. Do I know what it is?"
+
+"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
+is urging an immediate marriage."
+
+Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
+not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
+here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
+it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
+not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
+is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
+socially with them."
+
+"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
+the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."
+
+"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
+little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
+some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
+to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
+now; your cheeks are blazing."
+
+"With wrath--not health."
+
+"At me?"
+
+"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."
+
+"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
+Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."
+
+Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
+getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
+younger to-night!"
+
+"That's because I'm angry."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
+to-night."
+
+Congdon became solemn--grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
+been making some of your tactful remarks."
+
+"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
+you to do."
+
+He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
+by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."
+
+Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
+candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held--apparently; for Alice
+was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
+and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously--except his
+portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
+not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
+tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
+Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
+but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
+fates--generally the humorous ones--pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
+him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
+long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
+give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
+left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.
+
+In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
+description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
+mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
+me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
+'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
+does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her--put a spell over
+her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
+thing with her--and she was _such_ a good girl. How could you,
+Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
+her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
+have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
+"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
+I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
+over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
+the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
+appearing suddenly at the door ą la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
+of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
+I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
+hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
+me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
+this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
+ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
+crime of this kind unless--'
+
+"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
+then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
+Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
+made Mrs. Henry turn pale.
+
+"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.
+
+"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
+you to the police.'
+
+"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'
+
+"'So it is--with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
+thinks I've hypnotized her?'
+
+"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
+truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
+door--particularly as everything was quiet inside."
+
+His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
+before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
+of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
+all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
+spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"
+
+"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.
+
+His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
+didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
+'phoned the police."
+
+"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.
+
+Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
+so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
+expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
+burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
+he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
+story--he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
+don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
+business?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For good and all?"
+
+"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
+rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."
+
+"I'm sorry," she said, simply.
+
+Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
+his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
+investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
+mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
+Ben's just the boy to do this."
+
+Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
+start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
+called low--"
+
+Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"
+
+"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
+business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
+different with Ben, who is just starting."
+
+Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
+do."
+
+"How bad do you need it?" she asked.
+
+"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
+looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
+the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
+Congdon perceived it.
+
+"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.
+
+"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
+able to buy or rent and keep house--or I didn't till Haney made this
+offer."
+
+"How did he come to make it?"
+
+His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
+himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
+and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
+misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
+come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
+thinks I am at once able and honest."
+
+"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
+said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
+too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."
+
+"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.
+
+She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
+any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
+dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
+"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
+were alone.
+
+"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
+don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
+her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
+A wonder it wasn't with me."
+
+"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."
+
+"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+
+Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort--just what he
+needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to
+his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law
+journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys
+regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal
+for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This
+filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the
+carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the
+afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost
+daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated
+Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was,
+as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing
+the outcome of it all.
+
+"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs.
+Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled
+under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.
+
+Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly
+yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing
+rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but
+her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came
+into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired
+feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases
+which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of
+her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little
+niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.
+
+At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required
+a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding
+(the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume
+the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but
+she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And
+he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the
+first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong
+and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll
+wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."
+
+These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with
+such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like
+some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant
+and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out,
+glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old
+Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did
+not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and
+called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign
+of his growing inertness.
+
+And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice
+suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.
+He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha
+persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and
+if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.
+
+Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego),
+found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to
+be--as they were--innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume
+the rōle of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the
+suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben
+one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."
+
+He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."
+
+"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study--to
+prepare yourself for other clients--when they come."
+
+He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do
+get in an hour or two every day."
+
+"But you ought to study _six_ hours every day. Aren't the traditions of
+Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax,
+and study in the light of pine knots all night?"
+
+He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.
+But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law
+at all."
+
+She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy,
+Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"
+
+"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I
+really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.
+Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they
+are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."
+
+"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.
+
+"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but
+I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've
+always felt that yourself."
+
+"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.
+Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of
+course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would
+be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"
+
+"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you
+know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."
+
+It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual
+way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in
+case he should forget--as he was likely to do--and allude to "Bertha" in
+her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely
+said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her--I mean I'm sorry she
+can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is
+improving very rapidly."
+
+"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through
+the town library--a book every other day, she tells me."
+
+"Novels, I fear."
+
+"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.
+Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised
+her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've
+suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."
+
+He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the
+look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to assume the position of mentor
+as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual
+supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her
+daily life as absolutely as a husband--more absolutely, in fact; for she
+obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these
+facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his
+feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and
+therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal
+anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.
+
+He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her
+upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously
+about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one
+of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening
+to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to
+take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to
+render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite
+differently about that.
+
+"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says,
+she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made
+man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex
+is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my
+father's ability?"
+
+"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to
+draw from."
+
+"No; but her father was an educated man--a civil engineer, she tells me,
+who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an
+inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor--they nearly all do."
+
+"But the mother?"
+
+"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's
+broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so
+bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I
+think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she
+did--barbers and railway hands, and all that--and be what she is to-day.
+If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have
+gone far."
+
+"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.
+Congdon.
+
+"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"
+
+"And his legatee!"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."
+
+They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying
+something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why
+she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over
+Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."
+She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going
+to make it as pretty as I can."
+
+"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"
+
+"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben
+wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like
+the girl."
+
+Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course
+I'll come. Who else will?"
+
+"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos--"
+
+"Not the missus?"
+
+"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really
+promises to be smart!"
+
+Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be
+smart--Mrs. Haney?"
+
+The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.
+Haney."
+
+"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and
+she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this
+town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's
+doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your
+life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't
+think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is
+putting her on?"
+
+"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"
+
+"Well, it was."
+
+"The Captain was in it?"
+
+"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the
+fire."
+
+The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the
+end. Poor old Captain."
+
+Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she
+pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old
+way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.
+He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these
+things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special
+license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then
+she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it.
+I'm not going to keep it,' she said."
+
+"That was for effect," remarked Lee.
+
+"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes
+and say such things."
+
+Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,'
+then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is
+nothing, intellect is nothing--it's all a question of whether we're
+good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so
+hard to please."
+
+"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.
+
+"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I
+accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and
+commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the
+hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was
+she dressed?"
+
+"In perfect good taste--almost too good. She looked like one of Joe
+Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries
+that sort of thing well--she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could
+have a year in Paris--wow!--well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"
+
+"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted
+Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination.
+I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus
+far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public.
+But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting
+power."
+
+Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the
+reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you
+look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."
+
+Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"
+
+"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney,
+we better put on our swellest ginghams."
+
+Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she
+was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her
+for a long time--since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed
+since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it
+was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a
+vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to
+their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me
+only failing health, and dares not speak."
+
+She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too
+long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she
+despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And
+she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face,
+and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a
+smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant
+as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+
+The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in
+outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young
+wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner.
+She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a
+high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her
+critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university
+who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette
+up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns.
+Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which
+revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed the
+growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and
+turquoise--not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of
+all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as
+she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr
+to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually
+uncertain of step.
+
+Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he
+greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of
+his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with
+a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called
+beautiful--and by him--had been outside the circle of her most daring
+hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of
+musical bells--entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his
+right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry
+clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one
+said--except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain
+down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with
+his napkin and his fork.
+
+The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on
+her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice--half-laughing, but tender
+also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning
+my salary while you're gone."
+
+"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times,
+but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you--and
+Alice--come with us?"
+
+"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out
+of the question."
+
+"He'll pay you wages just the same."
+
+"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and
+I can't think of going without her."
+
+This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her
+face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table
+was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the
+great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a
+graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She
+vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of
+the best the world over--that it was of a part and interfused with the
+dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be _au fait_,"
+Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath _knows_."
+
+Mrs. Crego, who sat nearly opposite, stared at the girl in stupefaction.
+"She makes me feel dowdy," she had confessed to Lee in the
+dressing-room. "Why didn't you warn me to come in my best? Who has been
+coaching her? Alice Heath, I suppose." She now wondered as sharply over
+the girl's manner; for Bertha, carried out of herself by Ben's word of
+praise, felt no desire to drink or to eat, and her reticence and the
+delicacy of her appetite conferred a distinction which concealed her
+lack of small talk, and protected her from the criticism to which
+exuberance of manner ordinarily exposed her.
+
+She was deeply impressed, too, with Ben's management of the waiters, and
+with the ease and skill with which he supported Alice in carrying
+forward the courses. It was a revelation of training which instructed
+her absurdly, for her mind was quick to link and compare. It leaped so
+swiftly and so subtilely along connecting lines of thought that a hint
+alone sufficed to set in motion a hundred latent memories and inherited
+aptitudes. Her father had been a man of native refinement, and she
+possessed unstirred deeps of character, as Alice now well understood.
+And from her end of the table she glanced often at the sweetly smiling
+girl-wife whose beauty abashed Haney. At last she said to him: "Your
+wife is very lovely to-night, Captain."
+
+He hesitated a moment; then replied, slowly: "She is. She's as fine as
+anny queen!" Then after another pause, added: "And the more shame to me,
+being what I am! She's a good girl, miss, true as steel. Never a word of
+complaint or a frown. She bears with me like an angel."
+
+"You're doing a great deal for her."
+
+His face lightened. "So she says. I mean to do more. I mean to show her
+the world. That's the only comfort I have; my money is giving her nice
+clothes and a home as good as anny, and to-night I feel 'tis giving her
+friends."
+
+"But she is worth while, even without the money."
+
+"True," he quickly said. "But I take comfort in the consideration that
+had I not carried her away she'd be in Sibley Junction this night."
+
+"Sibley Junction! Can this radiant young creature sitting there at the
+head of my table be the clerk of the Golden Eagle Hotel?" thought Alice.
+"Money is magical! No wonder we all work for it--and worship it!"
+
+The dinner was both early and short, in order that Bertha and the
+Captain might take the train at ten o'clock. And as they were to have
+the drawing-room in the sleeping-car (Ben's suggestion), they went
+directly to the coach in their party clothes. And so it happened that
+this little woman, who had never occupied a berth in a Pullman, entered
+her compartment in the robes of a princess.
+
+Alice had suggested a maid, but Bertha would not hear to that; but she
+was willing that their coachman should go along to help the Captain. Ben
+had interposed here, and said: "You need some one used to travelling. I
+know a colored fellow who is out of service just now, and would like to
+come to you. He's a good, reliable man, and a fine nurse." So she had
+engaged him. He was on the platform as they drove up--a slight, quiet
+man, of gentle speech and indeterminable age, who took charge of the
+Captain at once, as if he had been his servant for years.
+
+Alice said good-bye at the carriage door, but Ben went with them into
+the coach. And in the excitement of getting to the train and into the
+car Bertha had been able to forget the sick feeling about her heart. But
+now, as he turned and said, "It's nearly time to start," and held out
+his hand in parting, a desolation, a loneliness, a helpless hunger swept
+over her, the like of which had never anguished her before.
+
+"I wish you were going too!" she faltered, her speech broken and full of
+sad cadences.
+
+He, too, was tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I
+can't--I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and
+kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and,
+so stumbling and shaken, vanished from her sight.
+
+For a moment she remained standing in the aisle, the touch of his lips
+still clinging to her cheek, surprised, full of bewildered defence;
+then, as reckless of on-lookers as he had been, she rushed to the window
+in swift attempt to catch a final glimpse of him. But in vain; he had
+hurried away without looking back, her look of wonder and surprise still
+dazzling him with its significance. A kiss with him, as with her, had
+never been a thing lightly given or received, and this caress, so simple
+to others, sprang from an impulse that was elemental. That he had both
+shocked and angered her he fully believed; but the arch of her brows,
+the wistful curve of her lips, and the pretty, almost childish, push of
+her hands against his breast were still so appealingly vivid that he
+entered the carriage and took his seat beside Alice with a kind of
+rebellious joy hot in his blood.
+
+However, as his passion ebbed his uneasiness deepened, and he went to
+his room that night with a feeling that his connection with the Haneys,
+so profitable and so pleasant, was in danger of being irremediably
+broken off. "She will be justified in refusing ever to see me again," he
+groaned. And in this spirit of self-condemnation and loneliness he took
+up his work next day.
+
+Bertha's self-revelation was slower. She was so young and so innately
+honest and good that no sense of guilt attached to the pleasure she felt
+in the sudden revelation that this splendid young man loved her--a
+pleasure which grew as the first shock of the parting, the pain, and the
+surprise wore away. "He likes me! He said I was beautiful! He kissed
+me!" These were the rounds in the ladder of her ascent, and she was
+carried high, only to fall into despair. For was she not leaving him and
+all the pleasant people she had come so recently to know--hurrying away
+into darkness with a crippled man, old before his time, out into a world
+of which she knew little--for which, at this moment, she cared nothing?
+
+She went back, a few moments later, with this sorrow written on her
+face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for
+bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness
+mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this--me, that could
+once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so it is."
+
+"I'll take care of you!" she cried, in swift contrition. Turning almost
+fiercely to the valet, she said: "You can go, I'll 'tend to him!"
+
+The Captain stopped her gently. "No, darlin', Ben's right; I'm too
+clumsy and heavy for you. I need just such a handy man. Now, now! Let
+be!... Go ahead, Lucius, strip off these monkey-fixens, and dom the man
+that gets me into them again."
+
+Efficient as she was, the girl could not but admit that Lucius was
+better able to serve her husband than herself. He was both deft and
+strong; and though the swaying of the car troubled his master, he
+steadied him and guided him and stowed him away as featly as if it were
+the fiftieth instead of the first time; then, with a few words of
+explanation to the wife, he quietly withdrew, and shut the door with a
+final touch of considerate care which was new to her.
+
+She would have been less troubled by him had he been a black man, but he
+was not. He seemed more like a Spaniard, and his grizzled mustache,
+yellowish skin, and big dreamy black eyes lent him a curious
+distinction, and the thought that he was to take her place as crutch and
+cane to the Captain gave her a sense of uselessness which she had not,
+up to this moment, confessed.
+
+His suggestions, combined to the minute instructions of Miss Franklin,
+enabled her to get to her bunk in fair order, but no sleep came to her
+for hours. She longed for her mother more childishly than at any time
+since her marriage. She reproached herself for not bringing Miss
+Franklin. "Why did I come at all?" she wailed, in final accusation.
+
+There had been a time when the thought of this trip--of Chicago, New
+York, and Washington--was big in her mind, but it was so no longer.
+These great cities were but names--empty sounds compared to the
+realities she was leaving: her splendid house, her horses and dogs--and
+her daily joy in Ben Fordyce. She did not put these visits in their
+highest place, not even when remembering his parting kiss, but she dwelt
+upon the inspiriting morning drives, the talks in the mellow-tinted,
+sunshine-lighted office. She recalled the lunches they took together and
+the occasional wild gallops up the cańon--these she treasured as the
+golden realities, for the loss of which she was even now heart-sick.
+
+One thought alone steadied her--gave her a kind of resignation: the
+Captain wanted to find his sisters, to revisit the scenes of his youth,
+and it was her duty to go with him. And in this somewhat dreary comfort
+she fell asleep at last.
+
+She was awakened next morning by a pleasant voice saying: "The first
+call for breakfast has been made, Mrs. Haney." And she looked up to find
+Lucius peering in at the door with serious, kindly eyes. He added,
+formally: "If I can assist you in any way call me, and please let me
+know when you are ready to have me come in."
+
+His speech was so precise and his manner so perfect that Bertha was
+puzzled and a little embarrassed by them. It seemed abnormal to have a
+hired servant so polished, so thoughtful. She dressed hurriedly, while
+the Captain yawned and talked between his yawning. "That yellow chap is
+sure handy. I wish I'd had him before; 'twould have saved you a power o'
+work and worry. Did ye sleep last night?"
+
+"Not very well. I hope you did. You can't complain of the bunk."
+
+"'Tis luxurious--'tis so! But there's nothing like the west side of
+Colorado Avenue, after all, or a bed of pine boughs beside a roaring
+mountain stream. 'Twas a fine little supper Ben gave us last night."
+
+The level lands awed and depressed the mountain girl. They seemed to
+type the flat and desolate spiritual world into which she was entering,
+and the ride seemed interminable, carrying her every hour farther from
+the scenes and sounds to which her love clung. She was bitterly
+homesick, and nothing seemed to promise comfort. She gazed with
+lack-lustre eyes on the towns and rivers along the way, and she entered
+the great inland metropolis by the lake with dread and a deepening sense
+of her inexperience and youth.
+
+On the neighboring track stood the return sleepers headed for the hills,
+and she acknowledged a wild desire to take her place among the jocund
+folk who stood on the observation-platform exchanging good-byes with
+friends. Thunderous, smothering, and vast the city seemed as they drove
+through it on their way to the hotel, and upon reaching her room she
+flung herself down on her bed and sobbed in a frenzy of homesickness.
+
+Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled,
+and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius
+went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would
+soon be over.
+
+"What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye
+sick?"
+
+She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child,
+and made no further answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+
+Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still
+at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an
+hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet
+insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at
+a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten
+as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse.
+
+Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart,
+and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it
+was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the
+Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were
+tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!"
+
+Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood,
+not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll
+take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive
+and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the
+World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is,
+bedad."
+
+Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the
+moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney."
+
+"A lady! Who?"
+
+"A certain Mrs. Brent--a friend of Miss Franklin's."
+
+Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave
+me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out.
+
+She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion
+to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the
+cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing
+it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock.
+
+Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor--I
+mean Miss Franklin--has been writing to me about you. You're just in
+time to come to a little dinner of mine--don't make any engagement for
+to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately."
+
+Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up
+the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that
+the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears.
+
+"Who was it?" asked the Captain.
+
+"A friend of Miss Franklin's--sounds just like her voice, but I think
+she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here
+at eleven."
+
+The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up
+the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off."
+
+"There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."
+
+The gambler looked at him humorously. "Ye must be a mind-reader."
+
+A tap on the door called the man out, and when he returned he bore a
+telegram. "For you, Captain," he said, presenting it on the salver.
+
+The gambler took it with sudden apprehension in his face. "I hope
+there's no trouble at the mine," he muttered.
+
+Bertha, leaning over his shoulder, read it first. "It's from Ben!" she
+called, joyously. "Ain't it just like him?"
+
+This message seemed a little bit foolish to Haney.
+
+     "Just to say hello! All well here. Have a good time.
+     "FORDYCE."
+
+To Bertha it made all the difference between sunshine and shadow. She
+thrilled to it as if it had been a voice. "He knew I'd be homesick, and
+so he sent this to cheer me up," she said. And in this she was right.
+Her shoulders lifted and her face cleared. "Come on, Captain, if we're
+going."
+
+As they came down the elevator, men in buttons met them, and attended
+them to the door, and turned them over to still other uniformed
+attendants, who were fain to help them into the auto-car; for Lucius had
+managed to convey to the hotel a proper sense of his employer's money
+value. He himself was always close to his master's side, for lately
+Haney had taken to stumbling at unexpected moments, and his increasing
+bulk made a fall a real danger.
+
+A thrill of delight, of elation, ran through the young wife as she
+glanced up and down Chicago's proudest avenue. It conformed to her
+notion of a city. The level park, flooded with spring sunshine, was
+walled on the west by massive buildings, while to the east stretched the
+shining lake. From here the city seemed truly cosmopolitan. It had
+dignity and wealth of color, and to the girl from Sibley Junction was
+completely satisfying--almost inspiring.
+
+It was uplifting also to be attended to a splendid auto-car by willing,
+alert servants, and to feel that the passers-by were all envious of her
+careless ease. Bertha forgot her homesickness, and took her seat in the
+spirit of one who is determined to have the worth of her money (for once
+anyhow), and the pedestrians, if they had any definite notion of her at
+all, probably said: "There goes a rich old cattle king and his pretty
+daughter. It's money that makes the 'mobile go."
+
+She held to this pose for half an hour, while they threaded the tumult
+of Wabash Avenue, and, crossing the river, swept up the Lake Shore
+Drive. But the lake filled her with other thoughts. "I wish we had this
+at the Springs," she said. "This is fine!"
+
+"We have our share," answered he. "If we had this at our door, there
+wouldn't be anything left to go to."
+
+They whizzed through the park, and down another avenue into the thick
+tangle of traffic, which scared them both, and so back to the hotel, the
+Captain saying: "My! my! but she has grown. 'Tis twenty years since I
+took this turn."
+
+In some strange way Bertha had drawn courage, resolution, pride, and
+ambition from what she saw on this short ride. That she was in a car and
+mistress of it was in itself a marvellous distinction, and the thought
+of what she would have been--as a "round-tripper" from Sibley
+Junction--added to her pleasure and pride. She was always doing sums in
+her head now. Thus: "Suppose our excursion does cost twenty dollars per
+day; that's only one hundred and fifty per week, six hundred per month,
+and our income is ten times that, and more." She had not risen above the
+habit of calculation, but she was fast rising to higher levels of
+expenditure.
+
+She met Mrs. Brent with something of this mood in her manner, but was
+instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least
+resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully
+the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, and her lips smiling.
+
+"Why, you're a child," she said--"a mere babe! Dorothy didn't tell me
+that."
+
+Bertha stiffened a little, and Mrs. Brent laughingly added: "Please
+don't be offended--I am really surprised." And then her manner became so
+winning that before the Western girl realized it she had given her
+consent to join a dinner-party the following night. "Come early, for we
+are to go to the theatre afterwards. I'll have some of the university
+people in to see you. Miss Franklin has made us all eager to meet you."
+
+Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was
+curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor
+kept her from openly rebelling.
+
+The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he
+said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf--when the time served;
+but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to
+keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."
+
+Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they
+parted very good friends.
+
+As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and,
+going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's
+big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"
+
+Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's
+well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman,
+and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
+gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
+life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
+I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
+They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 P.M." And she went out,
+leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.
+
+Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
+brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
+said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
+sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
+he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
+would it do to slide over and see?"
+
+"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
+and the dinner.
+
+Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
+can hardly get to it with a machine."
+
+"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
+anyhow."
+
+Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
+the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
+jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
+two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
+fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
+it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
+which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
+older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
+patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
+all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."
+
+The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
+lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
+homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
+away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."
+
+"Miss Franklin will see after it."
+
+"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
+to housekeeping--it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
+minute!"
+
+This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
+Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
+the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
+each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the
+driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned
+abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting
+block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house--a relic
+of the old-time city.
+
+The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at
+this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the
+seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At
+the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or
+two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."
+
+"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the
+specification," he answered.
+
+By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door,
+and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"
+
+"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.
+
+"That's me," the woman retorted.
+
+"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this
+minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.
+
+The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so
+like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.
+
+As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old
+sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me
+mouth."
+
+"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in
+anticipation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"
+
+He shook her hand--the kiss was out of his inclination--and responded in
+the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke
+out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."
+
+"Who's with you in the carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Haney, bedad."
+
+"Naw, it is not!"
+
+"Sure thing!"
+
+"She's too young and pretty--and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints,
+man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the
+eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."
+
+"The same to you."
+
+"I get little chance to practise it these days."
+
+"'Tis the same here."
+
+"But how came ye hurt?"
+
+"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and
+one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."
+
+She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and
+sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in--I'm not perticular."
+
+"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into
+something like sweetness and dignity.
+
+"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."
+
+As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home
+and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on
+a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this
+association. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a
+fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was
+disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said
+bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out
+and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."
+
+Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no
+way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of
+her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same
+squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.
+
+"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me
+brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"
+
+The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck
+in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of
+luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.
+The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with
+children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the
+air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the
+ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other
+the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all
+its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly
+moved Haney.
+
+"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs
+are her's."
+
+"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put
+in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."
+
+"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now--sure it's the very one we used to
+fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."
+
+"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied--tears of
+pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye--it's to
+see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us,
+Mart."
+
+"She was!" he answered.
+
+"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand
+in better light to-day I'm thinkin'--though the father did the best he
+knew."
+
+"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders
+now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."
+
+Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine
+lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust
+of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good
+humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was
+charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she
+could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was
+like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less
+of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The
+deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this
+woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest,
+leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into
+the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.
+
+McArdle was a small bent man, with a black beard, a pale serious face
+and speculative eyes. He looked like a wondering, rather cautious animal
+as he came in. He wore a cheap gray suit and a celluloid collar, and was
+as careless in his way as his wife. It was plain that he was gentle,
+absent-minded, and industrious.
+
+He listened to his wife's voluble explanations in silence, inwardly
+digesting all that was said, then shook hands--still without a word. And
+when all these preliminaries were over he laid his hat aside and ran his
+fingers through his thin hair with a perplexed and troubled gesture,
+asking, irrelevantly: "How's the weather out there?"
+
+Nobody saw the humor of this but his wife, who explained: "Pat is a
+fiend on the weather. He was raised on a farm, ye see, and he can't get
+over it. I say to him: 'What difference does the state o' the weather
+make to you, that's under a roof all day?' But divil a change does it
+make in him. The first thing in the morning he turns to the weather
+report."
+
+McArdle's eyes showed traces of a smile. "If it weren't for the papers
+and the weather reports, me days would be alike. But sit by," he added,
+hospitably, waving his hand towards the table, on which the dinner was
+steaming.
+
+They were drawing up to the board when a puffing and blowing, and the
+furious clatter of feet announced the inrushing of the children.
+
+Not the mother's shrill whooping, but the sight of the strange guests,
+transformed them into mutes. The carriage outside had filled them with
+wild alarms, but the sight of their parents alive, and entertaining
+guests of shining quality, was almost as satisfyingly unusual as death
+and a funeral.
+
+They were a noisy, hearty throng, and Bertha's heart went out to poor
+Patrick McArdle, who sat amid the uproar, silent, patient, the heroic
+breadwinner for them all. No wonder he was old before his time. Slowly
+her antipathy died out. She began to find excuses even for the mother.
+To feed such a herd of little pigs and calves, even out of wooden
+troughs, would require much labor; to keep them buttoned, combed, and
+fit for school was an appalling task. "Mart must help these folks," she
+said to herself.
+
+McArdle had nothing to say during the meal, and Bertha could see that
+his family did not expect him to do more than answer a plain question.
+Indeed, the children created a hubbub that quite cut off any connected
+intercourse, and Fan, with a grin of despair, at last said: "They'll be
+gorged in a few minutes, and then we'll have peace."
+
+"This is what lack of money means," Bertha was thinking. And her house,
+her automobile, her horses, became at the moment as priceless, as
+remote, as crown jewels and papal palaces. Then, conversely, she grew to
+a larger conception of the possibilities which lay in sixty thousand
+dollars a year. Not only did it lift her and all hers above the heat and
+mire and distress of the world of toil, it enabled them to help others.
+
+Swiftly the children filled their stomachs, and, seizing each a piece of
+cake or pie, withdrew, leaving the old folks and their guests in peace.
+
+Thereupon, McArdle, taking a pipe from his pocket and knocking it
+absent-mindedly on the seat of the chair, dryly remarked: "Now that we
+can hear ourselves think, let's have it all over again. Who air ye, and
+why air ye here?"
+
+Being told a second time that this was his brother-in-law, a miner from
+Colorado, he shook hands all over again, and accepted Mart's cigar with
+careful fingers, as if fearing to drop and break the precious thing.
+
+Bertha said: "I think we'd better be going, Captain. Our carriage is
+outside."
+
+"Gracious Peter," cried Mrs. McArdle, "I forgot all about it! Is he by
+the day or by the hour?"
+
+Mart answered, with an amused smile. "Well, now, I don't know. I think
+by the hour."
+
+"Ye're makin' a big bluff, Mart. We're properly impressed," said his
+sister. "Go pay him off, and save the money."
+
+McArdle put in a query. "You must have a good thing out there?"
+
+"'Tis enough to pay me carriage hire," answered Mart. And his tone
+satisfied McArdle, who, with reflective eye on Bertha, puffed away at
+his cigar, while Mart gave his promise to call again. "I'll come over
+and get you all, and take you to the theatre in me auto-car," he said,
+as he rose. "But we must be going now."
+
+Fan was beginning to perceive in him more and more of the man of power
+and substance, and her manner changed. "Ye were always the smartest of
+the lot of us, Mart."
+
+"No, I was not. Charles was the bright boy."
+
+"So he was, but he was lazy. That was why he took up with
+play-acting--'tis an easy job."
+
+"Even that is too much work for him," remarked McArdle.
+
+"I reckon that's right," laughed Mart, as he turned towards the door.
+
+"Come again, if ye find time," called Fan, as they went down the steps.
+
+McArdle, with his cigar in his hand, waved it in a sign of parting. And
+so their visit to the McArdles closed.
+
+Mart turned to his silent and thoughtful wife, and said, with a great
+deal of meaning in his voice: "Well, now, what do you think of that for
+a fine litter of pups?"
+
+"They seem hearty."
+
+"They do. 'Tis on such that the future of the ray-public rests." And
+then he added: "Sure, Bertie, it gripped me heart to see the mother's
+old chair!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+
+Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
+principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
+the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
+about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
+and explained that they were going out there to dinner.
+
+"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
+house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
+gown."
+
+"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
+like that."
+
+Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
+But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
+saleslady to fit you out."
+
+"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
+of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
+you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
+another."
+
+Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
+you don't use it to buy things?"
+
+Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
+several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
+Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
+his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
+quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
+helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
+gesture decided momentous questions.
+
+The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
+had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
+buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
+that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
+round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
+there, she glowed with pride.
+
+"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
+sincerity. "This is our smartest model--perfectly exclusive and new.
+Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."
+
+While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
+Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
+took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."
+
+Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."
+
+"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."
+
+"So do. Anything goes--for her, Lucius."
+
+Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
+a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
+attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
+room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
+little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
+having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
+Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
+she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
+earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
+a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
+therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
+wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.
+
+Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
+sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'--he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
+daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
+But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
+was in the days before his accident I don't know--they say he was a
+terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now--a pathetic
+figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
+very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
+and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
+maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
+been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
+in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
+Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
+and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
+want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
+saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
+as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
+to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
+steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."
+
+Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
+had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
+scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
+Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
+centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
+institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
+interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
+in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
+the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
+demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
+of movement--not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
+Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
+Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
+estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
+assemble round his hearthstone--an actual stone, by the way--the people
+he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.
+
+Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
+afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
+in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
+call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
+West Side--one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
+"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
+floor which their friends called Congress Hall.
+
+Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
+he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
+girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
+Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
+She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
+her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
+companion, and that I'm not ready to do--at present."
+
+After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
+friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
+"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
+few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.
+
+"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.
+
+Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
+Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
+Honey Gulch."
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"Hope to die!"
+
+"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
+after dinner?"
+
+"Ah, no, that would be too cruel--to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
+theatre. So be on hand at 7 P.M., sharp."
+
+In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
+good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
+soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
+auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
+colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
+for them (it was Lucius in his new suit--he was playing all the parts).
+Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
+lieu of broncos?"
+
+"They _are_ branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"
+
+She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
+and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
+Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
+sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
+second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
+so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
+came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
+one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.
+
+The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
+Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
+helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
+way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
+delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
+for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
+accustomed to big things--it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
+moved her.
+
+In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
+crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
+Bertha was glad to find them alone--she had expected to face a room full
+of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
+coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
+Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
+now--I don't know why I should."
+
+This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.
+
+Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
+and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her--that is to say, the
+ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
+the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
+Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
+started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
+their hostess's description.
+
+As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
+talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
+had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
+listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
+making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
+round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
+circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
+her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
+dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
+regard. She did not entirely trust any of them--not even her host.
+Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
+hotel.
+
+The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
+been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
+the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
+at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
+thought we might need him."
+
+Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
+conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
+improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
+tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
+How long is it since he was hurt?"
+
+"About eight months."
+
+"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
+frame."
+
+"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."
+
+"Who put him together--Steele, of Denver?"
+
+"No, a man in Cripple."
+
+"Sure he was the right man?"
+
+"He was the best I could get."
+
+"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
+you don't object--not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
+build and years--he tells me he's only forty-five--"
+
+"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
+people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
+afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
+of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
+Haney first came to Sibley--so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
+He, too, seemed young then; now he was old--old and feeble--a man to be
+advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
+corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
+girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
+love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons--and yet she
+was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
+conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
+she said little to express it.
+
+The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
+woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
+most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
+wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
+his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
+breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
+awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
+into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
+in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
+suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
+as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
+no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
+loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"
+
+The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband--old, coarse,
+brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
+tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover--virile, handsome and
+unscrupulous--wins the tortured woman's soul--and they flee, leaving the
+usual note behind.
+
+"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
+husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
+warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
+D." And so the curtain fell.
+
+Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
+began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
+miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
+And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
+starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
+of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
+or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
+ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
+author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
+"Isn't that comical!"
+
+The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
+he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
+the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'?"
+
+Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
+have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
+still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
+not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
+now."
+
+Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
+taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
+a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
+Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
+affair."
+
+"But how did she know?"
+
+"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
+replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."
+
+Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
+her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
+turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
+had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
+He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
+needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
+forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
+singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
+problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
+temptations--she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
+nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
+of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
+encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
+camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
+the artists--all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
+girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
+evil history.
+
+"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
+and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
+house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
+been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
+repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
+become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
+I cannot love him as a wife should."
+
+Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
+perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
+repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
+older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
+lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
+emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
+waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
+said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
+Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."
+
+"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
+better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
+was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
+peaks.
+
+"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
+doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
+him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."
+
+"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
+sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
+long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
+night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
+age and helplessness.
+
+"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
+don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
+condition."
+
+He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
+old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
+time."
+
+"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
+loose I'll let you know."
+
+"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+
+Bertha, deeply engrossed in the conceptions called up by this visit, did
+not feel like calling upon the Mosses, even though they were almost next
+door. She was troubled, too, with a feeling of helplessness in the use
+of a pen. She wanted to write to Fordyce, but was afraid to do so,
+knowing that a letter would disclose her ignorance of polite forms; but
+this, instead of discouraging her, roused her to a determination to
+learn. This was the saving clause in her character. She acknowledged
+shortcomings, but not defeats. Here again she was of the spirit that
+lifts the self-made man.
+
+The Congdons had been most generous of letters of introduction, and in
+addition to those to Mrs. Brent and the Mosses, Bertha was in possession
+of two or three envelopes addressed to people in New York City,
+presumably artists also, as they bore the names of certain studios. The
+note to Moss was unaffected and simple in itself, quite innocent of any
+qualification, but the letter which had privately preceded it was in the
+true Congdon vein, and Moss, like Mrs. Brent, did not delay his call.
+His card was in the Haney box when they returned. "Sorry to miss you.
+Come into my studio at five if you can," he had pencilled on the back.
+
+"Your artistic bunch," Congdon had written, "won't mind meeting one of
+the most successful and picturesque of our gamblers, Marshall Haney,
+especially as the walls of his big house are bare and his wife is
+pretty. They are ripping types, old man; not in the 'best society,' you
+understand, but I know you'll like 'em. Be as good to 'em as you can
+without involving anybody. Little Mrs. Haney is a corker. Good start on
+a self-made career. They're both unsophisticated in a way, and a little
+real sympathy will drag their secret history to the light. Do a sketch
+of her for me. She's likely to be famous. Haney is rolling in dough
+these days--(miner)--and she's bound for some whooping big thing, I
+don't know what, but she's like a country boy with a stirring ambition.
+It wouldn't surprise me to see her on Fifth Avenue one of these days.
+With these few burning words I commend them into your plastic hands.
+Don't let Sammy paint her, for God's sake. Oh yes, I worked 'em for a
+couple of canvases. What do you think. In this buoyant climate we all
+move. Yours in the velvet."
+
+With such a letter before him Joe Moss awaited his amazing guests with
+impatience, cautioning the few who were in the secret not to dodge when
+the Captain reached for his pocket-handkerchief. "And, above all, you
+are to praise Colorado and condemn the East as a place of residence."
+Joe prided himself on his _savoir faire_ and on his apparel, which had
+nothing about it to distinguish the sculptor. "In fact," he often said,
+"there _are_ people who say I'm not a sculptor. Be that as it may, I
+manage by daily care to look like a clerk in a hardware store."
+
+And he did. He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and
+trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand
+tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red
+tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we
+melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be
+distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always included Julia, his
+wife, in this way (although she never "modelled a lick"), for she wrote
+all his letters, made out all his checks, and took charge of him
+generally. Some said his success was due to her management. She was a
+dark-eyed, smiling little woman, exquisite in her dress and brisk in her
+manner.
+
+Their studio occupied the whole north side of the attic of a big office
+building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst
+of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his
+choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture.
+I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my
+way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to
+make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business
+men, not to avoid them. I like the roar of trade."
+
+The Haneys, therefore, led by the sagacious Lucius, soon found
+themselves in the Wisconsin Block, and shooting aloft in a bronze
+elevator that seemed fired from a cannon ("express to the 10th floor"),
+with nothing to suggest art in the men or in the signs about them. On
+the thirteenth story they alighted, and, walking up one flight of
+stairs, found themselves at the end of a bright hall, before a door
+which bore, in simple gold letters, "Jos. Moss, Sculptor." Bertha heard
+laughter within, and her heart misgave her. It was not easy for her to
+meet these artist folk. Of business men, miners, railway managers she
+was unafraid, but these people who joke and bully-rag each other and
+talk high philosophy one minute and gossip the next, like the Congdons,
+were "pretty swift" for her. After a moment's pause she said to the
+Captain, "They can't kill us; here goes!" and knocked gently.
+
+Moss himself opened the door, and his cordial, "How de do, Mrs. Haney,"
+established him in her mind at once as a good fellow. He was quite as
+direct as Congdon. "I'm glad to see you," he said to the Captain. "Come
+in." He looked keenly at Lucius, who composedly explained himself. "The
+Captain is a little lame, and I just came along to see that he got here
+all right. I'll be back at 5.30."
+
+The door opened into a big room, which was darkened at the windows and
+lighted by shaded electric globes. It was cool and bare in effect.
+Around a small table in a far corner a half-dozen people were sitting.
+Mrs. Moss, who was pouring tea, rose in her place at the tea-urn as her
+husband approached, and cordially shook hands with her guests. "I'm very
+glad you came. Please tell me how you'll have your tea," she said.
+
+Bertha was accustomed to take her tea "any old way," and said so, being
+influenced by Mrs. Moss' candid eyes and merry smile. Haney, with a
+queer feeling of being on the stage as a character in a play, sank
+heavily into the chair at his hostess' right hand and said: "I never
+took tea in my life, but I'm not dodgin' anything you mix."
+
+Joe earnestly protested. "Don't do it, Captain, there's some Scotch down
+cellar."
+
+Mrs. Moss indicated one or two other dimly seen faces about her and
+introduced their owners in a most casual manner while she compounded a
+hot drink for her Western guest.
+
+"How long have you been in our horrible town, Mr. Haney?" she asked,
+heedful of Joe's warning.
+
+"One day, ma'am."
+
+"You're just 'passing through,' I presume--that's the way all Colorado
+people do."
+
+Haney smiled. He was getting the drift of her remarks. "'Tis natural,
+ma'am; for, you see, 'tis a long run and a heavy grade, and hard to
+side-track on the way."
+
+Bertha, to whom Moss addressed himself, was candidly looking about
+her--profoundly interested in what she saw. Dim forms in bronze and
+plaster stood on shelves, brackets, and pedestals, and at the end of the
+long room a big group of figures writhed as if in mortal combat. It was
+a work-shop--that was evident even to her--with one small nook devoted
+to tea and talk.
+
+"Would you like to poke about?" he asked, anticipating her request.
+
+"Yes, I would," she bluntly replied.
+
+"There isn't much to see," he said. "I'm the kind of sculptor who works
+on order. I believe in the 'art for service' idea, and when I get an
+order I fill it as well as I can, make it as beautiful as I can, and
+send it out on its mission. I'd like to model mantel-pieces and
+andirons, because they are seen and actually influence people's lives.
+What I started to say was this: my stuff all goes out--my real stuff; my
+fool failures stay by me--this thing, for instance." He indicated the
+big clump of nude forms. "I had an 'idea' when I started, but it was too
+ambitious and too literary. Moreover, it isn't democratic. It don't gibe
+with the present. I'd be a wild-animal sculptor if I knew enough about
+them."
+
+It was a profoundly moving experience for this raw mountain-bred girl to
+stand there beside that colossal group while the man who had modelled it
+took her into his confidence. There was no affectation in Moss's candor.
+He had come to a swift conclusion that Congdon had attempted to let him
+into a trap, for Bertha's reticence and dignity quite reassured him. If
+she had uttered a single one of the banal compliments with which
+visitors "kill" artists he would have stopped short; but she didn't, she
+only looked, and something in her face profoundly interested him.
+Suddenly she turned and said:
+
+"Tell me what it means."
+
+"It don't mean anything--now. Originally I intended it to mean 'The
+Conquest of Art by the Spirit of Business,' or something like that. I
+started it when I was fresh from Paris, and wore a red tie and a pointed
+beard. I keep it as a record of the folly into which exotic instruction
+will lead a man. If I were to go at it now I'd turn the whole thing
+around--I'd make it 'Art Inspiring Business.'"
+
+Bertha did not follow his thought entirely, but she felt herself in the
+presence of a serious problem and listening to something deep down in
+the heart of a strong man. Here was another world--not an altogether
+strange world, for Congdon had also talked to her of his work--but a
+world so far removed from her own life that it seemed some other planet.
+"How well he talks," she thought. "Like a book."
+
+"How charming she is," he was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of
+her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he had picked
+up.
+
+They wandered up and down the long room while he showed her tiles for
+mantel decoration, bronze cats' heads for door-knobs, and curious and
+lovely figures for lamps and ash-trays. "I take a shy at 'most
+everything," he explained.
+
+"Do you sell these?" she asked, indicating some designs for electric
+desk-lamps.
+
+He smiled. "Sometimes--not as often as I'd like to."
+
+"How much are they?"
+
+"Fifty dollars each."
+
+"I'll take them both," she said, and her pulse leaped with the pride of
+being a patron of art.
+
+"Now see here, Mrs. Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a
+salesman--not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I
+try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it.
+"Don't take 'em--wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad
+anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I
+never saw a mountain lion outside the Zoo."
+
+"They're lions, all right. I want 'em, and I know the Captain will like
+'em." She stepped back to call Haney. But finding him surrounded by all
+of the other callers (they had "got him going" telling stories of his
+wild life in the West), she turned to the sculptor with a smile, saying:
+"Never mind, _I_ know they're what he needs--if he don't." And Moss,
+recalling Congdon's description of the Haneys' material condition,
+answered: "Very well, if you insist; but I really feel as though I had
+played a confidence game on you."
+
+"Can you fix 'em up with lights?" she asked, eager as a child. "I mean
+right now."
+
+"Certainly." He unscrewed a couple of small bulbs from a near-by
+bracket, and, putting them into place on the lamps, turned on the
+current. She laughed out in delight. One of the lions was playing with
+the stem which supported the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
+upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other--a counterpart, or
+nearly so in pose--had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
+clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.
+
+"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
+piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
+ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
+West. Shameful, isn't it?"
+
+"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
+mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
+_right_!"
+
+"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
+summer and try to meet it."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
+Colorado."
+
+"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
+Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
+moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
+sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
+I'll do something we can send out to him--if you wish."
+
+"What do you mean by a sketch?"
+
+"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
+veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
+head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
+dainty, very sweet, and smiling.
+
+Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."
+
+"It is my wife's sister--a quick study from life--just the kind of thing
+Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
+was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
+boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
+when it was done.
+
+Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
+this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
+even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
+dreadful, after all.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
+with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
+her seem again the untaught girl she really was.
+
+As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
+her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
+defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.
+
+Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
+doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
+than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.
+
+"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
+straight--that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
+'the house'--that is, the bank--is protected. My machines was always
+straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
+'fixed' in me favor."
+
+Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
+burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
+going."
+
+He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
+explained, and dutifully rose.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
+getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."
+
+Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
+She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
+to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.
+
+"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
+he inquired.
+
+"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.
+
+Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
+about those delightful games of chance."
+
+Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
+full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.
+
+As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
+view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
+came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
+handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
+"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
+good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
+voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
+as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
+These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
+last to her.
+
+Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
+gambling talk at the studio. "Why _must_ he always go back to that?" she
+asked, hotly.
+
+They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
+while the Captain discussed his sister and her family. "I'll do
+something for Fan," he said. "She's a different sort from Charles.
+McArdle seems a hard-workin' chap, the kind that a little help wouldn't
+spile. What do you think of buyin' them a bit of a house somewhere?"
+
+Bertha listened with a languor of interest new to her, and when he
+repeated his question and asked her if she were tired, she answered:
+"Yes; and I think I'll go to bed early to-night. It's been a hard day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+
+Joe Moss was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native
+West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions
+as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it
+was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or
+something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech.
+He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working the
+Thorwaldsen trick: find some fine site out there, some wall of rock
+close to the railway, and hew out a monster grizzly or mountain lion.
+The railway could then advertise it, you see; trains could stop there
+'five minutes to permit a view of Moss's Lion'; they could use a cut of
+it on all their folders. If there was a spring near by they could
+advertise the water and bottle it, a picture of my lion on the label.
+Ah, it is a fine scheme!"
+
+"'Tis so," said Haney. "I wonder nobody thought of it before."
+
+"It takes a Yankee, after all, to plan new suspender buttons," the
+sculptor replied. And all the time he talked his hands were dabbling,
+his thumbs gouging, his dibble cutting and smoothing.
+
+Haney watched him with amused glance. "Sure, I didn't know ye went at it
+so. I thought ye chipped each picture out o' stone." And when the
+process of molding in plaster was explained to him, he said: "'Tis like
+McArdle's trade entirely. He takes a rise in the world since I know he's
+an artist like yourself."
+
+"What is his 'line'?"
+
+"Pattern-maker for a stove foundry."
+
+Moss beamed. "Just what I'd like to be if they'd only pay a little more
+wages and furnish a better place to work."
+
+Bertha never knew when he was in earnest, so habitually mocking was his
+tone. But she grew towards a perception of his ideal, and dimly
+apprehended in him a mind far beyond any she had ever known. Mrs. Moss,
+almost as reticent as Mrs. Haney herself, came and went about the studio
+brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail,
+moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
+insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
+stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
+speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
+motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
+Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
+school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
+expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.
+
+One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
+measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
+of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
+line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
+Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line--"
+
+"I know it is!"
+
+"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
+the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
+the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face--let
+the neck at least suggest the woman below."
+
+"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
+here is spring-time--just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
+line must be kept free from any earthiness."
+
+"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
+painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
+the summer."
+
+They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
+clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
+considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
+momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
+"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
+called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
+his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
+precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
+freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.
+
+The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
+of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
+politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
+too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
+work with Joe, so that it needn't be any trouble to you."
+
+Bertha, her wealth still new upon her, had no suspicion of the motives
+of those who addressed her, was deeply flattered by this request, and as
+Moss made no objection, she consented.
+
+The only thing that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into
+troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet,
+or something like that--not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't
+droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When
+you're as old and blasé as Humiston there, you'll have a right to ponder
+the mysteries, but not now. You and I are young, thank God!"
+
+Humiston was dabbling at his small canvas swiftly, lightly, as unmoved
+by his fellow-artist as if his voice were the wind in the casement. He
+was a tall, sickly looking man with grizzled hair, and pale, deeply
+lined face. He was fresh from Paris with a small exhibition of his
+pictures, which were very advanced, as Mrs. Moss privately explained to
+Bertha. "And he's rather bitter against Americans because they don't
+appreciate his work. But Joe asks: 'Why should they?' They're
+undemocratic--little high-keyed 'precious' bits; pictures for other
+artists, not real paintings, or they are unacceptable otherwise. He's a
+wonderful technician, though, and he'll make an exquisite sketch of
+you."
+
+The Western girl-wife was completely fascinated by this small, dusky,
+dim, and richly colored heart of the fierce and terrible city whose
+material bulk alone is known to the world. To go from the crash and roar
+of the savage streets into this studio was like climbing from the level
+of the water in the Black Cańon to the sunlit, grassy peaks where the
+Indian pink blossoms in silence. She was of the aspiring nature. She had
+commonly played with children older than herself. She had read books she
+could not understand. She had always reached upward, and here she found
+herself surrounded by men and women who excited her imagination as
+Congdon had done. They helped her forget the doubt of herself and her
+future, which was gnawing almost ceaselessly in her brain, and she was
+sorry when Moss said to her: "Come in once more, to-morrow, and see me
+do the real sculptor's act. No, don't look at it" (he flung a cloth over
+his work); "you may look at it to-morrow."
+
+"May I see my picture?" she asked of Humiston.
+
+He turned the easel towards her without a word.
+
+"Good work!" cried Moss.
+
+Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something
+exquisite."
+
+Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a
+dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it
+isn't me."
+
+Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the
+way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor
+to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."
+
+"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at
+the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and
+Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:
+
+"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so
+violently that Bertha shuddered.
+
+Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in _all_ her fine poses," he
+complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"
+
+The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture
+as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he
+said.
+
+With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to
+send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have
+here."
+
+Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs.
+Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak
+points."
+
+"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered
+Humiston, readily.
+
+"If you do you don't speak of 'em."
+
+"Why should I? You don't call out the defects of your 'hardware,' do
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Moss interposed. "That's just what he does do, and it hurts trade.
+I think I'll take Mrs. Haney over to see the pictures myself."
+
+Humiston brightened. "Very well; but you must all lunch with me. You're
+about the only civilized people I know in this crazy town, and I need
+you."
+
+"No," said Bertha. "It's our treat. You all come over and eat with us."
+
+Haney, who had been keeping in the background, now came forward. "I
+second that motion," he heartily said. "We don't get a chance every day
+to feed a bunch of artists."
+
+"You can have that pleasure any day here," said Moss. "Our noses are
+always over the bars, waiting."
+
+When she emerged from the gallery an hour later Bertha enjoyed an
+exalted sense of having been carried through some upper, serener world,
+where business, politics, and fashion had little place. It was "only a
+dip," as Mrs. Moss said--just to show the way; but it set the girl's
+brain astir with half-formed, disconnected aspirations. Only as she
+re-entered the hotel (the centre of obsequious servants) did she become
+again the wife of Marshall Haney, and Mrs. Moss, noting the eager
+attention of the waiters, was amazed and delighted at the look of calm
+command which came over the girl's face.
+
+"Art is fine and sweet as a side issue," said Julia to her husband, as
+they were going in, "but money makes the porters jump."
+
+Bertha, composed and serious, seated her guests at a table which had
+been reserved for her near a window and charmingly decorated with
+flowers. She put Moss at her left hand and Humiston at her right, and as
+the Eastern man settled into place, he said: "Really, now, this isn't so
+bad." His experienced eye had noted the swift flocking of the waiters,
+and with cynical amusement he commented upon it. "These people must
+_smell_ of money!" and in his heart acknowledged that he and Moss were
+not so very different from the servitors, after all. "They're out for
+tens, we're after thousands; that's the main point of difference."
+
+Bertha, once the cutlets were served, was able to give attention to the
+talk--Humiston's talk (he was celebrated as a monologist), for he had
+resumed the discussion into which he and Moss had fallen. "I don't
+believe in helping people to study art. I don't believe in charity. This
+interfering with the laws of the universe that kill off the crippled and
+the weakly is pure sentimentalism that will fill the world with
+deformed, diseased, and incapable persons."
+
+"You're a vile reactionary!" cried Moss.
+
+"I am not--I'm for the future. I want to see the world full of beauty."
+
+"Physical beauty?"
+
+"Yes, physical beauty. I want to see vice and crime and crooked limbs
+and low brows die out--not perpetuated. I believe in educating the
+people to the lovely in line and color."
+
+As he pursued this line of inexorable argument Bertha looked at him in
+wonder. Did he mean what he said? His burning eyes seemed sincere--and
+yet he did not fail to accept a second helping of the mushrooms. There
+was power in the man. He pushed the walls of her intellectual world very
+wide apart. He came from a strange, chaotic region--from a land where
+ordinary modes and motives seemed lost or perverted. He took a delight
+in shocking them all. Morality was a convention--a hypocritic agreement
+on the part of the few to reserve freedom to themselves at the expense
+of the many. "Art is impossible to little people, to those who starve
+the big side of their nature, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. Look at the real
+people--Rachel, Wagner, Turner, Bernhardt, and a thousand others. Were
+they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and
+petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the
+West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few
+petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow
+where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed
+normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained--no license,
+no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, to be personal?"
+
+"Too well balanced."
+
+"Precisely. You _talk_ like a man of power, but model like a cursed
+niggling prude. You're bitten with the new madness. You're the Bryan of
+art. 'The dear people' is your cry. Damn the people! They don't know a
+good thing when they see it. Why consider the millions? Consider the
+few, those who have the taste and the dollars. That's the way all the
+big men of the past had to do. Look at Rubens and Michael Angelo and
+Titian--all the big bunch; they were all frank, gross feeders, lovers of
+beauty, defiant of conventions."
+
+He had forgotten where he sat, but he was not neglecting his hostess. He
+took a satanic satisfaction in seeing her lovely eyes widen and glow as
+he went on. Subtly flattering her by including her among the very few
+who could understand his ideals, he seemed to draw her apart to his
+side--appealing to her for support against the coarse and foolish hosts
+represented by the Mosses, while Marshall Haney sat in a kind of stupor,
+his eyes alone speaking, as if to ask: "What the divil is the little man
+with the cough so hot about?"
+
+Moss, accustomed to Humiston's savage diatribes, roared out objections
+or laughed him to scorn, while Mrs. Moss tried her best to turn the mad
+artist's mind upon more suitable subjects. He had been deeply hurt and
+financially distressed by the failure of his exhibits in Pittsburg and
+Chicago, and was now taking it out on his friends. His passion, his
+bitter, vengeful cry against the ignorant masses of the world was
+something Bertha had read about, but never felt; but she quivered now
+with the half-disclosed fury of the disappointed austere soul.
+
+Could it be possible that this savage man, so worn and ill, had painted
+those dim, vague pictures of flower-like girls whose limbs were involved
+in blossoming vines?
+
+He concluded at last: "The only place in the world to-day for an artist
+is Paris. In no other city can he live his own life in frank fulness,
+and find patrons who see the subtlest meaning of a line."
+
+Bertha was tired of all this--mentally weary and confused; and she felt
+very grateful to Mrs. Moss, who came to the rescue the moment Humiston
+paused.
+
+"There, Mrs. Haney, that is the end of Professor Jerry Spoopendyke's
+lecture on the undesirability of America as a place of residence--_for
+him_. Of course, he don't mind selling his pictures just to enlighten
+our night of ignorance, but as for going to Sunday-school or keeping the
+decalogue, that's our job."
+
+Humiston had the grace to smile. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Haney, I have
+been a fool. But that monkey over there--Joe Moss--provoked me with his
+accursed heresies about the democracy of art. Art has no democracy, and
+democracy will never have an art--"
+
+"There, there!" warned Moss, "you said all that before."
+
+The painter wrenched himself away and turned to Bertha. "You _are_
+coming to New York, Mrs. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she said. "We may."
+
+"If you do, don't fail to let me know. I would like to see you."
+
+"All right," said Bertha, "I'll send you a line." And her frank smile
+made him sorry to say good-bye even for the day.
+
+As Mart was going up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all
+kinds of people to make up a world--Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the
+t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin'
+a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end I dunno."
+
+When alone in her room, Bertha's mind again reverted to Ben Fordyce. As
+she compared him with Humiston, he seemed handsomer and more boyishly
+frank than ever. What did Joe Moss mean by calling Mr. Humiston "blasé."
+She had seen that word in novels and it always meant something wicked.
+How could this weary, sick man be wicked? She pitied him and wished to
+help him. "Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to.
+Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does
+this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks
+poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money
+was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize. That the waiters and
+clerks buzzed round her because she was rich, she knew; but that these
+men, who talked of beauty and the higher life, could flatter her with
+attentions with a base motive was incredible.
+
+She was shrewd as her Yankee forbears, but she was also an idealist, and
+these artist folk now seemed to her the highest types she had ever known
+or was likely to know. She felt the mystery and the power in Humiston's
+personality, and his bitter and rebellious, almost blasphemous, words
+were counterpoised by his paintings, which she acknowledged to be
+beautiful--too beautiful for her to comprehend. He looked like a man of
+sorrow and weary of battle, and she longed to know more about him. When
+he was not fierce he was melancholy; evidently his life had been a
+failure. "Why shouldn't I buy some of his pictures?" she asked herself.
+
+Hitherto the answer to any such question had been, "Can we afford it?"
+but now another and deeper query came in answer, like an echo: "Is it
+right to spend Mart Haney's money? I am only his trained nurse, not his
+wife," and she now knew that she could not be his wife. She shrank from
+the weight of his hand, and each day made clearer the wide spaces of
+years, of family, of ideals, which lay between them. The kiss Ben
+Fordyce had pressed upon her lips had brought this revelation. But of
+this she was not yet aware; she was only conscious of a growing dread of
+the future. Her duties as his nurse were lightening. Lucius, indeed, now
+took many of her tasks upon himself, and she no longer helped him with
+his shoes or coat, and, what was still more significant, she could not
+calmly think of going back to these wifely services.
+
+She dwelt treacherously on Haney's own admission: that she had been in a
+sense entrapped. He had believed himself a dying man at the time, and
+she had been too excited, too exalted by the lurid romance of the scene
+to be clear about anything save the wish and the will to save him; and
+now she knew that at bottom of all her willingness to serve him lay the
+consciousness that he was on his death-bed. Afterwards he had been to
+her only a big-hearted, generous friend, in need of love and
+companionship. This understanding had made it easy for her to prepare
+his meals, to help him, as a nurse would help him, to dress and undress.
+She had lost all of the fear and much of the admiration in which she
+used to greet him as he swung into the office of her little hotel. He
+had become to her an invalid, a child to be jollied and humored, and yet
+respected; for no one could have been kinder or more scrupulously just
+than he. And it was the recollection of all his acts of self-sacrifice
+and loving patience which gave her assurance that he would never require
+obedience, though he might sue for it.
+
+Her danger lay in herself. "If he _does_ ask me to be his real
+wife--then I must either agree or leave. It won't be right for me to
+take all these benefits unless--"
+
+And with this thought, the big house in the Springs, the sleek horses,
+their shining carriages, the auto-car, her dresses, the service of the
+big hotel, and the consideration her husband's money gave to her, all
+assumed a new and corrupting lustre. She was growing accustomed to
+luxury and the thought of giving it up made her shiver like one who
+faces a plunge into a dark night and an icy river. Besides, her
+sacrifice would involve others. Her mother, her brother, were already
+roundly ensnared in Mart's bounty.
+
+Her head was aching with it all, when a comforting thought came to her.
+It was not necessary to decide it at that moment, and with a sigh of
+relief she threw it aside and sat down to write a letter to her mother.
+
+"I ought to have written before, but I've been jumped right into the
+middle of things here. The letters Frank Congdon gave me took me into an
+artistic bunch about as gay and queer as Frank is, but they've been
+mighty nice to me. I've been setting for my bust to Mr. Moss, who is a
+sculptor. He has a big studio clear on the top of one of the tallest
+blocks here and has some dandy lamps and things. I've bought some to
+bring back. I met a Mr. Humiston there from New York, and he made a
+sketch of me--wants me to see his studio in New York. I don't know
+whether I'll go on or let Mart go with Lucius. Lucius is all right--I
+don't see how I got on without him. He knows everything. I wish I had
+half the education he's got. He's up on all the society ways and puts me
+on. For instance, he told me the nice thing would be to give a dinner to
+this artist push and to the people that Dorothy give me a letter to, and
+I'm going to do it. Lucius will look out for the whole thing. You should
+see the way the waiters tend. I reckon Lucius has told 'em we're made of
+money. I'm afraid we're getting spoilt, Muzz. It would be pretty tough
+to go back to the hotel now, wouldn't it?
+
+"We went to see Mart's sister, Fanny. Her house was a sight. It was
+clean enough, but littered--well, litter is no name for it--but she's a
+good old thing and so is McArdle. He sat and looked at us the whole time
+like a turkey blind in one eye--never said a word the whole time but
+'pass the p-taties.' I liked him though. He's a kind of sculptor,
+too--makes patterns for all these little acorns and leaves and
+do-funnies on stoves. They've got forty-'leven children and need help
+and I'm perfectly willing Mart should help 'em. We're looking up houses
+now. He's going to buy a place for 'em on the west side. Wednesday night
+I went to see the Doctor Brents, Dorothy's friends. They had a
+dinner--very nice, but they all kind o' sat 'round and waited for us to
+perform. I guess they thought we were mountain lions. But they didn't
+make much out o' me. They was one chap there with goggles who looked at
+Mart like an undertaker. He's a scientific doctor--one of these fellers
+that invent new ways of doing things. His name is Halliday. I liked Dr.
+Brent pretty well--but Mrs. Brent only so-so. The doctor wants to
+'dagnose' Mart's case--says it won't cost a cent. We all went to a show
+at night and the Captain was just about petered to a point. He's better
+though. The lower altitude helps his circulation. I guess his heart _is_
+affected. He's afraid now he won't ever be able to go back to the mines.
+He wants to slide on to New York and see his father and wants me to
+go--but I'd rather come home--I'm homesick for the hills. They're nice
+to me here--but I want to see the old Peak once more. Tell" (here she
+wrote "Ben" and blotted it) "tell Mr. Fordyce that we're all right and
+to keep us posted every day. We see by the papers that the mine-owners
+are going to throw the unions out of business. If they try that they'll
+be war again. We'll be home soon--or at least I will. I'm getting
+home-sicker every minute as I write."
+
+She added a postscript. "Don't show my letters to _any one_. I wish I'd
+'a' had a little more schooling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE FARTHER EAST
+
+
+Haney visibly brightened as the days went by, and took long rides in his
+auto, sometimes with Bertha, sometimes alone with Lucius, and now and
+then with some old acquaintance, who, having seen his name in the paper,
+ventured to call. They were not very savory characters, to tell the
+truth, and he did not always introduce them to Bertha, but as his health
+improved he called upon a few of the more reputable of them,
+billiard-table agents, and the like of that, and to these proudly
+exhibited his wife.
+
+Bertha had hitherto accepted this with boyish tolerance, but now it
+irritated her. Some of these visitors presumed on her husband's past and
+treated her with a certain freedom of tone and looseness of tongue which
+made plain even to her unsuspecting nature that they put no high value
+on her virtue--in fact, one fellow went so far as to facetiously ask,
+"Where did Mart find you? Are there any more out there?" And she felt
+the insult, though she did not know how to resent it.
+
+Haney, so astute in many things, saw nothing out of the way in this
+off-hand treatment of his wife. He would have killed the man who dared
+to touch her, and yet he stood smilingly by while some chance
+acquaintance treated her as if she had been picked out of a Denver
+gutter. This threw Bertha upon her own defence, and at last she made
+even impudence humble itself. She carried herself like a young warrior,
+sure of her power and quick of defence.
+
+She refused to invite her husband's friends to lunch, and the first real
+argument she had thus far held with him came about in this way. She
+said, "Yes, you can ask Mr. Black or Mr. Brown to dinner, but I won't
+set at the same table with them."
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"Because they're not the kind of men I want to eat with," she bluntly
+replied. "They're just a little too coarse for me."
+
+"They're good business men and have fine homes--"
+
+"Do they invite you to their homes?"
+
+"They do not," he admitted, "but they may--after our dinner."
+
+"Lucius says it's their business to lead out--and he knows. I don't mind
+your lunching these dubs every day if you want to, but I keep clear of
+'em. I tell you those!"
+
+And so it fell out that while she was going about with the Mosses and
+their kind, Mart was explaining to Black and Brown that his wife "was a
+little shy." "You see she grew up in the hills like a doe antelope, and
+it's hard for her to get wonted to the noise of a great city," he
+laboriously set forth, but at heart he did not blame her. He was coming
+to find them a little "coarse" himself.
+
+Humiston was deeply enthralled by Bertha's odd speech, her beauty, her
+calm use of money, and lingered on day by day, spending nearly all his
+time at Moss's studio or at the hotel, seeking Mrs. Haney's company. He
+had never met her like, and confessed as much to Moss, who jocularly
+retorted: "That's saying a good deal--for you've seen quite a few."
+
+Humiston ignored this thrust. "She has beauty, imagination, and immense
+possibilities. She don't know herself. When she wakes up to her power,
+then look out! She can't go on long with this old, worn-out gambler."
+
+"Oh, Haney isn't such a beast as you make him out. Bertha told me he had
+never crossed her will. He's really very kind and generous."
+
+"That may be true, and yet he's a mill-stone about her neck. It's a
+shame--a waste of beauty--for the girl is a beauty."
+
+It was with a sense of relief that Moss heard Bertha say to his wife: "I
+guess I've had enough of this. It's me to the high ground to-morrow."
+
+"Aren't you going on to the metropolis?"
+
+"I don't think it. I'm hungry for the peaks--and, besides, our horses
+need exercise. I think I'll pull out for the West to-morrow and leave
+the Captain and Lucius to go East together. I don't believe I need New
+York."
+
+To this arrangement Haney reluctantly consented. "You're missin' a whole
+lot, Bertie. I don't feel right in goin' on to Babylon without ye. I
+reckon you'd better reconsider the motion. However, I'll not be gone
+long, and if I find the old Dad hearty I may bring him home with me.
+He's liable to be livin' with John Donahue. Charles said he was a
+shiffless whelp, and there's no telling how he's treating the old man.
+Anyhow, I'll let you know."
+
+She relented a little. "Ma'be I ought to go. I hate to see you starting
+off alone."
+
+"Sure now! don't ye worry, darling. Lucius is handy as a bootjack, and
+we'll get along fine. Besides, I may come back immegitly, for them
+mine-owners are cooking a hell-broth for us all. Havin' a governor on
+their side now, they must set out to show their power."
+
+Ben kept them supplied with home papers, and as Bertha took up one of
+these journals she found herself played upon by familiar forms and
+faces. The very names of the streets were an appeal. She saw herself
+sporting with her hounds, riding with Fordyce over the flowery Mesa, or
+facing him in his sun-bright office discussing the world's events and
+deciding upon their own policies and expenditures. She grew very
+homesick as these pleasant, familiar pictures freshened in her vision,
+and her faith in Ben's honesty and essential goodness came back to her.
+Moreover her mind was not at rest regarding Haney; much as she longed to
+go home, she felt it her duty to remain with him, and as she lay in her
+bed she thought of him with much the same pity a daughter feels for a
+disabled father. "He's given me a whole lot--I ought to stay by him."
+
+She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce
+alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to
+go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when she returned
+to the Springs.
+
+There are certain ways in which books instruct women--and men, too, for
+that matter--but there are other and more vital processes in which only
+experience (individual or inherited) teaches. In her desultory reading,
+little Mrs. Haney, like every other citizen, had taken imaginative part
+in many murders, seductions, and marital infidelities; and yet the
+motives for such deeds had never before seemed human. Now the dark
+places in the divorce trials, the obscure charges in the testimony of
+deserted wives, were suddenly illumined. She realized how easy it would
+be to make trouble between Mart and herself. She understood the stain
+those strangers in the car could put upon her, and she trembled at the
+mere thought of Mart's inquiring eyes when he should know of it. Why
+should he know of it? It was all over and done with. There was only one
+thing to do--forget it.
+
+Surely life was growing complex. With bewildering swiftness the
+experiences of a woman of the world were advancing upon her, and she,
+with no brother or father to be her guard, or friend to give her
+character, with a husband whose very name and face were injuries, was
+finding men in the centres of culture quite as predatory as among the
+hills, where Mart Haney's fame still made his glance a warning. These
+few weeks in Chicago had added a year to her development, but she dared
+not face Ben Fordyce alone--not just yet--not till her mind had cleared.
+
+In the midst of her doubt of herself and of him a message came which
+made all other news of no account. He was on his way to Chicago to
+consult Mart (so the words ran), but in her soul she knew he was coming
+to see her. Was it to test her? Had he taken silence for consent? Was he
+about to try her faith in him and her loyalty to her husband?
+
+His telegram read: "Coming on important business." That might mean
+concerning the mine--on the surface; but beneath ran something more
+vital to them both than any mine or labor war, something which developed
+in the girl both fear and wonder--fear of the power that came from his
+eyes, wonder of the world his love had already opened to her. What was
+the meaning of this mad, sweet riot of the blood--this forgetfulness of
+all the rest of the world--this longing which was both pleasure and
+pain, doubt and delight, which turned her face to the West as though
+through a long, shining vista she saw love's messenger speeding towards
+her?
+
+Sleep kept afar, and she lay restlessly turning till long after
+midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and
+her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She
+rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical
+weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever known
+before.
+
+Haney was also up and about, an hour ahead of his schedule, sure that
+Ben's business concerned the mine. "It's the labor war breaking out
+again," he repeated. "I feel it in my bones. If it is, back I go, for
+the boys will be nading me."
+
+They went to the station in their auto-car, but, at Bertha's suggestion,
+Mart sent Lucius in to meet their attorney and to direct him where to
+find them. The young wife had a feeling that to await him at the gate
+might give him a false notion of her purpose. She grew faint and her
+throat contracted as if a strong hand clutched it as she saw his tall
+form advancing, but almost instantly his frank and eager face, his clear
+glance, his simple and cordial greeting disarmed her, transmuted her
+half-shaped doubts into golden faith. He was true and good--of that she
+was completely reassured. Her spirits soared, and the glow came back to
+her cheek.
+
+Fordyce, looking up at her, was filled with astonishment at the picture
+of grace and ease which she presented, as she leaned to take his hand.
+She shone, unmistakable mistress of the car, while Haney filled the rōle
+of trusted Irish coachman.
+
+As he climbed in, the young lawyer remarked merrily, "I don't know
+whether I approve of this extravagance or not." He tapped the car door.
+
+"It's mighty handy for the Captain," she replied. "You see he can't get
+round in the street-cars very well, and he says this is cheaper than
+cabs in the long run."
+
+"It has never proved economical to me; but it _is_ handy," he answered,
+with admiration of her growing mastery of wealth.
+
+And so with something fiercely beating in their hearts these youthful
+warriors struggled to be true to others--fighting against themselves as
+against domestic traitors, while they talked of the mine, the state
+judiciary, the operators, and the unions. Their words were impersonal,
+prosaic of association, but their eyes spoke of love as the diamond
+speaks of light. Ben's voice, carefully controlled, was vibrant with the
+poetry that comes but once in the life of a man, and she listened in
+that perfect content which makes gold and glory but the decorations of
+the palace where adoration dwells.
+
+The great, smoky, thunderous city somehow added to the sweetness of the
+meeting--made it the more precious, like a song in a tempest. It seemed
+to Ben Fordyce as if he had never really lived before. The very need of
+concealment gave his unspoken passion a singular quality--a tang of the
+wilding, the danger-some, which his intimacy with Alice had never
+possessed.
+
+The Haneys' suite of rooms at the hotel called for comment. "Surely
+Haney is feeling the power of money--but why not; who has a better right
+to lovely things than Bertha?" Then aloud he repeated: "How well you're
+looking--both of you! City life agrees with you. I never saw you look so
+well."
+
+This remark, innocent on its surface, brought self-consciousness to
+Bertha, for the light of his glance expressed more than admiration; and
+even as they stood facing each other, alive to the same disturbing
+flush, Lucius called Haney from the room, leaving them alone together.
+The moment of Ben's trial had come.
+
+For a few seconds the young wife waited in breathless silence for him to
+speak, a sense of her own wordlessness lying like a weight upon her.
+Into the cloud of her confusion his voice came bringing confidence and
+calm. "I feel that you have forgiven me--your eyes seem to say so. I
+couldn't blame you if you despised me. I won't say my feeling has
+changed, for it hasn't. It may be wrong to say so--it is wrong, but I
+can't help it. Please tell me that you forgive me. I will be happier if
+you do, and I will never offend again." His accent was at once softly
+pleading and manly, and, as she raised her eyes to his in restored
+self-confidence, she murmured a quaint, short, reassuring phrase: "Oh,
+that's all right!" Her glance, so shy, so appealing, united to the
+half-humorous words of her reply, were so surely of the Mountain-West
+that Ben was quite swept from the high ground of his resolution, and his
+hands leaped towards her with an almost irresistible embracing impulse.
+"You sweet girl!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Don't!" she said, starting back in alarm--"don't!"
+
+His face changed instantly, the clear candor of his voice reassured her.
+"Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I--that
+my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his
+self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their
+love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will
+give you all her time next summer--if you wish her to do so."
+
+She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
+day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann--I don't see how people can
+talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
+for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
+with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
+Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"
+
+"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
+association--you are improving very fast."
+
+Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"
+
+"I do mean it. No one would know--to see you here--that you had not
+enjoyed all the advantages."
+
+"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
+grin. They're onto my game all right."
+
+He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases--they like to
+hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
+or--or lacking in--in charm."
+
+Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
+relief Bertha retreated--almost fled to her room--leaving the two men to
+discuss their business.
+
+At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
+was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
+own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
+husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
+submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
+She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
+dress--with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
+she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration--"I will
+be loyal to the men"--and Ben's reply.
+
+"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
+Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
+mine-operators."
+
+"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
+Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
+that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
+heart is with the red-neckers--just where it was. Owning a paying mine
+has not changed me heart to a stone."
+
+Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
+with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
+kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
+order to be on hand."
+
+"What's the rush?" said Haney; "stay on a day or two and see the town
+with us--'tis a great show."
+
+Bertha, re-entering at this moment in her shining gown, put the young
+attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on
+the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and,
+besides--Alice is not very well."
+
+At the mention of Alice's name Bertha's glance wavered and her eyelids
+fell. She did not urge him to stay, and Haney spoke up, heartily: "I'm
+sorry to hear she's not well. She was pretty as a rose the night of the
+dinner."
+
+"She lives on her nerves," Ben replied, falling into sadness. "One day
+she's up in the clouds and dancing, the next she's flat in her bed in a
+darkened room unwilling to see anybody."
+
+"'Tis the way of the White Death," thought Haney, but he spoke
+hopefully: "Well, spring is here and a long summer before her--she'll be
+herself against October."
+
+"I trust so," said Ben, but Bertha could see that he was losing hope and
+that his life was being darkened by the presence of the death angel.
+
+Haney changed the current of all their thinking by saying to Bertha: "If
+you are minded to go home, now is your chance, acushla. You can return
+with Mr. Fordyce, while Lucius and I go on to New York the morning."
+
+"No, no!" she cried out in a panic. "No, I am going with you--I want to
+see New York myself," she added, in justification. The thought of the
+long journey with Ben Fordyce filled her with a kind of terror, a
+feeling she had never known before. She needed protection against
+herself.
+
+"Very well," said Haney, "that's settled. Now let's show Mr. Fordyce the
+town."
+
+Ben put aside his doubt and went forth with them, resolute to make a
+merry day of it. He seemed to regain all his care-free temper, but
+Bertha remained uneasy and at times abnormally distraught. She spoke
+with effort and listened badly, so busily was she wrought upon by
+unbidden thoughts. The question of her lover's disloyalty to Alice
+Heath, strange to say, had not hitherto troubled her--so selfishly, so
+childishly had her own relationship to him filled her mind. She now saw
+that Alice Heath was as deeply concerned in Ben's relationship to her as
+Haney, and the picture of the poor, pale, despairing lady, worn with
+weeping, persistently came between her and the scenes Mart pointed out
+on their trips about the city. Did Alice know--did she suspect? Was that
+why she was sinking lower and lower into the shadow?
+
+With these questions to be answered, as well as those she had already
+put to herself concerning Mart, she could not enjoy the day's outing.
+She rode through the parks with cold hands and white lips, and sat amid
+the color and bustle and light of the dining-room with only spasmodic
+return of her humorous, girlish self. The love which shone from Ben's
+admiring eyes only added to her uneasiness.
+
+She was very lovely in a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young
+bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx--the distraction upon her brow
+somehow adding to the charm of her face--and Ben thought her the most
+wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command
+was she. "Could any one," he thought, "be more swiftly adaptable?"
+
+They went to the theatre, and her beauty and her curiously unsmiling
+face aroused the admiration and curiosity of many others of those who
+saw her. At last, under the influence of the music, her eyes lost their
+shadow and grew tender and wistful. She ceased to question herself and
+gave herself up to the joy of the moment. The play and the
+melody--hackneyed to many of those present--appealed to her imagination,
+liberating her from the earth and all its concerns. She turned to Ben
+with eyes of rapture, saying, "Isn't it lovely!"
+
+And he, to whom the music was outworn and a little shoddy, instantly
+agreed. "Yes, it is very beautiful," and he meant it, for her pleasure
+in it brought back a knowledge of the charm it had once possessed.
+
+They dined together at the hotel, but the thought of Ben's departure
+brought a pang into Bertha's heart, and she fell back into her uneasy,
+distracted musing. She was being tempted, through her husband, who
+repeated with the half-forgetfulness of age and weakness, "You'd better
+go back with Mr. Fordyce, Bertie," but there was something stronger than
+her individual will in her reply--some racial resolution which came down
+the line of her good ancestry, and with almost angry outcry she
+answered:
+
+"There's no use talking that! I'm going with you," and with this she
+ended the outward siege, but the inward battle was not closed till she
+had taken and dropped the hand her lover held out in parting next
+morning, and even then she turned away, with his eyes and the tender
+cadences of his voice imprinted so vividly on her memory that she could
+not banish them, and she set face towards the farther East with the
+contest of duty and desire still going forward in her blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+
+It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
+forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
+floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
+pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
+farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
+trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
+weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
+they all live?
+
+At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
+the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
+slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
+to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
+heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
+great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
+I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
+Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
+plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me--poor girl! I'd
+like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
+up, too."
+
+Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
+obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
+her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
+beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
+magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
+thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
+to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
+splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
+thirty years ago--rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
+broken steak or a half-eaten roll--and she could imaginatively enter
+into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.
+
+"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle--"'sure the
+mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
+him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
+drop in on him and surprise him with a check"--at the moment he forgot
+that he was old and a cripple--"just to let him know the divil hadn't
+claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
+arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
+see you; he might say the divil had got _you_--but he couldn't pity
+me."
+
+She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
+deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
+like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
+naturally locoes me to think of it."
+
+"'Tis the only place to spend money--so the boys tell me. I've never
+been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
+man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
+fine swamp to lose a thief in."
+
+"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.
+
+"I did so--and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
+desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
+chances."
+
+Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
+were but empty boasting--so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
+that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
+potency of gold!--could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
+flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
+eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
+as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
+streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
+wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
+splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
+her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
+from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God--one derived
+from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.
+
+They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
+spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
+where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
+do it to-night."
+
+Bertha was tired, too--mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
+alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
+with the Troy directory.
+
+Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
+took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
+Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
+and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
+brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
+of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
+after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
+pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
+"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here--and I've earned many a dime
+sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
+said; "I don't know why--I had all the chance there was. I've been
+moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that--I'll say I tuck it
+as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
+alone--it spiled me nerve--I let the other felly do the drinkin'."
+
+Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
+proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
+plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
+shouted, "'Tis old Otto--just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"
+
+Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
+off me alretty."
+
+"I'm Mart Haney--you remember Mart Haney."
+
+Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
+Vell, vell--you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter--yes?"
+
+"My wife," said Haney.
+
+Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
+draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
+you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"
+
+"That's what."
+
+"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce--aind dot
+right?"
+
+Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
+up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
+what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"
+
+"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn--so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
+be clad to see you--"
+
+"You don't know his address?"
+
+"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."
+
+"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."
+
+"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
+directory--Chon Donahue, barkeep."
+
+"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
+the boys are livin' here now?"
+
+"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
+vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
+are teadt--many are teadt," he added, on second thought.
+
+"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
+machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"
+
+For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
+talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
+lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
+I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
+these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
+can't cheat a boy--he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
+of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
+right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
+broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
+whole long day--not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
+up with the Injuns."
+
+Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
+She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
+studying the scenes of his boyhood--her own childhood had been almost as
+humble, almost as cheerless--and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
+the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
+commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.
+
+Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
+much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
+opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
+very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
+with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
+with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
+importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.
+
+It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
+Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
+he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
+her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
+call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
+under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
+it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
+relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
+young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
+easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
+readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
+reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
+which she received what was said to her--something indefinably alert and
+self-masterful without being self-conscious--gave her a mysterious
+charm.
+
+She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
+and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
+She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
+of interest--even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
+Kate--more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
+her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
+buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
+if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.
+
+Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
+with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
+London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
+and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
+folk live in one place?
+
+Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
+they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
+herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
+for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
+when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
+Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
+alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
+her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
+the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
+foreign capital.
+
+It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp--a
+palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
+glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
+Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
+conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
+and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
+masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
+say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
+while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
+comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
+"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
+were put at his command.
+
+Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
+higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
+and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
+when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
+looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
+windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
+the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
+can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
+notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
+which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
+carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.
+
+Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
+get a car."
+
+"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.
+
+"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
+like me."
+
+Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
+again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
+was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
+angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
+bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
+timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
+race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
+with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans--and all others
+who have them not--struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
+distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
+display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
+not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
+people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
+diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
+from the scramble on the pave.
+
+Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
+heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
+grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
+had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
+auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
+handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
+and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
+therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
+little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
+door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
+old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
+broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
+me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
+'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
+cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
+play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
+was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
+in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."
+
+Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
+wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
+packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
+room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
+free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
+this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
+indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
+keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.
+
+In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
+ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"
+
+"Oh no, I'll go down."
+
+"They dress for dinner, ma'am."
+
+"Do they? What'll I wear?"
+
+He considered a moment. "Any light silk--semi-dress will do. I'll send a
+maid in to help you."
+
+"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.
+
+Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful--it was paternal;
+for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
+colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
+cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
+of adaptability--was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
+both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
+in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
+him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
+prejudice against both black and red men.
+
+The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
+exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
+deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
+a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
+the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
+zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
+Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"
+
+"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
+eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.
+
+Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
+bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
+tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
+appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
+lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
+women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
+they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
+beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
+very shy.
+
+"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
+to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but--to
+miss me sleep--"
+
+"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
+just about all in, myself."
+
+"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
+time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
+heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
+Lucius will take ye."
+
+"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
+We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
+kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."
+
+This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
+by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
+endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
+'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
+receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
+complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
+that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
+thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
+live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
+great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
+This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.
+
+"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
+turned off Broadway.
+
+"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
+special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"
+
+"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
+quieter now till November."
+
+They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
+in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
+most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
+nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
+of a rank with Paris and London--the gateway city of the nation, where
+the Old World meets and mingles with the New.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+As for Marshall Haney, as he went about New York and Brooklyn in search
+of his relations, he was astounded at the translation of the Irish
+laborer into something else. "In my time, when I left Troy, all the work
+in the streets was done by 'micks,' as they called 'em. Now they're
+gone--whisked away as ye'd sweep away a swarm of red ants, and here's
+these black Dagos in their places. Where's the Irishman gone--up or
+down? That's what's eatin' me. Is he dead or translated to a higher
+speer? 'Tis a mysterious dispensation, and troubles me much."
+
+He found a good many Donahues in Brooklyn, and plenty of them
+barkeepers; and after he'd pulled up half a dozen times at these
+"joints" Bertha began to pout. She didn't like such places; and as they
+were riding in a showy auto-car (the grandest Lucius could secure), they
+were pretty middling noticeable. At last she said, more sharply than she
+had ever spoken to him before: "Mart, I don't want any more of this. If
+you want to visit all the saloons in Brooklyn, I don't. Here's where I
+get out."
+
+He was instantly remorseful. "I was thinkin' of that myself, Bertie.
+Lucius and I will go on alone. We'll send you back to the hotel in the
+'mobile whilst we take a hack."
+
+Half doubting, half glad, she consented to this arrangement, and was
+soon whirling back towards the ferry, her guilty feeling giving place to
+a sense of relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her
+shoulders--for a moment. She began to understand that half the pleasure
+she had taken in her hours with Moss and Humiston lay in the freedom
+from her husband's over-shadowing presence. He was not a man to be
+ignored, as she had seen wives ignore and put aside their meek partners.
+Marshall Haney even yet was a dominating personality, even though his
+family affairs were so insistent and so difficult to manage or explain.
+If the father came her joy in her home would be gone, and yet she had no
+right to refuse him shelter.
+
+At the same time she was less sure of her place in the world, now that
+she was alone. She had the feeling that if anything were to happen--if
+the motorman should demand his pay at the door, or the hotel-keeper
+refuse to go her bond, she would be helpless. The Captain, for all his
+shortcomings and physical disability, was master of every situation. He
+had been schooled by stern powers, and his capabilities of defence were
+still equal to almost any need.
+
+On the ferry-boat she found herself surrounded by the swarms of people
+who are forever calculating expenditures, who never desert a garment,
+and who finger a nickel lovingly; and she caught them looking at her as
+upon one of those who enjoy without earning it the product of their
+toil. They made way for her, as she got down and walked to the railing,
+as they would have done for a millionaire's daughter, a little surlily,
+and she divined without understanding this enmity, but was too exalted
+by the glittering bay, with its romance of ship and sea and shore and
+town, to very much mind what her threadbare fellow-passengers thought of
+her. These dark-hulled, ocean-going vessels, these alien flags, widened
+her horizon--deepened her sense of the earth's wonder and the wide-flung
+nerves of national interest. From this sea-level she looked up in fancy
+to her brother's ranch near Sibley as at a cabin on a mountain-side. How
+still and faint and far it seemed at the moment!
+
+At the word of the chauffeur she climbed back into her car, returning to
+the isolation which money now provided for her. And so, girt about with
+velvet and costly wood and gilding, she rode up through the tearing
+throngs of the wharf, whirling past cars and trucks, outspeeding cabs
+and carriages, protected by a gambler's name, royally isolated and
+defensible by his money. As she spun through Fifth Avenue, so smooth of
+pave, so crowded, so sparkling, so far-reaching in its suggestions of
+security and power, the girl's soul entered upon a new and fierce phase
+of its struggle.
+
+It was a larger and more absorbing fairy story than any in the _Arabian
+Nights_. Without Marshall Haney, without the gold he brought, she could
+never have even looked upon this scene. She would at this moment have
+been standing inside her little counter at the Golden Eagle, selling
+cigars to some brakeman or cowboy. Ed Winchell would be coming to ask
+her, as usual, to marry him, and her mother would still be toiling in
+the hot kitchen or be at rest in her grave. Did ever Aladdin's lamp
+translate its owner farther or lift him higher? Was not her refusal to
+be Marshall Haney's wife the basest ingratitude?
+
+Not merely so, but the girl felt in herself potentialities not yet drawn
+upon, unlimited capabilities leading towards the accomplishment of good.
+Money had not merely the magic of exalting, educating, refining, and
+ennobling the individual (herself); it had radiating, transforming power
+for others. It could diffuse warmth like a flame, and send forth joy
+like a bell. "With it I am safe, strong: I can help the poor. Without it
+I am only a struggling girl, like millions of others, with no chance and
+no power to aid those who suffer." But at this point her love re-entered
+and her sense of right was confused. After all the heart ruled.
+
+At the hotel entrance the head porter was waiting to help her out, and
+the chauffeur, without a word or look of reminder, puffed away, secure
+in the reputation Lucius had given to Haney. As she went to her room the
+maid met her with gentle solicitude, and, after attending to her needs,
+considerately withdrew, leaving her deep-sunk in troubled musing.
+
+Up to the coming of Ben Fordyce she had accepted all that Haney gave her
+as from one good friend to another. Once having satisfied herself that
+the money was clean of any taint from gambling-hall and saloon, she had
+not hesitated to use it. But now something was rising within her which
+changed the current of her purpose. Haney was no longer before the bar
+of her conscience; the soul under question was her own. Dimly, yet with
+ever-growing definiteness, she saw the moment of decision approach. She
+must soon decide whether to continue on the smooth, broad highway with
+Haney, or to return to the mountain-trail from which he had taken her.
+
+While still she sat sombrely looking out over the city's roofs,
+Humiston's card was brought to her, and at the moment, in her loneliness
+and doubt, he seemed like an old friend. "Tell him to come up," she
+said, with instant cordiality, and her face shone with innocent pleasure
+when she met him. "I'm mighty glad to see you," she frankly said, in
+greeting.
+
+He misconceived her feeling, and took advantage of it to retain her
+hand. "I assure you I am delighted to find _you_ again."
+
+"I thought you'd forgot us."
+
+His eyes expressed a bold admiration as he answered: "I have done
+nothing but remember you. I've been in Pittsburg (only got back to town
+yesterday), and here I am." He looked about. "Where is the Captain?"
+
+She withdrew her hand. "He's out looking for his father. He'll return
+soon. He's liable to look in any minute now."
+
+"You are lovelier than ever. How is the Captain?"
+
+"Pretty well. He gets tired fairly easy, but he feels better than he
+did."
+
+His look of eager intensity embarrassed her. After a little pause, he
+remarked: "I am holding you to your promise. Can't you come over to my
+studio this afternoon?"
+
+"No, not to-day. I must be here when the Captain comes. He may bring the
+old father along, and he'd feel lost if I should be gone. Maybe I could
+come to-morrow."
+
+"Don't bring the Captain unless you have to--he'll be bored," he said,
+in the hope that she would get his full meaning. "I want to introduce
+you to some friends of mine."
+
+"Oh, don't do that!" she protested. "I'm afraid of your friends--they're
+all so way-wised while I am hardly bridle-broke."
+
+"You need not fear," he replied; "you are most to be envied. No one can
+have more than health, wealth, and youth and beauty. I would not
+hesitate to introduce you anywhere." His admiration was so outspoken, so
+choicely worded, that she could not distrust him, though Mrs. Moss had
+more than once hinted to her that he was not to be entirely honored. "He
+isn't a man to be careless with," she had once said, and yet he seemed
+so high-minded, so profoundly concerned with the beautiful world of art.
+How could a single-hearted Western girl believe ill of him? He could
+not be evil in the ways in which men were wicked in Sibley. His
+sensitive face was too weary and his eyes too sad.
+
+He was adroit enough to make his call short, and withdrew, leaving a
+very pleasant impression in her mind. She felt distinctly less lonely,
+now that she knew he was in the city, and she was still at the window
+musing about him when Haney returned, bringing his father with him.
+
+The elder Haney interested and amused her in spite of her
+perplexities--he was so quaintly of the old type of Irishman and so
+absurdly small to be the father of a giant. He carried a shrewd and
+kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
+line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
+calmer.
+
+With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
+dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
+awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
+self-possession.
+
+"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
+retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me--after the day he first
+thrun me down, the big gawk."
+
+Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
+'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"
+
+Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
+warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."
+
+It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
+"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
+is green--the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
+to the tooth-factory."
+
+"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."
+
+"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
+baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
+and be gay."
+
+Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
+may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
+man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."
+
+"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
+prospect in--so don't fuss."
+
+Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"
+
+"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
+'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
+at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
+take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
+recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
+telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
+said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
+'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
+every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
+So here he is--scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
+gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
+left the old sod." Here his face became sadly tender. "I wish the mother
+was alive, too; I'd make her rustle in silks, so I would. Heaven rest
+her!"
+
+The father's face grew suddenly accusing in line. "Ye waited too long,
+ye vagabond. Yer change of heart comes too late."
+
+"I know it--I know it! But I could never find time till a man with a
+shotgun pointed the way to it. Now I have all the time there is, and
+she's gone."
+
+In this moment of passing shadow Bertha caught a glimpse of the
+significance of the scene--of the wonder, almost alarm, which filled the
+old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the
+room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and
+green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness
+of the silk tapestry.
+
+The old man touched a gilded chair tenderly, and Mart cried out: "Lay
+hold, man, 'twill not rub off! Sit down and look about ye! Out with your
+new pipe and smoke up!"
+
+He took a seat with forced confidence, and looked about him. "I wish
+Donahue and Kate could see this."
+
+Mart turned a quietly humorous eye on Bertha. "Not this trip. I couldn't
+manage Kate," he explained. "She looks like Fan--only more so; and she
+has a litter o' young Donahues would make ye wonder could the world have
+room for them all."
+
+Haney the elder had something more than the bog-trotter in him, for as
+he grew towards a little more assurance that Mart would not be thrown
+out of his hotel for non-payment of bills, he settled down to enjoy his
+glass of rare whiskey and a costly cigar with an assumption of ease that
+almost deceived the maid, though Lucius, being in the secret, watched
+him anxiously for fear he might expectorate on the rug.
+
+Mart had some "p'otographs" of his house in the Springs, and showed them
+to Patrick. "Do ye see yerself smokin' a pipe on that porch?"
+
+"I do not," the father energetically replied. "I see meself goin' the
+rounds of that garden with a waterin'-pot and a pair of shears."
+
+"I thought ye was a bricklayer, or is it a billiard-marker?" asked Mart,
+with quizzical look.
+
+"I can turn me hand to anny honest work," he replied, with dignity. "An'
+can ye say as much?"
+
+"I cannot," confessed Mart. "Had ye put a club to me back and foorced me
+to a trade, sure I'd be layin' brick in Troy this day."
+
+This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was
+false, and yet here sat Mart--a gentleman. While still he puzzled over
+the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart
+turned to Bertha. "Do ye mind the old man's spendin' the rest of his
+days with us, darlin'?"
+
+"You're the doctor, Mart. It's your house, not mine."
+
+He felt the change in her. "Oh no, it isn't; it's _our_ house. I never
+would have had it only for you." He paused a moment. "The dad is a
+well-meaning old rascal, and I'll go bail he don't do mischief."
+
+Patrick took this up. "He is so, and he means to kape to his own way of
+life. If I go West, me b'y, 'tis on wages as a gardener--and, bedad,
+I'll draw 'em reg'ler, too. I'd like well to go West ('twould rejice me
+to see Fan and McArdle), and I don't object to spendin' a year with you
+in Coloraydo, but don't think Patrick Haney is to be pinsioner on anny
+one, not even his son."
+
+Bertha's heart vibrated in sympathy with this note of independence, and
+she heartily said: "I hope you will come, Mr. Haney. The Captain is
+alone a good deal, and you'd be a comfort to him."
+
+"I'll consider," the old man said. "I must have time to rea-lize it," he
+quaintly added. "I must smoke me pipe in me own garret once more, and
+talk it all over with Kate and the Donahues." He refused to stay to
+dinner with them (which was a relief to Lucius), and went away jaunty as
+a bucko from County Clare.
+
+He was no sooner gone from the room than Bertha turned to her husband,
+and said: "Mart, I want to talk things over with you."
+
+Something in her voice, as well as in the words, made him turn quickly
+and regard her anxiously.
+
+"What about? What is it, darlin'?"
+
+"I have something on my mind, and I've got to spit it out before I can
+rest to-night. I've just about decided to leave you. I don't feel right
+livin' with you."
+
+He looked at her steadily, but a gray pallor began to show on his face.
+He asked, quietly: "Do ye mean to go fer good?"
+
+Her heart was beating fast, but she bravely faced him. "Yes, Mart, I
+don't feel right living with you, and spending your money the way I've
+been doing."
+
+"Why not? It isn't mine--it's yours. Ye airn every cent ye spend."
+
+"No, I don't!" she cried, passionately. "Now that you're getting better
+and Lucius has come, I'm not even a nurse."
+
+"I'll send him away."
+
+"No, no; he's worth more than I am."
+
+"I'll not listen to such talk, Bertie. Ye well know you're the thing
+most precious to me. I can't live without ye." His voice thickened. "For
+God A'mighty's sake, don't say such things; they make me heart shake! Me
+teeth are chatterin' this minute! Ye're jokin'; say you don't mean it."
+
+"But I do. Don't you see that I can't stay and let you do things for me
+like this"--she indicated their apartment--"when I do so little to earn
+it all? Mart, I've got to be honest about it. I can't let you spend any
+more money on me. Help your own people, and let me go. I do nothing to
+pay for what you do for me. It's better for me to go."
+
+She could not bring herself to be as explicit as she should have been,
+but he was not far from understanding her real meaning, as he brokenly
+replied: "I've been afraid of this, my girl. I've thought of it all. The
+money I spend fer ye is but a small part of my debt. You say you do
+nothing for me. Why, darlin', every time you come into the room or smile
+at me you do much for me! I'm a selfish old wolf, but I'm not so bad as
+you think I am. If anny nice young felly comes along--a good square
+man--I'll get off the track; but I want you to let me stay near you as
+long as I live." His voice was hoarse with pleading. "Ye're all I have
+in the world; all I live for now is to make you happy. Don't pull away
+now, when me old heart has grown all round ye. I can't live and I
+daren't die without ye--now that's the eternal truth. Darlin', promise
+ye won't go--yet awhile."
+
+Wordless, as full of pain as he, she sat silently weeping, unable to
+carry out her resolution--unable to express the change which had come
+into her life.
+
+He went on. "I mark the difference between us. I see ye goin' up while I
+am goin' down. My heart is big with pride in ye. You belong with people
+like the Congdons and the Mosses--whilst I am only an old broken-down
+skate. I'm worse than you know. I went down to Sibley first with hell in
+me heart towards you, but that soon passed away--I loved ye as a man
+should love the girl he marries--and I love ye now as I love the saints.
+I wouldn't mar your young life fer anything in this world--'tis me wish
+to lave you as beautiful and fresh as I found you, and to give you all I
+have besides--so stay with me, if you can, till the other man comes."
+Here a new thought intruded. "Has he come now? Tell me if he has. Did ye
+find him in Chicago? Be honest, darlin'."
+
+"No, no!" she answered. "It isn't that. It's just because--because it
+don't seem right."
+
+"Then ye must stay with me," he said, "and don't worry about not doing
+things for me. You do things for me every minute--just by being in the
+world. If I can see ye or hear ye I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
+from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
+ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
+left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
+ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"
+
+She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.
+
+His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
+say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do--"
+
+"Oh no; I like him."
+
+"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
+that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
+don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
+out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
+voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
+me--now--I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
+name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
+is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
+die--I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
+Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+
+Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
+Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
+ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
+alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
+the libertine demands novelty--where struggle is essential, and to
+conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.
+
+He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
+and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
+won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him--pleased him. "She is no silly
+kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
+a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
+far, and I will be her guide--unless I have lost my cunning. She will
+share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."
+
+He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
+smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
+have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
+gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
+place. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own this
+work-shop are out; they'll be in soon."
+
+"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."
+
+"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."
+
+The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases upon
+the walls--not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay in
+America being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own.
+"I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.
+Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,
+for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,
+wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railway
+fare."
+
+He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't you
+come with us for a ride?"
+
+"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."
+
+"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bring
+you."
+
+"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. I
+despise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America--except
+you. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."
+
+"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a few
+minutes, and I'm going."
+
+He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"
+
+"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outside
+the hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."
+
+"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."
+
+"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."
+
+He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of my
+pictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,
+there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think better
+of the West--of America. I feel that you will find something in my
+pictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, he
+added: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage--"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anything
+but the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you--you are
+so aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. You
+would spur a man to big things."
+
+They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,
+embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by his
+voice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked round
+him. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold and
+depressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den in
+Paris. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiest
+days have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."
+
+He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerful
+manner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see his
+paintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your word
+and dine with you--perhaps this very night."
+
+"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonder
+at the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.
+
+He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to a
+belief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artist
+feelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost as
+lonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, but
+Haney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair for
+you," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.
+
+Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked of
+the West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and his
+essentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish that
+they might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," he
+insisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With your
+beauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, you
+could reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worth
+more to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anything
+in this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show you
+Paris."
+
+Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbing
+of her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctive
+distrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners and
+cowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back in
+growing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all the
+barriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of the
+eagle--now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray sea
+to slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willing
+to sit beside her and talk--he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.
+
+The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and his
+theories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portrait
+in the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.
+Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flattering
+not to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joined
+them in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had known
+Humiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry's
+amusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"
+
+He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the little
+gallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other men
+have been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've gone
+on refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line to
+color, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.
+The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only now
+and then that a man, or a woman _feels_ what I'm after--and so I live. I
+hold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."
+
+He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what she
+thought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of them
+home he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," he
+sharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yet
+used: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused of
+patronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spite
+of all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderful
+artist?
+
+She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I've
+got a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."
+
+"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones on
+which my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."
+
+Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit--they are
+too 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to show
+them to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.
+
+And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,
+consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."
+
+His gentle _camaraderie_, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when he
+took her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did not
+stumble at the crossing she was stirred--not as Ben's hand had moved
+her, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderful
+that she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in the
+midst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the company
+of one of the chief artists of the world?
+
+Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of the
+city, and explained to her that American dealers had no real
+appreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,
+and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the same
+in Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect of
+these densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."
+
+The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and out
+with friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha into
+the farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.
+No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the other
+paintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall and
+partly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the inner
+temple. Enter."
+
+She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not well
+lighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.
+
+Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:
+"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to show
+my masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothing
+unusual in the experience.
+
+It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits of
+excelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent over
+some canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one with
+care. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stood
+a large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back with
+eyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was in
+the new Salon--here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited in
+this rotten town."
+
+Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a
+nude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,
+rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and to
+the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught
+her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a
+defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female
+form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And
+then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
+beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
+he placed another canvas before her--something so unrefined, so animal,
+so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
+looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
+a degenerate demon--an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
+the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.
+
+Bertha stared at it--fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
+It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
+thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
+him.
+
+Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
+upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
+look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
+revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
+tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
+burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
+affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
+wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
+herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
+slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.
+
+It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
+brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
+the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
+he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
+Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
+ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
+Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
+the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
+in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
+and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
+and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
+sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
+vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?
+
+She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
+head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
+as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
+glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
+for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
+one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+
+Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
+a letter from Humiston--a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
+hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
+sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
+a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
+you to see them as I painted them--in pure artistic delight. You
+misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
+remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."
+
+Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
+beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
+relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
+experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
+shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
+quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
+near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
+before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
+decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
+leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
+little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
+trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben--these men she knew and respected.
+Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
+dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
+men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.
+
+She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
+go home--to-day."
+
+"All right, Bertie, I'm ready--or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
+father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"
+
+"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."
+
+"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
+impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
+me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
+goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
+have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next
+express."
+
+The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the
+Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a
+military camp.
+
+Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public
+dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her,
+and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she
+had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon
+them.
+
+As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than
+asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."
+
+"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."
+
+"We can put it in," said Bertha.
+
+"We can't do without you now," added Mart.
+
+Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't
+particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."
+
+Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in
+command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."
+
+Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't
+assumed--"
+
+"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a
+plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a
+steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it
+right with you--and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."
+
+"Sure, Mart--only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to
+do. He's _too_ handy--if anything."
+
+"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the
+price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you
+in on the mine."
+
+Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay
+with me; my wants are few."
+
+Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many
+times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all
+your life? Tell us your ambition--maybe we can help you."
+
+He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions
+once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as
+I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know
+exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my
+profession it was different--I was always being cursed for presumption."
+
+"What was your profession?" asked Haney.
+
+"I studied law--and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I
+didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got
+a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He
+stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.
+
+Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber
+like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong
+way."
+
+Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point
+upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as
+you have been doing--as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything
+about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very
+satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."
+
+"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled--you're adjutant-general
+of the Haneys' forces."
+
+After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told
+us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."
+
+Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do
+anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius,
+won't ye do that?'"
+
+Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's
+services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face
+and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of
+his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the
+trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have
+misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto,
+but in the spirit of the trained nurse.
+
+This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after
+a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western
+town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled
+away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance
+of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious
+Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of
+upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up
+Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights,
+with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and
+sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled
+bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had
+threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the
+mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of
+human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and
+very remote.
+
+Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her
+mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In
+all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he
+frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with
+regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into
+their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me
+down--I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius
+sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in
+the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten
+fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis
+a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the
+faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."
+
+"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"
+Bertha said.
+
+"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."
+
+"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."
+
+"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the
+road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis
+not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern
+streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than
+when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of
+our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls,
+and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."
+
+"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon
+the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a
+gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come
+back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a
+wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.
+
+The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was
+strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely,
+troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to
+catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his
+shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the
+limited express.
+
+"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world
+like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a
+visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody
+travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the
+matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of
+the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their
+ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man
+of his own level, and they held long confabulations together--the
+colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in
+which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window,
+dreaming of the past.
+
+As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing
+the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the
+pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was
+as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on
+which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made
+all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through
+which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those
+high places.
+
+Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time--by
+reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of
+New York--it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had
+once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She
+liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a
+pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and
+say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he
+even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely
+your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.
+I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly
+luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.
+
+There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the
+culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far
+from anything ęsthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved
+the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was
+about to leave the East for the West--perhaps to abandon the town for
+the village--she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto
+been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.
+New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content
+to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.
+
+That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the
+city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes,
+especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the
+East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver
+sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's
+Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and
+glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and
+especially of music and the drama--all these came back one by one to
+claim a place beside her peaks and cańons, sharing the glory of the
+purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto
+loved so single-heartedly and so well.
+
+She saw Sibley now for what it was--a village almost barren of beauty--a
+good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there
+to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to
+do here--in the East. I can't stand Sibley."
+
+She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of
+Ben--but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited
+opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun
+to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul,
+with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with
+her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.
+She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien
+to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting
+her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned
+upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were
+aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and
+wise.
+
+Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night
+at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go
+stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So
+Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be
+over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father
+hurried away in joyous relief.
+
+"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he
+confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him
+unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like
+palin' a red onion to him--nothing more."
+
+The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was
+getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him.
+The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had
+not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn
+away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they
+infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new
+barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or
+coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were
+leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard
+unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees--which no one was
+allowed to climb.
+
+Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden--and this was onerous to
+the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again.
+However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations
+among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross
+them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had
+to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast
+to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed
+tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed.
+"We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole
+time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon
+with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."
+
+But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."
+
+Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the
+roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer.
+Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and
+p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it--snappin'
+and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."
+
+His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said:
+"'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing
+mind."
+
+They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped
+in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle
+having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought
+of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly
+less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour
+necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a
+certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father--a man
+inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was
+gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and
+took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small
+in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.
+
+There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and
+Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you
+gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you
+fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't
+put it on a charity basis--just sold the house on long time."
+
+"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"
+
+Lucius did not appear to hear.
+
+They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf,
+the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go
+over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not
+yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing.
+"Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.
+
+"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up
+before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in
+without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.
+
+Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought
+upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe,
+here's Mrs. Haney."
+
+Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows,
+but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a
+coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my
+arm--my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with
+frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared,
+'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and
+the West.'"
+
+Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our
+machine."
+
+"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming
+due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop
+and let art wag."
+
+Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised--"
+
+"Of course I did--that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now;
+I'll work to-night."
+
+"To-night is the Hall's circus party."
+
+"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool,
+clear air."
+
+Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he
+reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
+and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
+fishing or swimming.
+
+"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained--"took a
+contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
+to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
+money--now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
+can't breathe country air--had to work all day Sunday."
+
+"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
+children's summer suits."
+
+"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
+when I was a child--and that was a buff."
+
+All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
+how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"
+
+"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
+'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"
+
+"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
+"I'll secure one this week."
+
+Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
+hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
+school-children--even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
+turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
+pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
+powers of money--it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
+wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
+could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.
+
+Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
+Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
+deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
+crystalline.
+
+On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
+green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
+water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
+of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
+far away.
+
+Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
+a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
+boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
+type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
+look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."
+
+His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination--not because she cared to see
+Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his
+concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful
+was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about
+the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the
+city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him,
+angered him.
+
+She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till
+their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's
+private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his
+fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl
+who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to
+do?"
+
+"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure,
+he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time
+I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she
+is to fulfil her place in the world--and be happy."
+
+She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go
+further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or
+sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art
+that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative--home
+decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need
+of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know
+several highly successful women decorators--but I wouldn't advise that
+work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative
+sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."
+
+"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it
+over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show
+at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I
+missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."
+
+Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly
+romantic to us--the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you
+have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a
+visit."
+
+Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of
+pleading; then she answered: "Yes--but then, you see, it isn't really
+mine--it's the Captain's."
+
+"Yours by marriage."
+
+"That's what people say--but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no
+right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"
+
+What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
+moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
+Frank Congdon--he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
+with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
+is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
+gambler."
+
+She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
+saloon--when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
+promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
+and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
+didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
+comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
+the saloon money--and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
+I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
+straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
+though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
+way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
+account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
+in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."
+
+"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."
+
+She ignored the implied compliment and went on:
+
+"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
+man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
+and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
+know it?"
+
+"Does he complain?"
+
+"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits--but I'm
+afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
+game."
+
+In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
+trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
+it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
+you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
+handsome figure before his--accident."
+
+Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
+his trade--and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
+of the whole business--for me--I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
+big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
+sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I
+married him for his money--I liked him then, and, besides--well, I
+_thought_ I was doing the right thing--but now--well, I'm guessing." She
+ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her
+secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to
+her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her
+there.
+
+With sincere sympathy, he said: "We all do wrong at times that good may
+come out of it. You could not foresee the future--the best of us can
+_only guess_ at the effect of any action. You did the best you knew at
+the moment. The question you have to face now has only slight relation
+to the past. No one can enter wholly into another's perplexity--I'm not
+even sure of a single one of my inferences--but if you are thinking
+of--separation, I would say, meet this crisis as bravely as you met the
+other. But I don't believe we should decide any such question selfishly.
+I am not of those who always seek the side on which lies personal
+happiness, because a happiness that is essentially selfish won't last.
+The Captain lives only for you--any one can see that. What he does for
+you springs from deep affection. What would happen to him--if you left
+him?"
+
+He paused a moment and watched her subduing her tears; then added: "I
+won't say I was unprepared for what you've said, for the entire
+relationship, from our first meeting, seemed too abnormal to be
+altogether happy. Money will buy a great many desirable things, but it
+has its limits. At the same time, it is too much to expect of you--If
+your feeling for him has changed--"
+
+His delicacy, his sympathy for her, was made apparent by the unusual
+hesitation of his speech, and she would have broken down completely had
+not Julia Moss called out: "Joe, turn on the lights--it's getting dark."
+
+Conscious of Bertha's emotion, he did not immediately do as he was
+bidden. "I wish you'd talk this over with Julia," he ended gently;
+"she's a very wise little woman."
+
+Bertha shook her head. "I didn't intend to talk it over with you. I
+don't know what possessed me. I had no business to say what I did."
+
+He reassured her. "All you've told me and the part I've guessed is quite
+safe. I will not even permit Julia to share your confidence till you are
+willing to speak to her yourself."
+
+As he slowly lighted the studio Bertha was surprised and a little
+troubled to find that two or three other visitors had slipped in through
+the dusk, and were grouped about the tea-table, and that the Captain was
+again the centre of an eager-eyed group. "They treat him as if he were
+an Eskimo," she thought bitterly, and rose to join the circle and
+protect him from their inquisition.
+
+Haney was feeling extremely well, and talked with so much of his old
+time vigor and slash of epithet that his little audience was quite
+entranced. He enlarged upon the experiences of a year he had spent in
+Alaska. "Mining up there in them days made gambling slow business," he
+said. (He had told Bertha that he had made an attempt to get out of "the
+trade," but she was content to have him put it on less self-righteous
+grounds.) He contrived to make his hearers feel very keenly the
+pitiless, long-drawn ferocity of that sunless winter. He made it plain
+why men in that far land came together in vile dens to drink and gamble,
+and Moss glowed with the wonder and delight of those great boys who
+could rush away to the arctic edge of the world and die with laughing
+curses on their lips.
+
+"What did you all do it for?" he asked, bluntly. "For money?"
+
+"Partly--but more for the love of doing something hard. No man but a
+miser punishes himself for love of gold--it's for love of what the stuff
+will buy, that men fight the snows."
+
+While Haney talked of these things Bertha's eyes were musingly turned on
+the face of the sculptor, and her mind was far from the scenes which
+Mart so vividly described. This side of his life no longer amused
+her--on the contrary she shrank from any disclosure of his savage
+career. She was now as unjust in her criticism as she had been fond in
+her admiration, and when with darkening brow she cut short his garrulous
+flow of narrative Julia perceived her displeasure.
+
+Haney apologized, handsomely. "It's natural for the ould bedraggled
+eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he
+used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's
+weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now,
+as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I
+want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind o' wish
+to live 'em all over again. Bertie knows me weakness. I would talk
+forever did she lave me go on; but 'tis no blame to her--it was a cruel,
+bad, careless life."
+
+"When I come West," said Moss, sincerely, "we'll go camping together,
+and every night by the fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
+your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."
+
+Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
+going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
+the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
+briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
+right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
+above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
+examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
+because I know him--I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
+Springs."
+
+"What'll I do if he's worse?"
+
+"Bring him back here or go to sea level--only beware of high passes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+
+The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
+experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
+parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
+in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
+half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
+plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
+with his epoch-making wars.
+
+As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
+the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
+than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
+thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness--the strife
+was individual, the problems personal--and at last, weary of question,
+of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
+Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
+There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
+freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
+she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.
+
+She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
+secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
+intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
+out with lavish hand.
+
+Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
+too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.
+
+In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
+dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy gang, to the
+theatre--Patrick Haney as much of a boy as his grandsons, McArdle alone
+being unhappy as well as uneasy.
+
+She went about the shops, buying with reckless hand treasures for the
+house in the Springs, and this gave her husband more satisfaction than
+any other extravagance, for each article seemed a gage of the permanency
+of his home. In support of her mood he urged her to even larger
+expenditures. "Buy, buy like a queen," he often commanded, as she mused
+upon some choice. "Take the best!"
+
+There was instruction as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring
+with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her
+rōle as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses,
+her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To
+them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways
+as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well
+as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She
+was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured
+Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with
+almost equal gusto--and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the
+outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate women in the world.
+
+And yet every day made her less tolerant of the crippled old man at her
+side. She did not pout or sulk or answer him shortly, but she often
+forgot him--failed to answer him--not out of petulance or disgust, but
+because her mind was busy with other people. Gradually, without
+realizing it, she got into the habit of leaving him to amuse himself, as
+he best could, for she knew he did not specially care for the pursuits
+which gave her the keenest joy. In consequence of this unintentional
+neglect he very naturally fell more and more into the hands of the
+bar-room spongers who loitered about the hotel corridors. He dreaded
+loneliness, and it was to keep his companions about him that he became a
+spendthrift in liquors. Sternly and deliberately temperate during his
+long career as a gambler, he fell at last into drinking to excess, and
+on one unhappy afternoon returned to Bertha quite plainly drunk.
+
+She was both startled and disgusted by this sign of weakness, and he was
+not so blinded by the mist of his potations but that he perceived the
+shrinking reluctance of her touch as she aided Lucius in lifting him
+into the bed. His inert, lumpish form was at the moment hideously
+repulsive to her, and physical contact with him a dreaded thing. What
+was left if he lost that self-control which had made him admirable? She
+had always been able to qualify his other shortcomings by saying, "Well,
+anyhow, he don't drink." She could boast of this no longer.
+
+It was a most miserable night for her. At dinner she was forced to lie
+about him (for the first time), and she did it so badly that Joe Moss
+divined her trouble and came generously to her aid with a long and
+amusing story about Whistler.
+
+The play to which she took her guests did not help her to laughter, for
+it set forth with diabolic skill the life of a woman who loathed her
+husband, dreaded maternity, and hated herself--a baffling, marvellously
+intricate and searching play--meat for well people, not for those
+mentally ill at ease or morally unstable. Of a truth, Bertha saw but
+half of it and comprehended less, for she could not forget the leaden
+hands and flushed face of the man she called husband--and whom she had
+left in his bed to sleep away his hours of intoxication. She pitied him
+now--but in a new fashion. Her compassion was mixed with contempt, and
+that showed more clearly than any other feeling could the depth to which
+Marshall Haney had sunk.
+
+When she came home at midnight she listened at his door, but did not
+enter, for Lucius--skilled in all such matters--reported the Captain to
+be "all right."
+
+She went to her own room in a more darkly tragic mood than she had ever
+known before. Her punishment, her time for trouble, had begun. "I reckon
+I'm due to pay for my fun," she said to herself, "but not in the way
+I've been figuring on." Haney seemed at the moment a complete physical
+ruin, and the change which his helplessness wrought in her was most
+radical.
+
+His deeply penitent mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as
+much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have
+preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast,"
+he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand
+and me tongue twisted--and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having
+nothing to do but trade lies with a lot of flat-bottomed loafers in a
+gaudy bar-room. But don't worry, darlin', right here old Mart pulls up.
+You'll not see anny more of this. Forget it, dear-heart--won't you now?"
+
+She promised, of course, but the chasm between them was widened, and a
+fear of his again yielding to temptation cut short her stay in the city,
+for Lucius warningly explained: "The Captain is settling into a corner
+of the bar-room with a gang of sponging blackguards around him, and
+every day makes it less easy for him to break away. I'd advise going
+home," he ended, quietly. "The Springs is a safer place for him now."
+
+The hyenas were beginning to prowl around the disabled lion, and this
+the faithful servant knew even better than the wife.
+
+"All right, home we go," she replied, and the thought of "home" was both
+sweet and perilous.
+
+Haney met her decision with pathetic, instant joy. "I'm ready, I was
+only waitin'," he said. "After all, your own shack is better than a
+pearl palace in anny town, and it's gettin' hot besides."
+
+Bertha parted from the Mosses with keen sorrow. Joe had come to be like
+an elder brother to her--a brother and a teacher, and, next to Ben
+Fordyce, was more often in her thought than any other human being. She
+had lost part of her awe of him, but her affection had deepened as she
+came to understand the essential manliness and simplicity of his
+character. He redeemed the artist-world from the shame men like Humiston
+had put upon it.
+
+As she entered for the last time the studio in which she had spent so
+many happy hours and from whose atmosphere of work and high endeavor she
+had derived so much mental and moral development she was sad, and this
+sadness lent a beauty to her face that it had never before attained. She
+looked older, too; and contrasting her with the girl who had first
+looked in at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a
+year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to
+know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns,
+but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the
+expression of security and power.
+
+He greeted her as usual with a frank nod and (his hands being free from
+clay) advanced to shake hands. "Don't tell me you've come to say
+good-bye."
+
+"That's what," she curtly said. "It's up to me to take the Captain home.
+He's getting into bad habits lying around this hotel."
+
+His face clouded. "I've been afraid of that," he answered, gently. "Yes,
+you'd better go home. It's harder for a man to have a good, easy time
+than it is for a woman. But sit down, Julia will be in soon; you mustn't
+go without seeing her."
+
+After some further talk on trains and other common-places she became
+abruptly personal. "I've been having a whole lot of fun buying things
+and planting dollars, but I'm beginning to see an end to that kind of
+business. After you've got your house filled up with furniture and
+jimcracks, what you going to do then?"
+
+"Burn 'em."
+
+"And begin all over again? You can't buy out the town. It's a real
+circus for a while, but I can see there's a limit to it. Once you find
+out you can just go down here to one of these jewelry-stores and order
+anything you want--you don't want anything. Here I am with a lot of
+money that ain't mine, having a gay whirl spending it, but I can see my
+finish right now. To go on in this line would take all the fun out of
+life. What am I to do?"
+
+Moss took a seat and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. I used
+to think if I had money I'd start out and 'do good to people,' but I'm
+not at all sure that charity isn't all a damned impertinence. A couple
+of years ago I would have said go in for 'Neighborhood Settlements,'
+free libraries, 'Noonday Rests,' 'Open-air Funds,' and all the rest of
+it, but now I ask, 'Why?' We've had our wave of altruism, and I'm
+inclined to think a wave of selfishness would do us all good--but you're
+too young to be bothered with these problems. Go home and be happy while
+you can. Enjoy your gold while it glitters. Work is my only fun--real,
+enduring fun--and I'm not a bit sure _that_ will last. Whatever you do,
+be yourself. Don't try to be what you think I or some one else would
+like to have you. I like you because you are so straight-forwardly
+yourself; I shall be heart-broken if you take on the disease of the age
+and begin to prate of your duty."
+
+She listened to him with only partial comprehension of his meaning, but
+she answered: "I was brought up to think duty was the whole works."
+
+"Yes, and your teacher meant duty to God, duty to others. Well, there's
+duty to one's self. The war of money and duty is the biggest mix of our
+day. It's simpler to be poor; then all you've got to worry about is
+bread and shoes and shingles."
+
+"That's just it. Sometimes I wish I was back in the Golden Eagle, where
+I--" she ended in mid-sentence.
+
+He laughed. "You sound like a middle-aged financier who mourns (tattooed
+with dollar-marks) for the days when he used to husk corn at seventy
+cents a day." She saw the humor of this, but was aware that without a
+knowledge of Ben Fordyce Joe could not understand her problem, therefore
+she abandoned her search for light and leading. "Well, anyhow, right
+here I quit what you fellows call civilization. I hate to lose you and
+Julia and the rest of the folks, but it's me to the high hills. You'll
+never know how much you've helped me."
+
+"I hope you'll never know how thoroughly we've _done_ you. An
+evil-minded person would say we'd worked you for dinners and drives most
+shameful. However, if you have enjoyed our company as thoroughly as
+we've delighted in your champagne and birds, we'll cry quits. All my
+theories of art and life I advance _gratis_. I ought to do something
+handsome for you--you've listened so divinely."
+
+Underneath his banter Moss was sincerely moved. It was hard to say
+good-bye to this curious, earnest, seeking mind, this unspoiled child in
+whose face the world was being reflected as in a magical mirror. He
+loved her with frank affection--a pure passion that was more intimate
+than fraternal love and more exalted, in a sense, than the selfish,
+devouring passion of the suitor. It would have been difficult for him to
+say what his relationship to her at the moment was. It was more than
+friendship, more than brotherly care, and yet it was definably less than
+that of the lover.
+
+Julia came in and was quite as outspoken in her regret, and both refused
+to say good-bye at the moment. "We'll see you at the station," they
+said, and Bertha went away, feeling the pain of parting less keen by
+reason of this promise.
+
+Afterwards, as the hour for departure came near, she hoped they would
+not come. It was less difficult to say "I'll see you again" than to
+utter the curt "good-bye" which means so much in Anglo-Saxon life.
+
+They came, however, together with several others of her friends, but in
+the bustle and confusion of the depot not much of sentiment could be
+uttered, and, though she felt that she was going for a long stay, she
+was prodigal of promises to return soon.
+
+Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the
+jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in
+the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy
+which the situation needed. "Av ye don't mind I'll stay wid Fan," he
+said, a little more seriously, to Haney, who replied:
+
+"All right, 'tis as Fan says," and so they entered the train for the
+upward climb.
+
+Haney himself had only joy of the return. He sat at one of the windows
+of the library car and studied the prairie swells with a faint, musing
+smile, till the darkness fell, and was up early next morning, eager and
+curious, to see how the increasing altitude would affect him. Only
+towards the end of the second day after eating his dinner did he begin
+to feel oppressed.
+
+"I smell the altitude," he confessed--"me breath is shortenin' a bit,
+but 'tis good to see the peaks again."
+
+In this long ride the girl-wife dwelt dangerously on the bright face of
+Ben Fordyce. It was the thought of seeing him again that came at last to
+steal away her regret at parting from her Eastern friends. The splendor
+of the Eastern world faded at last, and she, too, soared gladly towards
+the mountains. Every doubt was swallowed up in a pleasure which was at
+once pure and beyond her control.
+
+Ben would be at the station, she was certain, for Lucius had wired to
+him the time of their arrival, and he had instantly replied. "I'll be
+there, and very glad to see you"--these words, few and simple, were
+addressed to Marshall Haney, but they thrilled her almost as if Ben had
+spoken them to her. Was he as glad to have her return as she was to meet
+him again?
+
+"A fine lad," remarked Haney, as he pocketed the envelope. "I wonder
+does he marry soon? He'd better decide now. I reckon Alice is not long
+for this climate--poor girl!"
+
+His remark, so simple in itself, pierced to the centre of Bertha's
+momentary self-deception. "I have no right to think of him. He belongs
+to Alice Heath!" But the feeling that she herself belonged to Marshall
+Haney was gone. That she owed him service was true, but since the night
+of his drunkenness she had definitely and finally abandoned all thought
+of being his wife, soul to soul, in the rite that sanctifies law. True,
+he had kept his word, he had not offended again, but the mischief was
+done. To return to the plane on which they had stood when she gave her
+promise was impossible.
+
+The day and the hour were such as make the plain lover content with his
+world. The earth, a mighty robe of closely woven velvet, mottled softly
+in variant greens, swept away to the west, under a soaring convexity of
+saffron sky, towards a cloudy altar whereon small wisps of vapor were
+burning down to golden embers, while beneath lay the dark-blue Rampart
+range. It was a world for horsemen, for free rovers, and for swift and
+tireless desert-kine. The course of winds, it lay, a play-ground for
+tempests that formed along the great divide and swept down over the
+antlike homes of men, acknowledging no barrier, exultant of their
+strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.
+
+Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
+hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
+treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
+loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
+welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
+tide of longing in her heart.
+
+As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
+the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
+seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
+sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
+from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "_There he is!_"
+
+Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
+kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
+for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.
+
+Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
+ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
+looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.
+
+"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
+his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
+forgot all their doubts and scruples--overpowered by the sense of each
+other's nearness.
+
+She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
+with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
+bringing slowly down the step.
+
+Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
+contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
+"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."
+
+Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
+black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
+spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
+over-peering peaks.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.
+
+"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
+'mobile we've heard so much about?"
+
+"Coming by fast freight."
+
+"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
+come as excess baggage."
+
+It was cool, delicious green dusk--not dark--with a small sickle of moon
+in the west, and as they drove up the broad avenue towards home the
+town, the universe, was strangely sweet and satisfying. It seemed as
+though she had been gone an age--so much had come to her--so thick was
+the crowd of new experiences standing between her going and her
+return--so swiftly had her mind expanded in these months of vivid city
+life. "I'll never go away again," she said to Ben. "This country suits
+me."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered, softly. In the most
+natural way he had put Congdon with Haney in the rear seat and had taken
+the place beside Bertha, and this nearness filled her with pleasure and
+an unwonted confusion. How big he was! and how splendid his clear,
+youthful profile seemed as it gleamed silver-white in the light of the
+big street-lamps. Never had his magnetic young body acted upon her so
+powerfully, so dangerously. His firm arm touching her own was at once a
+delight and a dread. She was all woman at last, awake, palpitant with
+love's full-flooding tide--bewildered, dizzy with rapture. Speech was
+difficult and her thought had neither sequence nor design.
+
+Fordyce was under restraint also, and the burden of the talk fell upon
+Congdon, who proceeded in his amusingly hit-or-miss way to detail the
+important or humorous happenings, of the town, and so they rolled along
+up the wide avenue to the big stone steps before the looming, lamp-lit
+palace which they called home.
+
+Ben sprang out first, glad of another opportunity to take Bertha's hand,
+a clasp that put the throbbing pain back in her bosom--filling her with
+a kind of fear of him as well as of herself--and without waiting for the
+Captain she ran up the walk towards the wide doorway where Miss Franklin
+stood in smiling welcome.
+
+Her greeting over, the young wife danced about the hall, crying: "Oh,
+isn't it big and fine! And aren't you glad it's our own!" She appeared
+overborne by a returning sense of security and ownership, and ran from
+room to room with all the ecstasy and abandon of a child--but she
+stopped suddenly in the middle of her own chamber as if a remorseless
+hand were clutching at her heart. "But it is _not_ mine!--I must give it
+all up!"
+
+Thrusting this intruding thought away, she hurried back to the library,
+where the men were seated at ease, sipping some iced liquor in gross
+content.
+
+Haney was beaming. "It makes me over new to sniff this air again," he
+was saying. "'Tis a bad plan to let go your hold on mountain air. Me
+lungs have contracted a trifle, but they'll expand again. I'll be riding
+a horse in a month."
+
+Ben was sympathetic, but had eyes only for Bertha, whose improvement (in
+mind as in bearing) astonished and delighted him. Her trip, coming just
+at the period when her observation was keenest and her memory most
+tenacious, had subtly, swiftly ripened her. Wrought upon by a thousand
+pictures, moved by strange words and faces, unconsciously changing to
+the color of each new conception, deriving sweetness and charm from
+every chance-heard strain of music and poetry, she had opened like a
+rose.
+
+The middle-aged are prone to go about the world carrying their habits,
+their prejudices, and their ailments with them to return as they went
+forth; but youth like Bertha's adventures out into the world eager to be
+built upon, ready to be transformed from child to adult, as it would
+seem, in a day.
+
+"She has achieved new distinction!" Ben exulted as he watched her moving
+about the room, so supple, so powerful, and so graceful, but, though he
+was careful not to utter one word of praise, he could not keep the glow
+of admiration from his eyes.
+
+An hour later as he said good-night and went away with Congdon, his
+heart burned with secret, rebellious fire. "Was it not hateful that this
+glorious girl should be doomed to live out the sweetest, most alluring
+of her years with a gross and crippled old man?" To leave her under the
+same roof with Mart Haney seemed like exposing her to profanation and
+despair.
+
+They were hardly out of the gate before Congdon broke forth in open
+praise of her. "When Mart dies, what a witching morsel for some man!"
+
+Fordyce did not answer on the instant, and when he did his voice was
+constrained. "You don't think he's in immediate danger of it--do you?"
+
+"Quite the contrary. He looks to be on the upgrade; but it's a safe bet
+she outlives him, and then think of her with a hundred thousand dollars
+a year to spend! Talk about honey-pots!--and flies!" After a moment's
+silence he added, musingly: "Funny how one's ideas change. A year ago I
+thought she was deeply indebted to him; now I feel that with all his
+money he can't possibly repay her for what she's giving up on his
+account. And yet his chink has made her what she is. Money is a weird
+power when applied to a woman. Tiled bath-rooms, silk stockings and
+bonnets work wonders with the sex. She's improved mightily on this
+trip."
+
+After leaving Congdon, Ben went to his apartment and telephoned Alice to
+say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
+own roof in good repair.
+
+"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
+the invalid gossip.
+
+"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
+They both seem very glad to get home."
+
+"He's made a mistake. He can't live here--I am perfectly sure of it. How
+is she?"
+
+"Very well--and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
+with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
+particularly."
+
+Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
+and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
+at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
+monstrous, incredible.
+
+He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
+whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
+It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm--she called to
+him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
+predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
+but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
+flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
+mysterious potency and romance of the West--typifying its amazing
+resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
+roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
+direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
+into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
+phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
+capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
+those which a shallow personality would make--they sprang rather from
+the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.
+
+"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
+of the highest culture," he concluded.
+
+That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
+knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
+seeking ways to possess her of his love--on the contrary, he was
+resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
+respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
+the beginning--why should I not?--enjoying her companionship as any
+honest man may do."
+
+The question of his relation to Alice was not so easily settled. She had
+come to irritate him now. Her changeable, swift-witted, moody,
+hysterical invalidism had begun to wear upon him intolerably. Everything
+she did was wrong. It was brutal even to admit this, but he could no
+longer conceal it either from himself or from her. It was deeply, sadly
+painful to recall the promise, the complete confidence and happiness
+with which they had both started towards the West. How sure of her
+recovery they had been, how gay and confident of purpose! Now she not
+only refused to listen to his demand for an early marriage, but hampered
+and annoyed him in a hundred ways. As he walked the silent night he was
+forced to acknowledge that she had been right in delaying their union.
+And yet how dependent upon him she was. Her life was so tragically
+inwound with his that to think of shaking away her hand seemed the act
+of a sordid egoist.
+
+"And even were I free, nothing is solved."
+
+The situation took on the insoluble and the tragic. In the fashion of
+well-bred, soundly nurtured American youth he had thought of such
+complications only as subjects for novelists. "There must be
+concealment, but not duplicity, in my attitude," he decided. He longed
+for the constant light of Bertha's face, the frequent touch of her hand.
+Her laughter was so endlessly charming, her step so firm, so light, so
+graceful. The grace of her bosom--the sweeping line of her side--
+
+He stopped there. In that direction lay danger. "She trusts me, and I
+will repay her trust. She has chosen me to be her adviser, putting her
+wealth in my hands!--Well, why not? We will see whether an honorable man
+cannot carry forward even so difficult a relationship as this. I will
+visit her every day, I will enjoy her hospitality as freely as Congdon,
+and I will fulfil my promise to Alice--if she asks it of me."
+
+But deep under the sombre resolution lay an unuttered belief in his
+future, in his happiness--for this is the prerogative of youth. The dim
+mountains, the sinking crescent moon, and the silence of the plain all
+seemed somehow to prophesy both happiness and peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+
+It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
+in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
+the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
+luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
+new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
+admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
+select.
+
+It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
+intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
+speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
+that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
+unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
+and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
+every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
+the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
+with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
+but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
+Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
+tired."
+
+"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.
+
+"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
+you're not to keep this up."
+
+Haney put in a quiet word. "She will _not_. Sure, she cannot. There'll
+be nothin' left for to-morrow."
+
+Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
+had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
+and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
+powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."
+
+At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
+business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
+tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
+mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
+wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
+the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
+honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.
+
+In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
+recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
+against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
+was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
+anything evil of her--why should she be condemned?
+
+In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
+herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
+as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
+bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
+like to leave him alone. Come and see us."
+
+She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
+of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
+coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
+respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
+East.
+
+"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
+garden awaiting dinner.
+
+"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
+clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
+smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
+went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked--enough to
+buy out a full-sized hotel."
+
+Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
+and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
+salient experiences--excepting, of course, her grapple with the
+degenerate artist.
+
+"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"
+
+She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
+we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
+of Utes if it hadn't been for him. _When in doubt ask Lucius_, was our
+motto."
+
+She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
+trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
+hard to run somebody else's life--I've found that out."
+
+And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
+like a hen with a red rag on her tail--divided in his mind like. As for
+Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."
+
+They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
+give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
+necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
+meeting they spoke of Alice--that is to say, Haney with invariable
+politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
+"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
+seems more and more despondent."
+
+This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
+and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
+woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
+with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
+dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
+a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
+herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
+a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
+smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
+out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
+appeared to be improving.
+
+This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
+joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
+attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
+He said nothing directly--at first--but she was able to interpret all
+too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
+Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
+ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
+clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
+and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
+eyes.
+
+One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
+and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
+the move like a flibberty-bidget."
+
+She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
+anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.
+
+He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
+of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
+y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."
+
+She went to her room, with his voice--so humbly penitent and
+resigned--lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
+which his amorous mood had laid upon her.
+
+She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
+of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
+they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
+evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
+talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
+deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
+always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
+ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
+delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
+recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
+embarrass her.
+
+And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
+were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
+definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
+and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.
+
+To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
+choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
+thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
+much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
+defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
+her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
+To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
+entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out--"I can't, I
+can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
+under indictment as an adventuress.
+
+She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
+who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
+one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
+hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
+anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."
+
+On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
+as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
+would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed--but that,
+too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
+moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
+profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
+to make her schooling possible?
+
+Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
+delight grew along each path--thickly interwoven--and decision became
+each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
+having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
+mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
+insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
+girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
+troubled woman.
+
+She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
+relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
+other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
+definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
+positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
+in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
+acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
+strong and graceful body.
+
+"I must go away--for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
+think it over."
+
+And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
+indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
+this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
+required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
+dulness to which she must return?
+
+Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
+dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
+bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
+came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"
+
+She replied: "To the ranch--to think things over."
+
+The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
+when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."
+
+She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
+return.
+
+No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
+very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
+and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
+to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
+said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
+flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
+man enter her hotel door--but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
+thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.
+
+"What thing?" she asked.
+
+"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."
+
+"That's my notion--I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
+answered.
+
+"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
+needs you--we all need you. It'll kill him."
+
+"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
+brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+"Because I've no right to Mart's money."
+
+"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
+catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
+don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."
+
+"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."
+
+"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
+converted him--as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
+something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
+_see_ you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
+run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
+he gets happy all the way through--I know, for I feel just the same."
+
+There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
+dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
+ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
+whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
+act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
+stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
+used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
+Golden Eagle Hotel.
+
+She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
+hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
+This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
+"He's gone back to his old business."
+
+The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
+money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
+saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
+I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
+I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
+splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
+she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
+eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
+half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
+the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
+cried at the same time--it was painful to see them thus abused.
+
+Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
+which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
+look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
+and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
+she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
+confronted her.
+
+Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
+began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
+gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.
+
+He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
+his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
+wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
+your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
+you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
+must be yours."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"He is dead!" he replied.
+
+Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
+and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
+eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
+prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
+she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
+her open window.
+
+She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
+till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
+night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
+irrevocably made.
+
+She shuddered again--not in grief, but in terror--as she relived the
+vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
+the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
+there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
+help me." And yet to return to Chicago--after having played the grand
+lady--would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
+cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
+and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
+should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
+city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.
+
+In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
+returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
+herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
+determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
+the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
+also--and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
+of Ben's growing indifference--all these perplexities made the coming of
+sunlight a mockery.
+
+She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
+saddened. One thing was plain--Ben should come no more to visit her--for
+Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
+In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+
+Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"
+to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness
+when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too
+well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her
+doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose
+to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,
+generously, the claims of youth and health--admitting that she and
+Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire
+for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force
+which binds the generations together.
+
+"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she
+asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a
+spiteful, hopeless invalid--I hate myself, I despise my body and
+everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat
+chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world--tired
+of everything--and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"
+
+These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to
+permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood
+of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover
+whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him
+when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no
+other solace, the day no other aim.
+
+In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew that
+her morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away her
+vital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweet
+sleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain.
+"I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higher
+self.
+
+She did not question Ben's honor--he was of those who keep faith. "He
+has no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,
+and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him to
+bind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of a
+wife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." She
+revolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart was
+elsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit of
+his wife's arms--and yet she could not give him up.
+
+As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burned
+with even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such perilous
+sublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitant
+should do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, and
+on the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in some
+supersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.
+
+She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last her
+nobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech with
+Haney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the young
+lovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over all
+barriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generous
+enough of soul to wish to prevent.
+
+Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morning
+paper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." She
+lay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was to
+dress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical with
+her mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,
+hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.
+
+It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching the
+gardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,
+inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."
+
+"I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to you
+alone."
+
+"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen--'tis not
+for me to boss the gardener."
+
+She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin
+her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,
+irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.
+
+He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,
+miss?"
+
+"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath--I walked too fast, I
+think."
+
+"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.
+
+"No, my trouble is all in my mind--I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,
+with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a
+nice long talk about symptoms--it's so comforting. How are _you_ feeling
+these days?"
+
+Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse
+luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree
+that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
+Bertha's moody silence.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
+sea-level?"
+
+"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
+age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
+of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."
+
+She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
+should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people--shutting
+them off from happiness?"
+
+He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
+mane--what?--who?"
+
+"I mean Bertha."
+
+"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"
+
+She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
+just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
+they are."
+
+His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her--and yet I think
+I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
+your hand on a sore spot--ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
+the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.
+
+"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."
+
+"That's true, too--but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
+happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
+don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
+conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."
+
+"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
+intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
+gone as far as that?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
+already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
+the gossips are even now busy with her name."
+
+He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
+man?--tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.
+
+She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
+She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
+time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
+reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
+picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
+must not happen! We must make way for them--you and I. We cumber the
+path."
+
+He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging
+eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
+watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
+something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
+even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
+him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
+arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
+gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.
+
+"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
+them--observe that. We are the ones to blame--we who are crippled and in
+the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
+spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
+our own miserable selves?"
+
+He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
+stammered, huskily.
+
+"But they _won't_ wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
+Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
+you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
+and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
+plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
+other from the very first night they met--I felt it that day we first
+rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
+his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
+respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
+hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
+He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
+her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
+earth for me! What do _you_ expect to gain by holding to a wife's
+garment when she--the woman--is gone?"
+
+The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
+without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
+been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
+purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
+him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
+to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
+wife--but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
+he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
+only as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,
+but now every hope died within him.
+
+Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard
+task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but
+the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it
+away. I knew she liked the lad--I had no doubt the lad liked her--but I
+did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet--but I will
+not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an
+old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the
+ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her
+from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where
+she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've
+brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It
+rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these
+things--me money--would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've
+been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always
+lived--till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that
+could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss--I know she has that in her
+soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and
+a well man I could folly her--but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk
+with her this night--" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with
+piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"
+
+She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw
+looming before her. "No--I lacked the courage."
+
+A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you
+have said to me?"
+
+"No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."
+
+"Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with
+them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick
+woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,
+and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.
+Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl--but ye have in Ben, for I
+know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of
+women."
+
+"Please don't misunderstand me--it is to keep them both what they are,
+good and true, that I come to you--we must not tempt them to evil."
+
+"I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may
+be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I
+could see they admired her--but she turned them down easily. She's no
+weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account--the more shame to me."
+
+"Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her
+heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.
+
+He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and
+gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence--the
+lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the
+desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced
+his heart.
+
+Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in the
+parchment setting of her skin.
+
+"Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that love
+had never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been my
+life, my only interest--and now--as he begins to forget--Oh, I can't
+bear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, burying
+her face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in the
+tempest of it.
+
+Haney turned and looked at her in silence--profoundly stirred to pity by
+her sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spoke
+his voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.
+
+"'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tis
+well ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must go
+from this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort that
+I have not--'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as I
+have done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,
+good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against me
+without care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I take
+the rain and the sun."
+
+Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely over
+her face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."
+
+"Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is a
+long time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'so
+long' and better luck."
+
+"You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.
+
+"Not at all, miss--I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."
+
+As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, his
+brow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strength
+and love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.
+
+While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see him
+at once, and he responded without delay.
+
+He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney had
+profoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lamp
+whose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled with
+instant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, and
+without waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as a
+pensioner in this house. You should be in your own home--our home--where
+I could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this private
+hospital--that's what it is."
+
+She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in a
+few days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to further
+delay.
+
+"Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."
+
+She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,
+but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, she
+answered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girl
+just yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a bad
+atmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn't
+be kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you get
+settled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or two
+more of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and a
+tremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forth
+with sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marry
+some nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself and
+me?"
+
+He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaim
+against her going on.
+
+She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You know
+perfectly well I'm never going to get better--I do, if you don't. I may
+linger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but a
+querulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me--I
+won't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go on
+alone--even for a little way."
+
+Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting his
+arm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,
+reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,
+dearest--you must not! You're not yourself to-day."
+
+"Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, I
+mean all I say--you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusions
+now. I'll never be well again--and you must know it."
+
+"Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You're
+really much better than you were last week."
+
+"No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change of
+climate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been a
+mistake. Let me go back to Chester--I'm afraid to die out here. I can't
+bear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonely
+and alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills--perhaps I can
+reconcile myself to death there--to sink into the earth on this plain is
+too dreadful."
+
+He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This is
+only a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you--I
+have such days--everybody has these hours of depression, but we must
+fight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were your
+husband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I could
+help you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,
+let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."
+
+She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished his
+counter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:
+"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You are
+lashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do not
+realize what you are saying. I am too old for you--Now listen--it's
+true! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well for
+ten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced when
+I should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay for
+years--that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bear
+to let my youth pass dully--and now it's gone! Wait!--I've deceived you
+in other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous and
+selfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and it
+is a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just to
+have you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want to
+say--you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolish
+sense of honor that keeps you loyal to me--I don't want that--I won't
+have it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted a
+ring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Go
+and be happy."
+
+He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you are
+crazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in his
+eyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."
+
+"No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying--I have
+made my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned his
+words against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."
+
+"I didn't mean that--you know what I meant. All you say is morbid and
+unreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sick
+fancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you of
+your madness."
+
+She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes
+wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her
+health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she
+exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again--and when
+you do, I will say _no_."
+
+He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find words
+for reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad--and yet all
+that she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that she
+was uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible--a bridal veil
+over that face was horrifying to think upon.
+
+She went on: "Now run away--I'm going to cry in a moment and I don't
+want you to see me do it. Please go!"
+
+He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety.
+"I am going to send Julia to you instantly."
+
+"No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me--nobody
+can, but you--and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going home
+to Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye--and go."
+
+He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightly
+clinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (for
+the first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+
+After Alice Heath's carriage had driven away, Haney returned to his
+chair, and with eyes fixed upon the distant peaks gave himself up to a
+review of all that the sick woman had said, and entered also upon a
+forecast of the game.
+
+He was not entirely unprepared for her revelation. He was, indeed, too
+wise not to know that Bertha must sometime surely find in another and
+younger man her heart's hunger, but his wish had set that dark day far
+away in the future. Moreover, he had relied on her promise to confide in
+him, and it hurt him to think that she had not fulfilled her pledge; yet
+even in this he sought excuses for her.
+
+"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far
+better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense
+of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His
+wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening
+between them.
+
+This day had shown a black sky to him, even before Alice Heath's
+disturbing call, for Bertha had been darkly brooding at breakfast, and
+silent at lunch, and immediately after rising from the table had gone
+away alone, without a word of explanation to any member of her
+household. She had not even taken her dogs with her, and her face was
+set and almost sullen as she passed out of the door and down the walk.
+All this was so unlike her that Mart was greatly troubled. It gave
+weight and significance to every word of Alice Heath's warning.
+
+Bertha was gone till nearly six o'clock, and her mood seemed no whit
+lightened as she entered the gate and came slowly up the walk. To Mart's
+humbly spoken query, "What troubles ye, darlin'?" she made no reply, but
+went at once to her room.
+
+The old gambler seemed pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in
+his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy
+among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home
+was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should be served.
+If she were unhappy, of what value were these soft rugs, these savory
+dishes, this shining silver? There was, in truth, something mocking and
+terrifying in the swift, well-trained action of the servants, who went
+about their tasks unmoved and apparently unacquainted with any change in
+the mind of their young mistress.
+
+In the kitchen the cook was carefully compounding the soup while
+watching the roast. Lucius, deft and absorbed, was preparing the table,
+arranging the coffee service and deciding upon the china. On the seat
+under the pear-trees Miss Franklin was chatting with Mrs. Gilman, and in
+the barn the coachman could be heard giving the horses their evening
+taste of green grass--"and yet how empty, aimless, and foolish it all is
+if Bertha is unhappy," thought the master.
+
+He grew alarmed for fear she would not come down; but at last he heard
+her light step on the stairs, and when she came in view his dim eyes
+were startled by the transformation in her. She had put on the plainest
+of her gowns, and she wore no jewels. By other ways which he felt but
+could not analyze she expressed some portentous shift of mood. He could
+not define why, but her step scared him, so measured and resolute it
+seemed.
+
+She called to her mother and Miss Franklin and then asked, "Has dinner
+been announced?"
+
+Her tone was quiet and natural, and Mart was relieved. He answered with
+attempt at jocularity, "Lucius is this minute winkin' at me over the
+soup-tureen."
+
+As they took seats at the table Mrs. Gilman exclaimed, "Why, dearie,
+where did you dig up that old waist?"
+
+"Will it do to visit Sibley in?"
+
+"No indeed! I should say not. When you go back there I want you to wear
+the best you've got. They'll consider it an insult if you don't."
+
+A faint smile lighted Bertha's pale face. "I don't think they'll take it
+so hard as all that."
+
+"Are you goin' to Sibley?" asked Mart, an anxious tone in his voice.
+
+"I thought of it. Mother is going over to-night, and I rather guess I'll
+run over with her. I've never been back, you see, since that night."
+
+There was something ominous in her restraint, in her abstraction of
+glance, and especially in her lack of appetite. She took little account
+of her guests and seemed profoundly engaged upon some inward
+calculation. The beautifully spread table, which would have thrilled her
+a few short weeks ago, was powerless to even hold her gaze, and it was
+Lucius (deft and watchful) who brought the meal to a successful
+conclusion--for the mother was awed and helpless in the presence of the
+queenly daughter whom wealth had translated into something almost too
+high and shining for her to lay hand upon.
+
+Miss Franklin did her best, but she was not a person of light and
+dancing intellectual feet, and she had never understood Haney, anyhow.
+Altogether it was a dismal and difficult half-hour.
+
+When the coffee came on Bertha rose abruptly, saying, "Come out into the
+garden, Mart, I've got something to say to you."
+
+He obeyed with a sense of being called to account, and as they walked
+slowly across the grass, which the light of a vivid orange sunset had
+made transcendently green, he glanced to the west with foreboding that
+this was the last time he should look upon the kingly peak at sunset
+time. A flaming helmet of cloud shone upon the chief, and all the lesser
+heights were a deep, purple bank out of which each serrate summit rose
+without perspective, sharply set against the other like a monstrous
+silhouette of cardboard.
+
+It should have been indeed a very sweet and odorous and peaceful hour.
+The murmur of the water from the fountain had the lulling sound of a
+hive of bees as they settle to rest, and to the suffering man it seemed
+impossible that this, his cherished world, could change to the black
+chaos which the loss of his adorable wife would bring upon it.
+
+The settee was of wire, and curved so that when they had taken seats
+they faced each other, and the sight of her, so slender, so graceful, so
+womanly, filled him with a fury of hate against the assassin who had
+torn him to pieces, making him old before his time, a cripple, impotent,
+inert, and scarred.
+
+Bertha did not wait for him to begin, and her first words smote like
+bullets. "Mart, I'm going back to Sibley."
+
+He looked at her with startled eyes--his brow wrinkling into sorrowful
+lines. "For how long?"
+
+"I don't know--it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things
+over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."
+
+"For God's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice
+was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without
+ye now. Don't go--that way."
+
+"I've _got_ to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I
+don't know about living with you any more."
+
+"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little
+longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man--but tell me the truth. Can't
+you stay with me--as we are?"
+
+She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I
+married you for your money, Mart--it ain't true--but the evidence is all
+against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out
+and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you--feel about me as
+you do--but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up--I
+don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the
+house--all my nice things--the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was
+fun to run the kitchen--now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact
+is, none of it seems mine."
+
+His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all
+because of what I said last night--"
+
+She stopped him. "No, it ain't that--it ain't your fault, it's mine.
+Something's gone wrong with _me_. I love this home, and my dogs and
+horses and all--and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to
+me--now that's the fact, Mart."
+
+"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."
+
+"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my
+mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and
+think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my
+return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of
+the range."
+
+"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.
+'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you--but you must let me
+give you some of me money--'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let
+me share it with you me heart will break entirely."
+
+"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart--I owe you more than I can ever
+pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."
+
+In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.
+"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something
+I should have known long since."
+
+Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's
+the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always
+shines. You love him, Bertie--and I don't blame you--"
+
+A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up,
+her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd
+plumb forgot about his call."
+
+"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.
+
+Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came
+hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them
+both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he
+announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just
+twenty minutes in which to thump you."
+
+Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they
+moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued:
+"Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why
+didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."
+
+"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.
+
+Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went
+into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There
+was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new
+conceptions, new duties.
+
+Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in
+the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His
+examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent
+had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he
+was, and upon his judgment she must rest.
+
+For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so
+far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into
+fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.
+"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from
+here as quickly as you can--but don't excite him. Don't let him exert
+himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and
+peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food--and above
+all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at
+all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to
+sea-level--if he'll go--and take care of him. His heart will run along
+all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."
+
+"He hates to leave--he says he won't leave," she explained.
+
+The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his
+choice of roads"--he used an expressive gesture--"up or down. One leads
+to the New Jerusalem and is short--as he'll find out if he stays here.
+Good-night! I must get that train."
+
+"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did
+you leave any medicine?"
+
+He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of
+little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."
+
+She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at
+last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.
+
+Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated
+in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a glass to his lips. He was
+stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old
+gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save
+his one faithful servant--and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep
+pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning
+became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to
+desert him now was impossible.
+
+Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she
+put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you
+worse?"
+
+He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's
+opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out,
+darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the
+count--but I'm--still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that
+sawbones the power of mind over matter--the ould croaker!"
+
+He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then,
+with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.
+"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like
+Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis
+true, but I'll surprise him yet."
+
+"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.
+
+He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly
+at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high
+country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."
+
+Her decision was ready. "All right, then _we go_!"
+
+He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it,
+sweetheart?"
+
+"I did, Mart--I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by
+you--till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."
+
+The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're God's
+own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here--I'm not
+worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and
+look after the mines."
+
+Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's
+up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for
+you here--I didn't, really!"
+
+"It's all wrong, I'm afraid--all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord
+knows I need you worse than ever."
+
+"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside
+where the air is better."
+
+Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so,
+leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk
+where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of
+the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"
+warned Haney--"at any rate, not to-night."
+
+They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these
+beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called
+round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly--this mandate of
+the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more
+helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this
+garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the
+heart's action?
+
+The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last
+to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the
+clouds--and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her
+mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30
+she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the
+moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not
+share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then
+confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.
+
+Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing
+himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If
+the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks,
+anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me
+own home and so end it all comfortably?"
+
+This was so simple--and yet he spent most of the night fighting the
+desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so
+sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand
+on his hair--now and again. "She's only a child--she can wait ten years
+and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to
+wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in
+the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the
+consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so
+that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."
+
+To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so
+that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will
+not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly,
+so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or
+Ben."
+
+"Can I visit the mine once more?" he had asked Steele. "No," the doctor
+had replied. "To go a thousand feet higher than this would be fatal."
+
+As he mused on this he began to feel the wonder of the body in which he
+dwelt. That a machine so bulky and so gross could be so delicate that a
+change in the pressure of the atmosphere might be fatal astonished him.
+"I'll soon know," he said, "for I cross the range to-morrow."
+
+The dark shadow of the unseen world, once so dim and far, now rose
+formidable as a mountain on the horizon of his thought. It was so
+difficult to leave the house in which he had found peace and a strange
+kind of happiness (the happiness of a soldier home on parole,
+convalescent and content under the apple-trees)--it was very hard--and
+the tenderness, the care, to which his little wife had returned and
+which filled his heart with sweetness, added to his irresolution.
+
+He fell into deep sleep at last, still in debate with himself.
+
+He woke quietly next morning, like a child, and as his eyes took in the
+big room in which he had slept for a year, surrounded by such luxury as
+he had never dreamed of having (even for a day), life seemed very easy
+of continuance, and Steele a mistaken egotist, a foul destroyer of men's
+peace; but as he rose to dress and saw himself in the glass, the figure
+he presented decided his hand. Was this Mart Haney--this unshaven,
+haggard, and wrinkled old man?
+
+Leaning close to the mirror, he studied his face as if it were a mask.
+Deep creases ran down on either side of the nose, giving to his gaze the
+morose expression of an aged, slavering mastiff. His nerveless cheeks
+depended. His neck was stringy. Puffy sacs lay under the eyes, and the
+ashen pallor of his skin told how the heart was laboring to maintain
+life's red current in its round.
+
+As he looked his decision was taken. "Mart, the game has run mostly in
+your favor for twenty-five years--but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old
+gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards
+and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a
+year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her."
+
+And yet, though crippled and gray, death was somehow more dreadful to
+him at this moment than when in his remorseless and powerful young
+manhood he had looked again and again into the murderous eyes of those
+who were eager to shed his blood. He shivered at the thought of the dark
+river, as those whose limbs having grown pale and thin dread the cold
+wind of the night.
+
+"I wonder is the mother over there waitin' fer me?" he half whispered.
+"If ye are, your soul will be floating far above me in the light, while
+I--burdened by me sins--must wallow below in purgatory. But I go, and
+the divil take his toll."
+
+There was not much preparation to be made. His will was written, fully
+attested, and filed in a safe place. His small personal belongings he
+was willing to leave in Bertha's hands. It was hardest of all to vanish
+without a word of good-bye to any soul, but this was essential to his
+plan. "No one must suspect design in me departure," he muttered. "I must
+drop out--_by accident_. I must cut loose during the day, too--no night
+trips for me--in a way that will look natural. If Steele knows his
+business, Mart Haney will go out of the game on the summit, if not, 'tis
+easy for a cripple to stagger and fall from a rock. Thank God, I leave
+her as I found her--small credit to me in that."
+
+Lucius, coming in soon after, found his master unexpectedly cheerful and
+vigorous.
+
+In answer to his query, the gambler said: "I take me medicine, Lucius,
+like a Cheyenne. 'Tis all in the game. Some man must lose in order that
+another may win. The wheel rolls and the board is charged in favor of
+the bank. Damn the man that squeals when the cards fall fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+
+Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
+haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
+his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation--mixed with
+humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
+the jumpin'-off place."
+
+"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"
+
+"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
+want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
+mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
+mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
+because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."
+
+This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
+to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place--its
+possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
+care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
+some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."
+
+This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
+you go and tell him yourself?"
+
+"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
+shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
+smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
+all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
+and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
+stairs ag'in."
+
+The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
+too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
+go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
+the house."
+
+In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
+Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
+splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
+broke forth: "Ye _must_ stay here, darlin'--never mind me. 'Tis a sin
+and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old--"
+
+"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
+he said no more.
+
+They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
+life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
+the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
+while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
+change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
+talk it all over."
+
+For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
+look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
+voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
+orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
+came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
+Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
+mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
+hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
+each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
+purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
+overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
+lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.
+
+Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
+north ran the western way--a trail with no returning footprints; and the
+thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
+the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
+grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
+mate.
+
+To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
+from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
+own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
+so."
+
+Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
+where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
+Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
+Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
+from the cliff."
+
+Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
+lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
+been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
+action typified. The individual is of little value--the race alone
+counts.
+
+He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
+in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
+exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
+believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."
+
+"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same--for me, anyhow.
+I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'--I _don't_ ask it. Stay
+you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
+Stay on, darlin'--'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."
+
+She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
+mind is made up--I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
+little lady, so don't fuss."
+
+The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
+remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
+nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
+better for a sick man than this."
+
+She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
+Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish--I tried
+to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."
+
+"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
+me exile--but I hate to drag ye down with me."
+
+"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
+be honest, I kind o' like the East."
+
+At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
+carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
+seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
+to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."
+
+He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
+childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."
+
+She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
+stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!
+
+Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
+was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
+hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
+visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness--the
+beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
+tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
+pain.
+
+At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
+shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
+peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"
+
+She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
+ain't able."
+
+"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.
+
+"Yes--Dr. Steele came last night and examined him--"
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He told us to 'get out' of here--quick."
+
+He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
+matter?"
+
+"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away--down the
+slope--to-morrow."
+
+"Not to stay?"
+
+"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."
+
+He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
+seemed so happy and so much better, too."
+
+"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
+The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."
+
+"And he positively ordered you to go below?"
+
+"Yes--he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute--if he stayed."
+
+In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
+for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
+"And you are going with him?"
+
+"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"
+
+He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
+would be to shorten his life.
+
+"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.
+
+"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
+leave me here--but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
+is," she added. "He sure needs me now."
+
+"What are you going to do with the house?"
+
+"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
+look after all his business just the same--"
+
+"I can't do that."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
+mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
+finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."
+
+"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
+lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
+tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm--we are depending on
+you."
+
+His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
+the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
+she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully--as if the
+words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
+deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
+means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
+of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."
+
+She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
+her. "You mustn't say that--you've got to stay with Alice."
+
+"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
+home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
+walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
+to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
+mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
+cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
+won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
+going to live?"
+
+"I don't know--maybe in Chicago--maybe in New York."
+
+"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
+life--I will not!"
+
+"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart--I can't see you any
+more--now."
+
+He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
+mean by _now_? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
+have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
+and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
+mean--something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
+Do you? Is that your meaning?"
+
+She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know--Yes, I do
+know--it ain't right for me--for you to say these things to me while I
+am Mart Haney's wife."
+
+He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
+graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
+to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
+belong to me."
+
+She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
+of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
+conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
+as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
+each other--don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
+love her--I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
+why she has returned my ring--there is nothing further for me to say to
+her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
+claim you."
+
+"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."
+
+"Then why don't you?"
+
+"Because he needs me."
+
+"So do I need you."
+
+"But not the way--I mean he is sick and helpless."
+
+He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
+part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
+intensity.
+
+She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
+herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
+listen, to yield--and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
+thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
+brought back her sterner self.
+
+"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
+touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"
+
+He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
+the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"
+
+She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
+despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"
+
+Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
+rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
+to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
+anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
+hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+Marshall Haney was a brave man, and his resolution was fully taken, but
+that final touch of Bertha's hand upon his arm very nearly unnerved him.
+His courage abruptly fell away, and, leaning back against the cushions
+of his carriage, with closed eyelids (from which the hot tears dripped),
+he gave himself up to the temptation of a renewal of his life. It was
+harder to go, infinitely harder, because of that impulsive, sweet
+caress. Her face was so beautiful, too, with that upward, tender,
+pitying look upon it!
+
+While still he sat weak and hesitant, a roughly dressed man of large and
+decisive movement stopped and greeted him. "Hello, Mart, how are you
+this fine day?"
+
+Haney put his tragic mask away with a stroke of his hand, and hastily
+replied: "Comin' along, Dan, comin' along. How are things up on the
+peak?"
+
+"Still pretty mixed," replied the miner, lightly; then, with a further
+look around, he stepped a little nearer the wheel. "Hell's about to
+break loose again, Mart."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I can't go into details, and I mustn't be seen talking with you, but
+Williams is in for trouble. Tell him to reverse engine for a few weeks.
+Good-day," and he walked off, leaving the impression of having been sent
+to convey a friendly warning.
+
+Haney seized upon this message. His resolution returned. His voice took
+on edge and decision. "Oscar," he called quickly, "drive me down to the
+station, I want to get that ten-thirty-seven train."
+
+As the driver chirruped to his horses and swung out into the street,
+Marshall Haney, with full understanding that this was to be his eternal
+farewell, turned and looked up, hoping to catch a last glimpse of his
+wife's sweet face at the window. A sign, a smile, a beckoning, and his
+purpose might still have faltered, but the recall did not take place,
+and facing the west he became again the man of will. When the carriage
+drew up to the platform he gave orders to his coachman as quietly as
+though this were his usual morning ride. "Now, Oscar, you heard what
+that friend of mine said?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, forget it."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+"But tell Mrs. Haney I've gone up to the mine. You can say to her that
+Williams sent for me. You can tell her, but to no one else, what you
+heard Dan say. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"All right, that stands. Now you go home and wait till about
+twelve-thirty. Then go down for Mrs. Haney."
+
+The coachman, a stolid, reliable man, well trained to his duties, did
+not offer to assist his master, but sat in most approved alertness upon
+his box while Haney painfully descended to the walk.
+
+The train was about to move, and the conductor had already signalled the
+engineer to "go ahead," but at sight of the gambler, whom he knew,
+stopped the train and helped Haney aboard. "A minute more and you would
+have been left. Going up to the mine, I reckon?"
+
+They were still on the platform as Mart answered, "Yes, I'm due to take
+a hand in the game up there." He said this with intent to cover his
+trail.
+
+He was all but breathless as he dropped into a seat near the door. The
+sense of leaden weakness with which he had come to struggle daily had
+deepened at the moment into a smothering pain which threatened to blind
+him.
+
+"I must be quiet," he thought--"I will not die in the car." There seemed
+something disgraceful, something ignominious in such a death.
+
+Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter
+where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all
+concerned."
+
+Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had
+given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful
+stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only
+suspected from Steele's word of caution.
+
+They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse
+grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him
+passed away.
+
+The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window,
+very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along
+whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of
+Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney
+heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the
+sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the
+pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but
+through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay
+Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason
+out.
+
+One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring
+as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain
+and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself.
+They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not
+succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance
+he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys.
+I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear
+the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."
+
+Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His
+mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She
+will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no
+matter--before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."
+
+He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his
+thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to
+those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her
+seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the
+exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and
+his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and
+graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the
+first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how
+basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he
+said, fervently.
+
+Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in
+his--and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order
+that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His
+throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was
+inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake,
+darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."
+
+Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp
+turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer
+camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where
+the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of
+exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to
+die--up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the
+sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled
+like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.
+
+At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the
+conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling
+hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him
+to let the mine go and to return by the next train.
+
+He was too nerveless of fingers to put the sheet back within its
+envelope, and so thrust it, a crumpled mass, into his pocket. It was as
+if her hand was at his shoulder, her voice in his ear, but he did not
+falter. To go back now would be but a renewal of his torture. There
+could not come a better time to go--to go and leave no suspicion of his
+purpose behind him.
+
+Just over the summit, at a bare little station, the train was held for
+orders, and Haney, who was again suffocating and almost blind, took
+another dose of the mysterious drug, and with its effect returned to a
+dim perception of his surroundings. He was able vaguely to recall that a
+trail which began just back of the depot mounted the hill towards his
+largest mine. A desire to see Williams, his faithful partner, his most
+loyal friend, came over him, and, rising to his feet, he painfully crept
+down the aisle to the rear of the car and dropped off unnoticed, just as
+the conductor's warning cry started a rush for the train.
+
+As the last coach disappeared round the turn the essential bleak
+loneliness of the place returned. The station seemed deserted by every
+human being, even the operator was lost to sight, and the gambler,
+utterly solitary, with clouded brain and laboring breath, turned towards
+the height, his left leg dragging like a shackle.
+
+For the first half-mile the way was easy, and by moving slowly he
+suffered less pain than he had expected. Around him the frost-smitten
+aspens were shivering in the wind, their sparse leaves dangling like
+coins of red-and-yellow gold, and all the billowing land below, to the
+west, was iridescent with green and flame-color and crimson. A voiceless
+regret, a dim, wide-reaching, wistful sadness came over him, but did not
+shake his resolution. He had but to look down at his crippled body to
+know that the beauty of the world was no longer his to enjoy. His days
+were now but days of pain.
+
+He had always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this
+range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he
+mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he
+had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high
+above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air
+came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the
+solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his
+challenging march towards death.
+
+At the first sharp up-raise in the way his heart began to pound and he
+swayed blindly to and fro, unable to proceed. For an instant he looked
+down in dismay at the rocky, waiting earth, a most inhospitable grave. A
+few minutes' rest against a tree, and his brain cleared. "Higher--I must
+go higher," he said to himself; "they'll find me here."
+
+As he rose he could see the town spread wide on the hill-tops beneath
+him--the cabins mere cubes, the mill a child's toy. He could discern men
+like ants moving to and fro as if in some special excitement--but he did
+not concern himself with the cause. His one thought was to mount--to
+blend with the firs and the rocks. He drew the phial from his pocket and
+held it in his hand in readiness, with a dull fear that the chemical
+would prove too small, too weak, to end his pain.
+
+It was utterly silent and appallingly lonely on this side of the great
+peak. Hunters were few and prospectors were seldom seen. These
+upward-looping trails led to no mine--only to abandoned prospect
+holes--for no mineral had ever been found on the western slope. The
+copses held no life other than a few minute squirrels, and no sound
+broke the silence save the insolent cry of an occasional jay or
+camp-bird. To die here was surely to die alone and to lie alone, as the
+fallen cedar lies, wrought upon by the wind and the snows and the rain.
+
+Nevertheless, his suicidal idea persisted. It had become the one final,
+overpowering, directing resolution. There is no passion more persistent
+than that which leads to self-destruction. In the midst of the blinding
+swirl of his thought he maintained his purpose to put himself above the
+world of human effort and to become a brother of the clod, to mix
+forever with the mould.
+
+Slowly he dragged himself upward, foot by foot, seeking the friendly
+shelter and obscurity of a grove of firs just above him. Twice he sank
+to his knees, a numbing pain at the base of his brain, his breath
+roaring, his lips dry, but each time he rose and struggled on, eager to
+reach the green and grateful shelter of the forest, filled with desire
+to thrust himself into its solitude; and when at last he felt the chill
+of the shadow and realized that he was surely hidden from all the world,
+he turned, poised for an instant on a mound where the trail doubled
+sharply, gave one long, slow glance around, then hurled himself down the
+rocky slope. Even as he leaped his heart seemed to burst and he fell
+like a clod and lay without further motion. It was as if he had been
+smitten in flight by a rifle-ball.
+
+Around him the small animals of the wood frolicked, and the jay called
+inquiringly, but he neither saw nor heard. He was himself but a gasping
+creature, with reason entirely engaged in the blind struggle which the
+physical organism was instinctively making to continue in its wonted
+ways. All the world and all his desires, save a longing for his fair
+young wife, were lost out of his mind, and he thought of Bertha only in
+a dim and formless way--feeling his need of her and dumbly wondering why
+she did not come. In final, desperate agony, he lifted the phial of
+strychnine to his lips, hoping that it might put an end to his
+suffering; but before this act was completed a sweet, devouring flood of
+forgetfulness swept over him, his hand dropped, and the unopened bottle
+rolled away out of his reach. Then the golden sunlight darkened out of
+his sky, and he died--as the desert lion dies--alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon
+his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves--palm upward
+as if to show its emptiness. A bird--the roguish gray magpie--had stolen
+away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no
+sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his
+face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite
+the name of Marshall Haney.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Money Magic
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2009 [EBook #30318]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONEY MAGIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Yingling, Bethanne M. Simms, Mary Meehan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>MONEY MAGIC</h1>
+
+<h2>By HAMLIN GARLAND</h2>
+
+<h3>SUNSET EDITION</h3>
+
+<h3>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS<br />
+NEW YORK AND LONDON</h3>
+
+<h3>COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Clerk of the Golden Eagle</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney Changes Heart</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Bertha Yields to Temptation</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Haney Meets an Avenger</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Upward Flight</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Haney Palace</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Repulses an Enemy</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Receives an Invitation</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">Bertha Meets Ben Fordyce</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Ben Fordyce Calls on Horseback</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Ben Becomes Adviser to Mrs. Haney</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Alice Heath Has a Vision</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Yellow Cart</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">The Jolly Send-off</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Mart's Visit to His Sister</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">A Dinner and a Play</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Bertha Becomes a Patron of Art</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Portrait is Discussed</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Farther East</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">Bertha Meets Manhattan</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">Bertha Makes a Promise</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">The Serpent's Coil</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Flight</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">The Haneys Return to the Peaks</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">Bertha's Decision</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. <span class="smcap">Alice Visits Haney</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney's Sentence</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. <span class="smcap">Virtue Triumphs</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. <span class="smcap">Marshall Haney's Last Trail</span></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MONEY MAGIC</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
+dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
+thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
+shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
+generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
+the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
+south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
+when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
+the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.</p>
+
+<p>It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
+cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
+of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
+grass and grain spring up like magic.</p>
+
+<p>For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
+and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
+laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
+giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
+aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
+clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
+life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
+Creede.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
+cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
+and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
+of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
+put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
+sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
+Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
+was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
+general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
+hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm&mdash;therefore Bertha, who
+would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
+tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
+straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes&mdash;wistful when in
+repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
+to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
+sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
+here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
+a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was her habit to leave her demonstrations&mdash;even her
+sentences&mdash;unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
+hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
+failing powers. She had been handsome once&mdash;but the heat of the stove,
+the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
+daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
+of womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
+You see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
+schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
+dreams&mdash;of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
+half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
+last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
+this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.</p>
+
+<p>"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
+to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
+Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
+stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
+put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
+the Eagle.</p>
+
+<p>He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
+carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He began by saying to Bertha:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
+When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
+floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
+like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
+attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
+like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
+day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
+I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
+work so hard&mdash;that's all that troubles me at the present time."</p>
+
+<p>Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
+age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
+man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
+bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
+or flush&mdash;she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
+where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
+the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
+place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
+is too public."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
+anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."</p>
+
+<p>The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
+I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
+you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
+let me know&mdash;they won't repeat it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
+of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."</p>
+
+<p>This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
+on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
+to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
+handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
+without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
+necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
+and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
+expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
+his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
+middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
+the girl a certain sweetness came into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
+spend Sunday&mdash;seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
+his chance o' grace."</p>
+
+<p>His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
+circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
+Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."</p>
+
+<p>The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
+me&mdash;I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
+the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
+jest.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
+said, in a low and deeply significant tone:</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
+Haney&mdash;not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you&mdash;you can
+boss my ranch any day."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
+eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
+diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
+and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
+The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Mart&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to butt in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
+replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
+remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
+walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
+encounter with the girl had put into his blood.</p>
+
+<p>It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
+weeks&mdash;leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
+chance to see this child&mdash;this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
+and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her&mdash;to
+buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
+weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
+that she would one day be on his side.</p>
+
+<p>When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl&mdash;of
+carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
+when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
+fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
+time, but a Catholic&mdash;in training at least&mdash;and the words he had planned
+to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
+lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.</p>
+
+<p>He was a desperate character&mdash;a man of violence&mdash;and none too delicate
+in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
+mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
+weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
+unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
+his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
+answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
+then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
+"Stay on the farm, me lad&mdash;'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
+the back of your neck than to fill a cell at Ca&ntilde;on City."</p>
+
+<p>In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
+visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
+collected all notes remorselessly&mdash;and it was in this way that he had
+acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
+mines&mdash;"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
+It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
+determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
+came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
+honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
+sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
+heart with a strange delight.</p>
+
+<p>He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
+doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
+before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
+new-found grace.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron&mdash;as his mother used to
+do&mdash;and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
+chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.</p>
+
+<p>"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
+a seat beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
+Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
+mother didn't make&mdash;for she was Irish."</p>
+
+<p>"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
+can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid&mdash;and then down here we have my
+son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."</p>
+
+<p>"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
+vegetables&mdash;it's still a matter of ham and eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
+of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
+working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest&mdash;a vacation, I'm
+thinkin'."</p>
+
+<p>"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
+of taking it."</p>
+
+<p>"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
+She should be in a home of her own."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
+to hiring anybody to fill her place&mdash;it would take a man to do her
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
+she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen next November."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems like a woman of twenty."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
+down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a little queen," declared Haney.</p>
+
+<p>It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
+had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
+proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
+glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
+to trouble you, my dear woman&mdash;if anny debt presses, let me know, and
+I'll lift it for ye."</p>
+
+<p>The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
+feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
+our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
+obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't like to think of you here for another year&mdash;and Bertie
+should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
+passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
+house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
+for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
+hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
+welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
+inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
+a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."</p>
+
+<p>She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
+"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
+in his intentions.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;you're so old&mdash;I mean so much older&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
+what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
+have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."</p>
+
+<p>This turned the current of her emotion&mdash;she gasped. "One hundred
+thousand dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
+younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
+I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'&mdash;all you need to
+do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
+Denver&mdash;or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
+on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
+I came this time to ask her to go back with me."</p>
+
+<p>"What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
+take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
+place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
+said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
+her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
+terror. She feared a man of such power&mdash;a man who could in a single
+moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
+wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
+he sat there talking to her&mdash;and she in her apron and her hair in
+disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
+enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
+apologized incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, I appreciate your kindness&mdash;you've always been a good
+customer&mdash;one I liked to do for&mdash;but I'm all upset&mdash;I can't get my
+wits&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
+coming. Don't hurry at all&mdash;at all."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried out, leaving him alone&mdash;with the clock, the cat, and the
+hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
+Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
+into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.</p>
+
+<p>Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
+wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
+disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
+breath&mdash;clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.</p>
+
+<p>She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
+with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
+dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know&mdash;what Captain Haney just said to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
+was moved by her mother's white, awed face.</p>
+
+<p>"He wants you!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
+"Well, he can't have me!"</p>
+
+<p>With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
+moved to argue.</p>
+
+<p>"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
+mines."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
+posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler&mdash;not this summer," she ended,
+decisively.</p>
+
+<p>"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
+was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
+Think of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
+makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out of his mine&mdash;and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
+needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
+is his, anyway. Did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha eyed her mother closely&mdash;with cool, bright, accusing eyes&mdash;for a
+moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
+you&mdash;no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
+marry most anybody to give you a rest&mdash;but, mother, Captain Haney is
+forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
+his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
+there's Ed."</p>
+
+<p>The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
+into something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
+No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
+Haney has killed his man."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
+over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance&mdash;and my heart's so
+bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
+want you to marry him if you don't want to&mdash;I'm not asking you to. You
+know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man&mdash;and I get awfully
+discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
+without any security."</p>
+
+<p>One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
+pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
+burdens of her stewardship.</p>
+
+<p>"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," replied the girl.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
+and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
+the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
+and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
+guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
+our little hotel for a year&mdash;to see me!"</p>
+
+<p>This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
+the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
+weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
+put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
+of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
+by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
+lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
+bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
+coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
+defensive.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
+hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother&mdash;" She arrested herself and
+went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
+new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
+honorable.</p>
+
+<p>The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
+the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
+consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
+would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
+travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
+things she could discern&mdash;but of the larger life which money could open
+to her she could only vaguely dream.</p>
+
+<p>The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
+life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
+camps about them.</p>
+
+<p>As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
+a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
+doors forever.</p>
+
+<p>When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
+she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
+commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
+change in her mood.</p>
+
+<p>This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
+later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
+wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."</p>
+
+<p>Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
+He came on the run, alert for trade.</p>
+
+<p>"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
+drying to cinders over here."</p>
+
+<p>The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
+joking."</p>
+
+<p>"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.</p>
+
+<p>She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
+he brought a choice slice in to her.</p>
+
+<p>She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me&mdash;not yet." Her
+tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that&mdash;before
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"Like what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
+waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
+over alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
+least a consideration of his proposal.</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. "Good-bye&mdash;till next Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
+face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
+something very winning.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
+gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
+trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
+the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
+polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
+Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
+long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
+dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
+camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
+came as lookers-on.</p>
+
+<p>On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
+usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
+and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
+glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
+opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
+crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
+and the games of his halls were reported honest.</p>
+
+<p>To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
+gambler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
+maidenhood&mdash;and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
+kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
+else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
+he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
+invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
+singular sweetness&mdash;all the more alluring because of its rarity&mdash;and the
+warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
+County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
+admired among the miners.</p>
+
+<p>The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
+was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
+"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
+despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
+to clean house."</p>
+
+<p>Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
+would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
+business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
+well serve their wish as any other&mdash;better, indeed, for no man can
+accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
+business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
+matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
+thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."</p>
+
+<p>He no longer thought of her as his victim&mdash;as something to be ruthlessly
+enjoyed&mdash;he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
+in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
+she has me on me knees&mdash;the witch. Me mind is filled with her."</p>
+
+<p>All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
+saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.</p>
+
+<p>At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
+rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
+click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears&mdash;he
+was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
+written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
+on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
+in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
+be too good for her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He roused himself to a touch on his elbow. One of his agents had a new
+offer for the two saloons. It was still less than he considered the
+business worth, but in his softened mood he said, "It goes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Make out your papers," replied the other man, with almost equal
+brevity.</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of the evening the gambler sat above his lay-out with
+mingled feelings of relief and regret. After all, he was in command
+here. He knew this business, and he loved the companionship and the
+admiration of the men who dropped round by his side to discuss the camp
+or the weather, or to invite him to join a hunting trip. He felt himself
+to be one of the chief men of the town, and that he could at any time
+become their Representative if he chose. For some years (he couldn't
+have told why) he had taken on a thrift unknown to him before, and had
+been attending strictly to business. He now saw that it must have been
+from a foreknowledge of Bertha. In him the superstitions of both miner
+and gambler mingled. The cards had run against him for three years, now
+they were falling in his favor. "I will take advantage of them," he
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the crowd thinned out, and at one o'clock only a few inveterate
+poker-players and one or two young fellows who were still "bucking" the
+roulette wheel remained and, calling one of his men to take charge,
+Haney nodded to Williams and they went out on the street.</p>
+
+<p>As he reached the cold, crisp, deliciously rarefied air outside, he took
+off his hat and involuntarily looked up at the stars blazing thick in
+the deep-blue midnight sky. With solemn voice he said to his partner:
+"Well, 'Spot,' right here Mart Haney's saloon business ends. We're all
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Williams felt that his partner was acting rashly. "Oh, I wouldn't say
+that! You may get into it again."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;the little girl and her mother won't stand for it, and, besides,
+what's the use? I don't need to do it, and if I'm ever going to see the
+world now is my chance. I'm goin' back East to discover how many
+brothers and sisters I have livin'. The old father is dodderin 'round
+somewheres back there. I'll surprise him, too. Now, have those papers
+all made out ready to sign by eleven o'clock to-morrow. I'm goin' down
+the valley on the noon train."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Mart, but you're makin' a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind, me bucko. 'Tis me own game, and the mines will take all
+the gray matter you can spare."</p>
+
+<p>As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
+"Hello, Mart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Mag; what's doing?"</p>
+
+<p>She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the
+moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad
+as that? What's t' old man doin' these days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Servin' time," she answered, bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I'd forgotten. Well, take care
+o' yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of
+the woman's misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his
+younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed
+that he didn't hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his
+brothers he gained by chance. "They're all great boozers," he said, in
+summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo&mdash;came to see me at the
+stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered
+brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about
+seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother&mdash;a nice girl. Dad
+sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and
+then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal
+column, I hear of them."</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other
+poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the
+time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and
+saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his
+father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and
+this was due to Bertie's influence) he earnestly desired to help his
+family out of their mire.</p>
+
+<p>"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother
+left us."</p>
+
+<p>As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
+The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy
+majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring
+in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting
+above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in
+many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
+his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
+seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.</p>
+
+<p>She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
+register.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
+weather we've had since I came to town."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you let me know?"</p>
+
+<p>She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
+to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
+I've sent her out to the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not running the house alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, cert!&mdash;that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
+in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
+three years."</p>
+
+<p>He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
+Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"I've sold out&mdash;signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
+forever."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business&mdash;not a
+little bit."</p>
+
+<p>He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
+saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
+capitalist&mdash;and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
+bending a keen glance upon her.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
+not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
+supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
+and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
+her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
+wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
+accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
+truculently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's at supper&mdash;want to see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"See him? No! And I don't want <i>you</i> to see him! He's too free with you,
+Bert; I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with <i>him</i>, Ed&mdash;I'd
+hate to see your remains afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
+unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me&mdash;and now
+here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
+What's the meaning of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.</p>
+
+<p>He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
+sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's sold out&mdash;clean as a whistle."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
+Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly&mdash;"don't
+you dare!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
+you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
+you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
+'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."</p>
+
+<p>He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down&mdash;fer that&mdash;old
+tout, I'll kill you both."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
+came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
+weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
+throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:</p>
+
+<p>"If you really meant that!&mdash;but you don't, you're only talking to hear
+yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
+chewing the rag, anyway&mdash;this is my busy day."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
+hands clinched. "Don't you do it&mdash;that's all!" he finally snarled.
+"You'll wish you hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
+feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
+anybody just yet."</p>
+
+<p>His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
+don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
+mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"But it riled me like the devil to think&mdash;" he began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
+sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
+your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
+wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand&mdash;now shake, and run."</p>
+
+<p>His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
+"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.</p>
+
+<p>She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
+a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
+goods," she said, and they took the hint.</p>
+
+<p>When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
+counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
+hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
+a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
+far corner of the dining-room&mdash;a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
+was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
+out-stretched in sympathy&mdash;and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
+for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
+shook with silent sobs.</p>
+
+<p>The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
+matter, Bertie; are you sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no&mdash;but I'm worried&mdash;about mother."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't heard anything&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
+have quit here a month ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
+pure she'll pick up right away&mdash;you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
+done work enough&mdash;and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
+abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
+you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
+young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if mother is no worse."</p>
+
+<p>Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
+but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
+he apologized for its shortcomings&mdash;"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
+it <i>should</i> be."</p>
+
+<p>She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
+know you were an Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>"I am, and proud of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in this rig," he protested.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
+a call."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
+and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
+and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
+eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
+She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
+engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
+at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
+upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
+and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.</p>
+
+<p>"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
+about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
+Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
+miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"That was right&mdash;only you should have sent for me."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
+demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here&mdash;in the
+office they were on more equal terms&mdash;but she enjoyed in a subconscious
+way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
+quiet authority in his voice&mdash;even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
+towards which they were driving he began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
+to-morrow&mdash;that's the day set&mdash;but I want to say that I've been cleaning
+house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
+this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
+drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
+planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
+this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old&mdash;I'm no older than I
+was at twenty-one, sure&mdash;and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
+He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
+smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
+day we'll be of an age."</p>
+
+<p>Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
+silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
+partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
+rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'&mdash;Which road now?"</p>
+
+<p>She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
+great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.</p>
+
+<p>The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
+exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
+lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
+time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'&mdash;whether you come to
+me or not."</p>
+
+<p>All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
+changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
+sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
+her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
+far, far behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
+tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
+devils," he admitted&mdash;"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
+wouldn't go to school&mdash;not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
+well&mdash;and we fished and played ball and went to the circus&mdash;" He
+chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
+lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
+I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
+since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
+and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
+same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
+I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
+Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."</p>
+
+<p>"I like it&mdash;but I'd like to see the rest of the country."</p>
+
+<p>"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."</p>
+
+<p>She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once&mdash;went on one of
+these excursion tickets."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you like it there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
+worst ever&mdash;it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
+door of the big places."</p>
+
+<p>"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush&mdash;if you will."</p>
+
+<p>Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
+such hotels&mdash;There's our ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
+pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."</p>
+
+<p>"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
+planted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
+sentimental speech.</p>
+
+<p>The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
+of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
+house&mdash;a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
+temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees&mdash;thriftily
+green&mdash;and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
+husbandry of the owner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
+rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
+comfort to her&mdash;it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
+of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
+that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
+father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
+drowse.</p>
+
+<p>Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
+overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
+her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
+forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
+to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
+you say so, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
+bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
+cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
+is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
+house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
+little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
+her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
+drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
+her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
+fine. They brace right up to the situation, and&mdash;and everybody's nice to
+us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
+you were&mdash;and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
+things were going."</p>
+
+<p>The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
+an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."</p>
+
+<p>The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
+think. I'm afraid to leave this to you&mdash;it's an awful temptation to a
+girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
+ought to marry."</p>
+
+<p>She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
+"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's so old&mdash;for you."</p>
+
+<p>"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
+the case is this: he's sold out up there&mdash;cleared out his saloon
+business&mdash;and all for <i>me</i>. Think o' that&mdash;and I hadn't given him a word
+of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
+don't&mdash;I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
+know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
+to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
+answer yet awhile&mdash;time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
+another week if I want to."</p>
+
+<p>The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
+streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
+girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
+Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
+that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
+said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
+lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
+hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
+would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
+understand her mood&mdash;perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
+a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now&mdash;I could
+do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
+whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."</p>
+
+<p>If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
+mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
+as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
+peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
+have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."</p>
+
+<p>"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.</p>
+
+<p>This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
+profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
+admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
+suddenly to him, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"You're good to me&mdash;and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
+to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to&mdash;some time&mdash;not
+now&mdash;next spring, maybe."</p>
+
+<p>He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
+softening emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"You've made Mart Haney over new&mdash;so you have! As sure as God lets me
+live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
+regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
+trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat&mdash;the stir of
+his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
+taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
+with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
+right spot this time."</p>
+
+<p>With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
+this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
+Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
+quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
+whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
+Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
+most sentimental of men&mdash;it is said); and now that he had been surprised
+into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
+pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
+his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
+his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
+associates of a lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
+brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
+of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
+he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.</p>
+
+<p>"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Haney nodded, without smiling.</p>
+
+<p>His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
+in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
+drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
+rampage for two days&mdash;crazy as a loon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
+like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
+bust-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"He don't seem to&mdash;or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
+he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
+your guard."</p>
+
+<p>They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
+Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
+began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
+years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
+consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
+put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
+with me&mdash;God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
+I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
+of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
+entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
+he had no fear&mdash;only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
+repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
+he'd drop it."</p>
+
+<p>He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
+grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
+Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
+bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
+home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
+find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
+the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
+greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
+nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.</p>
+
+<p>The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
+yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
+taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
+violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
+shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
+thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
+uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.</p>
+
+<p>The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
+hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
+face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
+by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
+excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
+palm pressed to his breast, stood silent&mdash;curiously silent&mdash;his lips
+white with his effort at self-control.</p>
+
+<p>At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
+old man? Are you hurt bad?"</p>
+
+<p>His lips moved&mdash;they listened&mdash;as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
+boys. Here's where I quit."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
+Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
+it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete&mdash;I'm torn to pieces&mdash;I'm
+all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl&mdash;that's all I ask."</p>
+
+<p>Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
+gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
+the crowd out.</p>
+
+<p>Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
+Bertie&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
+significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
+they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
+the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
+satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
+command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
+girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
+Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
+let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
+is it, Mart?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
+patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
+intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
+and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
+torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner&mdash;Haney was indeed
+his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
+riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
+Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
+the bar-room&mdash;and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
+became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
+curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>To him stepped a man&mdash;one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
+attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
+lamp-post. Want to see?"</p>
+
+<p>For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
+had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
+tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
+never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
+friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
+his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
+'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
+and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
+buckshot&mdash;just when he was takin' a wife&mdash;is hellish."</p>
+
+<p>His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
+revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
+watch beside his friend.</p>
+
+<p>The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
+softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
+tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
+changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
+who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.</p>
+
+<p>This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
+office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
+of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
+his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
+"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
+here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
+shortcoming.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
+wire him to see her&mdash;and bring her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."</p>
+
+<p>It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
+them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
+who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
+all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
+he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
+woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
+does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
+Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain&mdash;just the
+mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."</p>
+
+<p>"Will she come? Can she get away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
+here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
+calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes&mdash;you can bet high on that. I'm
+only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
+an air of waiting&mdash;waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
+checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
+doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life&mdash;he
+had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
+and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
+me&mdash;here. I want her to have all I've got&mdash;<i>everything</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>At another time he said: "Get the judge&mdash;have everything ready!"</p>
+
+<p>They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
+in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
+resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
+weakness persisted heroically&mdash;till even the doctor's throat filled with
+sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
+into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
+Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
+pull through, with her help."</p>
+
+<p>To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
+was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
+wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
+at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
+chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
+watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
+rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
+drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
+barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.</p>
+
+<p>About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
+leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."</p>
+
+<p>Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
+it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
+I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
+hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
+every resource&mdash;forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.</p>
+
+<p>A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
+man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
+I've no strength to waste&mdash;'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
+here&mdash;to marry us&mdash;" And with this request the priest was forced to be
+content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
+as he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
+ceremony must be legal&mdash;I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
+protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
+and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
+life.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
+partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
+be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
+if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
+the Church."</p>
+
+<p>Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
+with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
+every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
+her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
+Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
+don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."</p>
+
+<p>From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
+faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
+records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
+that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
+Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
+afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
+better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
+possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha was eating her supper, after a hard day's work in her little
+hotel, when a little yellow envelope was handed to her. The words of the
+message were few, but they were meaning-full: "Come at once. Mart hurt,
+not expected to live." It was signed by Williams. While still she sat
+stunned and hesitant, under the weight of this demand, another and much
+more explicit telegram came: "Johnson, superintendent, is ordered to
+fetch you with special train. Don't delay. Mart needs you&mdash;is calling
+for you. Come at once!"</p>
+
+<p>The phrase "is calling for you" reached her heart&mdash;decided her. She
+rose, and, with a word of explanation to her housekeeper, put on her
+hat, and threw a cloak over her arm. "I've got to go to Cripple. Captain
+Haney is sick, and I've got to go to him. I don't know when I'll be
+back," she said. "Get along the best you can." Her face was white but
+calm, and her manner deliberate. "Send word to mother that Mart is hurt,
+and I've gone up to see him. Tell her not to worry."</p>
+
+<p>To her night clerk, who had come on duty, she quietly remarked: "I
+reckon you'll have to look after things to-morrow. I'll try to get back
+the day after. If I don't, Lem Markham will take my place." While still
+she stood arranging the details of her business a short, dark man
+stepped inside the door, and very kindly and gravely explained his
+errand. "I'm Johnson, the division superintendent. They've telegraphed
+me for a special, and I'm going to take you up myself. Mart is a friend
+of mine," he added, with some feeling.</p>
+
+<p>She thanked him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together
+they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive
+coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of
+spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short
+caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and
+the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up
+speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to
+the girl: "I guess you'd better take my chair; it's bolted to the floor,
+and you can hang on when we go round the curves."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed instantly, and with her small hands gripping the arm-rests of
+the rude seat cowered in silence, while the clambering monster rushed
+and roared over the level lands and labored up the grades, shrieking now
+and again, as if in mingled pain and warning. Johnson and the brakeman,
+for the most part, kept to the lookout in the turret, and the girl rode
+alone&mdash;rode far, passing swiftly from girlhood to womanhood, so full of
+enforced meditation were the hours of that ride. It seemed that she was
+leaving something sweet and care-free behind her, and it was certain
+that she was about to face death. She had one perfectly clear
+conception, and that was that the man who had been most kind to her, and
+to whom she had given her promise of marriage, was dying and needed
+her&mdash;was calling for her through the night.</p>
+
+<p>Burdened with responsibility from her childhood, accustomed to make her
+own decisions, she had responded to this prayer, knowing dimly that this
+journey denoted a new and portentous experience&mdash;a fundamental change in
+her life.</p>
+
+<p>She had admired and liked Haney from the first, but her feeling even yet
+was very like that of a boy for a man of heroic statue&mdash;her regard had
+very little of woman's passion in it. She was appalled and benumbed by
+the thought that she was soon to look upon him lying prone. That she
+might soon be called upon to meet those bold eyes closing in death she
+had been warned, and yet she did not shrink from it. The nurse, latent
+in every woman, rose in her, and she ached with desire of haste, longing
+to lay her hand upon the suffering man in some healing way. His
+kindness, his gentleness, during the days of his final courtship had
+sunk deep&mdash;his generosity had been so full, so free, so unhesitating.</p>
+
+<p>She thought of her mother, and as a fuller conception of the alarm and
+anxiety she would feel came to her, she decided to send her a telegram.
+"She will know it was my duty to go," she decided. "As for the
+hotel&mdash;what does it matter now?" Nothing seemed to matter, indeed, save
+the speed of her chariot.</p>
+
+<p>The night was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down
+out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning
+encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with
+taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be
+otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on
+one other point&mdash;this journey committed her to Marshall Haney. There
+could be no further hesitation. "Some time, soon, if he lives, I must
+marry him," she thought, and the conception troubled her with a new
+revelation of what that relationship might mean. She felt suddenly very
+small, very weak, and very helpless. "He must be good to me," she
+murmured. And then, as the words of his prayer to her came back, she
+added: "And I'll be good to him."</p>
+
+<p>Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the
+busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this
+moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed
+a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through
+the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown
+stars.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as
+the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end
+of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff
+and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of
+passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back.</p>
+
+<p>Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still
+here&mdash;and waiting for you."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became
+alert, clear-brained. "How is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bad."</p>
+
+<p>"What's it all about? How did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go
+ahead&mdash;straight."</p>
+
+<p>He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the
+border, and who has no nice shading in act or word.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the
+night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now."</p>
+
+<p>That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but
+that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her
+dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to
+shudder at the sight of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to
+tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies."</p>
+
+<p>The girl drew away. "Not this minute&mdash;to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to
+do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said
+this.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom
+swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching
+her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything
+is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a
+civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a
+Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied
+good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He
+says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers
+or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little
+sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can
+refuse, specially as it makes his dying&mdash;" He stopped there.</p>
+
+<p>The street was silent as they drew up to the saloon door, and only
+Slater and one or two of his friends were present when Bertha walked
+into the bar-room, erect as a boy, her calm, sweet face ashen white in
+the electric light. For an instant; she stood there in the middle of the
+floor alone, her big dark eyes searching every face. Then Judge Brady, a
+kindly, gray-haired man, advanced, and took her hand. "We're very glad
+to see you," he gravely said, introducing himself. Williams, who had
+entered the inner room, returned instantly to say: "Come, he's waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word the bride entered the presence of her groom, and the
+doctor, bending low to the gambler, said: "Be careful now, Mart. Don't
+try to rise. Be perfectly still. Bertie has come."</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned with a smile&mdash;a tender, humorous smile&mdash;and whispered:
+"Bertie, acushla mavourneen, come to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the watchers withdrew, leaving them alone, and the girl, bending
+above him, kissed him. "Oh, Captain, can't I do something? I <i>must</i> do
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, darlin', ye can. You can marry me this minute, and ye shall. I'm
+dyin', girl&mdash;so the doctor says. I don't feel it that way; but, anyhow,
+we take no chances. All I have is for you, and so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand ever his lips. "You must be quiet. I understand, and I
+will do it&mdash;but only to make you well." She turned to the door, and her
+voice was clear as she said to those who waited: "I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have Father Kearney?" asked Williams.</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards Haney. "Just as he says."</p>
+
+<p>The stricken miner, ghastly with the pain brought on by movement,
+responded to the doctor's question, only by a whisper: "The
+priest&mdash;first."</p>
+
+<p>The girl heard, and her fine, clear glance rested upon the face of the
+priest. Tears were on her cheeks, but a kind of exultation was in her
+tone as she said: "I am willing, father."</p>
+
+<p>With a look which denoted his appreciation of the girl's courage, the
+priest stepped forward and led her to her place beside her bridegroom.
+She took Haney's big nerveless hand in her firm grasp, and together they
+listened to the solemn words which made them husband and wife. It seemed
+that the gambler was passing into the shadow during the opening prayer,
+but his whispered responses came at the proper pauses, and only when the
+final benediction was given, and the priest and the judge fell back
+before the rush of the young doctor, did the wounded man's eyes close in
+final collapse. He had indeed reached the end of his endurance.</p>
+
+<p>The young wife spoke then, imperiously, almost fiercely, asking: "Why is
+he lying here? This is no place for him."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor explained. "We were afraid to move him&mdash;till you came. In
+fact, he wouldn't let me move him. If you say so now, we will take him
+up." With these words the watchers shifted their responsibility to her
+shoulders, uttering sighs of deep relief. Whatever happened now, Mart's
+will had been secured. At her command they lifted the table on which her
+husband lay, and the wife walked beside it, unheeding the throngs of
+silent men walling her path. Every one made way for her, waited upon
+her, eager to serve her, partly because she was Marshall Haney's wife,
+but more because of her youth and the brave heart which looked from her
+clear and candid eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She showed no hesitation now, gave out no word of weakness; on the
+contrary, she commanded with certainty and precision, calling to her aid
+all that the city afforded. Not till she had summoned the best surgeons
+and was sure that everything had been done that could be done did she
+permit herself to relax&mdash;or to think of rest or her mother.</p>
+
+<p>When she had sunk to sleep upon a couch beside her husband's bed,
+Williams, with a note of deep admiration, demanded of the surgeon:
+"Ain't she a little Captain? Mart can't die now, can he? He's got too
+much to live for."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HANEY PALACE</h3>
+
+
+<p>One day early in the following summer a tall, thin man, with one
+helpless side, entered the big luminous hall of the Antlers Hotel at the
+Springs, upheld by a stalwart attendant, and accompanied by a
+sweet-faced, calm-lipped young woman. This was Marshall Haney and his
+young wife Bertha, down from the mountain for the first time since his
+illness, and those who knew their story and recognized them, stood aside
+with a thrill of pity for the man and a look of admiration for the girl,
+whose bravery and devotion had done so much to bring her husband back to
+life and to a growing measure of his former strength.</p>
+
+<p>Marshall Haney was, indeed, but a poor hulk of his stalwart self. One
+lung had been deeply torn, his left shoulder was almost wholly disabled,
+and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was
+not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened&mdash;"gentled,"
+as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern
+and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep
+horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a
+mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look&mdash;older and more
+military. It was plain, also, that he leaned upon his keen-eyed,
+impassive little wife, who never for one moment lost her hold upon
+herself or her surroundings. Her flashing glances took note of
+everything about her, and her lips were close-set and firm.</p>
+
+<p>Williams, ugly and wordless as ever, followed them with a proud smile
+till they entered the handsome suite of rooms which had been reserved
+for them. "There's nothing too good for Marshall Haney and his
+side-partner," he exulted to the bell-boy.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, Mart, with a look of reverence at his young bride, replied:
+"She's airned it&mdash;and more!"</p>
+
+<p>A sigh was in his voice and a singular appeal in his big eyes as he sank
+into an easy-chair. "I believe I do feel better down here; my heart
+seems to work aisier. I'm going to get well now, darlin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you are," she answered, in the tone of a daughter; then
+added, with a smile: "I like it here. Why not settle?"</p>
+
+<p>To her Colorado Springs was a dazzling social centre. The beauty of the
+homes along its wide streets, the splendor of its private carriages,
+affected her almost as deeply as the magnitude and glory of Denver
+itself; but she was not of those who display their weaknesses and
+diffidence. She ate her first dinner in the lofty Antlers dining-hall
+with quiet dignity, and would not have been particularly noticed but for
+Haney, who was well-known to the waiters of the hotel. Her association
+with him had made her a marked figure in their mountain towns, and she
+was accustomed to comment.</p>
+
+<p>She met the men who addressed her with entire fearlessness and candor
+(she was afraid only of women in good clothes), speaking with the easy
+slanginess of a herder, using naturally and unconsciously the most
+picturesque phrases of the West. Her speech was incisive and
+unhesitating, yet not swift. She never chattered, but "you bet" and "all
+right" were authorized English so far as she was concerned. "They say
+you can't beat this town anywhere for society, and I sure like the looks
+of what we've seen. Suppose we hang around this hotel for a while&mdash;not
+too long, for it's mighty expensive." Here she smiled&mdash;a quick, flashing
+smile. "You see, I can't get used to spending money&mdash;I'm afraid all the
+time I'll wake up. It's just like a dream I used to have of finding
+chink&mdash;I always came to before I had a chance to handle it and see if it
+was real."</p>
+
+<p>Haney answered, indulgently: "'Tis all real, Bertie. I'll show you that
+when I'm meself again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I believe it&mdash;at least, part of the time," she retorted. "But I'll
+have to flash a roll to do it&mdash;checks are no good. I could sign a
+million checks and not have 'em seem like real money. I'm from Missouri
+when it comes to cash."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman, who had always stood in bewilderment and wonder of her
+daughter, was entirely subject now. She and Williams usually moved in
+silence, like adoring subjects in the presence of their sovereigns. They
+had no doubts whatsoever concerning the power and primacy of gold; and
+as for Haney himself, his unquestioning confidence in his little wife's
+judgment had come to be like an article of religious faith.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast on the second day of her stay Bertha ordered a carriage,
+and they drove about the town in the brilliant morning sunshine, looking
+for a place to build. She resembled a little home-seeking sparrow. Every
+cosey cottage was to her an almost irresistible allurement. "There's a
+dandy place, Captain," she called several times. "Wouldn't you like a
+house like that?"</p>
+
+<p>He, with larger notions, shook his head each time. "Too small, Bertie.
+We've the right to a fine big place&mdash;like that, now." He nodded towards
+a stately gray-stone mansion, with the sign "For Sale" planted on its
+lawn.</p>
+
+<p>She was aghast. "Gee! what would we do with a state-house like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Live in it, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"It would need four chamber-maids and two hired men to take care of a
+place like that. And think of the money it would spoil to stock it with
+furniture!" Nevertheless, she gazed at it longingly. "I'd sure like that
+big garden and that porch. You could sit on that porch and see the
+mountains, couldn't you? But my ears and whiskers, the expense of
+keeping it!"</p>
+
+<p>They passed on to other and less palatial possibilities, and returned to
+the hotel undecided. The two women, bewildered and weary, diverged and
+discussed the matter of dress till the mid-day meal.</p>
+
+<p>"I like being rich," remarked the young wife, as they took their seats
+in the lovely dining-room, and looked about at the tables so shining, so
+dainty. "It would be fun to run a house like this, don't you think?" She
+addressed her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious, no! Think of the bill for help and the worry of looking
+after all this silver! No, it's too splendid for us."</p>
+
+<p>Haney still retained enough of his ancient humor to smile at them. "I'd
+rather see you manage that big stone house with the porch which I'm
+going to buy."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it?" said Bertha, while Mrs. Gilman stared at him over
+her soup.</p>
+
+<p>He went on quietly. "Sure! Me mind's made up. You want the garden and I
+like the porch; so 'phone the agent after dinner, and we'll go up and
+see to it this very afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes expanded. "I'd like
+just once to see the <i>inside</i> of a house like that. It must be half as
+big as this hotel&mdash;but to own it! You're crazy, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>The remote possibility of walking through that wonderful mansion took
+away the young wife's appetite, and she became silent and reflective in
+the face of a delicious fried chicken. The magic of her husband's wealth
+began to make itself most potently felt.</p>
+
+<p>Haney insisted on smoking a cigar in the lobby. Bertha took her mother
+away to talk over the tremendous decision which was about to be thrust
+upon them. "We want a house," said she, decisively, "but not a palace
+like that. What would we do with it? It scares me up a tree to think of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess he was only joking," Mrs. Gilman agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see the porch would be fine for him," Bertha went on. "But,
+jiminy spelter, we'd all be lost in the place!"</p>
+
+<p>Haney called Williams to his side, and told him of the house. "It's a
+big place, but I want it. Go you and see the agent. My little girl needs
+a roof, and why not the best?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure!" replied Williams, with conviction. "She's entitled to a castle.
+You round up the women, and I'll do the rest."</p>
+
+<p>The house proved to be even more splendid and spacious than its exterior
+indicated, and Bertha walked its wide halls with breathless delight.
+After a hurried survey of the interior, they came out upon the broad
+veranda, and lingered long in awe and wonder of the outlook. To the west
+lay a glorious garden of fruits and flowers; a fountain was playing over
+the rich green grass; high above the tops of the pear and peach trees
+(which made a little copse) rose the purple peaks of the Rampart range.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't it great!" exclaimed Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned to the agent with a tense look on his pale face&mdash;a look of
+exultant power.</p>
+
+<p>"Make out your papers," said he, quietly. "We take the place&mdash;as it
+stands."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was overwhelmed by this flourish of the enchanter's wand&mdash;but
+only for a moment. No sooner was the contract signed than she roused
+herself as to a new business venture. "Well, now, the first thing is
+furniture. Let's see! There is some carpets and curtains in the place,
+isn't there? And a steel range. It's up to me to rustle the balance of
+the outfit together right lively."</p>
+
+<p>And so she set to work quite as she would have done in outfitting a new
+hotel&mdash;so many beds, so many chairs in a room, so many dressers, and
+soon had a long list made out and the order placed.</p>
+
+<p>She spent every available moment of her time for the next two days
+getting the kitchen and dining-room in running order, and when she had
+two beds ready insisted on moving in. "We can kind o' camp out in the
+place till we get stocked up. I'm crazy to be under our own roof."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, almost as eager as she, consented, and on the third day they
+drove up to the door, dismissed their hired coachman, and stepped inside
+the gate&mdash;master and mistress of an American chateau.</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned, and, with misty eyes and a voice choked with happiness,
+said: "Well, darlin', we have it now&mdash;the palace of the fairy stories."</p>
+
+<p>"It's great," she repeated, musingly; "but I can't make it seem like a
+home&mdash;mebbe it'll change when I get it filled with furniture, but the
+garden is sure all right."</p>
+
+<p>They took their first meal on the porch overlooking the mountains,
+listening to the breeze in the vines. It was heavenly sweet after the
+barren squalor of their Cripple Creek home, and they did little but gaze
+and dream.</p>
+
+<p>"We need a team," Bertha said, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Buy one," replied Haney.</p>
+
+<p>So Bertha bought a carriage and a fine black span. This expenditure
+involved a coachman, and to fill that position an old friend of
+Williams'&mdash;a talkative and officious old miner&mdash;was employed. She next
+secured a Chinese cook, the best to be had, and a girl to do the
+chamber-work. They were all busy as hornets, and Bertha lived in a glow
+of excitement every waking hour of the day&mdash;though she did not show it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney's check-book was quite as wonderful in its way as Aladdin's lamp,
+and little by little the women permitted themselves to draw upon its
+magic. The shining span of blacks, with flowing manes and champing bits,
+became a feature of the avenue as the women drove up and down on their
+never-ending quest for household luxuries&mdash;they had gone beyond mere
+necessities. Mart usually went with them, sitting in the carriage while
+they "visited" with the grocery clerks and furniture dealers. They were
+very popular with these people, as was natural.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Mrs. Haney" became at once the subject of endless
+comment&mdash;mostly unfavorable; for Mart's saloon-made reputation was
+well-known, and the current notion of a woman who would marry him was
+not high. She was reported, in the alien circles of the town, to be a
+vulgar little chamber-maid who had taken a gambler for his money at a
+time when he was supposed to be on his death-bed, and her elevation to
+the management of a palatial residence was pointed out as being
+"peculiarly Western-American."</p>
+
+<p>The men, however, were much more tolerant of judgment than their women.
+They had become more or less hardened to seeing crude miners luxuriating
+in sudden, accidental wealth; therefore, they nodded good-humoredly at
+Haney and tipped their hats to his pretty wife with smiles. As bankers,
+tradesmen, and taxpayers generally they could not afford to neglect a
+citizen possessed of so much wealth and circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gilman presented a letter of introduction to the nearest church of
+her own persuasion, and went to service quite as unassumingly as in
+Sibley, and was greeted by a few of the ladies there cordially and
+without hint of her son-in-law's connections. Two or three, including
+the pastor's wife, made special effort to cultivate her acquaintance by
+calling immediately, but they were not of those who attracted Bertha;
+and though she showed them about the house and answered their questions,
+she did not promise to call. "We're too busy," she explained. "I haven't
+got more than half the rooms into shape, and, besides, we're to have my
+brother's folks down from the Junction&mdash;we're on the hustle all day
+long."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. She had been quite besieged by her former neighbors in
+Sibley, who found it convenient to "put up with the Haneys" while
+visiting the town. They were, in fact, very curious to study her in her
+new and splendid setting; and though some of them peeked and peered amid
+the beds, and thumped the mattresses in vulgar curiosity, the young
+housewife merely laughed. All her life had been spent among folk of this
+directly inquisitive sort. She expected them to act as they did, and,
+being a hearty and generous soul, as well as a very democratic one, she
+sent them away happy.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, she won praise from all who came to know her. But that small
+part of the Springs&mdash;alien and exclusive&mdash;which considered itself higher
+if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the
+gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined
+to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback"
+as she met them on the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this critical comment Bertha remained, happily, unconscious, and
+it is probable that she would soon have won her way to a decent circle
+of friends had not Charles Haney descended upon them like a plague. Mart
+had been receiving letters from this brother, but had said nothing to
+Bertha of his demands. "Charles despised me when he met me in Denver,"
+he explained to Williams. "I was busted at the time, ye mind." He
+winked. "And now when he reads in the papers that Mart Haney is rich, he
+comes down on me like a hawk on a June bug. 'Tis no matter. He may
+come&mdash;I'll not cast him out. But he does not play with me
+double-eagles&mdash;not he!"</p>
+
+<p>Charles Haney was not fitted to raise his brother's wife in the social
+scale, for he belonged to that marked, insistent variety of actor to be
+distinguished on trains and in the lobbies of hotels&mdash;a fat, sleek,
+loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while
+ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in
+illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of
+those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and
+brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their
+first meeting.</p>
+
+<p>She amazed him. He had expected a woman of his own class&mdash;an
+adventuress, painted, designing; and to find this sweet little
+girl&mdash;"why, she's too good for Mart," he concluded, and shifted his
+hollow pretensions of sympathy from his brother to his sister-in-law.
+Before the first evening of his visit closed he sought opportunity to
+tell her, in hypocritic sadness, that Mart was a doomed man, and that
+she would soon be free of him. Bertha was disturbed by his gaze and
+repelled by his touch, but tried to like him on Mart's account. His
+mouthing disgusted her, and the good-will with which Haney greeted his
+brother turned into bitterness as the boaster and low wit began to
+display himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We all grew up in the street or in the saloon," Haney sadly remarked,
+"and you finished your education in the variety theatre, I'm thinking."</p>
+
+<p>The actor took this as a joke, and with a grin retorted: "That's better
+than running a faro-layout."</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno; a good quiet game has its power to educate a man," replied the
+gambler.</p>
+
+<p>That night, as she was preparing the Captain for bed, he remarked, with
+a sigh: "Life is a quare game! I mind Charley well as a cute little
+yellow-haired divil, always laughing, always in mischief, and me chasin'
+after him&mdash;a big slob of a boy. I used to carry him up an' down the
+tenement stairs. I learned him to skate&mdash;and now here he is drinkin'
+himself puffy, whilst I am an old broken-down hack at forty-five." He
+looked up at her with a sheen of tears in his eyes. "Darlin', 'tis a
+shame to be leanin' on you."</p>
+
+<p>She put her arm around his big grizzled head and drew it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You can lean hard, Mart. I'm standin' by."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine,
+straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young
+life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me any
+longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, now, no more of that!" she warned. "When I have cause to knock,
+you won't need no ear-trumpet. Put up your hoof." He obeyed, and,
+stooping swiftly, she began to unlace the shoe which he could no longer
+reach. Her manner was that of a daughter who tyrannizes over an
+indulgent father. Her admiration and gratitude, so boyish once, were now
+replaced by an affection in which the element of sex had small place,
+and his love for her sprang also from a source far removed from the
+fierce instinct which first led him to seek her subduing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Charles Haney had no scruples. From the moment of his first meeting with
+his brother's young wife he determined to make himself "solid" with her.
+Convinced that Mart was not long for this world, he set to work to win
+Bertha's favor, for this was the only way to harvest the golden fortune
+she controlled.</p>
+
+<p>"Mart is just fool enough and contrary enough to leave every cent of his
+money to her." Here he placed one finger against his brow. "Carlos, here
+is where you get busy. It's us to the haberdasher. We shine."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all his boasting, he was not only an actor out of an
+engagement, but flat broke, badly dressed, and in sorry disrepute with
+managers. "I've been playing in a stock company in San Francisco," he
+had explained, "and I'm now on my way to New York to produce a play of
+my own. Hence these tears. I need an 'angel.'"</p>
+
+<p>He distinctly said "the first of the month" in this announcement, but as
+the days went by he only settled deeper into the snug corners of the
+Haney home, making no further mention of his triumphal eastward
+progress. On the contrary, he had the air of a regular boarder, and
+turned up promptly for meals, rotund and glowing in the opulence of his
+brother's hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>On the strength of his name he found favor with the tailors, and
+bourgeoned forth a few days later in the best cloth the shops afforded,
+and strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock before Bertha,
+keeping up meanwhile a pretension of sympathy and good-fellowship with
+Mart.</p>
+
+<p>In this he miscalculated; for Bertha, youthful as she seemed, was
+accustomed, as she would say, to "standing off mashers," and her
+impassive face and keen, steady eyes fairly disconcerted the libertine.
+"For Mart's sake, we'll put up with him," she said to her mother. "He's
+a loafer; but I can see the Captain kind o' likes to have him
+around&mdash;for old times' sake, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>This was true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his
+egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the
+dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to
+see and understand that this was his most ingratiating r&ocirc;le, and he
+played it "to the limit," as Bertha would have said.</p>
+
+<p>And yet no one in the house realized how his presence reacted against
+Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to think of a girl so obtuse that she permits a man like
+this fat, disgusting actor to dangle about her?" asked Mrs. Crego of her
+husband, who was Haney's legal adviser.</p>
+
+<p>"He's her husband's brother, you know," argued Crego.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, I can't understand her. She looks nice and sweet, and you
+say she is so; and yet here she is married to a notorious gambler, and
+associating with mountebanks and all sorts of malodorous people. Why,
+I've seen her riding down the street with the upholsterer, and Mrs.
+Congdon told me that she saw her stop her carriage in front of a cigar
+store and talk with a barber in a white jacket for at least ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Crego laughed. "What infamy! However, I can't believe even the
+upholsterer will finally corrupt her. The fact is, my dear, we're all
+getting to be what some of my clients call 'too a-ristocratic.' Bertha
+Haney is sprung from good average American stock, and has associated
+with the kind of people you abhor all her life. She hasn't begun to draw
+any of your artificial distinctions. I hope she never will. Her barber
+friend is on the same level with the clerks and grocery-men of the town.
+They're all human, you know. She's the true democrat. I confess I like
+the girl. Her ability is astonishing. Williams and Haney both take her
+opinion quite as weightily as my own."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego was impressed. "Well, I'll call on her if you really think I
+<i>ought</i> to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't. I withdraw my suggestion. I deprecate your calling&mdash;in that
+spirit. I doubt if she expects you to call. I hardly think she has
+awakened to any slights put upon her by your set. Indeed, she seems
+quite happy in the society of Thomas, Richard, and Harry."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be brutal, Allen."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not. The girl is now serene&mdash;that's the main thing; and you might
+raise up doubts and discontents in her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly shall not go near her so long as that odious actor is
+hanging about. His smirk at me the other day made me ill."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation was typical of many others in homes of equal culture,
+for Bertha's position as well as her face and manner piqued curiosity.
+After all, the town was a small place&mdash;just large enough to give gossip
+room to play in&mdash;and the sheen of Mrs. Haney's wealth made her
+conspicuous from afar, while her youth and boyish beauty had been the
+subject of admiring club talk from the very first. Haney was only an old
+and wounded animal, whose mate was free to choose anew.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me ache to see the girl go wrong," said Mrs. Frank Congdon,
+wife of a resident portrait-painter, also in delicate health (she was
+speaking to Mrs. Crego). "Think of that great house&mdash;Frank says she runs
+it admirably&mdash;filled with tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers,
+not to mention touts and gamblers&mdash;when she might be entertaining&mdash;well,
+us, for example!" She laughed at the unbending face of her friend; then
+went on: "Dr. Cronk says the mother is a sweet old lady and of good New
+England family&mdash;a constitutional Methodist, he calls her. I wish she
+kept better company."</p>
+
+<p>"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother
+was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and
+the girl boasts of it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the
+most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has
+called, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's
+picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's
+face fade out of her memory."</p>
+
+<p>"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the
+portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to
+paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers
+Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and
+was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now&mdash;his face is one
+of the saddest I ever saw&mdash;makes it all the more interesting to Frank.
+So I'm going to call&mdash;in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You
+must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.</p>
+
+<p>Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her
+social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the
+ideas and usages of Sibley Junction&mdash;that was all. She acknowledged her
+obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England
+democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the
+right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice.
+The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this
+privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her
+own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church
+associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the
+distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and
+Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are
+too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the
+revelation came to her.</p>
+
+<p>From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the
+Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that
+her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say
+proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while
+from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs,
+beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital
+infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and
+Charles&mdash;both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great
+concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her
+husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not
+merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in
+resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister
+one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's
+faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any
+other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I
+call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the
+finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's,
+and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the
+social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles,
+embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He
+had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar
+you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set'
+and quoting <i>Town Topics</i> like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little
+two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What
+d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of
+me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at
+the club fail to invite me to their houses."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a
+different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone
+beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each
+day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be
+alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell
+Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But
+his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so
+she endured.</p>
+
+<p>The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the
+town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was
+"in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr.
+Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss
+Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst
+significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her
+loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on
+his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat
+beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was
+furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence
+that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>His attentions&mdash;which were almost assaults&mdash;came at last to destroy a
+large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside
+her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him
+before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever
+she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never
+been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon
+conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his
+maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting
+himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the
+Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams
+was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's
+care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who
+paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching
+them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain,"
+Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush.
+And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until
+his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort.
+He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come
+from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no
+imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of
+his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he
+now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that
+the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such
+times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of
+mines and mining&mdash;though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded
+little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not
+go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his
+condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in
+possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put
+a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges
+there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis
+impossible&mdash;I see that&mdash;but I may live on for a long time. Already me
+mind misgives me about Bertie&mdash;she's too young to be tied up to a
+shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."</p>
+
+<p>To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry.
+She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."</p>
+
+<p>Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I
+niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency
+darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me
+out. I'm only a big nuisance."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is
+all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an
+atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never
+for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.</p>
+
+<p>This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he
+came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting
+alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart,
+feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk,
+went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her.
+Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe
+of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a
+glare of reckless desire.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want
+'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me,
+anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up
+tense and strong, silently confronting him.</p>
+
+<p>He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't
+you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his
+lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her,
+clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply
+with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell
+sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his
+balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one
+less experienced than she.</p>
+
+<p>"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stop!</i>" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you
+want to die?" The word <i>die</i> pierced the mist of his madness. "What do
+you think Mart will say to this?"</p>
+
+<p>He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered
+in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it,
+I beg&mdash;I beg!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his
+wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house
+to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are.
+You haven't fooled me any&mdash;not for a minute. I've put up with you for
+his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you,
+but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning&mdash;you <i>sabe</i>?
+It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of
+disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the
+rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He <i>was</i>
+company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I
+never see him again."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he
+sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me
+another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I
+don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but
+fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away,
+flabby and faltering, to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I
+need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I
+get to work I'll send you a check."</p>
+
+<p>Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and
+put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one
+of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get
+down to hard work. It's <i>time</i> ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but
+loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk&mdash;part of the time; but I can
+see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad
+for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you&mdash;" He was going to ask for a position&mdash;something easy with
+big pay&mdash;when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.</p>
+
+<p>As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a
+gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father,
+write and tell me how he is."</p>
+
+<p>Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in
+what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and
+went out to his carriage&mdash;alone.</p>
+
+<p>As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm
+directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a
+gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could
+live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has
+him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost
+the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train,
+as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village,
+but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy
+streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose
+belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.</p>
+
+<p>And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death,
+fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned
+all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning
+their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented
+exiles&mdash;men as well as women&mdash;who have come to enjoy their enforced stay
+here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its
+surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate
+and the water have prolonged their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at
+present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
+others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
+their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
+blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
+and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
+of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
+but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
+for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
+also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
+and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
+and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
+comfort and content.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
+desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
+Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
+a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence&mdash;"to get some good of
+their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
+avenues are luxurious homes&mdash;absurdly pretentious in some
+instances&mdash;which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
+big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
+drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
+sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
+comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
+city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
+staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
+certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
+genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
+microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
+would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
+change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
+with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
+interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
+my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
+eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
+don't <i>interest</i> me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do
+them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence.
+And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have
+always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has,
+nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the
+grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."</p>
+
+<p>"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where
+would the Congdons be?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't
+a matter of brains. It's a question of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Savoir faire.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently&mdash;" Congdon stopped
+him, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I owe you fifty&mdash;I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I
+suddenly recalled&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go
+everywhere and are welcome. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's
+all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on
+the gray matter of this family."</p>
+
+<p>"You do yourself an injustice."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your
+type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You
+mix. And Haney, for example&mdash;to return to the concrete again&mdash;Haney
+would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife,
+clever as she is, is impossible&mdash;or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she
+is."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little
+Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on
+the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her
+interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.'
+So there we stand."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The
+girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of
+a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this
+realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me
+I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments.
+Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're
+painting his portrait&mdash;why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the
+line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of
+hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women
+can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can.
+As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything&mdash;except
+borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber
+lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than
+anything else. They think her tastes are low."</p>
+
+<p>"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and
+though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he
+seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will
+admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional,
+but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act.
+Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with
+them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but&mdash;' And there the argument
+rests."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy,"
+said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would
+like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will
+never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going
+to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."</p>
+
+<p>And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with
+his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the
+portrait is nearly done," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't
+much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my
+mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to
+teach her."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he.
+"That girl's no fool&mdash;she's capable of development. She will amaze you
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to
+dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll
+we ask to meet her&mdash;the Cregos?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'd thought of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting
+a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I
+think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce
+in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is
+crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away,
+little boy, and leave the whole business to me."</p>
+
+<p>As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the
+Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic
+cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide
+old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of
+beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing
+ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a
+prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American
+ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little
+better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for
+automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the
+blazing fires of roomy hearths.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a
+state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by
+pretending to be a sculptor&mdash;and she still did occasionally model a
+figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the
+aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter,
+whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was
+making a precarious living in the Springs&mdash;precarious for the reason
+that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and
+on dark days he <i>couldn't</i> see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was
+not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as
+he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted
+his laziness and incompetency.</p>
+
+<p>Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the
+Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a
+couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their
+troubles&mdash;credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each
+of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was
+accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and
+when they needed food helped them to it.</p>
+
+<p>Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee
+reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage.
+There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the
+slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs.
+Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this
+consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.</p>
+
+<p>Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with
+flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and
+almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress),
+and so waited for further information.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mrs. Haney?" Lee began. "I'm Mrs. Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha threw the rug over Mart's knees before turning to offer her hand.
+"I'm glad to meet you," she responded, with gravity. "I've seen you on
+the street."</p>
+
+<p>Lee couldn't quite make out whether this remark was intended for
+reproach or not, but she went on, quickly: "I was just about to call.
+Indeed, I came to ask you and Mr. Haney to dine with us on Thursday."
+She nodded and smiled at Mart, who sat with impassive countenance
+listening with attention&mdash;his piercing eyes making her rather
+uncomfortable. "We dine at seven. I hope you can come."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up at her husband. "What do you say, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any objection," he answered, without warmth.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha turned, with still passive countenance. "All right," she said,
+"we'll be there. Won't you jump in and take a ride with us?"</p>
+
+<p>Lee, burning with mingled flames of resentment and humor, replied:
+"Thank you, I have another call to make&mdash;Thursday, then, at seven
+o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll connect. Much obliged," replied Bertha, and sprang into the
+carriage. "Go ahead, Dan. Good-day, Mrs. Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Lee stood for an instant in amazement at this easy, not to say
+indifferent, acceptance of her tremendous offering. "Well, if that isn't
+cool!" she gasped, and walked on thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Humor dominated her at last, and when she entered Mrs. Crego's house she
+was flushed with laughter, and recounted the words of the interview with
+so many subtle interpretations of her own that Mrs. Crego was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon did not spare herself. "Helen, she made me feel like a
+bill-collector! 'All right,' said she, 'I'll be there,' and left me
+standing in the middle of the street. You've got to come now, Helen, to
+preserve my dignity."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wild to come, really. I want to see what she'll do to us
+'professional people.' Maybe she will patronize us too."</p>
+
+<p>When Lee told Frank about it at night he failed to laugh as heartily as
+she had expected. "That's all very funny, the way you tell it, but as a
+matter of fact the girl did all she knew. She accepted your invitation
+and civilly asked you to take a ride. What more could mortal woman
+proffer?"</p>
+
+<p>"She might have invited me into the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at the moment. It was Mart's hour for a drive, and you were
+interfering with one of her duties. I think she treated you very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, she's coming, and so is Helen. It tickled Helen nearly into
+fits, of course, and she's coming&mdash;just to see me 'put to it to manage
+these wet valley bronchos.'"</p>
+
+<p>"The girl may look like a bronk, but she's got good blood in her. She'll
+hold her own anywhere," replied Congdon, with conviction.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
+for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
+experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
+the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
+She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
+husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
+street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
+which she had begun to take a settled pride.</p>
+
+<p>As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
+clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
+think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."</p>
+
+<p>"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
+in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
+go&mdash;I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
+meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
+need more doin'."</p>
+
+<p>Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
+Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
+me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me <i>cong&eacute;</i> out of
+self-respect&mdash;just to give you open road."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
+rush. Wonder what's eating him?"</p>
+
+<p>Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
+the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
+died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
+"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
+more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
+here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
+fellow here&mdash;Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
+chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
+course, I'm sorry about your father."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand&mdash;so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
+myself. I know you always despised my trade."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
+dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."</p>
+
+<p>Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
+about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
+barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
+fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
+ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
+board while I study."</p>
+
+<p>Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
+part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
+both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
+down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
+conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
+earnest conversation with a barber.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
+then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
+exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
+the line at barbers."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
+you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand such people."</p>
+
+<p>"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
+is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
+natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
+in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
+she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
+"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that&mdash;not in my
+presence."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
+down the steps to help Haney up.</p>
+
+<p>The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
+said he. "I let me little Corporal help me&mdash;sometimes for love of it,
+not because I nade it."</p>
+
+<p>He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
+and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
+was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
+trousers, and looked very well indeed&mdash;quite irreproachable.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was clad in black also&mdash;a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
+made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
+eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
+bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
+and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
+like that of an athlete.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
+followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
+hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
+concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
+walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
+chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
+pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
+ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
+had charm.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
+centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
+at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
+shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
+He's a regular kid anyway&mdash;always doing the things he ought not to do."</p>
+
+<p>In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
+looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
+nor embarrassed&mdash;on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
+else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
+husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
+it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
+about my size."</p>
+
+<p>"You're disappointed, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
+just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
+the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
+picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
+see nothin' else."</p>
+
+<p>Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
+of the painter&mdash;he puts on canvas what <i>he</i> sees, not what his patron
+sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
+artist."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
+presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
+visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
+silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
+suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
+this chill reception.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
+pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
+a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
+with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
+such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
+went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
+saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
+you. Your life seems very romantic to me."</p>
+
+<p>The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
+recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
+by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
+was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
+manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
+hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
+somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
+made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.</p>
+
+<p>They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
+felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
+of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
+at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
+curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
+found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
+sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
+rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
+intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
+furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
+in a way quite new to her.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
+magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
+Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
+things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
+under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
+been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
+the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
+devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
+domestication in a stone palace&mdash;all appealed to his imagination. Such
+things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
+most satisfying to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
+kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
+and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
+hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
+tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
+enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
+Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
+gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
+reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
+delightedly with no accusation in their eyes&mdash;except in the case of Mrs.
+Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
+and inner repugnance.</p>
+
+<p>Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
+terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
+willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
+conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
+of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
+imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
+would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
+Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
+with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
+confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
+it was a most interesting monologue.</p>
+
+<p>It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
+to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
+unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand&mdash;always
+careful not to interrupt his talk.</p>
+
+<p>As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
+contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
+"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
+tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
+America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
+last was a delight as well as an education.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
+was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
+lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
+puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
+but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
+something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
+her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
+fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
+know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
+hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
+Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.</p>
+
+<p>Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
+suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
+cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
+her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
+compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
+them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
+grateful charm.</p>
+
+<p>Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
+Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
+by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
+such an opportunity for doing good."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
+and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
+to help&mdash;I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
+when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
+Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one&mdash;he's only
+twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
+can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
+Congdon has told you of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
+
+<p>"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
+have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
+was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
+help me."</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
+much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
+very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
+all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.</p>
+
+<p>When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
+enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
+became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
+been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
+appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
+but to us you seem typical of the West."</p>
+
+<p>What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
+which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
+revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
+insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
+laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
+descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
+the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
+flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
+heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
+conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
+intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
+which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
+among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
+in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
+gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
+meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
+in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
+habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
+a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
+never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
+built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
+the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
+art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
+cultivated speech.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
+side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
+your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."</p>
+
+<p>Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
+with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
+music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
+explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
+acquirement."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang&mdash;as Bertha had never
+heard any one sing&mdash;certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
+made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
+handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
+Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
+sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
+girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
+splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
+toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
+splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
+her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
+came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.</p>
+
+<p>He sang other songs&mdash;tunes not worthy of him&mdash;but ended with a ballad
+called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell&mdash;a song so stern, so strange, so
+inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
+his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
+voice. Her horizon&mdash;her emotional horizon&mdash;was of a sudden extended, and
+she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
+and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
+the others cheered&mdash;her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
+to applaud.</p>
+
+<p>Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
+have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
+ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
+and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
+to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past&mdash;as it caused
+Bertha to forecast the future.</p>
+
+<p>While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
+his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
+hastened to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
+directness.</p>
+
+<p>"It's early yet," replied her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
+the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
+the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
+truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
+merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
+weakened by that tearing charge of shot.</p>
+
+<p>Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
+"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
+soon."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I used to&mdash;I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
+horse, so we mostly drive."</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
+We ride every morning&mdash;a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
+rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
+answered. "I'd like to&mdash;but&mdash;Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
+and then she gave him her hand in parting.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
+said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
+responded: "I certainly shall do so."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
+of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
+brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
+a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
+most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
+beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
+background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
+charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music&mdash;quite the
+best she had ever heard. The evening&mdash;so simple, almost commonplace, to
+her hostess&mdash;was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.</p>
+
+<p>She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
+comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
+right. Crego's the fine man&mdash;we do well to make him our lawyer." As
+Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
+Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno&mdash;them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
+little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
+McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
+girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
+has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
+make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
+that&mdash;'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
+lad&mdash;as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
+man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
+she waits till she gets well."</p>
+
+<p>To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
+was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened&mdash;all that
+had been said.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
+just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
+urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
+library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
+supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
+noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
+I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
+there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
+apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
+husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
+the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
+chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
+out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
+moonlit.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
+short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
+much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
+with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
+sparks of fire from that radiant hour.</p>
+
+<p>She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
+fibres and reaches of another world&mdash;the world of art, and that
+indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
+splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
+jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
+flattering and alluring.</p>
+
+<p>She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
+older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
+elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
+devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
+young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
+"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
+don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
+laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
+time over our blunders."</p>
+
+<p>She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
+like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
+self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
+reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
+imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
+genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
+of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
+companionship.</p>
+
+<p>What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
+what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
+stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.</p>
+
+<p>The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
+pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
+expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
+such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
+Haney's side that summer night&mdash;now so far away&mdash;was momentous, but its
+import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
+just passed.</p>
+
+<p>She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
+sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
+mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
+achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
+life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ben Fordyce and his affianced bride rode home talking of the Haneys.
+"Aren't they deliciously Western!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Haney certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite
+soberly; "she's like a quail&mdash;so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her
+devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter
+than a wife, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're great fun if you don't feel sorry for him as I do," Alice
+thoughtfully responded. "They say he was magnificent as a gambler. He
+admitted to me to-night that he longed to go back to the camp, but that
+he had promised his wife and mother-in-law not to do so. I never ran a
+gambling-saloon, but I can imagine it would be exciting as a play all
+the time, can't you? Here, as he said to me, he can only sit in the sun
+like a lizard on a log. It must seem wonderful to her&mdash;having all this
+money and that big castle of a house. Don't you think so? Wasn't she
+reticent! She hardly uttered a word the whole evening. Some way I feel
+sorry for them both. They can't be happy. Don't you see that? It is
+plain she doesn't love him as a wife should, while he worships her. When
+she's away he is helpless. 'I'm no gairdner,' he said, pathetically; 'I
+was raised on the cobble-stones. I wouldn't know a growin' cabbage from
+a squash.' So you see he can't pass his time in gardening."</p>
+
+<p>Ben's reply was a question. "I wonder if she would ride with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we would do better not to follow up the acquaintance, Ben. It's
+all very interesting to meet them as we did to-night, but they are
+impossible socially&mdash;that you must admit. If there is any possibility of
+our settling down here I suppose we must be careful to do the right
+thing from the start."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was a little irritated by this. "If I'm to settle here as a lawyer I
+can't draw social distinctions of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not&mdash;as a lawyer. Of course, you ought to know Haney; but for
+me to ride or drive with Mrs. Haney is quite a different matter.
+However, I don't really care. She attracts me, and, so far as I know, is
+just a nice little uncultivated woman. We might call on her in the
+morning, and see if she can go with us. It will commit us; but really,
+Ben, I am not going to drag Eastern conventions into this fresh big
+country. I'm willing to risk the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you take that view of it," said Ben.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Bertha was in the yard when they rode up to the gate next morning.
+Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a
+handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of
+young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the
+dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch,
+was watching her with a proud smile.</p>
+
+<p>Alice glanced at her lover with admiration in her eyes. "What a glorious
+creature she really is!"</p>
+
+<p>Seeing visitors at her gate, Bertha came down without confusion to say
+good-morning, and to ask them to dismount.</p>
+
+<p>Ben, with doffed cap, replied by saying: "We've come to ask you to ride
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked up at him composedly. "Haven't a saddle, and I don't know
+that any of our horses are broken. But come again to-morrow, and I'll
+have an outfit."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time like the present. Let me ride down to the barn and
+bring one up," volunteered Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't need to do that, I'll 'phone. I didn't really expect you," she
+explained. "Get off and come in a few minutes, and I'll see what I can
+hustle together for an outfit. I haven't rode a lick since I left
+Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>Ben helped Alice to dismount, and Bertha led her to the house while he
+tethered the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"What a superb place you have here!" exclaimed Alice. "It is one of the
+best in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"We bought it for the porch," calmly replied the girl. "The Captain
+likes to sit where he can see the mountains. I'm not entirely done with
+the outfitting yet, but it beats a barn."</p>
+
+<p>Haney rose as they drew near, and smilingly greeted his visitors. "I
+should be out gatherin' the peanuts and harvestin' the egg-plants, but
+the dinner last night, not mentionin' Congdon's pink liquor, kept me
+awake till two."</p>
+
+<p>"Moral: Stick to Irish whiskey&mdash;or Scotch," laughed Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"I will. These strange liquors are not for strong men like ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Ben took a seat at his invitation, while Bertha went in to 'phone for a
+horse and to "dig up" a riding-skirt. Alice was eager to see the
+interior of the house, but held her curiosity in check by walking about
+the beautiful garden, which ran to the very edge of a deep ravine. The
+trees hid the base of the mountain peaks, whose immitigable crags took
+on added majesty from the play of the delicate near-by branches against
+their distant rugged slopes.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a magnificent outlook here, Captain Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis so, and I try to be content with it; but it's hard for one who has
+roamed the air like a hawk all his life to be content with ridin' a
+wooden horse. I couldn't endure it if it weren't for me wife."</p>
+
+<p>His big form rested in his chair with a ponderous inertness which was a
+telltale witness to his essential helplessness. His left hand still
+failed to participate in the movements of his right, and yet, as he
+showed, he could, by special effort of will, use it. "I'm gaining all
+the time&mdash;but slowly," he went on. "I want to make a trip back up to the
+mines, and I think I'll be able to do it soon." He put aside his own
+troubles. "And you, miss, I hope the climate is doing you good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed, yes," she brightly responded. "I feel stronger every day."</p>
+
+<p>Ben at the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for
+Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha
+returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as
+distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening,
+fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited
+too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new
+treatment which they had discussed.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and see the house," said Bertha, in brusque invitation. "It
+isn't ship-shape yet. I wanted to do it all myself, but I find it's a
+big proposition to go up against. It sure is. But I like it. I'd like
+nothing better than running a big hotel&mdash;not too big, but just big
+enough. I tell the Captain that when our mines 'pinch out' I'll go to
+Denver and start a hotel."</p>
+
+<p>She was quite communicative, but not at ease as she led them from room
+to room. Her manner was rather that of one seeking to conceal
+trepidation, and her fluency seemed a little out of character.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, she was trying to make the best possible impression on these
+people, whose sincere interest she felt; but with Ben's eyes fixed upon
+her so constantly, and a knowledge of Alice's delicate wit to trouble,
+she was more deeply embarrassed than ever before in her life. It was not
+her habit to blush or stammer, and she did not do so now, but she was
+carried out of her wonted reticence.</p>
+
+<p>"As I say, we bought the place for the porch. I didn't realize what I
+was being let into&mdash;if I had I might have shied. We're practically lost
+in the place. Except when some of the people come down from camp, we're
+alone. My mother helps out some, but she's up at the ranch a good deal."
+She opened the library door, and led the way before an easel, on which
+stood a huge canvas. "Here's the picture Mr. Congdon is paintin' of the
+Captain. I wanted him taken with his hat on, but Mr. Congdon said no,
+and his word went. I don't know whether I like this or not. It's got me
+twisted."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon had been after psychology rather than costume, that was evident
+at a glance, for the clothing counted for little in the portrait. Out of
+the shadow the face peered sadly, yet with a kind of ferocity, too&mdash;a
+look which made Alice Heath recoil from the man. In a certain way the
+artist had taken advantage of Mart's helplessness and loneliness. He had
+caught the sadness, sullenness, and remorselessness of his sitter rather
+than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned
+with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good
+likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a
+cracker-jack piece of work," he ended.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha replied: "I suppose it is, and yet I can't see it. I'd rather it
+looked the way the Captain used to when he came down to the Junction.
+I'm sorry to have his sickness painted in that way."</p>
+
+<p>"That can't be helped. These artists are queer cattle; you can't drive
+'em," Ben remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha smiled. "He wants to paint me now. 'Not on your life' says I.
+'You'd be doing double stunts with my freckles, and I won't stand for
+it.'" She laughed. "No sir-ree, I don't let any artist tip my freckles
+edgewise just to see how flip he is at it. I like Mr. Congdon, but I
+don't trust him&mdash;he's too much of a joker."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon she led the way to the second floor, and showed them the
+furniture, which was mostly very costly and very bad, and at last said:
+"The third story is pretty empty yet. I don't know just what I'm going
+to do with it." She was looking at Alice. "I wish you'd come over and
+help me decide some day."</p>
+
+<p>"What fun!" cried Alice, speaking on the impulse. "I'd like to very
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," Bertha went on, "my folks have always been purty poor, and
+I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know
+any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all
+to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled
+quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell
+me&mdash;except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did
+give me a few points on the library, which ain't so bad, we think; but
+all the rest of it I had to dig out myself, and it's slow work. But I
+guess we better go down; my horse will be here in a few minutes." Then,
+with lowered voice, she added: "I can't stay out but a little while. The
+Captain dreads to have me leave him even to go down-town. I hadn't ought
+to go at all."</p>
+
+<p>Ben began to perceive a real slavery in her life, and reassured her.
+"I'm glad you're coming. It will do you good, and it will be a pleasure
+to us too. We'll only be away an hour."</p>
+
+<p>As they returned to the porch, Bertha put her hand on Haney's shoulder,
+in the manner of one man to another, saying: "I'm going for a little
+ride with these people, Captain, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a
+subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart
+responded to it.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's horse proved to be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with
+the ease and celerity of a boy&mdash;riding astride, in the mountain fashion.
+"I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all
+the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything
+more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the
+saddle, her face glowing, her hair blown across her face.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, a timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was
+always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A
+pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at
+them&mdash;so young, so vigorous, and so blithe.</p>
+
+<p>"I should be sitting with Captain Haney on the porch," she thought, with
+bitterness. "I am out of place here."</p>
+
+<p>The words which passed between Bertha and her cavalier meant little, but
+their glances meant much. It was, indeed, a fateful ride. The liking,
+the deep interest, born of their first meeting, swept irresistibly into
+admiration. Their faces turned towards each other, youth to youth, as
+naturally as flowers swing towards the light.</p>
+
+<p>They fell into argument over saddles, over the difference between his
+manner of riding and her own. Her speech, so direct, so full of quaint
+slang, enchanted him, and Alice soon found herself the third party. And
+when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a
+clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
+out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
+gait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
+became anxious at once.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race&mdash;I can see that; and I'd
+really like to see her ride&mdash;she sits her horse so beautifully."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
+road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
+with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
+a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
+she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
+interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
+physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
+sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
+and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
+her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
+disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
+some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
+youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was&mdash;a broken thing. The
+divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
+vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
+month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
+the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
+skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
+hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
+Ben was receiving lessons from her&mdash;absorbed and jocular.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
+landscape&mdash;a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
+rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
+deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
+beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
+Alice, let's make our home here."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"</p>
+
+<p>The horse that Bertha rode was prancing and foaming, eager for a renewal
+of the race, and Ben, seeing it, cried out: "Shall we go round by the
+hanging rock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm willing!" answered Bertha, her eyes shining with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Alice shook her head. "I think I'll let you young things go your own
+gait, and I'll poke along back towards home."</p>
+
+<p>Ben rode near her, searching her face anxiously. "You're not tired&mdash;are
+you, sweetness?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I would be if I took that big circuit. But never mind me, I
+like to poke."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he answered, quite relieved, "we'll meet you at the
+bridge." And off they dashed with furious clatter, leaving her to slowly
+retrace her lonely way, feeling very tired, very old, and very sad.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was perfectly, perilously happy. It was almost her first escape
+from the brooding care and weight of Haney's presence. She felt as she
+used to feel when speeding away on swift gallop to the ranch with some
+companion as care-free as herself. Since that fateful day when her
+mother fell ill and Marshall Haney asked her to marry him, she had not
+been permitted an hour's holiday. Even when absent from her husband her
+mind carried an inescapable picture of his loneliness and helplessness,
+and no complete relaxation had come with her temporary freedom. This
+day, this hour, she was suddenly free from care, from pain, from all
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>She considered this feeling due to the saddle and to the clear air of
+the morning. "I will ride every day," she declared to Ben, with shining
+face, as they drew their horses to a walk. "I don't know when I've
+enjoyed a ride so much. I can't see why I haven't been out before. I
+used to ride a good lot; lately I've dropped it."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll call for you every morning," he replied. "As Alice gets stronger,
+we can go up into the ca&ntilde;ons and take long rides."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll let her ride in the cart
+with the Captain, and take our dinner, and we'll all go up the North
+Ca&ntilde;on some day, and eat picnic dinner there."</p>
+
+<p>"Good idea," he said, accepting her disposition of Alice without even
+mental dissent. "That will be jolly fun."</p>
+
+<p>They planned this and other excursions, with no sense of leaving any one
+behind or of cutting across conventional boundaries. Their native
+honesty and innocence of any ill intention prevented even a suspicion of
+danger, and by the time they joined Alice at the bridge they were on
+terms of intimacy and good-fellowship which seemed to rise from years of
+long acquaintance. Ben had promised to help her select a horse, and she
+had agreed to bring the Captain to call on Alice, who was staying with
+some friends not far away.</p>
+
+<p>This change in Bertha's manner extended to Alice, who returned it in
+kind. The guilelessness which shone from the young wife's clear eyes was
+unmistakable. She was growing handsome, too. The flush of blood in her
+cheeks had submerged her freckles, and Alice began to realize how the
+poor child's devotion to Marshall Haney had reacted against her native
+good health. "She is but a child even now," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was sitting on the porch where they had left him, the collie at
+his feet, but at sight of them returning he rose and hobbled slowly down
+the walk, his heart filled with tenderness and admiration for his wife.
+He had never ridden with her, but he had once seen her mounted, and one
+of his expressed wishes had been that he might be able to sit a saddle
+once more and ride by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and stay to dinner!" he called, hospitably, and Bertha eagerly
+seconded the invitation.</p>
+
+<p>But Alice replied: "I'm pretty tired; I think I'll go home. You can stay
+if you like, Ben."</p>
+
+<p>Ben, smitten with sudden contrition, quickly said: "Oh no; I will go
+with you. I'm afraid you've ridden too far."</p>
+
+<p>She protested against this, for Bertha's relief. "Not at all. It's a
+good tiredness. It's been great fun."</p>
+
+<p>And with promises of another expedition of the same sort they rode away,
+while Bertha and Haney remained at the gate to examine the new horse.</p>
+
+<p>As little Mrs. Haney re-entered the house with her husband the day
+seemed to lose its magical brightness, and to decline to a humdrum,
+shadowless flare. The house became cold and gloomy and the day empty.
+For the first time since its purchase she mentally asked herself: "What
+will I do now?" It was as if some ruling motive had suddenly been
+withdrawn from her life.</p>
+
+<p>This empty, aching spot remained with her all through the day, even when
+she took Haney for his drive down-town, and only disappeared for a few
+moments as they met young Fordyce on the street. It troubled her as she
+returned to the house, and she was glad that Williams came in to take
+supper with them, for his talk of the mine diverted her and deeply
+interested her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Williams eyed his boss critically. "You're gainin', Captain. You'll soon
+be able to make camp again."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, but the doctor says my heart's affected and it wouldn't be
+safe for me to go any higher&mdash;for a while."</p>
+
+<p>Williams smiled at Bertha. "Better send the missus, then. The men all
+have a great idea of her. They say she's a kind of mascot. McGonnigle
+asks me every time what she thinks of our new shaft. I've a kind of
+reverence for her judgment myself. They say women kind o' feel their way
+to a conclusion. Now, I'd like her to pass judgment on our work in <i>The
+Diamond Ace</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to go up," said Bertha. But, in truth, she was no longer
+thinking of the mine: she was considering how she might make her table
+look as pretty as Mrs. Congdon's. Her first dissatisfaction with her own
+way of life filled her mind. "I must have some of those candles," she
+said to herself, while the men were still intent upon the mine. Her
+first step towards social conformity was at this moment taken.</p>
+
+<p>She felt herself akin to these people, and this assertion, subconscious
+and unuttered, brought something between Marshall Haney and herself. It
+was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was
+perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the
+Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the
+ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge
+she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day,
+though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, now piteously
+dependent upon her.</p>
+
+<p>He managed his morning paper very well, but when she read aloud to him
+he almost always went to sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
+Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
+waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
+had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
+nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
+weakness of will not native to her.</p>
+
+<p>Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
+with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
+As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
+a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
+her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.</p>
+
+<p>As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
+did ye have a good ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye did not&mdash;Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
+repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
+mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
+better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
+get ready at your ease."</p>
+
+<p>The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
+afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
+day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
+lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.</p>
+
+<p>"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
+in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
+buy the friends you really care for.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
+had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
+explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
+again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
+mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
+and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
+call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
+little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
+listened to me gabble," he added.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend&mdash;a rather handsome
+house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
+blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
+her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
+Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
+Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
+don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
+and then. I'm glad you came."</p>
+
+<p>"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
+delicate face was wrinkled and withered.</p>
+
+<p>Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
+"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork&mdash;nothing permanently depresses
+me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
+of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
+a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, indeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
+me out&mdash;I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay <i>down</i> more than three
+days."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
+"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
+hand. "How are ye the day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
+Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
+one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."</p>
+
+<p>Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
+o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
+had just sighted the camp of the robbers."</p>
+
+<p>Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
+must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
+that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
+in those days."</p>
+
+<p>"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
+and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
+revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
+You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."</p>
+
+<p>Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
+anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
+things she cares to see."</p>
+
+<p>Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
+in your ears?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
+protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
+exquisite profile?" he thought.</p>
+
+<p>The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
+Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
+boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
+of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
+of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
+respect?</p>
+
+<p>Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
+be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
+sighted us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
+furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
+discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
+advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
+and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals&mdash;if she has any."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
+"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
+poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
+off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
+that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
+man do it."</p>
+
+<p>The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
+social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
+go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
+up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
+she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
+glowing and her face alight.</p>
+
+<p>"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
+horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
+boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
+'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
+day."</p>
+
+<p>Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
+with us to-day."</p>
+
+<p>As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
+their return&mdash;patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
+resentful within.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear Ca&ntilde;on, but Ben was quick to say:
+"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
+sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
+and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
+the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
+unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
+plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
+racing, no circuits with her&mdash;and yet outwardly and in reality she was
+deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.</p>
+
+<p>Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
+luncheon&mdash;Bertha was learning to call it that&mdash;the outing ended in a
+rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
+showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
+and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.</p>
+
+<p>Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
+single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
+they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
+"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
+knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
+awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
+thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
+know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
+to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
+before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
+running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
+pertinent. What can I help you on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know. Alice"&mdash;she spoke the word with a little
+hesitation&mdash;"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
+that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church&mdash;a little&mdash;and I'm helping
+up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
+some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
+pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
+down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are women who do that and nothing else."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
+as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
+sitting around."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
+We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
+thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
+they come, but they don't stay&mdash;they don't seem comfortable. They are
+all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
+used to. And the people next door here&mdash;well, they don't neighbor at
+all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
+church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
+your wealth is a barrier."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
+go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
+this money I might put on airs; but I haven't&mdash;I've just married into
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly&mdash;almost accusingly.</p>
+
+<p>Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
+Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
+discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
+I&mdash;And so when the word came that he was hurt&mdash;and wanted me&mdash;I went."
+Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
+great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
+fine man in spite of&mdash;" He broke off.</p>
+
+<p>She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
+mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
+before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."</p>
+
+<p>He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers&mdash;I'm
+a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
+that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
+crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor&mdash;he never let a crooked deal
+pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
+and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
+face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
+Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"</p>
+
+<p>His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
+gambler rather than a miner."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
+the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
+in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
+count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."</p>
+
+<p>The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
+confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
+His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
+responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
+pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
+her&mdash;the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
+to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
+power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
+their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
+potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
+pupil, before him.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
+and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man&mdash;he has your legal
+business, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
+she despises us&mdash;that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
+ain't legal advice I want&mdash;it's something else. I don't know what it is.
+Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
+life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
+take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
+to me?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer&mdash;and a very young
+one at that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."</p>
+
+<p>"What am I, then?"</p>
+
+<p>The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
+the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
+scholar."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."</p>
+
+<p>She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
+trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
+tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
+but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
+down."</p>
+
+<p>This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
+tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
+shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
+me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."</p>
+
+<p>Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
+self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now&mdash;the quality which
+attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
+the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
+took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
+settee.</p>
+
+<p>Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
+believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
+care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
+little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
+when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
+misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
+maybe she's right&mdash;maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
+given her a good deal, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
+going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
+and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
+spread out before us&mdash;Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
+from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
+comin'. I used to work hard&mdash;you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
+used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
+though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
+and twist me two thumbs&mdash;and one of them bog-spavined, at that."</p>
+
+<p>To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
+Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!&mdash;I
+mean luncheon, ma'am&mdash;I'm lately instructed."</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
+twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
+eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."</p>
+
+<p>Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
+continued to be very personal&mdash;it could not be prevented, for each of
+these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
+feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
+thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
+the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
+self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
+struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
+careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
+first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
+wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
+reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
+trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
+Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
+spirit of the meal.</p>
+
+<p>At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
+lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
+I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
+you'll be able to do it."</p>
+
+<p>Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
+Crego?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
+to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
+not above nodding when me own wife passes by."</p>
+
+<p>Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
+Crego."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
+paid well&mdash;as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
+advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."</p>
+
+<p>Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
+would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
+and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."</p>
+
+<p>Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
+loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."</p>
+
+<p>He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
+quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
+Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
+it profitable to ye."</p>
+
+<p>Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
+anyway&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
+office."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
+I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
+besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
+if you have definitely decided against him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
+Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
+good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
+harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."</p>
+
+<p>Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients&mdash;at least,
+a <i>young</i> lawyer can't."</p>
+
+<p>Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
+up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
+has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
+high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
+defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
+fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
+luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
+had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
+go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
+I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
+mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
+to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
+me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
+for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
+was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won&mdash;I
+almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
+sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
+another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
+gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
+the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
+takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
+an equal chance with me&mdash;else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
+rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
+is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
+above&mdash;if there is such&mdash;is there to see that we all have a show for our
+ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."</p>
+
+<p>Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
+spirit. She was not of his faith&mdash;quite the contrary. She was a
+fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
+to understand his point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
+game, but to keep them <i>out</i> of the game. I had too much faith in me
+luck to ever weaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
+instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
+plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
+put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
+says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
+turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
+knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
+considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
+me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
+but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
+that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces&mdash;I don't complain. I
+take me chances. Now"&mdash;here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
+lightened&mdash;"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"</p>
+
+<p>Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
+me to get busy."</p>
+
+<p>"And ye expect to marry soon?"</p>
+
+<p>This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
+people listening&mdash;a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
+perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
+housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
+little stronger."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
+"here's <i>your</i> chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
+We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
+by that."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
+of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
+your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
+sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
+more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
+liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
+offer&mdash;provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
+across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
+she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
+I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.</p>
+
+<p>They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
+quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
+Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
+business here."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
+takes me eye."</p>
+
+<p>Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
+glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
+like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
+little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
+business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
+we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
+pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
+first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
+glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
+satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
+her home.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
+the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
+of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
+could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
+right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
+solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
+going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
+the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
+place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
+immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.</p>
+
+<p>Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
+horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
+to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
+said.</p>
+
+<p>He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
+social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
+inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely&mdash;especially
+if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
+responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
+arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
+bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
+with them&mdash;or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"</p>
+
+<p>"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"</p>
+
+<p>"If any evil comes of this&mdash;and there will be sorrow in it&mdash;you'll be
+morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
+who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
+and not be hurt by it."</p>
+
+<p>The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
+has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
+Haney&mdash;he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
+be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
+has pleased Haney&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it&mdash;I'm
+perfectly sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
+of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
+took up his paper and walked away from her.</p>
+
+<p>She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
+news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
+either. What do you think, Frank?"</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
+right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
+tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
+Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
+whole thing over."</p>
+
+<p>"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
+they choose to make, and I mostly think they can&mdash;ten generations of
+Quaker ancestry&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But the people there don't know their ancestry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
+is <i>taken</i> with Ben&mdash;it's all her plan."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
+true as steel."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. My prophetic soul&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
+straightforward as a boy of twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
+Ben and his singing that night here."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
+say such a thing&mdash;even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
+believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
+create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p>He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
+I are friends. I like him immensely&mdash;too much to think of running such a
+frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
+peril."</p>
+
+<p>Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
+deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
+warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
+whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
+granted."</p>
+
+<p>So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
+couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
+am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
+first time they called at his office.</p>
+
+<p>Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
+pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
+for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
+entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
+accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
+second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
+practice a long time."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
+replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
+Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
+signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it has."</p>
+
+<p>"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."</p>
+
+<p>"They do," Haney agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
+This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
+face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
+this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
+in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
+being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
+It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
+they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
+and it's really due to you."</p>
+
+<p>She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
+like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
+looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."</p>
+
+<p>"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
+often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
+full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
+hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
+easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
+me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
+have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
+turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
+own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
+Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
+Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
+in the West."</p>
+
+<p>Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
+Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.</p>
+
+<p>She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
+Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
+doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
+young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
+might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
+of the Captain's wife.</p>
+
+<p>Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
+years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
+possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
+innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
+been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid&mdash;which she knew
+and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
+to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
+is flooded with sunshine&mdash;a static world in appearance. But how will it
+be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
+sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
+other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
+unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
+spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
+filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
+"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
+stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
+conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
+of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
+ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
+will rise&mdash;and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
+you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
+me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
+Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
+to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
+girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."</p>
+
+<p>"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
+widow?"</p>
+
+<p>She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
+different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
+acceptable to the really best people."</p>
+
+<p>"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
+rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
+would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."</p>
+
+<p>"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.</p>
+
+<p>"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
+more interesting woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
+men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
+I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
+friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
+their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
+gambler. Isn't that so, now?"</p>
+
+<p>She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
+talk about it any more&mdash;at present." And at this moment there passed
+before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
+mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
+the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
+shadow&mdash;disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
+the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
+the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.</p>
+
+<p>This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
+later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
+presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
+the cause of his wounding?</p>
+
+<p>This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
+They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
+rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
+say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
+predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
+comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
+reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
+or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
+comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
+entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
+still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
+are ever in our thoughts in slumber.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
+was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
+sake&mdash;and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
+are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
+Dutch aunt."</p>
+
+<p>Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
+going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
+they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
+guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
+this retainer from Captain Haney."</p>
+
+<p>He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
+hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
+When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
+possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
+here and pay our way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ben!"&mdash;there was a wail in her voice&mdash;"I don't seem to gain as I
+should! I'm completely tired out to-night."</p>
+
+<p>He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
+exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
+office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
+I keep a house&mdash;your house&mdash;in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
+it&mdash;not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."</p>
+
+<p>He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
+so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
+time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
+wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
+girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
+lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
+down into these detestable moods."</p>
+
+<p>Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
+Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
+about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
+a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
+cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
+been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
+didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"</p>
+
+<p>When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
+her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.</p>
+
+<p>"I always have something on my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
+your mind. Do I know what it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
+is urging an immediate marriage."</p>
+
+<p>Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
+not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
+here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
+it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
+not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
+is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
+socially with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
+the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
+little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
+some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
+to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rats!"</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
+now; your cheeks are blazing."</p>
+
+<p>"With wrath&mdash;not health."</p>
+
+<p>"At me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
+Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
+getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
+younger to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's because I'm angry."</p>
+
+<p>"What about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon became solemn&mdash;grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
+been making some of your tactful remarks."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
+you to do."</p>
+
+<p>He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
+by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."</p>
+
+<p>Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
+candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held&mdash;apparently; for Alice
+was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
+and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously&mdash;except his
+portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
+not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
+tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
+Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
+but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
+fates&mdash;generally the humorous ones&mdash;pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
+him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
+long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
+give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
+left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.</p>
+
+<p>In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
+description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
+mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
+me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
+'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
+does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her&mdash;put a spell over
+her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
+thing with her&mdash;and she was <i>such</i> a good girl. How could you,
+Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
+her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
+have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
+"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
+I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
+over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
+the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
+appearing suddenly at the door &agrave; la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
+of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
+I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
+hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
+me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
+this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
+ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
+crime of this kind unless&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
+then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
+Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
+made Mrs. Henry turn pale.</p>
+
+<p>"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
+you to the police.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'</p>
+
+<p>"'So it is&mdash;with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
+thinks I've hypnotized her?'</p>
+
+<p>"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
+truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
+door&mdash;particularly as everything was quiet inside."</p>
+
+<p>His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
+before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
+of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
+all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
+spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
+didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
+'phoned the police."</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
+so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
+expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
+burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
+he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
+story&mdash;he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
+don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"For good and all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
+rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," she said, simply.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
+his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
+investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
+mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
+Ben's just the boy to do this."</p>
+
+<p>Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
+start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
+called low&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
+business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
+different with Ben, who is just starting."</p>
+
+<p>Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"How bad do you need it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
+looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
+the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
+Congdon perceived it.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
+able to buy or rent and keep house&mdash;or I didn't till Haney made this
+offer."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he come to make it?"</p>
+
+<p>His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
+himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
+and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
+misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
+come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
+thinks I am at once able and honest."</p>
+
+<p>"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
+said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
+too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.</p>
+
+<p>She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
+any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
+dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
+"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
+were alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
+don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
+her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
+A wonder it wasn't with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S YELLOW CART</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort&mdash;just what he
+needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to
+his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law
+journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys
+regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal
+for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This
+filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the
+carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the
+afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost
+daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated
+Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was,
+as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing
+the outcome of it all.</p>
+
+<p>"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs.
+Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled
+under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly
+yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing
+rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but
+her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came
+into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired
+feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases
+which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of
+her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little
+niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.</p>
+
+<p>At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required
+a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding
+(the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume
+the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but
+she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And
+he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the
+first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong
+and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll
+wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."</p>
+
+<p>These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with
+such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like
+some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant
+and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out,
+glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old
+Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did
+not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and
+called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign
+of his growing inertness.</p>
+
+<p>And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice
+suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.
+He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha
+persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and
+if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.</p>
+
+<p>Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego),
+found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to
+be&mdash;as they were&mdash;innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume
+the r&ocirc;le of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the
+suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben
+one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."</p>
+
+<p>He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study&mdash;to
+prepare yourself for other clients&mdash;when they come."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do
+get in an hour or two every day."</p>
+
+<p>"But you ought to study <i>six</i> hours every day. Aren't the traditions of
+Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax,
+and study in the light of pine knots all night?"</p>
+
+<p>He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.
+But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy,
+Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I
+really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.
+Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they
+are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."</p>
+
+<p>"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but
+I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've
+always felt that yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.
+Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of
+course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would
+be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"</p>
+
+<p>"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you
+know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."</p>
+
+<p>It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual
+way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in
+case he should forget&mdash;as he was likely to do&mdash;and allude to "Bertha" in
+her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely
+said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her&mdash;I mean I'm sorry she
+can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is
+improving very rapidly."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through
+the town library&mdash;a book every other day, she tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"Novels, I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.
+Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised
+her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've
+suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."</p>
+
+<p>He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the
+look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to assume the position of mentor
+as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual
+supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her
+daily life as absolutely as a husband&mdash;more absolutely, in fact; for she
+obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these
+facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his
+feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and
+therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal
+anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her
+upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously
+about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one
+of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening
+to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to
+take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to
+render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite
+differently about that.</p>
+
+<p>"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says,
+she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made
+man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex
+is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my
+father's ability?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to
+draw from."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but her father was an educated man&mdash;a civil engineer, she tells me,
+who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an
+inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor&mdash;they nearly all do."</p>
+
+<p>"But the mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's
+broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so
+bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I
+think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she
+did&mdash;barbers and railway hands, and all that&mdash;and be what she is to-day.
+If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have
+gone far."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.
+Congdon.</p>
+
+<p>"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"</p>
+
+<p>"And his legatee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."</p>
+
+<p>They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying
+something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why
+she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over
+Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."
+She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going
+to make it as pretty as I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben
+wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like
+the girl."</p>
+
+<p>Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course
+I'll come. Who else will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the missus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really
+promises to be smart!"</p>
+
+<p>Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be
+smart&mdash;Mrs. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.
+Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and
+she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this
+town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's
+doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your
+life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't
+think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is
+putting her on?"</p>
+
+<p>"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was."</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain was in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the
+end. Poor old Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she
+pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old
+way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.
+He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these
+things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special
+license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then
+she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it.
+I'm not going to keep it,' she said."</p>
+
+<p>"That was for effect," remarked Lee.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes
+and say such things."</p>
+
+<p>Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,'
+then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is
+nothing, intellect is nothing&mdash;it's all a question of whether we're
+good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so
+hard to please."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.</p>
+
+<p>"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I
+accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and
+commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the
+hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was
+she dressed?"</p>
+
+<p>"In perfect good taste&mdash;almost too good. She looked like one of Joe
+Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries
+that sort of thing well&mdash;she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could
+have a year in Paris&mdash;wow!&mdash;well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted
+Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination.
+I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus
+far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public.
+But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting
+power."</p>
+
+<p>Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the
+reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you
+look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."</p>
+
+<p>Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney,
+we better put on our swellest ginghams."</p>
+
+<p>Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she
+was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her
+for a long time&mdash;since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed
+since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it
+was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a
+vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to
+their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me
+only failing health, and dares not speak."</p>
+
+<p>She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too
+long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she
+despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And
+she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face,
+and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a
+smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant
+as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOLLY SEND-OFF</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in
+outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young
+wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner.
+She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a
+high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her
+critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university
+who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette
+up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns.
+Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which
+revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed the
+growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and
+turquoise&mdash;not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of
+all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as
+she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr
+to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually
+uncertain of step.</p>
+
+<p>Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he
+greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of
+his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with
+a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called
+beautiful&mdash;and by him&mdash;had been outside the circle of her most daring
+hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of
+musical bells&mdash;entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his
+right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry
+clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one
+said&mdash;except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain
+down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with
+his napkin and his fork.</p>
+
+<p>The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on
+her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice&mdash;half-laughing, but tender
+also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning
+my salary while you're gone."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times,
+but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you&mdash;and
+Alice&mdash;come with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out
+of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll pay you wages just the same."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and
+I can't think of going without her."</p>
+
+<p>This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her
+face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table
+was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the
+great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a
+graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She
+vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of
+the best the world over&mdash;that it was of a part and interfused with the
+dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be <i>au fait</i>,"
+Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath <i>knows</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crego, who sat nearly opposite, stared at the girl in stupefaction.
+"She makes me feel dowdy," she had confessed to Lee in the
+dressing-room. "Why didn't you warn me to come in my best? Who has been
+coaching her? Alice Heath, I suppose." She now wondered as sharply over
+the girl's manner; for Bertha, carried out of herself by Ben's word of
+praise, felt no desire to drink or to eat, and her reticence and the
+delicacy of her appetite conferred a distinction which concealed her
+lack of small talk, and protected her from the criticism to which
+exuberance of manner ordinarily exposed her.</p>
+
+<p>She was deeply impressed, too, with Ben's management of the waiters, and
+with the ease and skill with which he supported Alice in carrying
+forward the courses. It was a revelation of training which instructed
+her absurdly, for her mind was quick to link and compare. It leaped so
+swiftly and so subtilely along connecting lines of thought that a hint
+alone sufficed to set in motion a hundred latent memories and inherited
+aptitudes. Her father had been a man of native refinement, and she
+possessed unstirred deeps of character, as Alice now well understood.
+And from her end of the table she glanced often at the sweetly smiling
+girl-wife whose beauty abashed Haney. At last she said to him: "Your
+wife is very lovely to-night, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment; then replied, slowly: "She is. She's as fine as
+anny queen!" Then after another pause, added: "And the more shame to me,
+being what I am! She's a good girl, miss, true as steel. Never a word of
+complaint or a frown. She bears with me like an angel."</p>
+
+<p>"You're doing a great deal for her."</p>
+
+<p>His face lightened. "So she says. I mean to do more. I mean to show her
+the world. That's the only comfort I have; my money is giving her nice
+clothes and a home as good as anny, and to-night I feel 'tis giving her
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"But she is worth while, even without the money."</p>
+
+<p>"True," he quickly said. "But I take comfort in the consideration that
+had I not carried her away she'd be in Sibley Junction this night."</p>
+
+<p>"Sibley Junction! Can this radiant young creature sitting there at the
+head of my table be the clerk of the Golden Eagle Hotel?" thought Alice.
+"Money is magical! No wonder we all work for it&mdash;and worship it!"</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was both early and short, in order that Bertha and the
+Captain might take the train at ten o'clock. And as they were to have
+the drawing-room in the sleeping-car (Ben's suggestion), they went
+directly to the coach in their party clothes. And so it happened that
+this little woman, who had never occupied a berth in a Pullman, entered
+her compartment in the robes of a princess.</p>
+
+<p>Alice had suggested a maid, but Bertha would not hear to that; but she
+was willing that their coachman should go along to help the Captain. Ben
+had interposed here, and said: "You need some one used to travelling. I
+know a colored fellow who is out of service just now, and would like to
+come to you. He's a good, reliable man, and a fine nurse." So she had
+engaged him. He was on the platform as they drove up&mdash;a slight, quiet
+man, of gentle speech and indeterminable age, who took charge of the
+Captain at once, as if he had been his servant for years.</p>
+
+<p>Alice said good-bye at the carriage door, but Ben went with them into
+the coach. And in the excitement of getting to the train and into the
+car Bertha had been able to forget the sick feeling about her heart. But
+now, as he turned and said, "It's nearly time to start," and held out
+his hand in parting, a desolation, a loneliness, a helpless hunger swept
+over her, the like of which had never anguished her before.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you were going too!" she faltered, her speech broken and full of
+sad cadences.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, was tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I
+can't&mdash;I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and
+kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and,
+so stumbling and shaken, vanished from her sight.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she remained standing in the aisle, the touch of his lips
+still clinging to her cheek, surprised, full of bewildered defence;
+then, as reckless of on-lookers as he had been, she rushed to the window
+in swift attempt to catch a final glimpse of him. But in vain; he had
+hurried away without looking back, her look of wonder and surprise still
+dazzling him with its significance. A kiss with him, as with her, had
+never been a thing lightly given or received, and this caress, so simple
+to others, sprang from an impulse that was elemental. That he had both
+shocked and angered her he fully believed; but the arch of her brows,
+the wistful curve of her lips, and the pretty, almost childish, push of
+her hands against his breast were still so appealingly vivid that he
+entered the carriage and took his seat beside Alice with a kind of
+rebellious joy hot in his blood.</p>
+
+<p>However, as his passion ebbed his uneasiness deepened, and he went to
+his room that night with a feeling that his connection with the Haneys,
+so profitable and so pleasant, was in danger of being irremediably
+broken off. "She will be justified in refusing ever to see me again," he
+groaned. And in this spirit of self-condemnation and loneliness he took
+up his work next day.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's self-revelation was slower. She was so young and so innately
+honest and good that no sense of guilt attached to the pleasure she felt
+in the sudden revelation that this splendid young man loved her&mdash;a
+pleasure which grew as the first shock of the parting, the pain, and the
+surprise wore away. "He likes me! He said I was beautiful! He kissed
+me!" These were the rounds in the ladder of her ascent, and she was
+carried high, only to fall into despair. For was she not leaving him and
+all the pleasant people she had come so recently to know&mdash;hurrying away
+into darkness with a crippled man, old before his time, out into a world
+of which she knew little&mdash;for which, at this moment, she cared nothing?</p>
+
+<p>She went back, a few moments later, with this sorrow written on her
+face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for
+bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness
+mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this&mdash;me, that could
+once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take care of you!" she cried, in swift contrition. Turning almost
+fiercely to the valet, she said: "You can go, I'll 'tend to him!"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain stopped her gently. "No, darlin', Ben's right; I'm too
+clumsy and heavy for you. I need just such a handy man. Now, now! Let
+be!... Go ahead, Lucius, strip off these monkey-fixens, and dom the man
+that gets me into them again."</p>
+
+<p>Efficient as she was, the girl could not but admit that Lucius was
+better able to serve her husband than herself. He was both deft and
+strong; and though the swaying of the car troubled his master, he
+steadied him and guided him and stowed him away as featly as if it were
+the fiftieth instead of the first time; then, with a few words of
+explanation to the wife, he quietly withdrew, and shut the door with a
+final touch of considerate care which was new to her.</p>
+
+<p>She would have been less troubled by him had he been a black man, but he
+was not. He seemed more like a Spaniard, and his grizzled mustache,
+yellowish skin, and big dreamy black eyes lent him a curious
+distinction, and the thought that he was to take her place as crutch and
+cane to the Captain gave her a sense of uselessness which she had not,
+up to this moment, confessed.</p>
+
+<p>His suggestions, combined to the minute instructions of Miss Franklin,
+enabled her to get to her bunk in fair order, but no sleep came to her
+for hours. She longed for her mother more childishly than at any time
+since her marriage. She reproached herself for not bringing Miss
+Franklin. "Why did I come at all?" she wailed, in final accusation.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a time when the thought of this trip&mdash;of Chicago, New
+York, and Washington&mdash;was big in her mind, but it was so no longer.
+These great cities were but names&mdash;empty sounds compared to the
+realities she was leaving: her splendid house, her horses and dogs&mdash;and
+her daily joy in Ben Fordyce. She did not put these visits in their
+highest place, not even when remembering his parting kiss, but she dwelt
+upon the inspiriting morning drives, the talks in the mellow-tinted,
+sunshine-lighted office. She recalled the lunches they took together and
+the occasional wild gallops up the ca&ntilde;on&mdash;these she treasured as the
+golden realities, for the loss of which she was even now heart-sick.</p>
+
+<p>One thought alone steadied her&mdash;gave her a kind of resignation: the
+Captain wanted to find his sisters, to revisit the scenes of his youth,
+and it was her duty to go with him. And in this somewhat dreary comfort
+she fell asleep at last.</p>
+
+<p>She was awakened next morning by a pleasant voice saying: "The first
+call for breakfast has been made, Mrs. Haney." And she looked up to find
+Lucius peering in at the door with serious, kindly eyes. He added,
+formally: "If I can assist you in any way call me, and please let me
+know when you are ready to have me come in."</p>
+
+<p>His speech was so precise and his manner so perfect that Bertha was
+puzzled and a little embarrassed by them. It seemed abnormal to have a
+hired servant so polished, so thoughtful. She dressed hurriedly, while
+the Captain yawned and talked between his yawning. "That yellow chap is
+sure handy. I wish I'd had him before; 'twould have saved you a power o'
+work and worry. Did ye sleep last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not very well. I hope you did. You can't complain of the bunk."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis luxurious&mdash;'tis so! But there's nothing like the west side of
+Colorado Avenue, after all, or a bed of pine boughs beside a roaring
+mountain stream. 'Twas a fine little supper Ben gave us last night."</p>
+
+<p>The level lands awed and depressed the mountain girl. They seemed to
+type the flat and desolate spiritual world into which she was entering,
+and the ride seemed interminable, carrying her every hour farther from
+the scenes and sounds to which her love clung. She was bitterly
+homesick, and nothing seemed to promise comfort. She gazed with
+lack-lustre eyes on the towns and rivers along the way, and she entered
+the great inland metropolis by the lake with dread and a deepening sense
+of her inexperience and youth.</p>
+
+<p>On the neighboring track stood the return sleepers headed for the hills,
+and she acknowledged a wild desire to take her place among the jocund
+folk who stood on the observation-platform exchanging good-byes with
+friends. Thunderous, smothering, and vast the city seemed as they drove
+through it on their way to the hotel, and upon reaching her room she
+flung herself down on her bed and sobbed in a frenzy of homesickness.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled,
+and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius
+went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would
+soon be over.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye
+sick?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child,
+and made no further answer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still
+at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an
+hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet
+insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at
+a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten
+as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart,
+and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it
+was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the
+Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were
+tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood,
+not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll
+take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive
+and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the
+World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is,
+bedad."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the
+moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>"A lady! Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"A certain Mrs. Brent&mdash;a friend of Miss Franklin's."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave
+me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out.</p>
+
+<p>She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion
+to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the
+cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing
+it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor&mdash;I
+mean Miss Franklin&mdash;has been writing to me about you. You're just in
+time to come to a little dinner of mine&mdash;don't make any engagement for
+to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up
+the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that
+the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it?" asked the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of Miss Franklin's&mdash;sounds just like her voice, but I think
+she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here
+at eleven."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up
+the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off."</p>
+
+<p>"There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>The gambler looked at him humorously. "Ye must be a mind-reader."</p>
+
+<p>A tap on the door called the man out, and when he returned he bore a
+telegram. "For you, Captain," he said, presenting it on the salver.</p>
+
+<p>The gambler took it with sudden apprehension in his face. "I hope
+there's no trouble at the mine," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, leaning over his shoulder, read it first. "It's from Ben!" she
+called, joyously. "Ain't it just like him?"</p>
+
+<p>This message seemed a little bit foolish to Haney.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Just to say hello! All well here. Have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Fordyce.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<p>To Bertha it made all the difference between sunshine and shadow. She
+thrilled to it as if it had been a voice. "He knew I'd be homesick, and
+so he sent this to cheer me up," she said. And in this she was right.
+Her shoulders lifted and her face cleared. "Come on, Captain, if we're
+going."</p>
+
+<p>As they came down the elevator, men in buttons met them, and attended
+them to the door, and turned them over to still other uniformed
+attendants, who were fain to help them into the auto-car; for Lucius had
+managed to convey to the hotel a proper sense of his employer's money
+value. He himself was always close to his master's side, for lately
+Haney had taken to stumbling at unexpected moments, and his increasing
+bulk made a fall a real danger.</p>
+
+<p>A thrill of delight, of elation, ran through the young wife as she
+glanced up and down Chicago's proudest avenue. It conformed to her
+notion of a city. The level park, flooded with spring sunshine, was
+walled on the west by massive buildings, while to the east stretched the
+shining lake. From here the city seemed truly cosmopolitan. It had
+dignity and wealth of color, and to the girl from Sibley Junction was
+completely satisfying&mdash;almost inspiring.</p>
+
+<p>It was uplifting also to be attended to a splendid auto-car by willing,
+alert servants, and to feel that the passers-by were all envious of her
+careless ease. Bertha forgot her homesickness, and took her seat in the
+spirit of one who is determined to have the worth of her money (for once
+anyhow), and the pedestrians, if they had any definite notion of her at
+all, probably said: "There goes a rich old cattle king and his pretty
+daughter. It's money that makes the 'mobile go."</p>
+
+<p>She held to this pose for half an hour, while they threaded the tumult
+of Wabash Avenue, and, crossing the river, swept up the Lake Shore
+Drive. But the lake filled her with other thoughts. "I wish we had this
+at the Springs," she said. "This is fine!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have our share," answered he. "If we had this at our door, there
+wouldn't be anything left to go to."</p>
+
+<p>They whizzed through the park, and down another avenue into the thick
+tangle of traffic, which scared them both, and so back to the hotel, the
+Captain saying: "My! my! but she has grown. 'Tis twenty years since I
+took this turn."</p>
+
+<p>In some strange way Bertha had drawn courage, resolution, pride, and
+ambition from what she saw on this short ride. That she was in a car and
+mistress of it was in itself a marvellous distinction, and the thought
+of what she would have been&mdash;as a "round-tripper" from Sibley
+Junction&mdash;added to her pleasure and pride. She was always doing sums in
+her head now. Thus: "Suppose our excursion does cost twenty dollars per
+day; that's only one hundred and fifty per week, six hundred per month,
+and our income is ten times that, and more." She had not risen above the
+habit of calculation, but she was fast rising to higher levels of
+expenditure.</p>
+
+<p>She met Mrs. Brent with something of this mood in her manner, but was
+instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least
+resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully
+the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, and her lips smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're a child," she said&mdash;"a mere babe! Dorothy didn't tell me
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha stiffened a little, and Mrs. Brent laughingly added: "Please
+don't be offended&mdash;I am really surprised." And then her manner became so
+winning that before the Western girl realized it she had given her
+consent to join a dinner-party the following night. "Come early, for we
+are to go to the theatre afterwards. I'll have some of the university
+people in to see you. Miss Franklin has made us all eager to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was
+curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor
+kept her from openly rebelling.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he
+said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf&mdash;when the time served;
+but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to
+keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they
+parted very good friends.</p>
+
+<p>As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and,
+going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's
+big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's
+well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman,
+and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
+gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
+life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
+I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
+They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>" And she went out,
+leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
+brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
+said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
+sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
+he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
+would it do to slide over and see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
+and the dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
+can hardly get to it with a machine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
+anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
+the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
+jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
+two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
+fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
+it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
+which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
+older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
+patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
+all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."</p>
+
+<p>The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
+lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
+homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
+away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Franklin will see after it."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
+to housekeeping&mdash;it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
+minute!"</p>
+
+<p>This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
+Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
+the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
+each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the
+driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned
+abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting
+block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house&mdash;a relic
+of the old-time city.</p>
+
+<p>The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at
+this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the
+seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At
+the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or
+two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the
+specification," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door,
+and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"That's me," the woman retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this
+minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so
+like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.</p>
+
+<p>As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old
+sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me
+mouth."</p>
+
+<p>"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in
+anticipation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook her hand&mdash;the kiss was out of his inclination&mdash;and responded in
+the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke
+out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's with you in the carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Haney, bedad."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, it is not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's too young and pretty&mdash;and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints,
+man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the
+eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."</p>
+
+<p>"The same to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I get little chance to practise it these days."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the same here."</p>
+
+<p>"But how came ye hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and
+one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."</p>
+
+<p>She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and
+sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in&mdash;I'm not perticular."</p>
+
+<p>"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into
+something like sweetness and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."</p>
+
+<p>As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home
+and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on
+a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this
+association. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a
+fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was
+disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said
+bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out
+and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no
+way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of
+her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same
+squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me
+brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"</p>
+
+<p>The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck
+in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of
+luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.
+The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with
+children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the
+air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the
+ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other
+the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all
+its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly
+moved Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs
+are her's."</p>
+
+<p>"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put
+in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now&mdash;sure it's the very one we used to
+fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied&mdash;tears of
+pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye&mdash;it's to
+see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us,
+Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"She was!" he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand
+in better light to-day I'm thinkin'&mdash;though the father did the best he
+knew."</p>
+
+<p>"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders
+now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine
+lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust
+of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good
+humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was
+charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she
+could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was
+like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less
+of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The
+deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this
+woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest,
+leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into
+the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle was a small bent man, with a black beard, a pale serious face
+and speculative eyes. He looked like a wondering, rather cautious animal
+as he came in. He wore a cheap gray suit and a celluloid collar, and was
+as careless in his way as his wife. It was plain that he was gentle,
+absent-minded, and industrious.</p>
+
+<p>He listened to his wife's voluble explanations in silence, inwardly
+digesting all that was said, then shook hands&mdash;still without a word. And
+when all these preliminaries were over he laid his hat aside and ran his
+fingers through his thin hair with a perplexed and troubled gesture,
+asking, irrelevantly: "How's the weather out there?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody saw the humor of this but his wife, who explained: "Pat is a
+fiend on the weather. He was raised on a farm, ye see, and he can't get
+over it. I say to him: 'What difference does the state o' the weather
+make to you, that's under a roof all day?' But divil a change does it
+make in him. The first thing in the morning he turns to the weather
+report."</p>
+
+<p>McArdle's eyes showed traces of a smile. "If it weren't for the papers
+and the weather reports, me days would be alike. But sit by," he added,
+hospitably, waving his hand towards the table, on which the dinner was
+steaming.</p>
+
+<p>They were drawing up to the board when a puffing and blowing, and the
+furious clatter of feet announced the inrushing of the children.</p>
+
+<p>Not the mother's shrill whooping, but the sight of the strange guests,
+transformed them into mutes. The carriage outside had filled them with
+wild alarms, but the sight of their parents alive, and entertaining
+guests of shining quality, was almost as satisfyingly unusual as death
+and a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>They were a noisy, hearty throng, and Bertha's heart went out to poor
+Patrick McArdle, who sat amid the uproar, silent, patient, the heroic
+breadwinner for them all. No wonder he was old before his time. Slowly
+her antipathy died out. She began to find excuses even for the mother.
+To feed such a herd of little pigs and calves, even out of wooden
+troughs, would require much labor; to keep them buttoned, combed, and
+fit for school was an appalling task. "Mart must help these folks," she
+said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle had nothing to say during the meal, and Bertha could see that
+his family did not expect him to do more than answer a plain question.
+Indeed, the children created a hubbub that quite cut off any connected
+intercourse, and Fan, with a grin of despair, at last said: "They'll be
+gorged in a few minutes, and then we'll have peace."</p>
+
+<p>"This is what lack of money means," Bertha was thinking. And her house,
+her automobile, her horses, became at the moment as priceless, as
+remote, as crown jewels and papal palaces. Then, conversely, she grew to
+a larger conception of the possibilities which lay in sixty thousand
+dollars a year. Not only did it lift her and all hers above the heat and
+mire and distress of the world of toil, it enabled them to help others.</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly the children filled their stomachs, and, seizing each a piece of
+cake or pie, withdrew, leaving the old folks and their guests in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, McArdle, taking a pipe from his pocket and knocking it
+absent-mindedly on the seat of the chair, dryly remarked: "Now that we
+can hear ourselves think, let's have it all over again. Who air ye, and
+why air ye here?"</p>
+
+<p>Being told a second time that this was his brother-in-law, a miner from
+Colorado, he shook hands all over again, and accepted Mart's cigar with
+careful fingers, as if fearing to drop and break the precious thing.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha said: "I think we'd better be going, Captain. Our carriage is
+outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious Peter," cried Mrs. McArdle, "I forgot all about it! Is he by
+the day or by the hour?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart answered, with an amused smile. "Well, now, I don't know. I think
+by the hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're makin' a big bluff, Mart. We're properly impressed," said his
+sister. "Go pay him off, and save the money."</p>
+
+<p>McArdle put in a query. "You must have a good thing out there?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis enough to pay me carriage hire," answered Mart. And his tone
+satisfied McArdle, who, with reflective eye on Bertha, puffed away at
+his cigar, while Mart gave his promise to call again. "I'll come over
+and get you all, and take you to the theatre in me auto-car," he said,
+as he rose. "But we must be going now."</p>
+
+<p>Fan was beginning to perceive in him more and more of the man of power
+and substance, and her manner changed. "Ye were always the smartest of
+the lot of us, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was not. Charles was the bright boy."</p>
+
+<p>"So he was, but he was lazy. That was why he took up with
+play-acting&mdash;'tis an easy job."</p>
+
+<p>"Even that is too much work for him," remarked McArdle.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon that's right," laughed Mart, as he turned towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come again, if ye find time," called Fan, as they went down the steps.</p>
+
+<p>McArdle, with his cigar in his hand, waved it in a sign of parting. And
+so their visit to the McArdles closed.</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned to his silent and thoughtful wife, and said, with a great
+deal of meaning in his voice: "Well, now, what do you think of that for
+a fine litter of pups?"</p>
+
+<p>"They seem hearty."</p>
+
+<p>"They do. 'Tis on such that the future of the ray-public rests." And
+then he added: "Sure, Bertie, it gripped me heart to see the mother's
+old chair!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>A DINNER AND A PLAY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
+principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
+the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
+about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
+and explained that they were going out there to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
+house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
+gown."</p>
+
+<p>"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
+But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
+saleslady to fit you out."</p>
+
+<p>"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
+of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
+you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
+another."</p>
+
+<p>Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
+you don't use it to buy things?"</p>
+
+<p>Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
+several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
+Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
+his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
+quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
+helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
+gesture decided momentous questions.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
+had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
+buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
+that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
+round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
+there, she glowed with pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
+sincerity. "This is our smartest model&mdash;perfectly exclusive and new.
+Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."</p>
+
+<p>While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
+Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
+took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."</p>
+
+<p>"So do. Anything goes&mdash;for her, Lucius."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
+a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
+attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
+room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
+little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
+having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
+Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
+she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
+earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
+a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
+therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
+wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
+sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'&mdash;he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
+daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
+But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
+was in the days before his accident I don't know&mdash;they say he was a
+terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now&mdash;a pathetic
+figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
+very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
+and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
+maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
+been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
+in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
+Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
+and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
+want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
+saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
+as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
+to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
+steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
+had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
+scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
+Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
+centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
+institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
+interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
+in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
+the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
+demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
+of movement&mdash;not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
+Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
+Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
+estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
+assemble round his hearthstone&mdash;an actual stone, by the way&mdash;the people
+he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
+afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
+in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
+call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
+West Side&mdash;one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
+"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
+floor which their friends called Congress Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
+he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
+girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
+Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
+She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
+her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
+companion, and that I'm not ready to do&mdash;at present."</p>
+
+<p>After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
+friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
+"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
+few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.</p>
+
+<p>Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
+Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
+Honey Gulch."</p>
+
+<p>"Honest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hope to die!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
+after dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, that would be too cruel&mdash;to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
+theatre. So be on hand at 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, sharp."</p>
+
+<p>In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
+good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
+soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
+auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
+colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
+for them (it was Lucius in his new suit&mdash;he was playing all the parts).
+Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
+lieu of broncos?"</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>are</i> branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"</p>
+
+<p>She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
+and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
+Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
+sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
+second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
+so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
+came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
+one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
+Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
+helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
+way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
+delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
+for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
+accustomed to big things&mdash;it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
+moved her.</p>
+
+<p>In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
+crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
+Bertha was glad to find them alone&mdash;she had expected to face a room full
+of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
+coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
+Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
+now&mdash;I don't know why I should."</p>
+
+<p>This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
+and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her&mdash;that is to say, the
+ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
+the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
+Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
+started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
+their hostess's description.</p>
+
+<p>As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
+talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
+had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
+listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
+making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
+round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
+circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
+her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
+dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
+regard. She did not entirely trust any of them&mdash;not even her host.
+Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
+been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
+the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
+at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
+thought we might need him."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
+conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
+improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
+tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
+How long is it since he was hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"About eight months."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
+frame."</p>
+
+<p>"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"Who put him together&mdash;Steele, of Denver?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, a man in Cripple."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure he was the right man?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the best I could get."</p>
+
+<p>"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
+you don't object&mdash;not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
+build and years&mdash;he tells me he's only forty-five&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
+people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
+afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
+of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
+Haney first came to Sibley&mdash;so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
+He, too, seemed young then; now he was old&mdash;old and feeble&mdash;a man to be
+advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
+corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
+girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
+love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons&mdash;and yet she
+was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
+conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
+she said little to express it.</p>
+
+<p>The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
+woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
+most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
+wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
+his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
+breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
+awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
+into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
+in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
+suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
+as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
+no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
+loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband&mdash;old, coarse,
+brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
+tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover&mdash;virile, handsome and
+unscrupulous&mdash;wins the tortured woman's soul&mdash;and they flee, leaving the
+usual note behind.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
+husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
+warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
+D." And so the curtain fell.</p>
+
+<p>Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
+began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
+miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
+And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
+starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
+of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
+or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
+ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
+author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
+"Isn't that comical!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
+he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
+the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'?"</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
+have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
+still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
+not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
+taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
+a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
+Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
+affair."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
+replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
+her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
+turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
+had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
+He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
+needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
+forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
+singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
+problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
+temptations&mdash;she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
+nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
+of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
+encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
+camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
+the artists&mdash;all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
+girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
+evil history.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
+and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
+house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
+been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
+repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
+become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
+I cannot love him as a wife should."</p>
+
+<p>Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
+perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
+repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
+older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
+lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
+emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
+waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
+said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
+Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
+better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
+was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
+peaks.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
+doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
+him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
+sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
+long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
+night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
+age and helplessness.</p>
+
+<p>"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
+don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
+condition."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
+old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
+loose I'll let you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bertha, deeply engrossed in the conceptions called up by this visit, did
+not feel like calling upon the Mosses, even though they were almost next
+door. She was troubled, too, with a feeling of helplessness in the use
+of a pen. She wanted to write to Fordyce, but was afraid to do so,
+knowing that a letter would disclose her ignorance of polite forms; but
+this, instead of discouraging her, roused her to a determination to
+learn. This was the saving clause in her character. She acknowledged
+shortcomings, but not defeats. Here again she was of the spirit that
+lifts the self-made man.</p>
+
+<p>The Congdons had been most generous of letters of introduction, and in
+addition to those to Mrs. Brent and the Mosses, Bertha was in possession
+of two or three envelopes addressed to people in New York City,
+presumably artists also, as they bore the names of certain studios. The
+note to Moss was unaffected and simple in itself, quite innocent of any
+qualification, but the letter which had privately preceded it was in the
+true Congdon vein, and Moss, like Mrs. Brent, did not delay his call.
+His card was in the Haney box when they returned. "Sorry to miss you.
+Come into my studio at five if you can," he had pencilled on the back.</p>
+
+<p>"Your artistic bunch," Congdon had written, "won't mind meeting one of
+the most successful and picturesque of our gamblers, Marshall Haney,
+especially as the walls of his big house are bare and his wife is
+pretty. They are ripping types, old man; not in the 'best society,' you
+understand, but I know you'll like 'em. Be as good to 'em as you can
+without involving anybody. Little Mrs. Haney is a corker. Good start on
+a self-made career. They're both unsophisticated in a way, and a little
+real sympathy will drag their secret history to the light. Do a sketch
+of her for me. She's likely to be famous. Haney is rolling in dough
+these days&mdash;(miner)&mdash;and she's bound for some whooping big thing, I
+don't know what, but she's like a country boy with a stirring ambition.
+It wouldn't surprise me to see her on Fifth Avenue one of these days.
+With these few burning words I commend them into your plastic hands.
+Don't let Sammy paint her, for God's sake. Oh yes, I worked 'em for a
+couple of canvases. What do you think. In this buoyant climate we all
+move. Yours in the velvet."</p>
+
+<p>With such a letter before him Joe Moss awaited his amazing guests with
+impatience, cautioning the few who were in the secret not to dodge when
+the Captain reached for his pocket-handkerchief. "And, above all, you
+are to praise Colorado and condemn the East as a place of residence."
+Joe prided himself on his <i>savoir faire</i> and on his apparel, which had
+nothing about it to distinguish the sculptor. "In fact," he often said,
+"there <i>are</i> people who say I'm not a sculptor. Be that as it may, I
+manage by daily care to look like a clerk in a hardware store."</p>
+
+<p>And he did. He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and
+trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand
+tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red
+tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we
+melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be
+distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always included Julia, his
+wife, in this way (although she never "modelled a lick"), for she wrote
+all his letters, made out all his checks, and took charge of him
+generally. Some said his success was due to her management. She was a
+dark-eyed, smiling little woman, exquisite in her dress and brisk in her
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Their studio occupied the whole north side of the attic of a big office
+building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst
+of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his
+choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture.
+I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my
+way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to
+make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business
+men, not to avoid them. I like the roar of trade."</p>
+
+<p>The Haneys, therefore, led by the sagacious Lucius, soon found
+themselves in the Wisconsin Block, and shooting aloft in a bronze
+elevator that seemed fired from a cannon ("express to the 10th floor"),
+with nothing to suggest art in the men or in the signs about them. On
+the thirteenth story they alighted, and, walking up one flight of
+stairs, found themselves at the end of a bright hall, before a door
+which bore, in simple gold letters, "Jos. Moss, Sculptor." Bertha heard
+laughter within, and her heart misgave her. It was not easy for her to
+meet these artist folk. Of business men, miners, railway managers she
+was unafraid, but these people who joke and bully-rag each other and
+talk high philosophy one minute and gossip the next, like the Congdons,
+were "pretty swift" for her. After a moment's pause she said to the
+Captain, "They can't kill us; here goes!" and knocked gently.</p>
+
+<p>Moss himself opened the door, and his cordial, "How de do, Mrs. Haney,"
+established him in her mind at once as a good fellow. He was quite as
+direct as Congdon. "I'm glad to see you," he said to the Captain. "Come
+in." He looked keenly at Lucius, who composedly explained himself. "The
+Captain is a little lame, and I just came along to see that he got here
+all right. I'll be back at 5.30."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened into a big room, which was darkened at the windows and
+lighted by shaded electric globes. It was cool and bare in effect.
+Around a small table in a far corner a half-dozen people were sitting.
+Mrs. Moss, who was pouring tea, rose in her place at the tea-urn as her
+husband approached, and cordially shook hands with her guests. "I'm very
+glad you came. Please tell me how you'll have your tea," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was accustomed to take her tea "any old way," and said so, being
+influenced by Mrs. Moss' candid eyes and merry smile. Haney, with a
+queer feeling of being on the stage as a character in a play, sank
+heavily into the chair at his hostess' right hand and said: "I never
+took tea in my life, but I'm not dodgin' anything you mix."</p>
+
+<p>Joe earnestly protested. "Don't do it, Captain, there's some Scotch down
+cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss indicated one or two other dimly seen faces about her and
+introduced their owners in a most casual manner while she compounded a
+hot drink for her Western guest.</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been in our horrible town, Mr. Haney?" she asked,
+heedful of Joe's warning.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"You're just 'passing through,' I presume&mdash;that's the way all Colorado
+people do."</p>
+
+<p>Haney smiled. He was getting the drift of her remarks. "'Tis natural,
+ma'am; for, you see, 'tis a long run and a heavy grade, and hard to
+side-track on the way."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, to whom Moss addressed himself, was candidly looking about
+her&mdash;profoundly interested in what she saw. Dim forms in bronze and
+plaster stood on shelves, brackets, and pedestals, and at the end of the
+long room a big group of figures writhed as if in mortal combat. It was
+a work-shop&mdash;that was evident even to her&mdash;with one small nook devoted
+to tea and talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to poke about?" he asked, anticipating her request.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would," she bluntly replied.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't much to see," he said. "I'm the kind of sculptor who works
+on order. I believe in the 'art for service' idea, and when I get an
+order I fill it as well as I can, make it as beautiful as I can, and
+send it out on its mission. I'd like to model mantel-pieces and
+andirons, because they are seen and actually influence people's lives.
+What I started to say was this: my stuff all goes out&mdash;my real stuff; my
+fool failures stay by me&mdash;this thing, for instance." He indicated the
+big clump of nude forms. "I had an 'idea' when I started, but it was too
+ambitious and too literary. Moreover, it isn't democratic. It don't gibe
+with the present. I'd be a wild-animal sculptor if I knew enough about
+them."</p>
+
+<p>It was a profoundly moving experience for this raw mountain-bred girl to
+stand there beside that colossal group while the man who had modelled it
+took her into his confidence. There was no affectation in Moss's candor.
+He had come to a swift conclusion that Congdon had attempted to let him
+into a trap, for Bertha's reticence and dignity quite reassured him. If
+she had uttered a single one of the banal compliments with which
+visitors "kill" artists he would have stopped short; but she didn't, she
+only looked, and something in her face profoundly interested him.
+Suddenly she turned and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"It don't mean anything&mdash;now. Originally I intended it to mean 'The
+Conquest of Art by the Spirit of Business,' or something like that. I
+started it when I was fresh from Paris, and wore a red tie and a pointed
+beard. I keep it as a record of the folly into which exotic instruction
+will lead a man. If I were to go at it now I'd turn the whole thing
+around&mdash;I'd make it 'Art Inspiring Business.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not follow his thought entirely, but she felt herself in the
+presence of a serious problem and listening to something deep down in
+the heart of a strong man. Here was another world&mdash;not an altogether
+strange world, for Congdon had also talked to her of his work&mdash;but a
+world so far removed from her own life that it seemed some other planet.
+"How well he talks," she thought. "Like a book."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming she is," he was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of
+her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he had picked
+up.</p>
+
+<p>They wandered up and down the long room while he showed her tiles for
+mantel decoration, bronze cats' heads for door-knobs, and curious and
+lovely figures for lamps and ash-trays. "I take a shy at 'most
+everything," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you sell these?" she asked, indicating some designs for electric
+desk-lamps.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "Sometimes&mdash;not as often as I'd like to."</p>
+
+<p>"How much are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty dollars each."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take them both," she said, and her pulse leaped with the pride of
+being a patron of art.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see here, Mrs. Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a
+salesman&mdash;not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I
+try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it.
+"Don't take 'em&mdash;wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad
+anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I
+never saw a mountain lion outside the Zoo."</p>
+
+<p>"They're lions, all right. I want 'em, and I know the Captain will like
+'em." She stepped back to call Haney. But finding him surrounded by all
+of the other callers (they had "got him going" telling stories of his
+wild life in the West), she turned to the sculptor with a smile, saying:
+"Never mind, <i>I</i> know they're what he needs&mdash;if he don't." And Moss,
+recalling Congdon's description of the Haneys' material condition,
+answered: "Very well, if you insist; but I really feel as though I had
+played a confidence game on you."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you fix 'em up with lights?" she asked, eager as a child. "I mean
+right now."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly." He unscrewed a couple of small bulbs from a near-by
+bracket, and, putting them into place on the lamps, turned on the
+current. She laughed out in delight. One of the lions was playing with
+the stem which supported the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
+upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other&mdash;a counterpart, or
+nearly so in pose&mdash;had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
+clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.</p>
+
+<p>"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
+piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
+ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
+West. Shameful, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
+mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
+<i>right</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
+summer and try to meet it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
+Colorado."</p>
+
+<p>"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
+Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
+moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
+sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
+I'll do something we can send out to him&mdash;if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by a sketch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
+veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
+head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
+dainty, very sweet, and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my wife's sister&mdash;a quick study from life&mdash;just the kind of thing
+Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
+was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
+boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
+when it was done.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
+this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
+even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
+dreadful, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
+with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
+her seem again the untaught girl she really was.</p>
+
+<p>As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
+her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
+defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
+doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
+than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
+straight&mdash;that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
+'the house'&mdash;that is, the bank&mdash;is protected. My machines was always
+straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
+'fixed' in me favor."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
+burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
+going."</p>
+
+<p>He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
+explained, and dutifully rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
+getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
+She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
+to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.</p>
+
+<p>"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
+he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
+about those delightful games of chance."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
+full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.</p>
+
+<p>As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
+view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
+came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
+handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
+"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
+good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
+voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
+as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
+These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
+last to her.</p>
+
+<p>Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
+gambling talk at the studio. "Why <i>must</i> he always go back to that?" she
+asked, hotly.</p>
+
+<p>They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
+while the Captain discussed his sister and her family. "I'll do
+something for Fan," he said. "She's a different sort from Charles.
+McArdle seems a hard-workin' chap, the kind that a little help wouldn't
+spile. What do you think of buyin' them a bit of a house somewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha listened with a languor of interest new to her, and when he
+repeated his question and asked her if she were tired, she answered:
+"Yes; and I think I'll go to bed early to-night. It's been a hard day."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Joe Moss was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native
+West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions
+as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it
+was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or
+something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech.
+He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working the
+Thorwaldsen trick: find some fine site out there, some wall of rock
+close to the railway, and hew out a monster grizzly or mountain lion.
+The railway could then advertise it, you see; trains could stop there
+'five minutes to permit a view of Moss's Lion'; they could use a cut of
+it on all their folders. If there was a spring near by they could
+advertise the water and bottle it, a picture of my lion on the label.
+Ah, it is a fine scheme!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis so," said Haney. "I wonder nobody thought of it before."</p>
+
+<p>"It takes a Yankee, after all, to plan new suspender buttons," the
+sculptor replied. And all the time he talked his hands were dabbling,
+his thumbs gouging, his dibble cutting and smoothing.</p>
+
+<p>Haney watched him with amused glance. "Sure, I didn't know ye went at it
+so. I thought ye chipped each picture out o' stone." And when the
+process of molding in plaster was explained to him, he said: "'Tis like
+McArdle's trade entirely. He takes a rise in the world since I know he's
+an artist like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What is his 'line'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pattern-maker for a stove foundry."</p>
+
+<p>Moss beamed. "Just what I'd like to be if they'd only pay a little more
+wages and furnish a better place to work."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha never knew when he was in earnest, so habitually mocking was his
+tone. But she grew towards a perception of his ideal, and dimly
+apprehended in him a mind far beyond any she had ever known. Mrs. Moss,
+almost as reticent as Mrs. Haney herself, came and went about the studio
+brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail,
+moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
+insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
+stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
+speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
+motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
+Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
+school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
+expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.</p>
+
+<p>One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
+measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
+of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
+line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
+Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
+the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
+the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face&mdash;let
+the neck at least suggest the woman below."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
+here is spring-time&mdash;just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
+line must be kept free from any earthiness."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
+painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
+the summer."</p>
+
+<p>They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
+clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
+considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
+momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
+"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
+called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
+his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
+precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
+freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
+of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
+politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
+too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
+work with Joe, so that it needn't be any trouble to you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, her wealth still new upon her, had no suspicion of the motives
+of those who addressed her, was deeply flattered by this request, and as
+Moss made no objection, she consented.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into
+troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet,
+or something like that&mdash;not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't
+droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When
+you're as old and blas&eacute; as Humiston there, you'll have a right to ponder
+the mysteries, but not now. You and I are young, thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Humiston was dabbling at his small canvas swiftly, lightly, as unmoved
+by his fellow-artist as if his voice were the wind in the casement. He
+was a tall, sickly looking man with grizzled hair, and pale, deeply
+lined face. He was fresh from Paris with a small exhibition of his
+pictures, which were very advanced, as Mrs. Moss privately explained to
+Bertha. "And he's rather bitter against Americans because they don't
+appreciate his work. But Joe asks: 'Why should they?' They're
+undemocratic&mdash;little high-keyed 'precious' bits; pictures for other
+artists, not real paintings, or they are unacceptable otherwise. He's a
+wonderful technician, though, and he'll make an exquisite sketch of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The Western girl-wife was completely fascinated by this small, dusky,
+dim, and richly colored heart of the fierce and terrible city whose
+material bulk alone is known to the world. To go from the crash and roar
+of the savage streets into this studio was like climbing from the level
+of the water in the Black Ca&ntilde;on to the sunlit, grassy peaks where the
+Indian pink blossoms in silence. She was of the aspiring nature. She had
+commonly played with children older than herself. She had read books she
+could not understand. She had always reached upward, and here she found
+herself surrounded by men and women who excited her imagination as
+Congdon had done. They helped her forget the doubt of herself and her
+future, which was gnawing almost ceaselessly in her brain, and she was
+sorry when Moss said to her: "Come in once more, to-morrow, and see me
+do the real sculptor's act. No, don't look at it" (he flung a cloth over
+his work); "you may look at it to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"May I see my picture?" she asked of Humiston.</p>
+
+<p>He turned the easel towards her without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Good work!" cried Moss.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something
+exquisite."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a
+dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it
+isn't me."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the
+way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor
+to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at
+the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and
+Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so
+violently that Bertha shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in <i>all</i> her fine poses," he
+complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture
+as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to
+send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs.
+Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak
+points."</p>
+
+<p>"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered
+Humiston, readily.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do you don't speak of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? You don't call out the defects of your 'hardware,' do
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss interposed. "That's just what he does do, and it hurts trade.
+I think I'll take Mrs. Haney over to see the pictures myself."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston brightened. "Very well; but you must all lunch with me. You're
+about the only civilized people I know in this crazy town, and I need
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Bertha. "It's our treat. You all come over and eat with us."</p>
+
+<p>Haney, who had been keeping in the background, now came forward. "I
+second that motion," he heartily said. "We don't get a chance every day
+to feed a bunch of artists."</p>
+
+<p>"You can have that pleasure any day here," said Moss. "Our noses are
+always over the bars, waiting."</p>
+
+<p>When she emerged from the gallery an hour later Bertha enjoyed an
+exalted sense of having been carried through some upper, serener world,
+where business, politics, and fashion had little place. It was "only a
+dip," as Mrs. Moss said&mdash;just to show the way; but it set the girl's
+brain astir with half-formed, disconnected aspirations. Only as she
+re-entered the hotel (the centre of obsequious servants) did she become
+again the wife of Marshall Haney, and Mrs. Moss, noting the eager
+attention of the waiters, was amazed and delighted at the look of calm
+command which came over the girl's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Art is fine and sweet as a side issue," said Julia to her husband, as
+they were going in, "but money makes the porters jump."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, composed and serious, seated her guests at a table which had
+been reserved for her near a window and charmingly decorated with
+flowers. She put Moss at her left hand and Humiston at her right, and as
+the Eastern man settled into place, he said: "Really, now, this isn't so
+bad." His experienced eye had noted the swift flocking of the waiters,
+and with cynical amusement he commented upon it. "These people must
+<i>smell</i> of money!" and in his heart acknowledged that he and Moss were
+not so very different from the servitors, after all. "They're out for
+tens, we're after thousands; that's the main point of difference."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, once the cutlets were served, was able to give attention to the
+talk&mdash;Humiston's talk (he was celebrated as a monologist), for he had
+resumed the discussion into which he and Moss had fallen. "I don't
+believe in helping people to study art. I don't believe in charity. This
+interfering with the laws of the universe that kill off the crippled and
+the weakly is pure sentimentalism that will fill the world with
+deformed, diseased, and incapable persons."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a vile reactionary!" cried Moss.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not&mdash;I'm for the future. I want to see the world full of beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Physical beauty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, physical beauty. I want to see vice and crime and crooked limbs
+and low brows die out&mdash;not perpetuated. I believe in educating the
+people to the lovely in line and color."</p>
+
+<p>As he pursued this line of inexorable argument Bertha looked at him in
+wonder. Did he mean what he said? His burning eyes seemed sincere&mdash;and
+yet he did not fail to accept a second helping of the mushrooms. There
+was power in the man. He pushed the walls of her intellectual world very
+wide apart. He came from a strange, chaotic region&mdash;from a land where
+ordinary modes and motives seemed lost or perverted. He took a delight
+in shocking them all. Morality was a convention&mdash;a hypocritic agreement
+on the part of the few to reserve freedom to themselves at the expense
+of the many. "Art is impossible to little people, to those who starve
+the big side of their nature, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. Look at the real
+people&mdash;Rachel, Wagner, Turner, Bernhardt, and a thousand others. Were
+they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and
+petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the
+West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few
+petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow
+where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed
+normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained&mdash;no license,
+no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, to be personal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too well balanced."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. You <i>talk</i> like a man of power, but model like a cursed
+niggling prude. You're bitten with the new madness. You're the Bryan of
+art. 'The dear people' is your cry. Damn the people! They don't know a
+good thing when they see it. Why consider the millions? Consider the
+few, those who have the taste and the dollars. That's the way all the
+big men of the past had to do. Look at Rubens and Michael Angelo and
+Titian&mdash;all the big bunch; they were all frank, gross feeders, lovers of
+beauty, defiant of conventions."</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten where he sat, but he was not neglecting his hostess. He
+took a satanic satisfaction in seeing her lovely eyes widen and glow as
+he went on. Subtly flattering her by including her among the very few
+who could understand his ideals, he seemed to draw her apart to his
+side&mdash;appealing to her for support against the coarse and foolish hosts
+represented by the Mosses, while Marshall Haney sat in a kind of stupor,
+his eyes alone speaking, as if to ask: "What the divil is the little man
+with the cough so hot about?"</p>
+
+<p>Moss, accustomed to Humiston's savage diatribes, roared out objections
+or laughed him to scorn, while Mrs. Moss tried her best to turn the mad
+artist's mind upon more suitable subjects. He had been deeply hurt and
+financially distressed by the failure of his exhibits in Pittsburg and
+Chicago, and was now taking it out on his friends. His passion, his
+bitter, vengeful cry against the ignorant masses of the world was
+something Bertha had read about, but never felt; but she quivered now
+with the half-disclosed fury of the disappointed austere soul.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be possible that this savage man, so worn and ill, had painted
+those dim, vague pictures of flower-like girls whose limbs were involved
+in blossoming vines?</p>
+
+<p>He concluded at last: "The only place in the world to-day for an artist
+is Paris. In no other city can he live his own life in frank fulness,
+and find patrons who see the subtlest meaning of a line."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was tired of all this&mdash;mentally weary and confused; and she felt
+very grateful to Mrs. Moss, who came to the rescue the moment Humiston
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Mrs. Haney, that is the end of Professor Jerry Spoopendyke's
+lecture on the undesirability of America as a place of residence&mdash;<i>for
+him</i>. Of course, he don't mind selling his pictures just to enlighten
+our night of ignorance, but as for going to Sunday-school or keeping the
+decalogue, that's our job."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston had the grace to smile. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Haney, I have
+been a fool. But that monkey over there&mdash;Joe Moss&mdash;provoked me with his
+accursed heresies about the democracy of art. Art has no democracy, and
+democracy will never have an art&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, there!" warned Moss, "you said all that before."</p>
+
+<p>The painter wrenched himself away and turned to Bertha. "You <i>are</i>
+coming to New York, Mrs. Haney?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said. "We may."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do, don't fail to let me know. I would like to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Bertha, "I'll send you a line." And her frank smile
+made him sorry to say good-bye even for the day.</p>
+
+<p>As Mart was going up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all
+kinds of people to make up a world&mdash;Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the
+t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin'
+a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end I dunno."</p>
+
+<p>When alone in her room, Bertha's mind again reverted to Ben Fordyce. As
+she compared him with Humiston, he seemed handsomer and more boyishly
+frank than ever. What did Joe Moss mean by calling Mr. Humiston "blas&eacute;."
+She had seen that word in novels and it always meant something wicked.
+How could this weary, sick man be wicked? She pitied him and wished to
+help him. "Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to.
+Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does
+this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks
+poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money
+was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize. That the waiters and
+clerks buzzed round her because she was rich, she knew; but that these
+men, who talked of beauty and the higher life, could flatter her with
+attentions with a base motive was incredible.</p>
+
+<p>She was shrewd as her Yankee forbears, but she was also an idealist, and
+these artist folk now seemed to her the highest types she had ever known
+or was likely to know. She felt the mystery and the power in Humiston's
+personality, and his bitter and rebellious, almost blasphemous, words
+were counterpoised by his paintings, which she acknowledged to be
+beautiful&mdash;too beautiful for her to comprehend. He looked like a man of
+sorrow and weary of battle, and she longed to know more about him. When
+he was not fierce he was melancholy; evidently his life had been a
+failure. "Why shouldn't I buy some of his pictures?" she asked herself.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the answer to any such question had been, "Can we afford it?"
+but now another and deeper query came in answer, like an echo: "Is it
+right to spend Mart Haney's money? I am only his trained nurse, not his
+wife," and she now knew that she could not be his wife. She shrank from
+the weight of his hand, and each day made clearer the wide spaces of
+years, of family, of ideals, which lay between them. The kiss Ben
+Fordyce had pressed upon her lips had brought this revelation. But of
+this she was not yet aware; she was only conscious of a growing dread of
+the future. Her duties as his nurse were lightening. Lucius, indeed, now
+took many of her tasks upon himself, and she no longer helped him with
+his shoes or coat, and, what was still more significant, she could not
+calmly think of going back to these wifely services.</p>
+
+<p>She dwelt treacherously on Haney's own admission: that she had been in a
+sense entrapped. He had believed himself a dying man at the time, and
+she had been too excited, too exalted by the lurid romance of the scene
+to be clear about anything save the wish and the will to save him; and
+now she knew that at bottom of all her willingness to serve him lay the
+consciousness that he was on his death-bed. Afterwards he had been to
+her only a big-hearted, generous friend, in need of love and
+companionship. This understanding had made it easy for her to prepare
+his meals, to help him, as a nurse would help him, to dress and undress.
+She had lost all of the fear and much of the admiration in which she
+used to greet him as he swung into the office of her little hotel. He
+had become to her an invalid, a child to be jollied and humored, and yet
+respected; for no one could have been kinder or more scrupulously just
+than he. And it was the recollection of all his acts of self-sacrifice
+and loving patience which gave her assurance that he would never require
+obedience, though he might sue for it.</p>
+
+<p>Her danger lay in herself. "If he <i>does</i> ask me to be his real
+wife&mdash;then I must either agree or leave. It won't be right for me to
+take all these benefits unless&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And with this thought, the big house in the Springs, the sleek horses,
+their shining carriages, the auto-car, her dresses, the service of the
+big hotel, and the consideration her husband's money gave to her, all
+assumed a new and corrupting lustre. She was growing accustomed to
+luxury and the thought of giving it up made her shiver like one who
+faces a plunge into a dark night and an icy river. Besides, her
+sacrifice would involve others. Her mother, her brother, were already
+roundly ensnared in Mart's bounty.</p>
+
+<p>Her head was aching with it all, when a comforting thought came to her.
+It was not necessary to decide it at that moment, and with a sigh of
+relief she threw it aside and sat down to write a letter to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have written before, but I've been jumped right into the
+middle of things here. The letters Frank Congdon gave me took me into an
+artistic bunch about as gay and queer as Frank is, but they've been
+mighty nice to me. I've been setting for my bust to Mr. Moss, who is a
+sculptor. He has a big studio clear on the top of one of the tallest
+blocks here and has some dandy lamps and things. I've bought some to
+bring back. I met a Mr. Humiston there from New York, and he made a
+sketch of me&mdash;wants me to see his studio in New York. I don't know
+whether I'll go on or let Mart go with Lucius. Lucius is all right&mdash;I
+don't see how I got on without him. He knows everything. I wish I had
+half the education he's got. He's up on all the society ways and puts me
+on. For instance, he told me the nice thing would be to give a dinner to
+this artist push and to the people that Dorothy give me a letter to, and
+I'm going to do it. Lucius will look out for the whole thing. You should
+see the way the waiters tend. I reckon Lucius has told 'em we're made of
+money. I'm afraid we're getting spoilt, Muzz. It would be pretty tough
+to go back to the hotel now, wouldn't it?</p>
+
+<p>"We went to see Mart's sister, Fanny. Her house was a sight. It was
+clean enough, but littered&mdash;well, litter is no name for it&mdash;but she's a
+good old thing and so is McArdle. He sat and looked at us the whole time
+like a turkey blind in one eye&mdash;never said a word the whole time but
+'pass the p-taties.' I liked him though. He's a kind of sculptor,
+too&mdash;makes patterns for all these little acorns and leaves and
+do-funnies on stoves. They've got forty-'leven children and need help
+and I'm perfectly willing Mart should help 'em. We're looking up houses
+now. He's going to buy a place for 'em on the west side. Wednesday night
+I went to see the Doctor Brents, Dorothy's friends. They had a
+dinner&mdash;very nice, but they all kind o' sat 'round and waited for us to
+perform. I guess they thought we were mountain lions. But they didn't
+make much out o' me. They was one chap there with goggles who looked at
+Mart like an undertaker. He's a scientific doctor&mdash;one of these fellers
+that invent new ways of doing things. His name is Halliday. I liked Dr.
+Brent pretty well&mdash;but Mrs. Brent only so-so. The doctor wants to
+'dagnose' Mart's case&mdash;says it won't cost a cent. We all went to a show
+at night and the Captain was just about petered to a point. He's better
+though. The lower altitude helps his circulation. I guess his heart <i>is</i>
+affected. He's afraid now he won't ever be able to go back to the mines.
+He wants to slide on to New York and see his father and wants me to
+go&mdash;but I'd rather come home&mdash;I'm homesick for the hills. They're nice
+to me here&mdash;but I want to see the old Peak once more. Tell" (here she
+wrote "Ben" and blotted it) "tell Mr. Fordyce that we're all right and
+to keep us posted every day. We see by the papers that the mine-owners
+are going to throw the unions out of business. If they try that they'll
+be war again. We'll be home soon&mdash;or at least I will. I'm getting
+home-sicker every minute as I write."</p>
+
+<p>She added a postscript. "Don't show my letters to <i>any one</i>. I wish I'd
+'a' had a little more schooling."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FARTHER EAST</h3>
+
+
+<p>Haney visibly brightened as the days went by, and took long rides in his
+auto, sometimes with Bertha, sometimes alone with Lucius, and now and
+then with some old acquaintance, who, having seen his name in the paper,
+ventured to call. They were not very savory characters, to tell the
+truth, and he did not always introduce them to Bertha, but as his health
+improved he called upon a few of the more reputable of them,
+billiard-table agents, and the like of that, and to these proudly
+exhibited his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha had hitherto accepted this with boyish tolerance, but now it
+irritated her. Some of these visitors presumed on her husband's past and
+treated her with a certain freedom of tone and looseness of tongue which
+made plain even to her unsuspecting nature that they put no high value
+on her virtue&mdash;in fact, one fellow went so far as to facetiously ask,
+"Where did Mart find you? Are there any more out there?" And she felt
+the insult, though she did not know how to resent it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, so astute in many things, saw nothing out of the way in this
+off-hand treatment of his wife. He would have killed the man who dared
+to touch her, and yet he stood smilingly by while some chance
+acquaintance treated her as if she had been picked out of a Denver
+gutter. This threw Bertha upon her own defence, and at last she made
+even impudence humble itself. She carried herself like a young warrior,
+sure of her power and quick of defence.</p>
+
+<p>She refused to invite her husband's friends to lunch, and the first real
+argument she had thus far held with him came about in this way. She
+said, "Yes, you can ask Mr. Black or Mr. Brown to dinner, but I won't
+set at the same table with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they're not the kind of men I want to eat with," she bluntly
+replied. "They're just a little too coarse for me."</p>
+
+<p>"They're good business men and have fine homes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do they invite you to their homes?"</p>
+
+<p>"They do not," he admitted, "but they may&mdash;after our dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucius says it's their business to lead out&mdash;and he knows. I don't mind
+your lunching these dubs every day if you want to, but I keep clear of
+'em. I tell you those!"</p>
+
+<p>And so it fell out that while she was going about with the Mosses and
+their kind, Mart was explaining to Black and Brown that his wife "was a
+little shy." "You see she grew up in the hills like a doe antelope, and
+it's hard for her to get wonted to the noise of a great city," he
+laboriously set forth, but at heart he did not blame her. He was coming
+to find them a little "coarse" himself.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston was deeply enthralled by Bertha's odd speech, her beauty, her
+calm use of money, and lingered on day by day, spending nearly all his
+time at Moss's studio or at the hotel, seeking Mrs. Haney's company. He
+had never met her like, and confessed as much to Moss, who jocularly
+retorted: "That's saying a good deal&mdash;for you've seen quite a few."</p>
+
+<p>Humiston ignored this thrust. "She has beauty, imagination, and immense
+possibilities. She don't know herself. When she wakes up to her power,
+then look out! She can't go on long with this old, worn-out gambler."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Haney isn't such a beast as you make him out. Bertha told me he had
+never crossed her will. He's really very kind and generous."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be true, and yet he's a mill-stone about her neck. It's a
+shame&mdash;a waste of beauty&mdash;for the girl is a beauty."</p>
+
+<p>It was with a sense of relief that Moss heard Bertha say to his wife: "I
+guess I've had enough of this. It's me to the high ground to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going on to the metropolis?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it. I'm hungry for the peaks&mdash;and, besides, our horses
+need exercise. I think I'll pull out for the West to-morrow and leave
+the Captain and Lucius to go East together. I don't believe I need New
+York."</p>
+
+<p>To this arrangement Haney reluctantly consented. "You're missin' a whole
+lot, Bertie. I don't feel right in goin' on to Babylon without ye. I
+reckon you'd better reconsider the motion. However, I'll not be gone
+long, and if I find the old Dad hearty I may bring him home with me.
+He's liable to be livin' with John Donahue. Charles said he was a
+shiffless whelp, and there's no telling how he's treating the old man.
+Anyhow, I'll let you know."</p>
+
+<p>She relented a little. "Ma'be I ought to go. I hate to see you starting
+off alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure now! don't ye worry, darling. Lucius is handy as a bootjack, and
+we'll get along fine. Besides, I may come back immegitly, for them
+mine-owners are cooking a hell-broth for us all. Havin' a governor on
+their side now, they must set out to show their power."</p>
+
+<p>Ben kept them supplied with home papers, and as Bertha took up one of
+these journals she found herself played upon by familiar forms and
+faces. The very names of the streets were an appeal. She saw herself
+sporting with her hounds, riding with Fordyce over the flowery Mesa, or
+facing him in his sun-bright office discussing the world's events and
+deciding upon their own policies and expenditures. She grew very
+homesick as these pleasant, familiar pictures freshened in her vision,
+and her faith in Ben's honesty and essential goodness came back to her.
+Moreover her mind was not at rest regarding Haney; much as she longed to
+go home, she felt it her duty to remain with him, and as she lay in her
+bed she thought of him with much the same pity a daughter feels for a
+disabled father. "He's given me a whole lot&mdash;I ought to stay by him."</p>
+
+<p>She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce
+alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to
+go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when she returned
+to the Springs.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain ways in which books instruct women&mdash;and men, too, for
+that matter&mdash;but there are other and more vital processes in which only
+experience (individual or inherited) teaches. In her desultory reading,
+little Mrs. Haney, like every other citizen, had taken imaginative part
+in many murders, seductions, and marital infidelities; and yet the
+motives for such deeds had never before seemed human. Now the dark
+places in the divorce trials, the obscure charges in the testimony of
+deserted wives, were suddenly illumined. She realized how easy it would
+be to make trouble between Mart and herself. She understood the stain
+those strangers in the car could put upon her, and she trembled at the
+mere thought of Mart's inquiring eyes when he should know of it. Why
+should he know of it? It was all over and done with. There was only one
+thing to do&mdash;forget it.</p>
+
+<p>Surely life was growing complex. With bewildering swiftness the
+experiences of a woman of the world were advancing upon her, and she,
+with no brother or father to be her guard, or friend to give her
+character, with a husband whose very name and face were injuries, was
+finding men in the centres of culture quite as predatory as among the
+hills, where Mart Haney's fame still made his glance a warning. These
+few weeks in Chicago had added a year to her development, but she dared
+not face Ben Fordyce alone&mdash;not just yet&mdash;not till her mind had cleared.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her doubt of herself and of him a message came which
+made all other news of no account. He was on his way to Chicago to
+consult Mart (so the words ran), but in her soul she knew he was coming
+to see her. Was it to test her? Had he taken silence for consent? Was he
+about to try her faith in him and her loyalty to her husband?</p>
+
+<p>His telegram read: "Coming on important business." That might mean
+concerning the mine&mdash;on the surface; but beneath ran something more
+vital to them both than any mine or labor war, something which developed
+in the girl both fear and wonder&mdash;fear of the power that came from his
+eyes, wonder of the world his love had already opened to her. What was
+the meaning of this mad, sweet riot of the blood&mdash;this forgetfulness of
+all the rest of the world&mdash;this longing which was both pleasure and
+pain, doubt and delight, which turned her face to the West as though
+through a long, shining vista she saw love's messenger speeding towards
+her?</p>
+
+<p>Sleep kept afar, and she lay restlessly turning till long after
+midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and
+her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She
+rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical
+weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever known
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was also up and about, an hour ahead of his schedule, sure that
+Ben's business concerned the mine. "It's the labor war breaking out
+again," he repeated. "I feel it in my bones. If it is, back I go, for
+the boys will be nading me."</p>
+
+<p>They went to the station in their auto-car, but, at Bertha's suggestion,
+Mart sent Lucius in to meet their attorney and to direct him where to
+find them. The young wife had a feeling that to await him at the gate
+might give him a false notion of her purpose. She grew faint and her
+throat contracted as if a strong hand clutched it as she saw his tall
+form advancing, but almost instantly his frank and eager face, his clear
+glance, his simple and cordial greeting disarmed her, transmuted her
+half-shaped doubts into golden faith. He was true and good&mdash;of that she
+was completely reassured. Her spirits soared, and the glow came back to
+her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce, looking up at her, was filled with astonishment at the picture
+of grace and ease which she presented, as she leaned to take his hand.
+She shone, unmistakable mistress of the car, while Haney filled the r&ocirc;le
+of trusted Irish coachman.</p>
+
+<p>As he climbed in, the young lawyer remarked merrily, "I don't know
+whether I approve of this extravagance or not." He tapped the car door.</p>
+
+<p>"It's mighty handy for the Captain," she replied. "You see he can't get
+round in the street-cars very well, and he says this is cheaper than
+cabs in the long run."</p>
+
+<p>"It has never proved economical to me; but it <i>is</i> handy," he answered,
+with admiration of her growing mastery of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>And so with something fiercely beating in their hearts these youthful
+warriors struggled to be true to others&mdash;fighting against themselves as
+against domestic traitors, while they talked of the mine, the state
+judiciary, the operators, and the unions. Their words were impersonal,
+prosaic of association, but their eyes spoke of love as the diamond
+speaks of light. Ben's voice, carefully controlled, was vibrant with the
+poetry that comes but once in the life of a man, and she listened in
+that perfect content which makes gold and glory but the decorations of
+the palace where adoration dwells.</p>
+
+<p>The great, smoky, thunderous city somehow added to the sweetness of the
+meeting&mdash;made it the more precious, like a song in a tempest. It seemed
+to Ben Fordyce as if he had never really lived before. The very need of
+concealment gave his unspoken passion a singular quality&mdash;a tang of the
+wilding, the danger-some, which his intimacy with Alice had never
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>The Haneys' suite of rooms at the hotel called for comment. "Surely
+Haney is feeling the power of money&mdash;but why not; who has a better right
+to lovely things than Bertha?" Then aloud he repeated: "How well you're
+looking&mdash;both of you! City life agrees with you. I never saw you look so
+well."</p>
+
+<p>This remark, innocent on its surface, brought self-consciousness to
+Bertha, for the light of his glance expressed more than admiration; and
+even as they stood facing each other, alive to the same disturbing
+flush, Lucius called Haney from the room, leaving them alone together.
+The moment of Ben's trial had come.</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds the young wife waited in breathless silence for him to
+speak, a sense of her own wordlessness lying like a weight upon her.
+Into the cloud of her confusion his voice came bringing confidence and
+calm. "I feel that you have forgiven me&mdash;your eyes seem to say so. I
+couldn't blame you if you despised me. I won't say my feeling has
+changed, for it hasn't. It may be wrong to say so&mdash;it is wrong, but I
+can't help it. Please tell me that you forgive me. I will be happier if
+you do, and I will never offend again." His accent was at once softly
+pleading and manly, and, as she raised her eyes to his in restored
+self-confidence, she murmured a quaint, short, reassuring phrase: "Oh,
+that's all right!" Her glance, so shy, so appealing, united to the
+half-humorous words of her reply, were so surely of the Mountain-West
+that Ben was quite swept from the high ground of his resolution, and his
+hands leaped towards her with an almost irresistible embracing impulse.
+"You sweet girl!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" she said, starting back in alarm&mdash;"don't!"</p>
+
+<p>His face changed instantly, the clear candor of his voice reassured her.
+"Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I&mdash;that
+my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his
+self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their
+love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will
+give you all her time next summer&mdash;if you wish her to do so."</p>
+
+<p>She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
+day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann&mdash;I don't see how people can
+talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
+for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
+with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
+Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
+association&mdash;you are improving very fast."</p>
+
+<p>Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do mean it. No one would know&mdash;to see you here&mdash;that you had not
+enjoyed all the advantages."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
+grin. They're onto my game all right."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases&mdash;they like to
+hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
+or&mdash;or lacking in&mdash;in charm."</p>
+
+<p>Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
+relief Bertha retreated&mdash;almost fled to her room&mdash;leaving the two men to
+discuss their business.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
+was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
+own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
+husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
+submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
+She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
+dress&mdash;with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
+she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration&mdash;"I will
+be loyal to the men"&mdash;and Ben's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
+Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
+mine-operators."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
+Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
+that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
+heart is with the red-neckers&mdash;just where it was. Owning a paying mine
+has not changed me heart to a stone."</p>
+
+<p>Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
+with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
+kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
+order to be on hand."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the rush?" said Haney; "stay on a day or two and see the town
+with us&mdash;'tis a great show."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, re-entering at this moment in her shining gown, put the young
+attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on
+the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and,
+besides&mdash;Alice is not very well."</p>
+
+<p>At the mention of Alice's name Bertha's glance wavered and her eyelids
+fell. She did not urge him to stay, and Haney spoke up, heartily: "I'm
+sorry to hear she's not well. She was pretty as a rose the night of the
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"She lives on her nerves," Ben replied, falling into sadness. "One day
+she's up in the clouds and dancing, the next she's flat in her bed in a
+darkened room unwilling to see anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the way of the White Death," thought Haney, but he spoke
+hopefully: "Well, spring is here and a long summer before her&mdash;she'll be
+herself against October."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust so," said Ben, but Bertha could see that he was losing hope and
+that his life was being darkened by the presence of the death angel.</p>
+
+<p>Haney changed the current of all their thinking by saying to Bertha: "If
+you are minded to go home, now is your chance, acushla. You can return
+with Mr. Fordyce, while Lucius and I go on to New York the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she cried out in a panic. "No, I am going with you&mdash;I want to
+see New York myself," she added, in justification. The thought of the
+long journey with Ben Fordyce filled her with a kind of terror, a
+feeling she had never known before. She needed protection against
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Haney, "that's settled. Now let's show Mr. Fordyce the
+town."</p>
+
+<p>Ben put aside his doubt and went forth with them, resolute to make a
+merry day of it. He seemed to regain all his care-free temper, but
+Bertha remained uneasy and at times abnormally distraught. She spoke
+with effort and listened badly, so busily was she wrought upon by
+unbidden thoughts. The question of her lover's disloyalty to Alice
+Heath, strange to say, had not hitherto troubled her&mdash;so selfishly, so
+childishly had her own relationship to him filled her mind. She now saw
+that Alice Heath was as deeply concerned in Ben's relationship to her as
+Haney, and the picture of the poor, pale, despairing lady, worn with
+weeping, persistently came between her and the scenes Mart pointed out
+on their trips about the city. Did Alice know&mdash;did she suspect? Was that
+why she was sinking lower and lower into the shadow?</p>
+
+<p>With these questions to be answered, as well as those she had already
+put to herself concerning Mart, she could not enjoy the day's outing.
+She rode through the parks with cold hands and white lips, and sat amid
+the color and bustle and light of the dining-room with only spasmodic
+return of her humorous, girlish self. The love which shone from Ben's
+admiring eyes only added to her uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>She was very lovely in a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young
+bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx&mdash;the distraction upon her brow
+somehow adding to the charm of her face&mdash;and Ben thought her the most
+wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command
+was she. "Could any one," he thought, "be more swiftly adaptable?"</p>
+
+<p>They went to the theatre, and her beauty and her curiously unsmiling
+face aroused the admiration and curiosity of many others of those who
+saw her. At last, under the influence of the music, her eyes lost their
+shadow and grew tender and wistful. She ceased to question herself and
+gave herself up to the joy of the moment. The play and the
+melody&mdash;hackneyed to many of those present&mdash;appealed to her imagination,
+liberating her from the earth and all its concerns. She turned to Ben
+with eyes of rapture, saying, "Isn't it lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>And he, to whom the music was outworn and a little shoddy, instantly
+agreed. "Yes, it is very beautiful," and he meant it, for her pleasure
+in it brought back a knowledge of the charm it had once possessed.</p>
+
+<p>They dined together at the hotel, but the thought of Ben's departure
+brought a pang into Bertha's heart, and she fell back into her uneasy,
+distracted musing. She was being tempted, through her husband, who
+repeated with the half-forgetfulness of age and weakness, "You'd better
+go back with Mr. Fordyce, Bertie," but there was something stronger than
+her individual will in her reply&mdash;some racial resolution which came down
+the line of her good ancestry, and with almost angry outcry she
+answered:</p>
+
+<p>"There's no use talking that! I'm going with you," and with this she
+ended the outward siege, but the inward battle was not closed till she
+had taken and dropped the hand her lover held out in parting next
+morning, and even then she turned away, with his eyes and the tender
+cadences of his voice imprinted so vividly on her memory that she could
+not banish them, and she set face towards the farther East with the
+contest of duty and desire still going forward in her blood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
+forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
+floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
+pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
+farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
+trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
+weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
+they all live?</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
+the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
+slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
+to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
+heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
+great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
+I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
+Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
+plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me&mdash;poor girl! I'd
+like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
+up, too."</p>
+
+<p>Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
+obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
+her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
+beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
+magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
+thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
+to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
+splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
+thirty years ago&mdash;rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
+broken steak or a half-eaten roll&mdash;and she could imaginatively enter
+into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.</p>
+
+<p>"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle&mdash;"'sure the
+mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
+him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
+drop in on him and surprise him with a check"&mdash;at the moment he forgot
+that he was old and a cripple&mdash;"just to let him know the divil hadn't
+claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
+arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
+see you; he might say the divil had got <i>you</i>&mdash;but he couldn't pity
+me."</p>
+
+<p>She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
+deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
+like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
+naturally locoes me to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the only place to spend money&mdash;so the boys tell me. I've never
+been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
+man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
+fine swamp to lose a thief in."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I did so&mdash;and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
+desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
+chances."</p>
+
+<p>Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
+were but empty boasting&mdash;so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
+that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
+potency of gold!&mdash;could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
+flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
+eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
+as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
+streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
+wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
+splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
+her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
+from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God&mdash;one derived
+from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.</p>
+
+<p>They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
+spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
+where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
+do it to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was tired, too&mdash;mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
+alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
+with the Troy directory.</p>
+
+<p>Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
+took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
+Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
+and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
+brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
+of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
+after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
+pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
+"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here&mdash;and I've earned many a dime
+sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
+said; "I don't know why&mdash;I had all the chance there was. I've been
+moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that&mdash;I'll say I tuck it
+as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
+alone&mdash;it spiled me nerve&mdash;I let the other felly do the drinkin'."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
+proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
+plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
+shouted, "'Tis old Otto&mdash;just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"</p>
+
+<p>Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
+off me alretty."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mart Haney&mdash;you remember Mart Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
+Vell, vell&mdash;you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter&mdash;yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"My wife," said Haney.</p>
+
+<p>Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
+draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
+you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what."</p>
+
+<p>"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce&mdash;aind dot
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
+up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
+what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn&mdash;so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
+be clad to see you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know his address?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."</p>
+
+<p>"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
+directory&mdash;Chon Donahue, barkeep."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
+the boys are livin' here now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
+vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
+are teadt&mdash;many are teadt," he added, on second thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
+machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
+talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
+lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
+I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
+these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
+can't cheat a boy&mdash;he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
+of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
+right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
+broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
+whole long day&mdash;not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
+up with the Injuns."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
+She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
+studying the scenes of his boyhood&mdash;her own childhood had been almost as
+humble, almost as cheerless&mdash;and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
+the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
+commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
+much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
+opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
+very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
+with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
+with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
+importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.</p>
+
+<p>It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
+Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
+he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
+her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
+call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
+under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
+it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
+relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
+young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
+easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
+readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
+reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
+which she received what was said to her&mdash;something indefinably alert and
+self-masterful without being self-conscious&mdash;gave her a mysterious
+charm.</p>
+
+<p>She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
+and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
+She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
+of interest&mdash;even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
+Kate&mdash;more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
+her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
+buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
+if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
+with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
+London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
+and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
+folk live in one place?</p>
+
+<p>Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
+they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
+herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
+for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
+when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
+Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
+alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
+her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
+the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
+foreign capital.</p>
+
+<p>It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp&mdash;a
+palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
+glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
+Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
+conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
+and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
+masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
+say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
+while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
+comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
+"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
+were put at his command.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
+higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
+and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
+when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
+looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
+windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
+the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
+can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
+notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
+which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
+carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
+get a car."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
+like me."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
+again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
+was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
+angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
+bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
+timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
+race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
+with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans&mdash;and all others
+who have them not&mdash;struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
+distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
+display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
+not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
+people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
+diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
+from the scramble on the pave.</p>
+
+<p>Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
+heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
+grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
+had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
+auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
+handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
+and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
+therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
+little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
+door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
+old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
+broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
+me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
+'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
+cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
+play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
+was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
+in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
+wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
+packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
+room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
+free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
+this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
+indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
+keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
+ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, I'll go down."</p>
+
+<p>"They dress for dinner, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they? What'll I wear?"</p>
+
+<p>He considered a moment. "Any light silk&mdash;semi-dress will do. I'll send a
+maid in to help you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful&mdash;it was paternal;
+for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
+colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
+cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
+of adaptability&mdash;was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
+both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
+in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
+him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
+prejudice against both black and red men.</p>
+
+<p>The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
+exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
+deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
+a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
+the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
+zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
+Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
+eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.</p>
+
+<p>Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
+bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
+tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
+appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
+lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
+women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
+they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
+beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
+very shy.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
+to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but&mdash;to
+miss me sleep&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
+just about all in, myself."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
+time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
+heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
+Lucius will take ye."</p>
+
+<p>"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
+We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
+kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."</p>
+
+<p>This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
+by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
+endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
+'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
+receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
+complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
+that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
+thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
+live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
+great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
+This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
+turned off Broadway.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
+special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
+quieter now till November."</p>
+
+<p>They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
+in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
+most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
+nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
+of a rank with Paris and London&mdash;the gateway city of the nation, where
+the Old World meets and mingles with the New.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE</h3>
+
+
+<p>As for Marshall Haney, as he went about New York and Brooklyn in search
+of his relations, he was astounded at the translation of the Irish
+laborer into something else. "In my time, when I left Troy, all the work
+in the streets was done by 'micks,' as they called 'em. Now they're
+gone&mdash;whisked away as ye'd sweep away a swarm of red ants, and here's
+these black Dagos in their places. Where's the Irishman gone&mdash;up or
+down? That's what's eatin' me. Is he dead or translated to a higher
+speer? 'Tis a mysterious dispensation, and troubles me much."</p>
+
+<p>He found a good many Donahues in Brooklyn, and plenty of them
+barkeepers; and after he'd pulled up half a dozen times at these
+"joints" Bertha began to pout. She didn't like such places; and as they
+were riding in a showy auto-car (the grandest Lucius could secure), they
+were pretty middling noticeable. At last she said, more sharply than she
+had ever spoken to him before: "Mart, I don't want any more of this. If
+you want to visit all the saloons in Brooklyn, I don't. Here's where I
+get out."</p>
+
+<p>He was instantly remorseful. "I was thinkin' of that myself, Bertie.
+Lucius and I will go on alone. We'll send you back to the hotel in the
+'mobile whilst we take a hack."</p>
+
+<p>Half doubting, half glad, she consented to this arrangement, and was
+soon whirling back towards the ferry, her guilty feeling giving place to
+a sense of relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her
+shoulders&mdash;for a moment. She began to understand that half the pleasure
+she had taken in her hours with Moss and Humiston lay in the freedom
+from her husband's over-shadowing presence. He was not a man to be
+ignored, as she had seen wives ignore and put aside their meek partners.
+Marshall Haney even yet was a dominating personality, even though his
+family affairs were so insistent and so difficult to manage or explain.
+If the father came her joy in her home would be gone, and yet she had no
+right to refuse him shelter.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time she was less sure of her place in the world, now that
+she was alone. She had the feeling that if anything were to happen&mdash;if
+the motorman should demand his pay at the door, or the hotel-keeper
+refuse to go her bond, she would be helpless. The Captain, for all his
+shortcomings and physical disability, was master of every situation. He
+had been schooled by stern powers, and his capabilities of defence were
+still equal to almost any need.</p>
+
+<p>On the ferry-boat she found herself surrounded by the swarms of people
+who are forever calculating expenditures, who never desert a garment,
+and who finger a nickel lovingly; and she caught them looking at her as
+upon one of those who enjoy without earning it the product of their
+toil. They made way for her, as she got down and walked to the railing,
+as they would have done for a millionaire's daughter, a little surlily,
+and she divined without understanding this enmity, but was too exalted
+by the glittering bay, with its romance of ship and sea and shore and
+town, to very much mind what her threadbare fellow-passengers thought of
+her. These dark-hulled, ocean-going vessels, these alien flags, widened
+her horizon&mdash;deepened her sense of the earth's wonder and the wide-flung
+nerves of national interest. From this sea-level she looked up in fancy
+to her brother's ranch near Sibley as at a cabin on a mountain-side. How
+still and faint and far it seemed at the moment!</p>
+
+<p>At the word of the chauffeur she climbed back into her car, returning to
+the isolation which money now provided for her. And so, girt about with
+velvet and costly wood and gilding, she rode up through the tearing
+throngs of the wharf, whirling past cars and trucks, outspeeding cabs
+and carriages, protected by a gambler's name, royally isolated and
+defensible by his money. As she spun through Fifth Avenue, so smooth of
+pave, so crowded, so sparkling, so far-reaching in its suggestions of
+security and power, the girl's soul entered upon a new and fierce phase
+of its struggle.</p>
+
+<p>It was a larger and more absorbing fairy story than any in the <i>Arabian
+Nights</i>. Without Marshall Haney, without the gold he brought, she could
+never have even looked upon this scene. She would at this moment have
+been standing inside her little counter at the Golden Eagle, selling
+cigars to some brakeman or cowboy. Ed Winchell would be coming to ask
+her, as usual, to marry him, and her mother would still be toiling in
+the hot kitchen or be at rest in her grave. Did ever Aladdin's lamp
+translate its owner farther or lift him higher? Was not her refusal to
+be Marshall Haney's wife the basest ingratitude?</p>
+
+<p>Not merely so, but the girl felt in herself potentialities not yet drawn
+upon, unlimited capabilities leading towards the accomplishment of good.
+Money had not merely the magic of exalting, educating, refining, and
+ennobling the individual (herself); it had radiating, transforming power
+for others. It could diffuse warmth like a flame, and send forth joy
+like a bell. "With it I am safe, strong: I can help the poor. Without it
+I am only a struggling girl, like millions of others, with no chance and
+no power to aid those who suffer." But at this point her love re-entered
+and her sense of right was confused. After all the heart ruled.</p>
+
+<p>At the hotel entrance the head porter was waiting to help her out, and
+the chauffeur, without a word or look of reminder, puffed away, secure
+in the reputation Lucius had given to Haney. As she went to her room the
+maid met her with gentle solicitude, and, after attending to her needs,
+considerately withdrew, leaving her deep-sunk in troubled musing.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the coming of Ben Fordyce she had accepted all that Haney gave her
+as from one good friend to another. Once having satisfied herself that
+the money was clean of any taint from gambling-hall and saloon, she had
+not hesitated to use it. But now something was rising within her which
+changed the current of her purpose. Haney was no longer before the bar
+of her conscience; the soul under question was her own. Dimly, yet with
+ever-growing definiteness, she saw the moment of decision approach. She
+must soon decide whether to continue on the smooth, broad highway with
+Haney, or to return to the mountain-trail from which he had taken her.</p>
+
+<p>While still she sat sombrely looking out over the city's roofs,
+Humiston's card was brought to her, and at the moment, in her loneliness
+and doubt, he seemed like an old friend. "Tell him to come up," she
+said, with instant cordiality, and her face shone with innocent pleasure
+when she met him. "I'm mighty glad to see you," she frankly said, in
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>He misconceived her feeling, and took advantage of it to retain her
+hand. "I assure you I am delighted to find <i>you</i> again."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd forgot us."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes expressed a bold admiration as he answered: "I have done
+nothing but remember you. I've been in Pittsburg (only got back to town
+yesterday), and here I am." He looked about. "Where is the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew her hand. "He's out looking for his father. He'll return
+soon. He's liable to look in any minute now."</p>
+
+<p>"You are lovelier than ever. How is the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well. He gets tired fairly easy, but he feels better than he
+did."</p>
+
+<p>His look of eager intensity embarrassed her. After a little pause, he
+remarked: "I am holding you to your promise. Can't you come over to my
+studio this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not to-day. I must be here when the Captain comes. He may bring the
+old father along, and he'd feel lost if I should be gone. Maybe I could
+come to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bring the Captain unless you have to&mdash;he'll be bored," he said,
+in the hope that she would get his full meaning. "I want to introduce
+you to some friends of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't do that!" she protested. "I'm afraid of your friends&mdash;they're
+all so way-wised while I am hardly bridle-broke."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not fear," he replied; "you are most to be envied. No one can
+have more than health, wealth, and youth and beauty. I would not
+hesitate to introduce you anywhere." His admiration was so outspoken, so
+choicely worded, that she could not distrust him, though Mrs. Moss had
+more than once hinted to her that he was not to be entirely honored. "He
+isn't a man to be careless with," she had once said, and yet he seemed
+so high-minded, so profoundly concerned with the beautiful world of art.
+How could a single-hearted Western girl believe ill of him? He could
+not be evil in the ways in which men were wicked in Sibley. His
+sensitive face was too weary and his eyes too sad.</p>
+
+<p>He was adroit enough to make his call short, and withdrew, leaving a
+very pleasant impression in her mind. She felt distinctly less lonely,
+now that she knew he was in the city, and she was still at the window
+musing about him when Haney returned, bringing his father with him.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Haney interested and amused her in spite of her
+perplexities&mdash;he was so quaintly of the old type of Irishman and so
+absurdly small to be the father of a giant. He carried a shrewd and
+kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
+line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
+calmer.</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
+dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
+awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
+retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me&mdash;after the day he first
+thrun me down, the big gawk."</p>
+
+<p>Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
+'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"</p>
+
+<p>Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
+warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
+"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
+is green&mdash;the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
+to the tooth-factory."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."</p>
+
+<p>"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
+baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
+and be gay."</p>
+
+<p>Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
+may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
+man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
+prospect in&mdash;so don't fuss."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
+'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
+at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
+take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
+recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
+telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
+said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
+'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
+every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
+So here he is&mdash;scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
+gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
+left the old sod." Here his face became sadly tender. "I wish the mother
+was alive, too; I'd make her rustle in silks, so I would. Heaven rest
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>The father's face grew suddenly accusing in line. "Ye waited too long,
+ye vagabond. Yer change of heart comes too late."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it&mdash;I know it! But I could never find time till a man with a
+shotgun pointed the way to it. Now I have all the time there is, and
+she's gone."</p>
+
+<p>In this moment of passing shadow Bertha caught a glimpse of the
+significance of the scene&mdash;of the wonder, almost alarm, which filled the
+old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the
+room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and
+green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness
+of the silk tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>The old man touched a gilded chair tenderly, and Mart cried out: "Lay
+hold, man, 'twill not rub off! Sit down and look about ye! Out with your
+new pipe and smoke up!"</p>
+
+<p>He took a seat with forced confidence, and looked about him. "I wish
+Donahue and Kate could see this."</p>
+
+<p>Mart turned a quietly humorous eye on Bertha. "Not this trip. I couldn't
+manage Kate," he explained. "She looks like Fan&mdash;only more so; and she
+has a litter o' young Donahues would make ye wonder could the world have
+room for them all."</p>
+
+<p>Haney the elder had something more than the bog-trotter in him, for as
+he grew towards a little more assurance that Mart would not be thrown
+out of his hotel for non-payment of bills, he settled down to enjoy his
+glass of rare whiskey and a costly cigar with an assumption of ease that
+almost deceived the maid, though Lucius, being in the secret, watched
+him anxiously for fear he might expectorate on the rug.</p>
+
+<p>Mart had some "p'otographs" of his house in the Springs, and showed them
+to Patrick. "Do ye see yerself smokin' a pipe on that porch?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not," the father energetically replied. "I see meself goin' the
+rounds of that garden with a waterin'-pot and a pair of shears."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought ye was a bricklayer, or is it a billiard-marker?" asked Mart,
+with quizzical look.</p>
+
+<p>"I can turn me hand to anny honest work," he replied, with dignity. "An'
+can ye say as much?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot," confessed Mart. "Had ye put a club to me back and foorced me
+to a trade, sure I'd be layin' brick in Troy this day."</p>
+
+<p>This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was
+false, and yet here sat Mart&mdash;a gentleman. While still he puzzled over
+the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart
+turned to Bertha. "Do ye mind the old man's spendin' the rest of his
+days with us, darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're the doctor, Mart. It's your house, not mine."</p>
+
+<p>He felt the change in her. "Oh no, it isn't; it's <i>our</i> house. I never
+would have had it only for you." He paused a moment. "The dad is a
+well-meaning old rascal, and I'll go bail he don't do mischief."</p>
+
+<p>Patrick took this up. "He is so, and he means to kape to his own way of
+life. If I go West, me b'y, 'tis on wages as a gardener&mdash;and, bedad,
+I'll draw 'em reg'ler, too. I'd like well to go West ('twould rejice me
+to see Fan and McArdle), and I don't object to spendin' a year with you
+in Coloraydo, but don't think Patrick Haney is to be pinsioner on anny
+one, not even his son."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's heart vibrated in sympathy with this note of independence, and
+she heartily said: "I hope you will come, Mr. Haney. The Captain is
+alone a good deal, and you'd be a comfort to him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll consider," the old man said. "I must have time to rea-lize it," he
+quaintly added. "I must smoke me pipe in me own garret once more, and
+talk it all over with Kate and the Donahues." He refused to stay to
+dinner with them (which was a relief to Lucius), and went away jaunty as
+a bucko from County Clare.</p>
+
+<p>He was no sooner gone from the room than Bertha turned to her husband,
+and said: "Mart, I want to talk things over with you."</p>
+
+<p>Something in her voice, as well as in the words, made him turn quickly
+and regard her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"What about? What is it, darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have something on my mind, and I've got to spit it out before I can
+rest to-night. I've just about decided to leave you. I don't feel right
+livin' with you."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her steadily, but a gray pallor began to show on his face.
+He asked, quietly: "Do ye mean to go fer good?"</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was beating fast, but she bravely faced him. "Yes, Mart, I
+don't feel right living with you, and spending your money the way I've
+been doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? It isn't mine&mdash;it's yours. Ye airn every cent ye spend."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!" she cried, passionately. "Now that you're getting better
+and Lucius has come, I'm not even a nurse."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll send him away."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; he's worth more than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not listen to such talk, Bertie. Ye well know you're the thing
+most precious to me. I can't live without ye." His voice thickened. "For
+God A'mighty's sake, don't say such things; they make me heart shake! Me
+teeth are chatterin' this minute! Ye're jokin'; say you don't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do. Don't you see that I can't stay and let you do things for me
+like this"&mdash;she indicated their apartment&mdash;"when I do so little to earn
+it all? Mart, I've got to be honest about it. I can't let you spend any
+more money on me. Help your own people, and let me go. I do nothing to
+pay for what you do for me. It's better for me to go."</p>
+
+<p>She could not bring herself to be as explicit as she should have been,
+but he was not far from understanding her real meaning, as he brokenly
+replied: "I've been afraid of this, my girl. I've thought of it all. The
+money I spend fer ye is but a small part of my debt. You say you do
+nothing for me. Why, darlin', every time you come into the room or smile
+at me you do much for me! I'm a selfish old wolf, but I'm not so bad as
+you think I am. If anny nice young felly comes along&mdash;a good square
+man&mdash;I'll get off the track; but I want you to let me stay near you as
+long as I live." His voice was hoarse with pleading. "Ye're all I have
+in the world; all I live for now is to make you happy. Don't pull away
+now, when me old heart has grown all round ye. I can't live and I
+daren't die without ye&mdash;now that's the eternal truth. Darlin', promise
+ye won't go&mdash;yet awhile."</p>
+
+<p>Wordless, as full of pain as he, she sat silently weeping, unable to
+carry out her resolution&mdash;unable to express the change which had come
+into her life.</p>
+
+<p>He went on. "I mark the difference between us. I see ye goin' up while I
+am goin' down. My heart is big with pride in ye. You belong with people
+like the Congdons and the Mosses&mdash;whilst I am only an old broken-down
+skate. I'm worse than you know. I went down to Sibley first with hell in
+me heart towards you, but that soon passed away&mdash;I loved ye as a man
+should love the girl he marries&mdash;and I love ye now as I love the saints.
+I wouldn't mar your young life fer anything in this world&mdash;'tis me wish
+to lave you as beautiful and fresh as I found you, and to give you all I
+have besides&mdash;so stay with me, if you can, till the other man comes."
+Here a new thought intruded. "Has he come now? Tell me if he has. Did ye
+find him in Chicago? Be honest, darlin'."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she answered. "It isn't that. It's just because&mdash;because it
+don't seem right."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ye must stay with me," he said, "and don't worry about not doing
+things for me. You do things for me every minute&mdash;just by being in the
+world. If I can see ye or hear ye I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
+from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
+ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
+left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
+ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"</p>
+
+<p>She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.</p>
+
+<p>His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
+say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no; I like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
+that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
+don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
+out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
+voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
+me&mdash;now&mdash;I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
+name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
+is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
+die&mdash;I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
+Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SERPENT'S COIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
+Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
+ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
+alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
+the libertine demands novelty&mdash;where struggle is essential, and to
+conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
+and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
+won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him&mdash;pleased him. "She is no silly
+kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
+a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
+far, and I will be her guide&mdash;unless I have lost my cunning. She will
+share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."</p>
+
+<p>He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
+smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
+have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
+gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
+place. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own this
+work-shop are out; they'll be in soon."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."</p>
+
+<p>"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases upon
+the walls&mdash;not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay in
+America being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own.
+"I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.
+Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,
+for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,
+wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railway
+fare."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't you
+come with us for a ride?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bring
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. I
+despise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America&mdash;except
+you. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a few
+minutes, and I'm going."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outside
+the hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."</p>
+
+<p>He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of my
+pictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,
+there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think better
+of the West&mdash;of America. I feel that you will find something in my
+pictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, he
+added: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anything
+but the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you&mdash;you are
+so aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. You
+would spur a man to big things."</p>
+
+<p>They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,
+embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by his
+voice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked round
+him. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold and
+depressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den in
+Paris. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiest
+days have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerful
+manner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see his
+paintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your word
+and dine with you&mdash;perhaps this very night."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonder
+at the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.</p>
+
+<p>He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to a
+belief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artist
+feelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost as
+lonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, but
+Haney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair for
+you," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked of
+the West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and his
+essentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish that
+they might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," he
+insisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With your
+beauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, you
+could reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worth
+more to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anything
+in this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show you
+Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbing
+of her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctive
+distrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners and
+cowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back in
+growing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all the
+barriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of the
+eagle&mdash;now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray sea
+to slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willing
+to sit beside her and talk&mdash;he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.</p>
+
+<p>The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and his
+theories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portrait
+in the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.
+Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flattering
+not to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joined
+them in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had known
+Humiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry's
+amusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"</p>
+
+<p>He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the little
+gallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other men
+have been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've gone
+on refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line to
+color, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.
+The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only now
+and then that a man, or a woman <i>feels</i> what I'm after&mdash;and so I live. I
+hold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."</p>
+
+<p>He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what she
+thought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of them
+home he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," he
+sharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yet
+used: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused of
+patronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spite
+of all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderful
+artist?</p>
+
+<p>She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I've
+got a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones on
+which my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit&mdash;they are
+too 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to show
+them to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,
+consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."</p>
+
+<p>His gentle <i>camaraderie</i>, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when he
+took her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did not
+stumble at the crossing she was stirred&mdash;not as Ben's hand had moved
+her, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderful
+that she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in the
+midst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the company
+of one of the chief artists of the world?</p>
+
+<p>Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of the
+city, and explained to her that American dealers had no real
+appreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,
+and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the same
+in Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect of
+these densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."</p>
+
+<p>The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and out
+with friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha into
+the farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.
+No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the other
+paintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall and
+partly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the inner
+temple. Enter."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not well
+lighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.</p>
+
+<p>Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:
+"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to show
+my masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothing
+unusual in the experience.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits of
+excelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent over
+some canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one with
+care. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stood
+a large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back with
+eyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was in
+the new Salon&mdash;here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited in
+this rotten town."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a
+nude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,
+rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and to
+the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught
+her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a
+defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female
+form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And
+then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
+beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
+he placed another canvas before her&mdash;something so unrefined, so animal,
+so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
+looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
+a degenerate demon&mdash;an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
+the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha stared at it&mdash;fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
+It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
+thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
+upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
+look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
+revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
+tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
+burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
+affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
+wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
+herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
+slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
+brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
+the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
+he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
+Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
+ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
+Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
+the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
+in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
+and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
+and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
+sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
+vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?</p>
+
+<p>She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
+head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
+as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
+glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
+for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
+one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
+a letter from Humiston&mdash;a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
+hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
+sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
+a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
+you to see them as I painted them&mdash;in pure artistic delight. You
+misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
+remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."</p>
+
+<p>Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
+beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
+relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
+experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
+shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
+quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
+near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
+before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
+decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
+leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
+little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
+trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben&mdash;these men she knew and respected.
+Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
+dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
+men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
+go home&mdash;to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Bertie, I'm ready&mdash;or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
+father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."</p>
+
+<p>"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
+impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
+me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
+goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
+have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next
+express."</p>
+
+<p>The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the
+Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a
+military camp.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public
+dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her,
+and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she
+had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than
+asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."</p>
+
+<p>"We can put it in," said Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't do without you now," added Mart.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't
+particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in
+command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't
+assumed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a
+plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a
+steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it
+right with you&mdash;and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Mart&mdash;only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to
+do. He's <i>too</i> handy&mdash;if anything."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the
+price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you
+in on the mine."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay
+with me; my wants are few."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many
+times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all
+your life? Tell us your ambition&mdash;maybe we can help you."</p>
+
+<p>He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions
+once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as
+I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know
+exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my
+profession it was different&mdash;I was always being cursed for presumption."</p>
+
+<p>"What was your profession?" asked Haney.</p>
+
+<p>"I studied law&mdash;and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I
+didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got
+a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He
+stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.</p>
+
+<p>Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber
+like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong
+way."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point
+upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as
+you have been doing&mdash;as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything
+about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very
+satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled&mdash;you're adjutant-general
+of the Haneys' forces."</p>
+
+<p>After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told
+us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."</p>
+
+<p>Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do
+anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius,
+won't ye do that?'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's
+services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face
+and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of
+his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the
+trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have
+misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto,
+but in the spirit of the trained nurse.</p>
+
+<p>This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after
+a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western
+town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled
+away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance
+of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious
+Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of
+upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up
+Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights,
+with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and
+sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled
+bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had
+threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the
+mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of
+human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and
+very remote.</p>
+
+<p>Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her
+mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In
+all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he
+frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with
+regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into
+their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me
+down&mdash;I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius
+sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in
+the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten
+fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis
+a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the
+faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"
+Bertha said.</p>
+
+<p>"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."</p>
+
+<p>"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the
+road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis
+not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern
+streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than
+when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of
+our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls,
+and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon
+the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a
+gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come
+back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a
+wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was
+strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely,
+troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to
+catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his
+shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the
+limited express.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world
+like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a
+visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody
+travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the
+matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of
+the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their
+ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man
+of his own level, and they held long confabulations together&mdash;the
+colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in
+which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window,
+dreaming of the past.</p>
+
+<p>As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing
+the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the
+pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was
+as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on
+which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made
+all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through
+which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those
+high places.</p>
+
+<p>Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time&mdash;by
+reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of
+New York&mdash;it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had
+once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She
+liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a
+pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and
+say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he
+even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely
+your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.
+I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly
+luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.</p>
+
+<p>There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the
+culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far
+from anything &aelig;sthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved
+the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was
+about to leave the East for the West&mdash;perhaps to abandon the town for
+the village&mdash;she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto
+been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.
+New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content
+to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.</p>
+
+<p>That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the
+city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes,
+especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the
+East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver
+sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's
+Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and
+glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and
+especially of music and the drama&mdash;all these came back one by one to
+claim a place beside her peaks and ca&ntilde;ons, sharing the glory of the
+purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto
+loved so single-heartedly and so well.</p>
+
+<p>She saw Sibley now for what it was&mdash;a village almost barren of beauty&mdash;a
+good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there
+to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to
+do here&mdash;in the East. I can't stand Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of
+Ben&mdash;but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited
+opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun
+to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul,
+with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with
+her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.
+She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien
+to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting
+her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned
+upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were
+aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and
+wise.</p>
+
+<p>Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night
+at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go
+stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So
+Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be
+over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father
+hurried away in joyous relief.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he
+confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him
+unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like
+palin' a red onion to him&mdash;nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was
+getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him.
+The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had
+not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn
+away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they
+infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new
+barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or
+coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were
+leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard
+unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees&mdash;which no one was
+allowed to climb.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden&mdash;and this was onerous to
+the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again.
+However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations
+among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross
+them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had
+to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast
+to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed
+tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed.
+"We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole
+time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon
+with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."</p>
+
+<p>But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."</p>
+
+<p>Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the
+roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer.
+Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and
+p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it&mdash;snappin'
+and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."</p>
+
+<p>His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said:
+"'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped
+in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle
+having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought
+of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly
+less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour
+necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a
+certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father&mdash;a man
+inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was
+gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and
+took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small
+in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.</p>
+
+<p>There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and
+Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you
+gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you
+fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't
+put it on a charity basis&mdash;just sold the house on long time."</p>
+
+<p>"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucius did not appear to hear.</p>
+
+<p>They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf,
+the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go
+over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not
+yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing.
+"Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up
+before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in
+without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought
+upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe,
+here's Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows,
+but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a
+coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my
+arm&mdash;my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with
+frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared,
+'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and
+the West.'"</p>
+
+<p>Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our
+machine."</p>
+
+<p>"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming
+due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop
+and let art wag."</p>
+
+<p>Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did&mdash;that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now;
+I'll work to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night is the Hall's circus party."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool,
+clear air."</p>
+
+<p>Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he
+reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
+and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
+fishing or swimming.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained&mdash;"took a
+contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
+to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
+money&mdash;now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
+can't breathe country air&mdash;had to work all day Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
+children's summer suits."</p>
+
+<p>"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
+when I was a child&mdash;and that was a buff."</p>
+
+<p>All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
+how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
+'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
+"I'll secure one this week."</p>
+
+<p>Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
+hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
+school-children&mdash;even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
+turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
+pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
+powers of money&mdash;it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
+wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
+could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.</p>
+
+<p>Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
+Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
+deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
+crystalline.</p>
+
+<p>On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
+green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
+water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
+of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
+far away.</p>
+
+<p>Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
+a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
+boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
+type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
+look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."</p>
+
+<p>His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination&mdash;not because she cared to see
+Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his
+concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful
+was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about
+the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the
+city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him,
+angered him.</p>
+
+<p>She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till
+their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's
+private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his
+fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl
+who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure,
+he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time
+I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she
+is to fulfil her place in the world&mdash;and be happy."</p>
+
+<p>She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go
+further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or
+sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art
+that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative&mdash;home
+decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need
+of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know
+several highly successful women decorators&mdash;but I wouldn't advise that
+work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative
+sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it
+over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show
+at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I
+missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."</p>
+
+<p>Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly
+romantic to us&mdash;the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you
+have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a
+visit."</p>
+
+<p>Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of
+pleading; then she answered: "Yes&mdash;but then, you see, it isn't really
+mine&mdash;it's the Captain's."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours by marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what people say&mdash;but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no
+right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
+moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
+Frank Congdon&mdash;he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
+with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
+is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
+gambler."</p>
+
+<p>She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
+saloon&mdash;when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
+promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
+and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
+didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
+comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
+the saloon money&mdash;and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
+I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
+straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
+though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
+way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
+account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
+in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."</p>
+
+<p>She ignored the implied compliment and went on:</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
+man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
+and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
+know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he complain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits&mdash;but I'm
+afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
+game."</p>
+
+<p>In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
+trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
+it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
+you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
+handsome figure before his&mdash;accident."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
+his trade&mdash;and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
+of the whole business&mdash;for me&mdash;I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
+big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
+sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I
+married him for his money&mdash;I liked him then, and, besides&mdash;well, I
+<i>thought</i> I was doing the right thing&mdash;but now&mdash;well, I'm guessing." She
+ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her
+secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to
+her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her
+there.</p>
+
+<p>With sincere sympathy, he said: "We all do wrong at times that good may
+come out of it. You could not foresee the future&mdash;the best of us can
+<i>only guess</i> at the effect of any action. You did the best you knew at
+the moment. The question you have to face now has only slight relation
+to the past. No one can enter wholly into another's perplexity&mdash;I'm not
+even sure of a single one of my inferences&mdash;but if you are thinking
+of&mdash;separation, I would say, meet this crisis as bravely as you met the
+other. But I don't believe we should decide any such question selfishly.
+I am not of those who always seek the side on which lies personal
+happiness, because a happiness that is essentially selfish won't last.
+The Captain lives only for you&mdash;any one can see that. What he does for
+you springs from deep affection. What would happen to him&mdash;if you left
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment and watched her subduing her tears; then added: "I
+won't say I was unprepared for what you've said, for the entire
+relationship, from our first meeting, seemed too abnormal to be
+altogether happy. Money will buy a great many desirable things, but it
+has its limits. At the same time, it is too much to expect of you&mdash;If
+your feeling for him has changed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His delicacy, his sympathy for her, was made apparent by the unusual
+hesitation of his speech, and she would have broken down completely had
+not Julia Moss called out: "Joe, turn on the lights&mdash;it's getting dark."</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of Bertha's emotion, he did not immediately do as he was
+bidden. "I wish you'd talk this over with Julia," he ended gently;
+"she's a very wise little woman."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha shook her head. "I didn't intend to talk it over with you. I
+don't know what possessed me. I had no business to say what I did."</p>
+
+<p>He reassured her. "All you've told me and the part I've guessed is quite
+safe. I will not even permit Julia to share your confidence till you are
+willing to speak to her yourself."</p>
+
+<p>As he slowly lighted the studio Bertha was surprised and a little
+troubled to find that two or three other visitors had slipped in through
+the dusk, and were grouped about the tea-table, and that the Captain was
+again the centre of an eager-eyed group. "They treat him as if he were
+an Eskimo," she thought bitterly, and rose to join the circle and
+protect him from their inquisition.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was feeling extremely well, and talked with so much of his old
+time vigor and slash of epithet that his little audience was quite
+entranced. He enlarged upon the experiences of a year he had spent in
+Alaska. "Mining up there in them days made gambling slow business," he
+said. (He had told Bertha that he had made an attempt to get out of "the
+trade," but she was content to have him put it on less self-righteous
+grounds.) He contrived to make his hearers feel very keenly the
+pitiless, long-drawn ferocity of that sunless winter. He made it plain
+why men in that far land came together in vile dens to drink and gamble,
+and Moss glowed with the wonder and delight of those great boys who
+could rush away to the arctic edge of the world and die with laughing
+curses on their lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you all do it for?" he asked, bluntly. "For money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Partly&mdash;but more for the love of doing something hard. No man but a
+miser punishes himself for love of gold&mdash;it's for love of what the stuff
+will buy, that men fight the snows."</p>
+
+<p>While Haney talked of these things Bertha's eyes were musingly turned on
+the face of the sculptor, and her mind was far from the scenes which
+Mart so vividly described. This side of his life no longer amused
+her&mdash;on the contrary she shrank from any disclosure of his savage
+career. She was now as unjust in her criticism as she had been fond in
+her admiration, and when with darkening brow she cut short his garrulous
+flow of narrative Julia perceived her displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>Haney apologized, handsomely. "It's natural for the ould bedraggled
+eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he
+used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's
+weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now,
+as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I
+want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind o' wish
+to live 'em all over again. Bertie knows me weakness. I would talk
+forever did she lave me go on; but 'tis no blame to her&mdash;it was a cruel,
+bad, careless life."</p>
+
+<p>"When I come West," said Moss, sincerely, "we'll go camping together,
+and every night by the fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
+your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
+going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
+the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
+briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
+right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
+above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
+examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
+because I know him&mdash;I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
+Springs."</p>
+
+<p>"What'll I do if he's worse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him back here or go to sea level&mdash;only beware of high passes."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
+experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
+parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
+in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
+half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
+plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
+with his epoch-making wars.</p>
+
+<p>As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
+the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
+than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
+thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness&mdash;the strife
+was individual, the problems personal&mdash;and at last, weary of question,
+of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
+Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
+There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
+freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
+she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.</p>
+
+<p>She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
+secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
+intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
+out with lavish hand.</p>
+
+<p>Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
+too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
+dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy gang, to the
+theatre&mdash;Patrick Haney as much of a boy as his grandsons, McArdle alone
+being unhappy as well as uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>She went about the shops, buying with reckless hand treasures for the
+house in the Springs, and this gave her husband more satisfaction than
+any other extravagance, for each article seemed a gage of the permanency
+of his home. In support of her mood he urged her to even larger
+expenditures. "Buy, buy like a queen," he often commanded, as she mused
+upon some choice. "Take the best!"</p>
+
+<p>There was instruction as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring
+with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her
+r&ocirc;le as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses,
+her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To
+them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways
+as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well
+as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She
+was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured
+Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with
+almost equal gusto&mdash;and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the
+outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate women in the world.</p>
+
+<p>And yet every day made her less tolerant of the crippled old man at her
+side. She did not pout or sulk or answer him shortly, but she often
+forgot him&mdash;failed to answer him&mdash;not out of petulance or disgust, but
+because her mind was busy with other people. Gradually, without
+realizing it, she got into the habit of leaving him to amuse himself, as
+he best could, for she knew he did not specially care for the pursuits
+which gave her the keenest joy. In consequence of this unintentional
+neglect he very naturally fell more and more into the hands of the
+bar-room spongers who loitered about the hotel corridors. He dreaded
+loneliness, and it was to keep his companions about him that he became a
+spendthrift in liquors. Sternly and deliberately temperate during his
+long career as a gambler, he fell at last into drinking to excess, and
+on one unhappy afternoon returned to Bertha quite plainly drunk.</p>
+
+<p>She was both startled and disgusted by this sign of weakness, and he was
+not so blinded by the mist of his potations but that he perceived the
+shrinking reluctance of her touch as she aided Lucius in lifting him
+into the bed. His inert, lumpish form was at the moment hideously
+repulsive to her, and physical contact with him a dreaded thing. What
+was left if he lost that self-control which had made him admirable? She
+had always been able to qualify his other shortcomings by saying, "Well,
+anyhow, he don't drink." She could boast of this no longer.</p>
+
+<p>It was a most miserable night for her. At dinner she was forced to lie
+about him (for the first time), and she did it so badly that Joe Moss
+divined her trouble and came generously to her aid with a long and
+amusing story about Whistler.</p>
+
+<p>The play to which she took her guests did not help her to laughter, for
+it set forth with diabolic skill the life of a woman who loathed her
+husband, dreaded maternity, and hated herself&mdash;a baffling, marvellously
+intricate and searching play&mdash;meat for well people, not for those
+mentally ill at ease or morally unstable. Of a truth, Bertha saw but
+half of it and comprehended less, for she could not forget the leaden
+hands and flushed face of the man she called husband&mdash;and whom she had
+left in his bed to sleep away his hours of intoxication. She pitied him
+now&mdash;but in a new fashion. Her compassion was mixed with contempt, and
+that showed more clearly than any other feeling could the depth to which
+Marshall Haney had sunk.</p>
+
+<p>When she came home at midnight she listened at his door, but did not
+enter, for Lucius&mdash;skilled in all such matters&mdash;reported the Captain to
+be "all right."</p>
+
+<p>She went to her own room in a more darkly tragic mood than she had ever
+known before. Her punishment, her time for trouble, had begun. "I reckon
+I'm due to pay for my fun," she said to herself, "but not in the way
+I've been figuring on." Haney seemed at the moment a complete physical
+ruin, and the change which his helplessness wrought in her was most
+radical.</p>
+
+<p>His deeply penitent mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as
+much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have
+preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast,"
+he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand
+and me tongue twisted&mdash;and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having
+nothing to do but trade lies with a lot of flat-bottomed loafers in a
+gaudy bar-room. But don't worry, darlin', right here old Mart pulls up.
+You'll not see anny more of this. Forget it, dear-heart&mdash;won't you now?"</p>
+
+<p>She promised, of course, but the chasm between them was widened, and a
+fear of his again yielding to temptation cut short her stay in the city,
+for Lucius warningly explained: "The Captain is settling into a corner
+of the bar-room with a gang of sponging blackguards around him, and
+every day makes it less easy for him to break away. I'd advise going
+home," he ended, quietly. "The Springs is a safer place for him now."</p>
+
+<p>The hyenas were beginning to prowl around the disabled lion, and this
+the faithful servant knew even better than the wife.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, home we go," she replied, and the thought of "home" was both
+sweet and perilous.</p>
+
+<p>Haney met her decision with pathetic, instant joy. "I'm ready, I was
+only waitin'," he said. "After all, your own shack is better than a
+pearl palace in anny town, and it's gettin' hot besides."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha parted from the Mosses with keen sorrow. Joe had come to be like
+an elder brother to her&mdash;a brother and a teacher, and, next to Ben
+Fordyce, was more often in her thought than any other human being. She
+had lost part of her awe of him, but her affection had deepened as she
+came to understand the essential manliness and simplicity of his
+character. He redeemed the artist-world from the shame men like Humiston
+had put upon it.</p>
+
+<p>As she entered for the last time the studio in which she had spent so
+many happy hours and from whose atmosphere of work and high endeavor she
+had derived so much mental and moral development she was sad, and this
+sadness lent a beauty to her face that it had never before attained. She
+looked older, too; and contrasting her with the girl who had first
+looked in at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a
+year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to
+know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns,
+but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the
+expression of security and power.</p>
+
+<p>He greeted her as usual with a frank nod and (his hands being free from
+clay) advanced to shake hands. "Don't tell me you've come to say
+good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what," she curtly said. "It's up to me to take the Captain home.
+He's getting into bad habits lying around this hotel."</p>
+
+<p>His face clouded. "I've been afraid of that," he answered, gently. "Yes,
+you'd better go home. It's harder for a man to have a good, easy time
+than it is for a woman. But sit down, Julia will be in soon; you mustn't
+go without seeing her."</p>
+
+<p>After some further talk on trains and other common-places she became
+abruptly personal. "I've been having a whole lot of fun buying things
+and planting dollars, but I'm beginning to see an end to that kind of
+business. After you've got your house filled up with furniture and
+jimcracks, what you going to do then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burn 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"And begin all over again? You can't buy out the town. It's a real
+circus for a while, but I can see there's a limit to it. Once you find
+out you can just go down here to one of these jewelry-stores and order
+anything you want&mdash;you don't want anything. Here I am with a lot of
+money that ain't mine, having a gay whirl spending it, but I can see my
+finish right now. To go on in this line would take all the fun out of
+life. What am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Moss took a seat and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. I used
+to think if I had money I'd start out and 'do good to people,' but I'm
+not at all sure that charity isn't all a damned impertinence. A couple
+of years ago I would have said go in for 'Neighborhood Settlements,'
+free libraries, 'Noonday Rests,' 'Open-air Funds,' and all the rest of
+it, but now I ask, 'Why?' We've had our wave of altruism, and I'm
+inclined to think a wave of selfishness would do us all good&mdash;but you're
+too young to be bothered with these problems. Go home and be happy while
+you can. Enjoy your gold while it glitters. Work is my only fun&mdash;real,
+enduring fun&mdash;and I'm not a bit sure <i>that</i> will last. Whatever you do,
+be yourself. Don't try to be what you think I or some one else would
+like to have you. I like you because you are so straight-forwardly
+yourself; I shall be heart-broken if you take on the disease of the age
+and begin to prate of your duty."</p>
+
+<p>She listened to him with only partial comprehension of his meaning, but
+she answered: "I was brought up to think duty was the whole works."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and your teacher meant duty to God, duty to others. Well, there's
+duty to one's self. The war of money and duty is the biggest mix of our
+day. It's simpler to be poor; then all you've got to worry about is
+bread and shoes and shingles."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it. Sometimes I wish I was back in the Golden Eagle, where
+I&mdash;" she ended in mid-sentence.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "You sound like a middle-aged financier who mourns (tattooed
+with dollar-marks) for the days when he used to husk corn at seventy
+cents a day." She saw the humor of this, but was aware that without a
+knowledge of Ben Fordyce Joe could not understand her problem, therefore
+she abandoned her search for light and leading. "Well, anyhow, right
+here I quit what you fellows call civilization. I hate to lose you and
+Julia and the rest of the folks, but it's me to the high hills. You'll
+never know how much you've helped me."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you'll never know how thoroughly we've <i>done</i> you. An
+evil-minded person would say we'd worked you for dinners and drives most
+shameful. However, if you have enjoyed our company as thoroughly as
+we've delighted in your champagne and birds, we'll cry quits. All my
+theories of art and life I advance <i>gratis</i>. I ought to do something
+handsome for you&mdash;you've listened so divinely."</p>
+
+<p>Underneath his banter Moss was sincerely moved. It was hard to say
+good-bye to this curious, earnest, seeking mind, this unspoiled child in
+whose face the world was being reflected as in a magical mirror. He
+loved her with frank affection&mdash;a pure passion that was more intimate
+than fraternal love and more exalted, in a sense, than the selfish,
+devouring passion of the suitor. It would have been difficult for him to
+say what his relationship to her at the moment was. It was more than
+friendship, more than brotherly care, and yet it was definably less than
+that of the lover.</p>
+
+<p>Julia came in and was quite as outspoken in her regret, and both refused
+to say good-bye at the moment. "We'll see you at the station," they
+said, and Bertha went away, feeling the pain of parting less keen by
+reason of this promise.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, as the hour for departure came near, she hoped they would
+not come. It was less difficult to say "I'll see you again" than to
+utter the curt "good-bye" which means so much in Anglo-Saxon life.</p>
+
+<p>They came, however, together with several others of her friends, but in
+the bustle and confusion of the depot not much of sentiment could be
+uttered, and, though she felt that she was going for a long stay, she
+was prodigal of promises to return soon.</p>
+
+<p>Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the
+jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in
+the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy
+which the situation needed. "Av ye don't mind I'll stay wid Fan," he
+said, a little more seriously, to Haney, who replied:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, 'tis as Fan says," and so they entered the train for the
+upward climb.</p>
+
+<p>Haney himself had only joy of the return. He sat at one of the windows
+of the library car and studied the prairie swells with a faint, musing
+smile, till the darkness fell, and was up early next morning, eager and
+curious, to see how the increasing altitude would affect him. Only
+towards the end of the second day after eating his dinner did he begin
+to feel oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I smell the altitude," he confessed&mdash;"me breath is shortenin' a bit,
+but 'tis good to see the peaks again."</p>
+
+<p>In this long ride the girl-wife dwelt dangerously on the bright face of
+Ben Fordyce. It was the thought of seeing him again that came at last to
+steal away her regret at parting from her Eastern friends. The splendor
+of the Eastern world faded at last, and she, too, soared gladly towards
+the mountains. Every doubt was swallowed up in a pleasure which was at
+once pure and beyond her control.</p>
+
+<p>Ben would be at the station, she was certain, for Lucius had wired to
+him the time of their arrival, and he had instantly replied. "I'll be
+there, and very glad to see you"&mdash;these words, few and simple, were
+addressed to Marshall Haney, but they thrilled her almost as if Ben had
+spoken them to her. Was he as glad to have her return as she was to meet
+him again?</p>
+
+<p>"A fine lad," remarked Haney, as he pocketed the envelope. "I wonder
+does he marry soon? He'd better decide now. I reckon Alice is not long
+for this climate&mdash;poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>His remark, so simple in itself, pierced to the centre of Bertha's
+momentary self-deception. "I have no right to think of him. He belongs
+to Alice Heath!" But the feeling that she herself belonged to Marshall
+Haney was gone. That she owed him service was true, but since the night
+of his drunkenness she had definitely and finally abandoned all thought
+of being his wife, soul to soul, in the rite that sanctifies law. True,
+he had kept his word, he had not offended again, but the mischief was
+done. To return to the plane on which they had stood when she gave her
+promise was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The day and the hour were such as make the plain lover content with his
+world. The earth, a mighty robe of closely woven velvet, mottled softly
+in variant greens, swept away to the west, under a soaring convexity of
+saffron sky, towards a cloudy altar whereon small wisps of vapor were
+burning down to golden embers, while beneath lay the dark-blue Rampart
+range. It was a world for horsemen, for free rovers, and for swift and
+tireless desert-kine. The course of winds, it lay, a play-ground for
+tempests that formed along the great divide and swept down over the
+antlike homes of men, acknowledging no barrier, exultant of their
+strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
+hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
+treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
+loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
+welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
+tide of longing in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
+the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
+seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
+sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
+from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "<i>There he is!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
+kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
+for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.</p>
+
+<p>Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
+ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
+looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
+his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
+forgot all their doubts and scruples&mdash;overpowered by the sense of each
+other's nearness.</p>
+
+<p>She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
+with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
+bringing slowly down the step.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
+contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
+"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
+black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
+spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
+over-peering peaks.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.</p>
+
+<p>"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
+'mobile we've heard so much about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Coming by fast freight."</p>
+
+<p>"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
+come as excess baggage."</p>
+
+<p>It was cool, delicious green dusk&mdash;not dark&mdash;with a small sickle of moon
+in the west, and as they drove up the broad avenue towards home the
+town, the universe, was strangely sweet and satisfying. It seemed as
+though she had been gone an age&mdash;so much had come to her&mdash;so thick was
+the crowd of new experiences standing between her going and her
+return&mdash;so swiftly had her mind expanded in these months of vivid city
+life. "I'll never go away again," she said to Ben. "This country suits
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered, softly. In the most
+natural way he had put Congdon with Haney in the rear seat and had taken
+the place beside Bertha, and this nearness filled her with pleasure and
+an unwonted confusion. How big he was! and how splendid his clear,
+youthful profile seemed as it gleamed silver-white in the light of the
+big street-lamps. Never had his magnetic young body acted upon her so
+powerfully, so dangerously. His firm arm touching her own was at once a
+delight and a dread. She was all woman at last, awake, palpitant with
+love's full-flooding tide&mdash;bewildered, dizzy with rapture. Speech was
+difficult and her thought had neither sequence nor design.</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was under restraint also, and the burden of the talk fell upon
+Congdon, who proceeded in his amusingly hit-or-miss way to detail the
+important or humorous happenings, of the town, and so they rolled along
+up the wide avenue to the big stone steps before the looming, lamp-lit
+palace which they called home.</p>
+
+<p>Ben sprang out first, glad of another opportunity to take Bertha's hand,
+a clasp that put the throbbing pain back in her bosom&mdash;filling her with
+a kind of fear of him as well as of herself&mdash;and without waiting for the
+Captain she ran up the walk towards the wide doorway where Miss Franklin
+stood in smiling welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Her greeting over, the young wife danced about the hall, crying: "Oh,
+isn't it big and fine! And aren't you glad it's our own!" She appeared
+overborne by a returning sense of security and ownership, and ran from
+room to room with all the ecstasy and abandon of a child&mdash;but she
+stopped suddenly in the middle of her own chamber as if a remorseless
+hand were clutching at her heart. "But it is <i>not</i> mine!&mdash;I must give it
+all up!"</p>
+
+<p>Thrusting this intruding thought away, she hurried back to the library,
+where the men were seated at ease, sipping some iced liquor in gross
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Haney was beaming. "It makes me over new to sniff this air again," he
+was saying. "'Tis a bad plan to let go your hold on mountain air. Me
+lungs have contracted a trifle, but they'll expand again. I'll be riding
+a horse in a month."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was sympathetic, but had eyes only for Bertha, whose improvement (in
+mind as in bearing) astonished and delighted him. Her trip, coming just
+at the period when her observation was keenest and her memory most
+tenacious, had subtly, swiftly ripened her. Wrought upon by a thousand
+pictures, moved by strange words and faces, unconsciously changing to
+the color of each new conception, deriving sweetness and charm from
+every chance-heard strain of music and poetry, she had opened like a
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>The middle-aged are prone to go about the world carrying their habits,
+their prejudices, and their ailments with them to return as they went
+forth; but youth like Bertha's adventures out into the world eager to be
+built upon, ready to be transformed from child to adult, as it would
+seem, in a day.</p>
+
+<p>"She has achieved new distinction!" Ben exulted as he watched her moving
+about the room, so supple, so powerful, and so graceful, but, though he
+was careful not to utter one word of praise, he could not keep the glow
+of admiration from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later as he said good-night and went away with Congdon, his
+heart burned with secret, rebellious fire. "Was it not hateful that this
+glorious girl should be doomed to live out the sweetest, most alluring
+of her years with a gross and crippled old man?" To leave her under the
+same roof with Mart Haney seemed like exposing her to profanation and
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>They were hardly out of the gate before Congdon broke forth in open
+praise of her. "When Mart dies, what a witching morsel for some man!"</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce did not answer on the instant, and when he did his voice was
+constrained. "You don't think he's in immediate danger of it&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite the contrary. He looks to be on the upgrade; but it's a safe bet
+she outlives him, and then think of her with a hundred thousand dollars
+a year to spend! Talk about honey-pots!&mdash;and flies!" After a moment's
+silence he added, musingly: "Funny how one's ideas change. A year ago I
+thought she was deeply indebted to him; now I feel that with all his
+money he can't possibly repay her for what she's giving up on his
+account. And yet his chink has made her what she is. Money is a weird
+power when applied to a woman. Tiled bath-rooms, silk stockings and
+bonnets work wonders with the sex. She's improved mightily on this
+trip."</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Congdon, Ben went to his apartment and telephoned Alice to
+say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
+own roof in good repair.</p>
+
+<p>"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
+the invalid gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
+They both seem very glad to get home."</p>
+
+<p>"He's made a mistake. He can't live here&mdash;I am perfectly sure of it. How
+is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&mdash;and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
+with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
+particularly."</p>
+
+<p>Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
+and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
+at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
+monstrous, incredible.</p>
+
+<p>He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
+whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
+It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm&mdash;she called to
+him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
+predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
+but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
+flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
+mysterious potency and romance of the West&mdash;typifying its amazing
+resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
+roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
+direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
+into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
+phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
+capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
+those which a shallow personality would make&mdash;they sprang rather from
+the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
+of the highest culture," he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
+knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
+seeking ways to possess her of his love&mdash;on the contrary, he was
+resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
+respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
+the beginning&mdash;why should I not?&mdash;enjoying her companionship as any
+honest man may do."</p>
+
+<p>The question of his relation to Alice was not so easily settled. She had
+come to irritate him now. Her changeable, swift-witted, moody,
+hysterical invalidism had begun to wear upon him intolerably. Everything
+she did was wrong. It was brutal even to admit this, but he could no
+longer conceal it either from himself or from her. It was deeply, sadly
+painful to recall the promise, the complete confidence and happiness
+with which they had both started towards the West. How sure of her
+recovery they had been, how gay and confident of purpose! Now she not
+only refused to listen to his demand for an early marriage, but hampered
+and annoyed him in a hundred ways. As he walked the silent night he was
+forced to acknowledge that she had been right in delaying their union.
+And yet how dependent upon him she was. Her life was so tragically
+inwound with his that to think of shaking away her hand seemed the act
+of a sordid egoist.</p>
+
+<p>"And even were I free, nothing is solved."</p>
+
+<p>The situation took on the insoluble and the tragic. In the fashion of
+well-bred, soundly nurtured American youth he had thought of such
+complications only as subjects for novelists. "There must be
+concealment, but not duplicity, in my attitude," he decided. He longed
+for the constant light of Bertha's face, the frequent touch of her hand.
+Her laughter was so endlessly charming, her step so firm, so light, so
+graceful. The grace of her bosom&mdash;the sweeping line of her side&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped there. In that direction lay danger. "She trusts me, and I
+will repay her trust. She has chosen me to be her adviser, putting her
+wealth in my hands!&mdash;Well, why not? We will see whether an honorable man
+cannot carry forward even so difficult a relationship as this. I will
+visit her every day, I will enjoy her hospitality as freely as Congdon,
+and I will fulfil my promise to Alice&mdash;if she asks it of me."</p>
+
+<p>But deep under the sombre resolution lay an unuttered belief in his
+future, in his happiness&mdash;for this is the prerogative of youth. The dim
+mountains, the sinking crescent moon, and the silence of the plain all
+seemed somehow to prophesy both happiness and peace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>BERTHA'S DECISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
+in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
+the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
+luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
+new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
+admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
+select.</p>
+
+<p>It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
+intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
+speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
+that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
+unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
+and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
+every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
+the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
+with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
+but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
+Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
+tired."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
+you're not to keep this up."</p>
+
+<p>Haney put in a quiet word. "She will <i>not</i>. Sure, she cannot. There'll
+be nothin' left for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
+had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
+and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
+powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."</p>
+
+<p>At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
+business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
+tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
+mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
+wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
+the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
+honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
+recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
+against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
+was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
+anything evil of her&mdash;why should she be condemned?</p>
+
+<p>In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
+herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
+as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
+bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
+like to leave him alone. Come and see us."</p>
+
+<p>She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
+of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
+coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
+respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
+garden awaiting dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
+clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
+smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
+went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked&mdash;enough to
+buy out a full-sized hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
+and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
+salient experiences&mdash;excepting, of course, her grapple with the
+degenerate artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"</p>
+
+<p>She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
+we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
+of Utes if it hadn't been for him. <i>When in doubt ask Lucius</i>, was our
+motto."</p>
+
+<p>She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
+trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
+hard to run somebody else's life&mdash;I've found that out."</p>
+
+<p>And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
+like a hen with a red rag on her tail&mdash;divided in his mind like. As for
+Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."</p>
+
+<p>They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
+give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
+necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
+meeting they spoke of Alice&mdash;that is to say, Haney with invariable
+politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
+"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
+seems more and more despondent."</p>
+
+<p>This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
+and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
+woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
+with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
+dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
+a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
+herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
+a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
+smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
+out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
+appeared to be improving.</p>
+
+<p>This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
+joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
+attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
+He said nothing directly&mdash;at first&mdash;but she was able to interpret all
+too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
+Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
+ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
+clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
+and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
+and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
+the move like a flibberty-bidget."</p>
+
+<p>She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
+anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.</p>
+
+<p>He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
+of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
+y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."</p>
+
+<p>She went to her room, with his voice&mdash;so humbly penitent and
+resigned&mdash;lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
+which his amorous mood had laid upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
+of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
+they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
+evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
+talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
+deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
+always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
+ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
+delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
+recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
+embarrass her.</p>
+
+<p>And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
+were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
+definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
+and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
+choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
+thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
+much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
+defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
+her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
+To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
+entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out&mdash;"I can't, I
+can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
+under indictment as an adventuress.</p>
+
+<p>She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
+who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
+one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
+hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
+anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
+as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
+would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed&mdash;but that,
+too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
+moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
+profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
+to make her schooling possible?</p>
+
+<p>Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
+delight grew along each path&mdash;thickly interwoven&mdash;and decision became
+each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
+having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
+mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
+insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
+girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
+troubled woman.</p>
+
+<p>She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
+relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
+other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
+definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
+positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
+in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
+acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
+strong and graceful body.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go away&mdash;for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
+think it over."</p>
+
+<p>And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
+indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
+this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
+required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
+dulness to which she must return?</p>
+
+<p>Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
+dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
+bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
+came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>She replied: "To the ranch&mdash;to think things over."</p>
+
+<p>The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
+when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."</p>
+
+<p>She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
+return.</p>
+
+<p>No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
+very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
+and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
+to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
+said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
+flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
+man enter her hotel door&mdash;but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
+thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"What thing?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my notion&mdash;I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
+needs you&mdash;we all need you. It'll kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
+brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I've no right to Mart's money."</p>
+
+<p>"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
+catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
+don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."</p>
+
+<p>"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
+converted him&mdash;as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
+something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
+<i>see</i> you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
+run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
+he gets happy all the way through&mdash;I know, for I feel just the same."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
+dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
+ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
+whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
+act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
+stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
+used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
+Golden Eagle Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
+hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
+This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
+"He's gone back to his old business."</p>
+
+<p>The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
+money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
+saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
+I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
+I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
+splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
+she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
+eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
+half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
+the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
+cried at the same time&mdash;it was painful to see them thus abused.</p>
+
+<p>Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
+which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
+look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
+and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
+she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
+confronted her.</p>
+
+<p>Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
+began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
+gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.</p>
+
+<p>He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
+his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
+wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
+your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
+you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
+must be yours."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead!" he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
+and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
+eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
+prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
+she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
+her open window.</p>
+
+<p>She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
+till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
+night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
+irrevocably made.</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered again&mdash;not in grief, but in terror&mdash;as she relived the
+vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
+the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
+there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
+help me." And yet to return to Chicago&mdash;after having played the grand
+lady&mdash;would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
+cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
+and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
+should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
+city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.</p>
+
+<p>In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
+returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
+herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
+determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
+the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
+also&mdash;and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
+of Ben's growing indifference&mdash;all these perplexities made the coming of
+sunlight a mockery.</p>
+
+<p>She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
+saddened. One thing was plain&mdash;Ben should come no more to visit her&mdash;for
+Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
+In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>ALICE VISITS HANEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"
+to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness
+when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too
+well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her
+doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose
+to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,
+generously, the claims of youth and health&mdash;admitting that she and
+Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire
+for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force
+which binds the generations together.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she
+asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a
+spiteful, hopeless invalid&mdash;I hate myself, I despise my body and
+everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat
+chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world&mdash;tired
+of everything&mdash;and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"</p>
+
+<p>These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to
+permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood
+of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover
+whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him
+when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no
+other solace, the day no other aim.</p>
+
+<p>In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew that
+her morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away her
+vital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweet
+sleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain.
+"I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higher
+self.</p>
+
+<p>She did not question Ben's honor&mdash;he was of those who keep faith. "He
+has no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,
+and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him to
+bind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of a
+wife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." She
+revolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart was
+elsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit of
+his wife's arms&mdash;and yet she could not give him up.</p>
+
+<p>As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burned
+with even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such perilous
+sublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitant
+should do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, and
+on the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in some
+supersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last her
+nobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech with
+Haney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the young
+lovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over all
+barriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generous
+enough of soul to wish to prevent.</p>
+
+<p>Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morning
+paper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." She
+lay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was to
+dress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical with
+her mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,
+hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching the
+gardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,
+inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to you
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen&mdash;'tis not
+for me to boss the gardener."</p>
+
+<p>She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin
+her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,
+irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,
+miss?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath&mdash;I walked too fast, I
+think."</p>
+
+<p>"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my trouble is all in my mind&mdash;I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,
+with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a
+nice long talk about symptoms&mdash;it's so comforting. How are <i>you</i> feeling
+these days?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse
+luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree
+that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
+Bertha's moody silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
+sea-level?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
+age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
+of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
+should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people&mdash;shutting
+them off from happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
+mane&mdash;what?&mdash;who?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean Bertha."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
+just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
+they are."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her&mdash;and yet I think
+I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
+your hand on a sore spot&mdash;ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
+the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true, too&mdash;but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
+happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
+don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
+conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
+intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
+gone as far as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
+already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
+the gossips are even now busy with her name."</p>
+
+<p>He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
+man?&mdash;tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.</p>
+
+<p>She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
+She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
+time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
+reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
+picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
+must not happen! We must make way for them&mdash;you and I. We cumber the
+path."</p>
+
+<p>He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging
+eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
+watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
+something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
+even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
+him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
+arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
+gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.</p>
+
+<p>"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
+them&mdash;observe that. We are the ones to blame&mdash;we who are crippled and in
+the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
+spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
+our own miserable selves?"</p>
+
+<p>He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
+stammered, huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"But they <i>won't</i> wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
+Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
+you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
+and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
+plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
+other from the very first night they met&mdash;I felt it that day we first
+rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
+his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
+respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
+hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
+He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
+her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
+earth for me! What do <i>you</i> expect to gain by holding to a wife's
+garment when she&mdash;the woman&mdash;is gone?"</p>
+
+<p>The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
+without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
+been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
+purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
+him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
+to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
+wife&mdash;but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
+he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
+only as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,
+but now every hope died within him.</p>
+
+<p>Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard
+task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but
+the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it
+away. I knew she liked the lad&mdash;I had no doubt the lad liked her&mdash;but I
+did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet&mdash;but I will
+not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an
+old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the
+ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her
+from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where
+she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've
+brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It
+rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these
+things&mdash;me money&mdash;would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've
+been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always
+lived&mdash;till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that
+could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss&mdash;I know she has that in her
+soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and
+a well man I could folly her&mdash;but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk
+with her this night&mdash;" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with
+piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw
+looming before her. "No&mdash;I lacked the courage."</p>
+
+<p>A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you
+have said to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with
+them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick
+woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,
+and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.
+Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl&mdash;but ye have in Ben, for I
+know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't misunderstand me&mdash;it is to keep them both what they are,
+good and true, that I come to you&mdash;we must not tempt them to evil."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may
+be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I
+could see they admired her&mdash;but she turned them down easily. She's no
+weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account&mdash;the more shame to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her
+heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and
+gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence&mdash;the
+lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the
+desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in the
+parchment setting of her skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that love
+had never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been my
+life, my only interest&mdash;and now&mdash;as he begins to forget&mdash;Oh, I can't
+bear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, burying
+her face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in the
+tempest of it.</p>
+
+<p>Haney turned and looked at her in silence&mdash;profoundly stirred to pity by
+her sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spoke
+his voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tis
+well ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must go
+from this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort that
+I have not&mdash;'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as I
+have done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,
+good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against me
+without care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I take
+the rain and the sun."</p>
+
+<p>Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely over
+her face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is a
+long time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'so
+long' and better luck."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, miss&mdash;I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."</p>
+
+<p>As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, his
+brow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strength
+and love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see him
+at once, and he responded without delay.</p>
+
+<p>He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney had
+profoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lamp
+whose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled with
+instant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, and
+without waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as a
+pensioner in this house. You should be in your own home&mdash;our home&mdash;where
+I could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this private
+hospital&mdash;that's what it is."</p>
+
+<p>She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in a
+few days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to further
+delay.</p>
+
+<p>"Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."</p>
+
+<p>She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,
+but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, she
+answered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girl
+just yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a bad
+atmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn't
+be kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you get
+settled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or two
+more of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and a
+tremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forth
+with sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marry
+some nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself and
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaim
+against her going on.</p>
+
+<p>She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You know
+perfectly well I'm never going to get better&mdash;I do, if you don't. I may
+linger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but a
+querulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me&mdash;I
+won't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go on
+alone&mdash;even for a little way."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting his
+arm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,
+reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,
+dearest&mdash;you must not! You're not yourself to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, I
+mean all I say&mdash;you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusions
+now. I'll never be well again&mdash;and you must know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You're
+really much better than you were last week."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change of
+climate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been a
+mistake. Let me go back to Chester&mdash;I'm afraid to die out here. I can't
+bear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonely
+and alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills&mdash;perhaps I can
+reconcile myself to death there&mdash;to sink into the earth on this plain is
+too dreadful."</p>
+
+<p>He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This is
+only a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you&mdash;I
+have such days&mdash;everybody has these hours of depression, but we must
+fight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were your
+husband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I could
+help you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,
+let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."</p>
+
+<p>She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished his
+counter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:
+"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You are
+lashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do not
+realize what you are saying. I am too old for you&mdash;Now listen&mdash;it's
+true! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well for
+ten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced when
+I should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay for
+years&mdash;that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bear
+to let my youth pass dully&mdash;and now it's gone! Wait!&mdash;I've deceived you
+in other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous and
+selfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and it
+is a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just to
+have you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want to
+say&mdash;you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolish
+sense of honor that keeps you loyal to me&mdash;I don't want that&mdash;I won't
+have it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted a
+ring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Go
+and be happy."</p>
+
+<p>He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you are
+crazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in his
+eyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying&mdash;I have
+made my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned his
+words against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that&mdash;you know what I meant. All you say is morbid and
+unreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sick
+fancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you of
+your madness."</p>
+
+<p>She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes
+wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her
+health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she
+exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again&mdash;and when
+you do, I will say <i>no</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find words
+for reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad&mdash;and yet all
+that she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that she
+was uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible&mdash;a bridal veil
+over that face was horrifying to think upon.</p>
+
+<p>She went on: "Now run away&mdash;I'm going to cry in a moment and I don't
+want you to see me do it. Please go!"</p>
+
+<p>He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety.
+"I am going to send Julia to you instantly."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me&mdash;nobody
+can, but you&mdash;and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going home
+to Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye&mdash;and go."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightly
+clinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (for
+the first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>After Alice Heath's carriage had driven away, Haney returned to his
+chair, and with eyes fixed upon the distant peaks gave himself up to a
+review of all that the sick woman had said, and entered also upon a
+forecast of the game.</p>
+
+<p>He was not entirely unprepared for her revelation. He was, indeed, too
+wise not to know that Bertha must sometime surely find in another and
+younger man her heart's hunger, but his wish had set that dark day far
+away in the future. Moreover, he had relied on her promise to confide in
+him, and it hurt him to think that she had not fulfilled her pledge; yet
+even in this he sought excuses for her.</p>
+
+<p>"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far
+better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense
+of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His
+wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>This day had shown a black sky to him, even before Alice Heath's
+disturbing call, for Bertha had been darkly brooding at breakfast, and
+silent at lunch, and immediately after rising from the table had gone
+away alone, without a word of explanation to any member of her
+household. She had not even taken her dogs with her, and her face was
+set and almost sullen as she passed out of the door and down the walk.
+All this was so unlike her that Mart was greatly troubled. It gave
+weight and significance to every word of Alice Heath's warning.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was gone till nearly six o'clock, and her mood seemed no whit
+lightened as she entered the gate and came slowly up the walk. To Mart's
+humbly spoken query, "What troubles ye, darlin'?" she made no reply, but
+went at once to her room.</p>
+
+<p>The old gambler seemed pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in
+his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy
+among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home
+was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should be served.
+If she were unhappy, of what value were these soft rugs, these savory
+dishes, this shining silver? There was, in truth, something mocking and
+terrifying in the swift, well-trained action of the servants, who went
+about their tasks unmoved and apparently unacquainted with any change in
+the mind of their young mistress.</p>
+
+<p>In the kitchen the cook was carefully compounding the soup while
+watching the roast. Lucius, deft and absorbed, was preparing the table,
+arranging the coffee service and deciding upon the china. On the seat
+under the pear-trees Miss Franklin was chatting with Mrs. Gilman, and in
+the barn the coachman could be heard giving the horses their evening
+taste of green grass&mdash;"and yet how empty, aimless, and foolish it all is
+if Bertha is unhappy," thought the master.</p>
+
+<p>He grew alarmed for fear she would not come down; but at last he heard
+her light step on the stairs, and when she came in view his dim eyes
+were startled by the transformation in her. She had put on the plainest
+of her gowns, and she wore no jewels. By other ways which he felt but
+could not analyze she expressed some portentous shift of mood. He could
+not define why, but her step scared him, so measured and resolute it
+seemed.</p>
+
+<p>She called to her mother and Miss Franklin and then asked, "Has dinner
+been announced?"</p>
+
+<p>Her tone was quiet and natural, and Mart was relieved. He answered with
+attempt at jocularity, "Lucius is this minute winkin' at me over the
+soup-tureen."</p>
+
+<p>As they took seats at the table Mrs. Gilman exclaimed, "Why, dearie,
+where did you dig up that old waist?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will it do to visit Sibley in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No indeed! I should say not. When you go back there I want you to wear
+the best you've got. They'll consider it an insult if you don't."</p>
+
+<p>A faint smile lighted Bertha's pale face. "I don't think they'll take it
+so hard as all that."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you goin' to Sibley?" asked Mart, an anxious tone in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of it. Mother is going over to-night, and I rather guess I'll
+run over with her. I've never been back, you see, since that night."</p>
+
+<p>There was something ominous in her restraint, in her abstraction of
+glance, and especially in her lack of appetite. She took little account
+of her guests and seemed profoundly engaged upon some inward
+calculation. The beautifully spread table, which would have thrilled her
+a few short weeks ago, was powerless to even hold her gaze, and it was
+Lucius (deft and watchful) who brought the meal to a successful
+conclusion&mdash;for the mother was awed and helpless in the presence of the
+queenly daughter whom wealth had translated into something almost too
+high and shining for her to lay hand upon.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Franklin did her best, but she was not a person of light and
+dancing intellectual feet, and she had never understood Haney, anyhow.
+Altogether it was a dismal and difficult half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>When the coffee came on Bertha rose abruptly, saying, "Come out into the
+garden, Mart, I've got something to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed with a sense of being called to account, and as they walked
+slowly across the grass, which the light of a vivid orange sunset had
+made transcendently green, he glanced to the west with foreboding that
+this was the last time he should look upon the kingly peak at sunset
+time. A flaming helmet of cloud shone upon the chief, and all the lesser
+heights were a deep, purple bank out of which each serrate summit rose
+without perspective, sharply set against the other like a monstrous
+silhouette of cardboard.</p>
+
+<p>It should have been indeed a very sweet and odorous and peaceful hour.
+The murmur of the water from the fountain had the lulling sound of a
+hive of bees as they settle to rest, and to the suffering man it seemed
+impossible that this, his cherished world, could change to the black
+chaos which the loss of his adorable wife would bring upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The settee was of wire, and curved so that when they had taken seats
+they faced each other, and the sight of her, so slender, so graceful, so
+womanly, filled him with a fury of hate against the assassin who had
+torn him to pieces, making him old before his time, a cripple, impotent,
+inert, and scarred.</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not wait for him to begin, and her first words smote like
+bullets. "Mart, I'm going back to Sibley."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with startled eyes&mdash;his brow wrinkling into sorrowful
+lines. "For how long?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things
+over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice
+was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without
+ye now. Don't go&mdash;that way."</p>
+
+<p>"I've <i>got</i> to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I
+don't know about living with you any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little
+longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man&mdash;but tell me the truth. Can't
+you stay with me&mdash;as we are?"</p>
+
+<p>She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I
+married you for your money, Mart&mdash;it ain't true&mdash;but the evidence is all
+against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out
+and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you&mdash;feel about me as
+you do&mdash;but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up&mdash;I
+don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the
+house&mdash;all my nice things&mdash;the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was
+fun to run the kitchen&mdash;now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact
+is, none of it seems mine."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all
+because of what I said last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped him. "No, it ain't that&mdash;it ain't your fault, it's mine.
+Something's gone wrong with <i>me</i>. I love this home, and my dogs and
+horses and all&mdash;and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to
+me&mdash;now that's the fact, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my
+mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and
+think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my
+return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of
+the range."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.
+'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you&mdash;but you must let me
+give you some of me money&mdash;'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let
+me share it with you me heart will break entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart&mdash;I owe you more than I can ever
+pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."</p>
+
+<p>In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.
+"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something
+I should have known long since."</p>
+
+<p>Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's
+the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always
+shines. You love him, Bertie&mdash;and I don't blame you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up,
+her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd
+plumb forgot about his call."</p>
+
+<p>"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came
+hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them
+both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he
+announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just
+twenty minutes in which to thump you."</p>
+
+<p>Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they
+moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued:
+"Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why
+didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."</p>
+
+<p>"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.</p>
+
+<p>Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went
+into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There
+was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new
+conceptions, new duties.</p>
+
+<p>Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in
+the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His
+examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent
+had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he
+was, and upon his judgment she must rest.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so
+far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into
+fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.
+"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from
+here as quickly as you can&mdash;but don't excite him. Don't let him exert
+himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and
+peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food&mdash;and above
+all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at
+all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to
+sea-level&mdash;if he'll go&mdash;and take care of him. His heart will run along
+all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."</p>
+
+<p>"He hates to leave&mdash;he says he won't leave," she explained.</p>
+
+<p>The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his
+choice of roads"&mdash;he used an expressive gesture&mdash;"up or down. One leads
+to the New Jerusalem and is short&mdash;as he'll find out if he stays here.
+Good-night! I must get that train."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did
+you leave any medicine?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of
+little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."</p>
+
+<p>She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at
+last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated
+in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a glass to his lips. He was
+stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old
+gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save
+his one faithful servant&mdash;and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep
+pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning
+became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to
+desert him now was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she
+put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you
+worse?"</p>
+
+<p>He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's
+opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out,
+darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the
+count&mdash;but I'm&mdash;still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that
+sawbones the power of mind over matter&mdash;the ould croaker!"</p>
+
+<p>He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then,
+with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.
+"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like
+Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis
+true, but I'll surprise him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly
+at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high
+country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."</p>
+
+<p>Her decision was ready. "All right, then <i>we go</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it,
+sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did, Mart&mdash;I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by
+you&mdash;till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."</p>
+
+<p>The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're God's
+own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here&mdash;I'm not
+worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and
+look after the mines."</p>
+
+<p>Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's
+up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for
+you here&mdash;I didn't, really!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all wrong, I'm afraid&mdash;all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord
+knows I need you worse than ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside
+where the air is better."</p>
+
+<p>Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so,
+leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk
+where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of
+the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"
+warned Haney&mdash;"at any rate, not to-night."</p>
+
+<p>They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these
+beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called
+round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly&mdash;this mandate of
+the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more
+helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this
+garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the
+heart's action?</p>
+
+<p>The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last
+to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the
+clouds&mdash;and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her
+mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30
+she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the
+moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not
+share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then
+confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.</p>
+
+<p>Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing
+himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If
+the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks,
+anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me
+own home and so end it all comfortably?"</p>
+
+<p>This was so simple&mdash;and yet he spent most of the night fighting the
+desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so
+sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand
+on his hair&mdash;now and again. "She's only a child&mdash;she can wait ten years
+and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to
+wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in
+the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the
+consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so
+that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."</p>
+
+<p>To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so
+that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will
+not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly,
+so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or
+Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I visit the mine once more?" he had asked Steele. "No," the doctor
+had replied. "To go a thousand feet higher than this would be fatal."</p>
+
+<p>As he mused on this he began to feel the wonder of the body in which he
+dwelt. That a machine so bulky and so gross could be so delicate that a
+change in the pressure of the atmosphere might be fatal astonished him.
+"I'll soon know," he said, "for I cross the range to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The dark shadow of the unseen world, once so dim and far, now rose
+formidable as a mountain on the horizon of his thought. It was so
+difficult to leave the house in which he had found peace and a strange
+kind of happiness (the happiness of a soldier home on parole,
+convalescent and content under the apple-trees)&mdash;it was very hard&mdash;and
+the tenderness, the care, to which his little wife had returned and
+which filled his heart with sweetness, added to his irresolution.</p>
+
+<p>He fell into deep sleep at last, still in debate with himself.</p>
+
+<p>He woke quietly next morning, like a child, and as his eyes took in the
+big room in which he had slept for a year, surrounded by such luxury as
+he had never dreamed of having (even for a day), life seemed very easy
+of continuance, and Steele a mistaken egotist, a foul destroyer of men's
+peace; but as he rose to dress and saw himself in the glass, the figure
+he presented decided his hand. Was this Mart Haney&mdash;this unshaven,
+haggard, and wrinkled old man?</p>
+
+<p>Leaning close to the mirror, he studied his face as if it were a mask.
+Deep creases ran down on either side of the nose, giving to his gaze the
+morose expression of an aged, slavering mastiff. His nerveless cheeks
+depended. His neck was stringy. Puffy sacs lay under the eyes, and the
+ashen pallor of his skin told how the heart was laboring to maintain
+life's red current in its round.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked his decision was taken. "Mart, the game has run mostly in
+your favor for twenty-five years&mdash;but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old
+gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards
+and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a
+year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her."</p>
+
+<p>And yet, though crippled and gray, death was somehow more dreadful to
+him at this moment than when in his remorseless and powerful young
+manhood he had looked again and again into the murderous eyes of those
+who were eager to shed his blood. He shivered at the thought of the dark
+river, as those whose limbs having grown pale and thin dread the cold
+wind of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder is the mother over there waitin' fer me?" he half whispered.
+"If ye are, your soul will be floating far above me in the light, while
+I&mdash;burdened by me sins&mdash;must wallow below in purgatory. But I go, and
+the divil take his toll."</p>
+
+<p>There was not much preparation to be made. His will was written, fully
+attested, and filed in a safe place. His small personal belongings he
+was willing to leave in Bertha's hands. It was hardest of all to vanish
+without a word of good-bye to any soul, but this was essential to his
+plan. "No one must suspect design in me departure," he muttered. "I must
+drop out&mdash;<i>by accident</i>. I must cut loose during the day, too&mdash;no night
+trips for me&mdash;in a way that will look natural. If Steele knows his
+business, Mart Haney will go out of the game on the summit, if not, 'tis
+easy for a cripple to stagger and fall from a rock. Thank God, I leave
+her as I found her&mdash;small credit to me in that."</p>
+
+<p>Lucius, coming in soon after, found his master unexpectedly cheerful and
+vigorous.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to his query, the gambler said: "I take me medicine, Lucius,
+like a Cheyenne. 'Tis all in the game. Some man must lose in order that
+another may win. The wheel rolls and the board is charged in favor of
+the bank. Damn the man that squeals when the cards fall fair."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>VIRTUE TRIUMPHS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
+haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
+his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation&mdash;mixed with
+humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
+the jumpin'-off place."</p>
+
+<p>"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
+want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
+mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
+mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
+because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."</p>
+
+<p>This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
+to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place&mdash;its
+possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
+care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
+some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."</p>
+
+<p>This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
+you go and tell him yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
+shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
+smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
+all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
+and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
+stairs ag'in."</p>
+
+<p>The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
+too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
+go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
+Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
+splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
+broke forth: "Ye <i>must</i> stay here, darlin'&mdash;never mind me. 'Tis a sin
+and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
+he said no more.</p>
+
+<p>They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
+life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
+the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
+while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
+change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
+talk it all over."</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
+look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
+voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
+orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
+came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
+Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
+mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
+hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
+each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
+purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
+overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
+lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.</p>
+
+<p>Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
+north ran the western way&mdash;a trail with no returning footprints; and the
+thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
+the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
+grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
+mate.</p>
+
+<p>To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
+from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
+own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
+so."</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
+where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
+Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
+Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
+from the cliff."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
+lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
+been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
+action typified. The individual is of little value&mdash;the race alone
+counts.</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
+in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
+exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
+believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same&mdash;for me, anyhow.
+I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'&mdash;I <i>don't</i> ask it. Stay
+you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
+Stay on, darlin'&mdash;'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
+mind is made up&mdash;I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
+little lady, so don't fuss."</p>
+
+<p>The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
+remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
+nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
+better for a sick man than this."</p>
+
+<p>She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
+Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish&mdash;I tried
+to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
+me exile&mdash;but I hate to drag ye down with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
+be honest, I kind o' like the East."</p>
+
+<p>At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
+carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
+seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
+to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."</p>
+
+<p>He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
+childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."</p>
+
+<p>She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
+stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!</p>
+
+<p>Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
+was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
+hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
+visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness&mdash;the
+beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
+tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
+shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
+peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
+ain't able."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Dr. Steele came last night and examined him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told us to 'get out' of here&mdash;quick."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away&mdash;down the
+slope&mdash;to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."</p>
+
+<p>He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
+seemed so happy and so much better, too."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
+The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."</p>
+
+<p>"And he positively ordered you to go below?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute&mdash;if he stayed."</p>
+
+<p>In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
+for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
+"And you are going with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"</p>
+
+<p>He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
+would be to shorten his life.</p>
+
+<p>"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
+leave me here&mdash;but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
+is," she added. "He sure needs me now."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
+look after all his business just the same&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
+mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
+finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
+lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
+tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm&mdash;we are depending on
+you."</p>
+
+<p>His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
+the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
+she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully&mdash;as if the
+words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
+deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
+means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
+of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."</p>
+
+<p>She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
+her. "You mustn't say that&mdash;you've got to stay with Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
+home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
+walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
+to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
+mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
+cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
+won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
+going to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;maybe in Chicago&mdash;maybe in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
+life&mdash;I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart&mdash;I can't see you any
+more&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
+mean by <i>now</i>? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
+have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
+and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
+mean&mdash;something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
+Do you? Is that your meaning?"</p>
+
+<p>She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know&mdash;Yes, I do
+know&mdash;it ain't right for me&mdash;for you to say these things to me while I
+am Mart Haney's wife."</p>
+
+<p>He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
+graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
+to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
+belong to me."</p>
+
+<p>She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
+of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
+conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
+as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
+each other&mdash;don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
+love her&mdash;I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
+why she has returned my ring&mdash;there is nothing further for me to say to
+her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
+claim you."</p>
+
+<p>"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he needs me."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I need you."</p>
+
+<p>"But not the way&mdash;I mean he is sick and helpless."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
+part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
+herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
+listen, to yield&mdash;and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
+thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
+brought back her sterner self.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
+touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"</p>
+
+<p>He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
+the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"</p>
+
+<p>She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
+despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
+rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
+to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
+anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
+hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Marshall Haney was a brave man, and his resolution was fully taken, but
+that final touch of Bertha's hand upon his arm very nearly unnerved him.
+His courage abruptly fell away, and, leaning back against the cushions
+of his carriage, with closed eyelids (from which the hot tears dripped),
+he gave himself up to the temptation of a renewal of his life. It was
+harder to go, infinitely harder, because of that impulsive, sweet
+caress. Her face was so beautiful, too, with that upward, tender,
+pitying look upon it!</p>
+
+<p>While still he sat weak and hesitant, a roughly dressed man of large and
+decisive movement stopped and greeted him. "Hello, Mart, how are you
+this fine day?"</p>
+
+<p>Haney put his tragic mask away with a stroke of his hand, and hastily
+replied: "Comin' along, Dan, comin' along. How are things up on the
+peak?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still pretty mixed," replied the miner, lightly; then, with a further
+look around, he stepped a little nearer the wheel. "Hell's about to
+break loose again, Mart."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the latest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go into details, and I mustn't be seen talking with you, but
+Williams is in for trouble. Tell him to reverse engine for a few weeks.
+Good-day," and he walked off, leaving the impression of having been sent
+to convey a friendly warning.</p>
+
+<p>Haney seized upon this message. His resolution returned. His voice took
+on edge and decision. "Oscar," he called quickly, "drive me down to the
+station, I want to get that ten-thirty-seven train."</p>
+
+<p>As the driver chirruped to his horses and swung out into the street,
+Marshall Haney, with full understanding that this was to be his eternal
+farewell, turned and looked up, hoping to catch a last glimpse of his
+wife's sweet face at the window. A sign, a smile, a beckoning, and his
+purpose might still have faltered, but the recall did not take place,
+and facing the west he became again the man of will. When the carriage
+drew up to the platform he gave orders to his coachman as quietly as
+though this were his usual morning ride. "Now, Oscar, you heard what
+that friend of mine said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But tell Mrs. Haney I've gone up to the mine. You can say to her that
+Williams sent for me. You can tell her, but to no one else, what you
+heard Dan say. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, that stands. Now you go home and wait till about
+twelve-thirty. Then go down for Mrs. Haney."</p>
+
+<p>The coachman, a stolid, reliable man, well trained to his duties, did
+not offer to assist his master, but sat in most approved alertness upon
+his box while Haney painfully descended to the walk.</p>
+
+<p>The train was about to move, and the conductor had already signalled the
+engineer to "go ahead," but at sight of the gambler, whom he knew,
+stopped the train and helped Haney aboard. "A minute more and you would
+have been left. Going up to the mine, I reckon?"</p>
+
+<p>They were still on the platform as Mart answered, "Yes, I'm due to take
+a hand in the game up there." He said this with intent to cover his
+trail.</p>
+
+<p>He was all but breathless as he dropped into a seat near the door. The
+sense of leaden weakness with which he had come to struggle daily had
+deepened at the moment into a smothering pain which threatened to blind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be quiet," he thought&mdash;"I will not die in the car." There seemed
+something disgraceful, something ignominious in such a death.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter
+where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had
+given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful
+stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only
+suspected from Steele's word of caution.</p>
+
+<p>They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse
+grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him
+passed away.</p>
+
+<p>The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window,
+very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along
+whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of
+Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney
+heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the
+sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the
+pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but
+through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay
+Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason
+out.</p>
+
+<p>One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring
+as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain
+and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself.
+They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not
+succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance
+he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys.
+I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear
+the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."</p>
+
+<p>Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His
+mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She
+will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no
+matter&mdash;before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."</p>
+
+<p>He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his
+thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to
+those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her
+seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the
+exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and
+his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and
+graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the
+first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how
+basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he
+said, fervently.</p>
+
+<p>Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in
+his&mdash;and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order
+that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His
+throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was
+inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake,
+darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp
+turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer
+camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where
+the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of
+exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to
+die&mdash;up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the
+sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled
+like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.</p>
+
+<p>At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the
+conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling
+hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him
+to let the mine go and to return by the next train.</p>
+
+<p>He was too nerveless of fingers to put the sheet back within its
+envelope, and so thrust it, a crumpled mass, into his pocket. It was as
+if her hand was at his shoulder, her voice in his ear, but he did not
+falter. To go back now would be but a renewal of his torture. There
+could not come a better time to go&mdash;to go and leave no suspicion of his
+purpose behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Just over the summit, at a bare little station, the train was held for
+orders, and Haney, who was again suffocating and almost blind, took
+another dose of the mysterious drug, and with its effect returned to a
+dim perception of his surroundings. He was able vaguely to recall that a
+trail which began just back of the depot mounted the hill towards his
+largest mine. A desire to see Williams, his faithful partner, his most
+loyal friend, came over him, and, rising to his feet, he painfully crept
+down the aisle to the rear of the car and dropped off unnoticed, just as
+the conductor's warning cry started a rush for the train.</p>
+
+<p>As the last coach disappeared round the turn the essential bleak
+loneliness of the place returned. The station seemed deserted by every
+human being, even the operator was lost to sight, and the gambler,
+utterly solitary, with clouded brain and laboring breath, turned towards
+the height, his left leg dragging like a shackle.</p>
+
+<p>For the first half-mile the way was easy, and by moving slowly he
+suffered less pain than he had expected. Around him the frost-smitten
+aspens were shivering in the wind, their sparse leaves dangling like
+coins of red-and-yellow gold, and all the billowing land below, to the
+west, was iridescent with green and flame-color and crimson. A voiceless
+regret, a dim, wide-reaching, wistful sadness came over him, but did not
+shake his resolution. He had but to look down at his crippled body to
+know that the beauty of the world was no longer his to enjoy. His days
+were now but days of pain.</p>
+
+<p>He had always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this
+range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he
+mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he
+had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high
+above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air
+came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the
+solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his
+challenging march towards death.</p>
+
+<p>At the first sharp up-raise in the way his heart began to pound and he
+swayed blindly to and fro, unable to proceed. For an instant he looked
+down in dismay at the rocky, waiting earth, a most inhospitable grave. A
+few minutes' rest against a tree, and his brain cleared. "Higher&mdash;I must
+go higher," he said to himself; "they'll find me here."</p>
+
+<p>As he rose he could see the town spread wide on the hill-tops beneath
+him&mdash;the cabins mere cubes, the mill a child's toy. He could discern men
+like ants moving to and fro as if in some special excitement&mdash;but he did
+not concern himself with the cause. His one thought was to mount&mdash;to
+blend with the firs and the rocks. He drew the phial from his pocket and
+held it in his hand in readiness, with a dull fear that the chemical
+would prove too small, too weak, to end his pain.</p>
+
+<p>It was utterly silent and appallingly lonely on this side of the great
+peak. Hunters were few and prospectors were seldom seen. These
+upward-looping trails led to no mine&mdash;only to abandoned prospect
+holes&mdash;for no mineral had ever been found on the western slope. The
+copses held no life other than a few minute squirrels, and no sound
+broke the silence save the insolent cry of an occasional jay or
+camp-bird. To die here was surely to die alone and to lie alone, as the
+fallen cedar lies, wrought upon by the wind and the snows and the rain.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, his suicidal idea persisted. It had become the one final,
+overpowering, directing resolution. There is no passion more persistent
+than that which leads to self-destruction. In the midst of the blinding
+swirl of his thought he maintained his purpose to put himself above the
+world of human effort and to become a brother of the clod, to mix
+forever with the mould.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he dragged himself upward, foot by foot, seeking the friendly
+shelter and obscurity of a grove of firs just above him. Twice he sank
+to his knees, a numbing pain at the base of his brain, his breath
+roaring, his lips dry, but each time he rose and struggled on, eager to
+reach the green and grateful shelter of the forest, filled with desire
+to thrust himself into its solitude; and when at last he felt the chill
+of the shadow and realized that he was surely hidden from all the world,
+he turned, poised for an instant on a mound where the trail doubled
+sharply, gave one long, slow glance around, then hurled himself down the
+rocky slope. Even as he leaped his heart seemed to burst and he fell
+like a clod and lay without further motion. It was as if he had been
+smitten in flight by a rifle-ball.</p>
+
+<p>Around him the small animals of the wood frolicked, and the jay called
+inquiringly, but he neither saw nor heard. He was himself but a gasping
+creature, with reason entirely engaged in the blind struggle which the
+physical organism was instinctively making to continue in its wonted
+ways. All the world and all his desires, save a longing for his fair
+young wife, were lost out of his mind, and he thought of Bertha only in
+a dim and formless way&mdash;feeling his need of her and dumbly wondering why
+she did not come. In final, desperate agony, he lifted the phial of
+strychnine to his lips, hoping that it might put an end to his
+suffering; but before this act was completed a sweet, devouring flood of
+forgetfulness swept over him, his hand dropped, and the unopened bottle
+rolled away out of his reach. Then the golden sunlight darkened out of
+his sky, and he died&mdash;as the desert lion dies&mdash;alone.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When they found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon
+his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves&mdash;palm upward
+as if to show its emptiness. A bird&mdash;the roguish gray magpie&mdash;had stolen
+away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no
+sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his
+face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite
+the name of Marshall Haney.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Money Magic
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2009 [EBook #30318]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONEY MAGIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Yingling, Bethanne M. Simms, Mary Meehan
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                MONEY MAGIC
+
+                             By HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+SUNSET EDITION
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+      II. MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+     III. BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+      IV. HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+       V. BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+      VI. THE HANEY PALACE
+
+     VII. BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+    VIII. BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+      IX. BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+       X. BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+      XI. BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+     XII. ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+    XIII. BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+     XIV. THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+      XV. MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+     XVI. A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+    XVII. BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+   XVIII. BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+     XIX. THE FARTHER EAST
+
+      XX. BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+     XXI. BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+    XXII. THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+   XXIII. BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+    XXIV. THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+     XXV. BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+    XXVI. ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+   XXVII. MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+  XXVIII. VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+    XXIX. MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+
+
+MONEY MAGIC
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
+
+
+Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
+dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
+thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
+shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
+generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
+the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
+south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
+when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
+the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.
+
+It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
+cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
+of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
+grass and grain spring up like magic.
+
+For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
+and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
+laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
+giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
+aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
+clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
+life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
+Creede.
+
+Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
+cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
+and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
+of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
+put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
+sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.
+
+At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
+Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
+was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
+general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
+hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm--therefore Bertha, who
+would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
+tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
+straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes--wistful when in
+repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
+to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.
+
+"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
+sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
+here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
+a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived--"
+
+It was her habit to leave her demonstrations--even her
+sentences--unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
+hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
+failing powers. She had been handsome once--but the heat of the stove,
+the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
+daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
+of womanhood.
+
+"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
+You see--"
+
+She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
+schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
+dreams--of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
+half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
+last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
+this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.
+
+"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
+to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
+Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
+stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while--"
+
+The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
+put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
+the Eagle.
+
+He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
+carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
+mouth.
+
+He began by saying to Bertha:
+
+"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
+When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
+floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
+like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.
+
+"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
+attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
+like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
+day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
+I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
+work so hard--that's all that troubles me at the present time."
+
+Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
+age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
+man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
+bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
+or flush--she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
+where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
+the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.
+
+"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
+place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
+is too public."
+
+"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
+anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."
+
+The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
+I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
+you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
+let me know--they won't repeat it."
+
+"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
+of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."
+
+This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
+on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
+to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
+handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
+without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
+necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
+and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
+expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
+his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
+middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
+the girl a certain sweetness came into it.
+
+"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
+spend Sunday--seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
+his chance o' grace."
+
+His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
+circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.
+
+Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
+Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."
+
+The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
+me--I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
+the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
+jest.
+
+"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
+to-morrow."
+
+The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
+said, in a low and deeply significant tone:
+
+"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
+Haney--not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you--you can
+boss my ranch any day."
+
+The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
+eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
+diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
+and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
+The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:
+
+"Be careful, Mart--"
+
+Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."
+
+"I didn't mean to butt in--"
+
+"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
+replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
+remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
+walked away.
+
+Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
+encounter with the girl had put into his blood.
+
+It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
+weeks--leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
+chance to see this child--this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
+and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her--to
+buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
+weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
+that she would one day be on his side.
+
+When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl--of
+carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
+when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
+fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
+time, but a Catholic--in training at least--and the words he had planned
+to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
+lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.
+
+He was a desperate character--a man of violence--and none too delicate
+in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
+mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
+weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
+unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.
+
+"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
+his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
+answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
+then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
+"Stay on the farm, me lad--'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
+the back of your neck than to fill a cell at Canon City."
+
+In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
+visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
+collected all notes remorselessly--and it was in this way that he had
+acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
+mines--"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
+It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
+determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
+came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
+honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
+sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
+heart with a strange delight.
+
+He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
+doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
+before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
+new-found grace.
+
+Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron--as his mother used to
+do--and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
+chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.
+
+"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
+a seat beside him.
+
+"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
+Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
+mother didn't make--for she was Irish."
+
+"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
+can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid--and then down here we have my
+son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."
+
+"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
+vegetables--it's still a matter of ham and eggs."
+
+"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.
+
+"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
+of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
+working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest--a vacation, I'm
+thinkin'."
+
+"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
+of taking it."
+
+"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
+She should be in a home of her own."
+
+"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
+to hiring anybody to fill her place--it would take a man to do her
+work."
+
+"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
+she?"
+
+"Eighteen next November."
+
+"She seems like a woman of twenty."
+
+"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
+down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
+conversation.
+
+"She's a little queen," declared Haney.
+
+It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
+had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
+proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
+glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
+to trouble you, my dear woman--if anny debt presses, let me know, and
+I'll lift it for ye."
+
+The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
+feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
+our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
+obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."
+
+"But I don't like to think of you here for another year--and Bertie
+should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
+passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
+house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
+for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
+hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
+welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
+inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.
+
+"What do you mean, Captain?"
+
+The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
+a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."
+
+She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
+"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"
+
+"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
+in his intentions.
+
+"But--but--you're so old--I mean so much older--"
+
+"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
+what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
+have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."
+
+This turned the current of her emotion--she gasped. "One hundred
+thousand dollars!"
+
+He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
+younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
+I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'--all you need to
+do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
+Denver--or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
+on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
+I came this time to ask her to go back with me."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
+take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
+place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."
+
+The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
+said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
+her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
+terror. She feared a man of such power--a man who could in a single
+moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
+wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
+he sat there talking to her--and she in her apron and her hair in
+disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
+enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
+apologized incoherently.
+
+"Captain, I appreciate your kindness--you've always been a good
+customer--one I liked to do for--but I'm all upset--I can't get my
+wits--"
+
+"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
+coming. Don't hurry at all--at all."
+
+She hurried out, leaving him alone--with the clock, the cat, and the
+hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
+Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
+into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.
+
+Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
+wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
+disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
+breath--clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.
+
+She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
+with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
+dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:
+
+"Do you know--what Captain Haney just said to me?"
+
+"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
+was moved by her mother's white, awed face.
+
+"He wants you!"
+
+Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
+"Well, he can't have me!"
+
+With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
+moved to argue.
+
+"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
+mines."
+
+"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
+posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler--not this summer," she ended,
+decisively.
+
+"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
+was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
+Think of that!"
+
+"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
+makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
+it?"
+
+"Out of his mine--and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
+needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
+is his, anyway. Did you know that?"
+
+Bertha eyed her mother closely--with cool, bright, accusing eyes--for a
+moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
+you--no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
+marry most anybody to give you a rest--but, mother, Captain Haney is
+forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
+his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
+there's Ed."
+
+The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.
+
+"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
+into something else."
+
+"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
+No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."
+
+"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
+Haney has killed his man."
+
+"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
+over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance--and my heart's so
+bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
+want you to marry him if you don't want to--I'm not asking you to. You
+know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man--and I get awfully
+discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
+without any security."
+
+One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
+pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
+burdens of her stewardship.
+
+"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."
+
+"I won't," replied the girl.
+
+She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
+and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
+the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
+and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
+guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
+our little hotel for a year--to see me!"
+
+This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
+the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
+weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
+put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
+of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.
+
+She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
+by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
+lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
+bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
+coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
+defensive.
+
+Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
+hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother--" She arrested herself and
+went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
+new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
+honorable.
+
+The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
+the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
+consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
+would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
+travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
+things she could discern--but of the larger life which money could open
+to her she could only vaguely dream.
+
+The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
+life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
+camps about them.
+
+As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
+a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
+doors forever.
+
+When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
+she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
+commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
+change in her mood.
+
+This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
+later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
+wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."
+
+Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
+He came on the run, alert for trade.
+
+"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
+drying to cinders over here."
+
+The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
+joking."
+
+"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.
+
+She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
+he brought a choice slice in to her.
+
+She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me--not yet." Her
+tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that--before
+people."
+
+"Like what?" he asked.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
+waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
+over alone."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
+least a consideration of his proposal.
+
+He held out his hand. "Good-bye--till next Saturday."
+
+She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
+face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
+something very winning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
+
+
+It was well for Haney that Bertie did not see him as he sat above his
+gambling boards, watchful, keen-eyed, grim of visage, for she would have
+trembled in fear of him. "Haney's" was both saloon and gambling hall. In
+the front, on the right, ran the long bar with its shining brass and
+polished mahogany (he prided himself on having the best bar west of
+Denver), and in the rear, occupying both sides of the room, stood two
+long rows of faro and roulette outfits, together with card-tables and
+dice-boards. It was the largest and most prosperous gambling hall in the
+camps, and always of an evening was crowded with gamesters and those who
+came as lookers-on.
+
+On the right side, in a raised seat about midway of the hall, Haney
+usually sat, a handsome figure, in broad white hat, immaculate linen,
+and well-cut frock-coat, his face as pale as that of a priest in the
+glare of the big electric light. On the other side, and directly
+opposite, Williams kept corresponding "lookout" over the dealers and the
+crowd. He was a bold man who attempted any shenanigan with Mart Haney,
+and the games of his halls were reported honest.
+
+To think of a young and innocent girl married to this remorseless
+gambler, scarred with the gun and the knife, was a profanation of
+maidenhood--and yet, as he fell now and then into a dream, he took on a
+kind of savage beauty which might allure and destroy a woman. Whatever
+else he was, he was neither commonplace nor mean. The visitors to whom
+he was pointed out as "a type of our modern Western desperado"
+invariably acknowledged that he looked the part. His smile was of
+singular sweetness--all the more alluring because of its rarity--and the
+warm clasp of his big, soft hand had made him sheriff in San Juan
+County, and his bravery and his love of fair play were well known and
+admired among the miners.
+
+The sombre look in his face, which resembled that of a dreaming leopard,
+was due to the new and secret plans with which his mind was now engaged.
+"If she takes me, I quit this business," he had promised himself. "She
+despises me in it, and so does the mother, and so I reckon 'tis up to me
+to clean house."
+
+Then he thought of his own mother, who had the same prejudice, and who
+would not have taken a cent of his earnings. "I see no harm in the
+business," he said. "Men will drink and they will gamble, and I might as
+well serve their wish as any other--better, indeed, for no man can
+accuse me of dark ways nor complain of the order of me house. I am a
+business man the same as him that runs a grocery store; but 'tis no
+matter, she dislikes it, and that ends it. She's a clear-headed wan," he
+thought, with a glow of admiration for her. "She's the captain."
+
+He no longer thought of her as his victim--as something to be ruthlessly
+enjoyed--he trembled before her, big and brave and relentless as he was
+in the world of men. "What has come over me?" he asked himself. "Sure
+she has me on me knees--the witch. Me mind is filled with her."
+
+All through the week his agents were at work attempting to sell his
+saloons. "I'm ready to close out at a moment's notice," he declared.
+
+At times, as he sat in his place, he lost consciousness of the crowding,
+rough-hatted, intent men and the monotonous calls of the dealers. The
+click of balls, the buzz of low-toned comment died out of his ears--he
+was back in Troy, looking for his father, whom he had not seen or
+written to in twenty years. He saw himself, with a dainty little woman
+on his arm, taking the boat to New York. "I will go to the biggest hotel
+in the city; the girl shall have the best the old town has. Nothing will
+be too good for her--"
+
+He roused himself to a touch on his elbow. One of his agents had a new
+offer for the two saloons. It was still less than he considered the
+business worth, but in his softened mood he said, "It goes!"
+
+"Make out your papers," replied the other man, with almost equal
+brevity.
+
+During the rest of the evening the gambler sat above his lay-out with
+mingled feelings of relief and regret. After all, he was in command
+here. He knew this business, and he loved the companionship and the
+admiration of the men who dropped round by his side to discuss the camp
+or the weather, or to invite him to join a hunting trip. He felt himself
+to be one of the chief men of the town, and that he could at any time
+become their Representative if he chose. For some years (he couldn't
+have told why) he had taken on a thrift unknown to him before, and had
+been attending strictly to business. He now saw that it must have been
+from a foreknowledge of Bertha. In him the superstitions of both miner
+and gambler mingled. The cards had run against him for three years, now
+they were falling in his favor. "I will take advantage of them," he
+declared.
+
+Slowly the crowd thinned out, and at one o'clock only a few inveterate
+poker-players and one or two young fellows who were still "bucking" the
+roulette wheel remained and, calling one of his men to take charge,
+Haney nodded to Williams and they went out on the street.
+
+As he reached the cold, crisp, deliciously rarefied air outside, he took
+off his hat and involuntarily looked up at the stars blazing thick in
+the deep-blue midnight sky. With solemn voice he said to his partner:
+"Well, 'Spot,' right here Mart Haney's saloon business ends. We're all
+in."
+
+Williams felt that his partner was acting rashly. "Oh, I wouldn't say
+that! You may get into it again."
+
+"No--the little girl and her mother won't stand for it, and, besides,
+what's the use? I don't need to do it, and if I'm ever going to see the
+world now is my chance. I'm goin' back East to discover how many
+brothers and sisters I have livin'. The old father is dodderin 'round
+somewheres back there. I'll surprise him, too. Now, have those papers
+all made out ready to sign by eleven o'clock to-morrow. I'm goin' down
+the valley on the noon train."
+
+"All right, Mart, but you're makin' a mistake."
+
+"Never you mind, me bucko. 'Tis me own game, and the mines will take all
+the gray matter you can spare."
+
+As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
+"Hello, Mart!"
+
+"Hello, Mag; what's doing?"
+
+She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the
+moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won't you?"
+
+"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad
+as that? What's t' old man doin' these days?"
+
+"Servin' time," she answered, bitterly.
+
+"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I'd forgotten. Well, take care
+o' yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of
+the woman's misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his
+younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.
+
+It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed
+that he didn't hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his
+brothers he gained by chance. "They're all great boozers," he said, in
+summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo--came to see me at the
+stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered
+brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about
+seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"
+
+"No, I didn't know."
+
+"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother--a nice girl. Dad
+sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and
+then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal
+column, I hear of them."
+
+Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other
+poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the
+time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and
+saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his
+father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and
+this was due to Bertie's influence) he earnestly desired to help his
+family out of their mire.
+
+"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother
+left us."
+
+As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
+The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy
+majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring
+in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting
+above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in
+many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
+
+
+Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and
+his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She
+seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.
+
+She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to
+register.
+
+"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.
+
+"Pretty bum. Mother gave out this week. It's the heat, I guess. Hottest
+weather we've had since I came to town."
+
+"Why didn't you let me know?"
+
+She avoided his question. "We're too low here at Junction. Mother ought
+to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
+I've sent her out to the ranch."
+
+"You're not running the house alone?"
+
+"Why, cert!--that is, except my brother's wife is taking mother's place
+in the kitchen. I'm runnin' the rest of it just as I've been doin' for
+three years."
+
+He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You're a wonder!"
+
+"Don't you think it! How does it happen you're down to-day? You said
+Saturday."
+
+"I've sold out--signed the deeds to-day. I'm out of the liquor trade
+forever."
+
+She nodded gravely. "I'm glad of that. I don't like the business--not a
+little bit."
+
+He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn't. Well, I'm neither
+saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I'm a miner and a
+capitalist--and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover's voice,
+bending a keen glance upon her.
+
+The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did
+not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You'd better go in to
+supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.
+
+He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance,
+and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but
+her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was
+wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life
+for her.
+
+Winchell, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of
+accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked,
+truculently.
+
+"Yes, he's at supper--want to see him?"
+
+"See him? No! And I don't want _you_ to see him! He's too free with you,
+Bert; I don't like it."
+
+She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don't mix it up with _him_, Ed--I'd
+hate to see your remains afterwards."
+
+"Bert, see here! You've been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant
+unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me--and now
+here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
+What's the meaning of it?"
+
+"It isn't the middle of the week. It's Friday," she corrected him.
+
+He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for God's
+sake don't you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."
+
+"He isn't old, and he isn't a gambler any more," she significantly
+retorted.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He's sold out--clean as a whistle."
+
+"Don't you believe it! It's a trick to get you to think better of him.
+Bert, don't you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly--"don't
+you dare!"
+
+The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and asserted herself. "See here, Ed,
+you'd better not try to boss me. I won't stand for it. What license have
+you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what's what? You
+'tend to your business and you'll get ahead faster."
+
+He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down--fer that--old
+tout, I'll kill you both."
+
+The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain
+came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and
+weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her
+throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:
+
+"If you really meant that!--but you don't, you're only talking to hear
+yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for
+chewing the rag, anyway--this is my busy day."
+
+For a moment the man's face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his
+hands clinched. "Don't you do it--that's all!" he finally snarled.
+"You'll wish you hadn't."
+
+"Run away, little boy," she said, irritably. "You make me tired. I don't
+feel like being badgered by anybody, and, besides, I'm not mortgaged to
+anybody just yet."
+
+His mood changed. "Bertie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be fresh. But
+don't talk to me that way, it uses me all up."
+
+"Well, then, stop puffing and blowing. I've troubles of my own, with
+mother sick and a new cook in the kitchen."
+
+"Excuse me, Bert; I'll never do it again."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"But it riled me like the devil to think--" he began again.
+
+"Don't think," she curtly interrupted; "cut hair."
+
+Perceiving that she was in evil mood for his plea, he turned away so
+sadly that the girl relented a little and called out:
+
+"Say, Ed!" He turned and came back. "See here! I didn't intend to hurt
+your feelings, but this is one of my touchy days, and you got on the
+wrong side of me. I'm sorry. Here's my hand--now shake, and run."
+
+His face lightened, and he smiled, displaying his fine, white teeth.
+"You're a world-beater, sure thing, and I'm going to get you yet!"
+
+"Cut it out!" she slangily retorted, sharply, withdrawing her hand.
+
+"You'll see!" he shouted, laughing back at her, full of hope again.
+
+She was equally curt with two or three others who brazenly tried to buy
+a smile with their cigars. "Do business, boys; this is my day to sell
+goods," she said, and they took the hint.
+
+When Haney came out from his supper, he stepped quietly in behind the
+counter and said: "I'll take your place. Get your grub. Then put on your
+hat and we'll drive out to see how the mother is." The girl acknowledged
+a sense of relief as she left him in charge and went to her seat in the
+far corner of the dining-room--a relief and a dangerous relaxation. It
+was, after all, a pleasure to feel that a strong, sure hand was
+out-stretched in sympathy--and she was tired. Even as she sat waiting
+for her tea the collapse came, and bowing her head to her hands she
+shook with silent sobs.
+
+The waitresses stared, and young Mrs. Gilman came hurrying. "What's the
+matter, Bertie; are you sick?"
+
+"Oh no--but I'm worried--about mother."
+
+"You haven't heard anything--?"
+
+"No, but she looked so old and so worn when she went away. She ought to
+have quit here a month ago."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't worry. It's cooler out to the ranch, and the air is so
+pure she'll pick up right away--you'll see."
+
+"I hope so, but she ought to take it easy the rest of her days. She's
+done work enough--and I'm kind o' discouraged myself."
+
+Slowly she recovered her self-possession. She drank her tea in
+abstracted silence, and at last she said: "I'm going out there, Cassie;
+you'll have to look after things. I'll get some of the boys to 'tend the
+office."
+
+"You're not going alone?"
+
+"No, Mart Haney is going to drive me."
+
+"Oh!" There was a look of surprise and consternation in the face of the
+young wife, but she only asked, "You'll be back to-night?"
+
+"Yes, if mother is no worse."
+
+Haney had the smartest "rig" in town waiting for her as she came out,
+but as he looked at her white dress and pretty hat of flowers and tulle
+he apologized for its shortcomings--"'Tis lined with cream-colored satin
+it _should_ be."
+
+She colored a little at this, but quickly replied: "Blarney. Anybody'd
+know you were an Irishman."
+
+"I am, and proud of it."
+
+"I want to take the doctor out to see mother."
+
+"Not in this rig," he protested.
+
+She smiled. "Why not? No, but I want to go round to his office and leave
+a call."
+
+"I'll go round the world fer you," he replied.
+
+The air was deliciously cool and fragrant now that the sun was sinking,
+and the town was astir with people. It was the social hour when the heat
+and toil of the day were over, and all had leisure to turn wondering
+eyes upon Haney and his companion. The girl felt her position keenly.
+She was aware that a single appearance of this kind was equivalent to an
+engagement in the minds of her acquaintances, but as she shyly glanced
+at her lover's handsome face, and watched his powerful and skilled hands
+upon the reins, her pride in him grew. She acknowledged his kindness,
+and was tired and ready to lean upon his strength.
+
+"When did your mother quit?" he asked, after they had left the town
+behind.
+
+"Sunday night. You see, we had a big rush all day, and on top of that,
+about twelve o'clock, an alarm of fire next door. So she got no sleep.
+Monday morning she didn't get up, Tuesday she dressed but was too
+miserable to work, so finally I just packed her off to the ranch."
+
+"That was right--only you should have sent for me."
+
+She was silent, and her heart began to beat with a knowledge of the
+demand he was about to make. She felt weak and unprotected here--in the
+office they were on more equal terms--but she enjoyed in a subconscious
+way the swift rush of the horses, the splendor of the sunset, and the
+quiet authority in his voice--even as she lifted eyes to the mesa
+towards which they were driving he began to speak.
+
+"You know my mind, little girl. I don't mean to ask you till
+to-morrow--that's the day set--but I want to say that I've been cleaning
+house all the week, thinkin' of you. I'm to be a leading citizen from
+this day on. You won't need to apologize for me. I've never been a
+drinking man, but I have been a reckless devil. I don't deny that I've
+planted a wide field of wild oats. However, all that I put away from
+this hour. 'Tis true I'm forty, but that's not old--I'm no older than I
+was at twenty-one, sure--and, besides, you're young enough to make up."
+He smiled, and again she acknowledged the charm of his face when he
+smiled. "You'll see me grow younger whilst you grow older, and so wan
+day we'll be of an age."
+
+Her customary readiness of reply had left her, and she still sat in
+silence, a sob in her throat, a curious numbness in her limbs.
+
+He seemed to feel that she did not wish to talk. "If you come into
+partnership with me you need never worry about the question of bread or
+rent or clothes, and that's worth considerin'--Which road now?"
+
+She silently pointed to the left, and they drew near the foot of the
+great mesa whose level top was cutting the sun in half.
+
+The miner was filled with grateful homage. "'Tis a great world!" he
+exclaimed, softly. "Sure, 'tis only yesterday that I found it out, and
+lifting me head took a look at the hills and the stars for the first
+time in twenty years. 'Tis a new road I'm enterin'--whether you come to
+me or not."
+
+All this was wonderful to the girl. Could it be that she was capable of
+changing the life of a powerful man like this? It filled her with a
+sense of duty as well as exaltation, an emotion that made a woman of
+her. She seemed suddenly to have put the hotel and all its worriments
+far, far behind her.
+
+Seized by an impulse to acquaint her with his family, Haney began to
+tell about his father and his attempts to govern his five sons. "We were
+devils," he admitted--"broncos, if ever such walked on two legs. We
+wouldn't go to school--not wan of us except Charley; he did pretty
+well--and we fished and played ball and went to the circus--" He
+chuckled. "I left home the first time with a circus. I wanted to be a
+lion-tamer, but had to content meself with driving the cook wagon. Then
+I struck West, and I've never been back and I've never seen the old man
+since, but now I've made me pile, I think I'll go home and hunt him up
+and buy him new spectacles; it's ace to the three-spot he's using the
+same horn-rimmed ones he wore when I left."
+
+Bertha was interested. "How long did you stay with the circus?"
+
+"Not very long. I got homesick and went back, but the next time I left,
+I left for fair. I've been everywhere but East since. I've been in
+Colorado mostly. 'Tis a good State."
+
+"I like it--but I'd like to see the rest of the country."
+
+"You can. If you join hands with me we'll go round the ball together."
+
+She did not follow this lead. "I've been to Denver once--went on one of
+these excursion tickets."
+
+"How did you like it there?"
+
+"Pretty good; but I got awful tired, and the grub at the hotel was the
+worst ever--it was a cheap place, of course. Didn't dare to look in the
+door of the big places."
+
+"You can have a whole soot of rooms at the Royal Flush--if you will."
+
+Again she turned away. "I can't imagine anybody rich enough to live at
+such hotels--There's our ranch."
+
+"Shy as a coyote, ain't it?" he commented, as he looked where she
+pointed. "I'd prefer the Eagle House to that."
+
+"I love it out here," she said. "I helped plant the trees."
+
+"Did you? Then I want the place. I want everything your pretty hands
+planted."
+
+"Oh, rats!" was her reproving comment, and it made him laugh at his own
+sentimental speech.
+
+The ranch house stood at the foot of the mesa near a creek that came out
+of a narrow gorge and struck out upon the flat valley. It was a little
+house--a shack merely, surrounded by a few out-buildings, all looking as
+temporary as an Indian encampment, but there were trees--thriftily
+green--and some stacks of grain to testify to the energy and good
+husbandry of the owner.
+
+Mrs. Gilman was lying in a corner room, close to the stream which
+rippled through the little orchard, and its gentle murmur had been a
+comfort to her--it carried her back to her home in Oxford County (State
+of Maine), where her early girlhood had been spent. At times it seemed
+that she was in the little, old, gray house in the valley, and that her
+father's sharp voice might come at any moment to break her delicious
+drowse.
+
+Her breakdown had been caused as much by her mental turmoil as by her
+overtaxing duties. She was confronted by a mighty temptation (through
+her daughter) at a time when she was too weak and too ill to carry
+forward her ordinary duties. To urge this marriage upon Bertha would be
+to bring it about. That she knew, for the girl had said, "I'll do it if
+you say so, mother."
+
+"I don't want you to do it if you'd rather not," had been her weak
+answer.
+
+Bertie entered quietly, in a singularly mature, almost manly way, and
+bending to her mother, asked cordially, "Well, how are you to-day?"
+
+The sick woman took her daughter's hand and drew it to her tear-wet
+cheek. "Oh, my baby! I can't bear to leave you now."
+
+"Don't talk that way, mother. You're not going to leave me. The doctor
+is coming out to see you, and everything is going all right at the
+house, so don't you worry. You set to work to get well. That's your
+little stunt. I'll look after the rest of it."
+
+Bertie had never been one to bestow caresses, even on her parents, and
+her only sign of deep feeling now lay in the tremble of her voice. She
+drew her hand away, and putting her arm about her mother's neck patted
+her cheek. "Cassie's doing well," she said, abruptly, "and the girls are
+fine. They brace right up to the situation, and--and everybody's nice to
+us. I reckon a dozen of the church ladies called yesterday to ask how
+you were--and Captain Haney came down to-day on purpose to find out how
+things were going."
+
+The sufferer's eyes opened wide. "Bert, he's with you!"
+
+"Yes, he drove me out here," answered the girl, quietly. "He's come for
+an answer to his proposition. It's up to us to decide right now."
+
+The mother broke into a whimper. "Oh, darling, I don't know what to
+think. I'm afraid to leave this to you--it's an awful temptation to a
+girl. I guess I've decided against it. He ain't the kind of man you
+ought to marry."
+
+She hushed her mother's wail. "Sh! He'll hear you," she said, solemnly.
+"There are lots o' worse men than Mart Haney."
+
+"But he's so old--for you."
+
+"He's no boy, that's true, but we went all over that. The new fact in
+the case is this: he's sold out up there--cleared out his saloon
+business--and all for _me_. Think o' that--and I hadn't given him a word
+of encouragement, either! Now that speaks well for him, don't you
+think?"
+
+The mother nodded. "Yes, it surely does, but then--"
+
+The girl went on: "Well, now, it ain't as though I hated him, for I
+don't--I like him, I've always liked him. He's the handsomest man I
+know, and he's treated me right from the very start. He didn't come down
+to hurry me or crowd me at all, so he says. Well, I told him I wouldn't
+answer yet awhile--time isn't really up till to-morrow. I can take
+another week if I want to."
+
+The mother lay in silence for a few moments, and then with closed eyes,
+streaming with hot tears, she again prayed silently to God to guide her
+girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of
+Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power
+that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he
+said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to
+lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular
+hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I
+would fer me own mother. 'Twill not commit ye to a thing." He seemed to
+understand her mood--perhaps he had overheard her plea. "I'm not asking
+a decision till you are well, but I wish you would trust me now--I could
+do so much more fer you and the girl. Here's the doctor, so put the
+whole thing by for the present. I ask nothing till you are well."
+
+If this was policy on his part it was successful; for the poor tortured
+mother's heart was touched and her nerves soothed by his voice, as well
+as by the touch of his hand, and when they left the house she was in
+peaceful sleep, and the doctor's report was reassuring. "But she must
+have rest," he said, positively, "and freedom from care."
+
+"She shall have it," said Haney, with equal decision.
+
+This bluff kindness, joined to the allurement of his powerful form,
+profoundly affected the girl. Her heart went out towards him in
+admiration and trust, and as they were on the way home she turned
+suddenly to him, and said:
+
+"You're good to me--and you were good to mother; you needn't wait till
+to-morrow for my answer. I'll do as you want me to--some time--not
+now--next spring, maybe."
+
+He put his arm about her and kissed her, his eyes dim with a new and
+softening emotion.
+
+"You've made Mart Haney over new--so you have! As sure as God lets me
+live, I'll make you happy. You shall live like a queen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
+
+
+Haney took the train back to his mountain town in a mood which made him
+regard his action as that of a stranger. Whenever he recalled Bertha's
+trusting clasp of his hand he felt like removing his hat--the stir of
+his heart was close akin to religious reverence. "Faith, an' she's
+taking a big risk," he said. "But I'll not see her lose out," he added,
+with a return of the gambler's phrase. "She has stacked her chips on the
+right spot this time."
+
+With all his brute force, his clouded sense of justice, this gambler,
+this saloon-man, was not without qualifying characteristics. He was a
+Celt, and in almost every Celt there is hidden a poet. Quick to wrath,
+quick to jest and fierce in his loves was he, as is the typical Irishman
+whom England has not yet succeeded in changing to her own type.
+Moreover, he was an American as well as a Celt (and the American is the
+most sentimental of men--it is said); and now that he had been surprised
+into honorable matrimony he began to arrange his affairs for his wife's
+pleasure and glory. The words in which she had accepted him lingered in
+his ears like phrases of a little hesitating song. For her he had sold
+his gambling halls, for her he was willing at the moment to abandon the
+associates of a lifetime.
+
+He was sitting in the car dreamily smoking, his hat drawn low over his
+brows, when an acquaintance passing through the car stopped with a word
+of greeting. Ordinarily Haney would have been glad of his company, but
+he made a place for him at this time with grudging slowness.
+
+"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."
+
+"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
+place.
+
+Haney nodded, without smiling.
+
+His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"
+
+"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.
+
+"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
+in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
+drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
+rampage for two days--crazy as a loon."
+
+"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
+like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
+bust-up?"
+
+"He don't seem to--or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
+he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
+your guard."
+
+They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
+Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
+began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
+years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
+consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
+put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
+with me--God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
+I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
+of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
+entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
+he had no fear--only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
+repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
+he'd drop it."
+
+He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
+grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
+Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
+bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
+home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
+find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
+the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
+greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
+nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.
+
+The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
+yet finished their evening meal, and Haney and his two cronies had just
+taken their second round of drinks when the side door was burst
+violently open, and a man, white and wild, with a double-barrelled
+shotgun in his hand, abruptly entered. Darting across the floor, he
+thrust the muzzle of his weapon almost against Haney's breast and fired,
+uttering a wild curse at the moment of recoil.
+
+The tall gambler reeled under the shock, swinging half way about, his
+hands clutching at the railing, a look of anguish and surprise upon his
+face. The assassin, intent, alert, would have fired again had not a
+by-stander felled him to the floor. The room filled instantly with
+excited men eager to strike, vociferous with hate; but Haney, with one
+palm pressed to his breast, stood silent--curiously silent--his lips
+white with his effort at self-control.
+
+At length two of his friends seized him, tenderly asking: "How is it,
+old man? Are you hurt bad?"
+
+His lips moved--they listened--as he faintly whispered: "He's got me,
+boys. Here's where I quit."
+
+"Don't say that, Mart. You'll pull through," said his friend, chokingly.
+Then with ferocious impatience he yelled: "Somebody get the doctor! Damn
+it all, get moving! Don't you see him bleed?"
+
+Haney moved his head feebly. "Lay me down, Pete--I'm torn to pieces--I'm
+all in, I'm afraid. Get me little girl--that's all I ask."
+
+Very gently they took him in their arms and laid him on one of the
+gambling-tables in the rear room, while the resolute barkeeper pushed
+the crowd out.
+
+Again Haney called, impatiently, almost fiercely: "Send for
+Bertie--quick!"
+
+The men looked at each other in wonder, and one of them tapped his brow
+significantly, for no one knew of his latest love-affair. While still
+they stared Williams came rushing wildly in. All gave way to him, and
+the young doctor who followed him was greeted with low words of
+satisfaction. To his partner, whom he recognized, Haney repeated his
+command: "Send for Bertie." With a hurried scrawl Williams put down the
+girl's name and address on a piece of paper, and shouted: "Here!
+Somebody take this and rush it. Tell her to come quick as the Lord will
+let her." Then, with the tenderness of a brother, he bent to Haney. "How
+is it, Mart?"
+
+Mart did not reply. His supreme desire attended to, he sank into a
+patient immobility that approached stupor, while the surgeon worked with
+intent haste to stop the flow of blood. The wound was most barbarous,
+and Williams' eyes filled with tears as he looked upon that magnificent
+torso mangled by buckshot. He loved his big partner--Haney was indeed
+his highest enthusiasm, his chief object of adoration, and to see him
+riddled in this way was devil's work. He lost hope. "It's all over with
+Mart Haney," he said, chokingly, a few minutes later to the men crowding
+the bar-room--and then his rage against the assassin broke forth. He
+became the tiger seeking the blood of him who had slain his mate. His
+curses rose to primitive ferocity. "Where is he?" he asked.
+
+To him stepped a man--one whose voice was quiet but intense. "We've
+attended to his case, Williams. He's toeing the moonlight from a
+lamp-post. Want to see?"
+
+For an instant his rage flared out against these officious friends who
+had cheated him of his share in the swift delight of the avenger. Then
+tears again misted his eyes, and with a dignity and pathos which had
+never graced his speech before he pronounced a slow eulogy upon his
+friend: "No man had a right to accuse Mart Haney of any trick. He took
+his chances, fair and square. He had no play with crooked cards or
+'doctored' wheels. It was all 'above board' with him. He was dead game
+and a sport, you all know that, and now to be ripped to bits with
+buckshot--just when he was takin' a wife--is hellish."
+
+His voice faltered, and in the dead silence which followed this
+revelation of Haney's secret he turned and re-entered the inner room, to
+watch beside his friend.
+
+The hush which lay over the men at the bar lasted till the barkeeper
+softly muttered: "Boys, that's news to me. It does make it just too
+tough." Then those who had hitherto opposed the lynching of the murderer
+changed their minds and directed new malediction against him, and those
+who had handled the rope took keener comfort and greater honor to
+themselves.
+
+"Who is the woman?" asked one of those who waited.
+
+This question remained unanswered till the messenger to the telegraph
+office returned. Even then little beyond her name was revealed, but each
+of the watchers began to pray that she might reach the dying man before
+his eyes should close forever. "He can't live till sunrise," said one,
+"and there is no train from the Junction till morning. She can't get
+here without a special. Did you order a special for her?"
+
+"No, I didn't think of it," the messenger replied, with a sense of
+shortcoming.
+
+"It must be done!"
+
+"I'll attend to that," said Slater. "I know the superintendent. I'll
+wire him to see her--and bring her."
+
+"Well, be quick about it. Expense don't count now."
+
+It was beautiful to see how these citizens, rough and sordid as many of
+them were, rose to the poetic value of the situation. As one of them,
+who had seen (and loved) the girl, told of her youth and beauty, they
+all stood in rigidly silent attention. "She's hardly more than a child,"
+he explained, "but you never saw a more level-headed little business
+woman in your life. She runs the Golden Eagle Hotel at Junction, and
+does it alone. That's what caught Mart, you see. She's as straight as a
+Ute, and her eyes are clear as agates. She's a little captain--just the
+mate for Mart. She'll save him if anybody can."
+
+"Will she come? Can she get away?"
+
+"Of course she'll come. She'll ride an engine or jump a flat-car to get
+here. You can depend on a woman in such things. She don't stop to
+calculate, she ain't that kind. She comes--you can bet high on that. I'm
+only worrying for fear Mart won't hold out till she gets here."
+
+Meanwhile, every man in the room where Haney lay, sat in silence, with
+an air of waiting--waiting for the inevitable end. The bleeding had been
+checked, but the sufferer's breathing was painful and labored, and the
+doctor, sitting close beside him, was studying means to prolong life--he
+had given up hope of saving it. With stiffened lips Haney repeated now
+and again: "Keep me alive till she comes, doctor. She must marry
+me--here. I want her to have all I've got--_everything_!"
+
+At another time he said: "Get the judge--have everything ready!"
+
+They understood. He wished to dower his love with his wealth, to place
+in her hands his will, beyond the reach of any contestant, and this
+resolution through the hours of his agony, through the daze of his
+weakness persisted heroically--till even the doctor's throat filled with
+sympathetic emotion, as he thought of the young maiden soon to be thrust
+into this tragic drama. He answered, soothingly: "I'll do all I can,
+Mart. There's a lot of vitality in you yet. We won't give up. You'll
+pull through, with her help."
+
+To this Haney made no reply, and the hours passed with ghostly step. It
+was a most moving experience for the young doctor to look round that
+wide room littered with scattered cards, the wheels of chance motionless
+at the hazard where the last gambler's bet had ended. In the "lookout's
+chair," where Haney himself used to sit, an unseen arbiter now gloomed,
+watching a game where life was the forfeit. A spectral finger seemed to
+rest upon the blood-red spot of every board. No sound came from the
+drinking-saloon in front. The miners had all withdrawn. Only the
+barkeeper and a few personal friends kept willing vigil.
+
+About nine o'clock an answering telegram came to Slater: "Girl just
+leaving on special. Will make all speed possible."
+
+Haney faintly smiled when Williams read this message to him. "I knew
+it," he whispered, "she'll come." Then his lips set in a grim line. "And
+I'll be here when she comes." Thereafter he had the look of a man who
+hangs with hooked fingers in iron resolution above an abyss, husbanding
+every resource--forcing himself to think only of the blue sky above him.
+
+A little later the priest knocked at the door and asked to see the dying
+man, but to this request Haney shook his head and whispered. "No, no;
+I've no strength to waste--'tis good of him. Wait! Tell him to be
+here--to marry us--" And with this request the priest was forced to be
+content. "May the Lord God be merciful to him!" he exclaimed fervently,
+as he turned away.
+
+Once again, about midnight, the wounded man roused up to say: "The
+ceremony must be legal--I want no lawsuits after. The girl must be
+protected." He was thinking of his brothers, of his own kind, rapacious
+and selfish. Every safeguard must be thrown around his sweetheart's
+life.
+
+"We'll attend to that," answered Williams, who seemed able to read his
+partner's thoughts. "We'll take every precaution. He wants the judge to
+be present as well as the priest," he explained to the doctor, "so that
+if the girl would rather she can be married by the Court as well as by
+the Church."
+
+Every man in the secret realized fully that the girl was being endowed
+with an immense fortune, and that she would inevitably be the quarry of
+every self-seeking relative whose interest would be served by attacking
+her rights in the premises. "The lawsuits must be cut out," was
+Williams' order to the judge. "Mart's brothers are a wolfish lot. We
+don't want any loose ends for them to catch on to."
+
+From time to time messages flashed between the oncoming train and the
+faithful watchers. "It's all up grade, but Johnson is breaking all
+records. At this rate she'll reach here by daylight," said Slater. "But
+that's a long time for Mart to wait on that rough bed," he added to
+Williams, with deep sympathy in his voice.
+
+"I know that, but to move him would hasten his death. The doctor is
+afraid to even turn him. Besides, Mart himself won't have it. 'I'm
+better here,' he says. So we've propped him into the easiest position
+possible. There's nothing to do but wait for the girl."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
+
+
+Bertha was eating her supper, after a hard day's work in her little
+hotel, when a little yellow envelope was handed to her. The words of the
+message were few, but they were meaning-full: "Come at once. Mart hurt,
+not expected to live." It was signed by Williams. While still she sat
+stunned and hesitant, under the weight of this demand, another and much
+more explicit telegram came: "Johnson, superintendent, is ordered to
+fetch you with special train. Don't delay. Mart needs you--is calling
+for you. Come at once!"
+
+The phrase "is calling for you" reached her heart--decided her. She
+rose, and, with a word of explanation to her housekeeper, put on her
+hat, and threw a cloak over her arm. "I've got to go to Cripple. Captain
+Haney is sick, and I've got to go to him. I don't know when I'll be
+back," she said. "Get along the best you can." Her face was white but
+calm, and her manner deliberate. "Send word to mother that Mart is hurt,
+and I've gone up to see him. Tell her not to worry."
+
+To her night clerk, who had come on duty, she quietly remarked: "I
+reckon you'll have to look after things to-morrow. I'll try to get back
+the day after. If I don't, Lem Markham will take my place." While still
+she stood arranging the details of her business a short, dark man
+stepped inside the door, and very kindly and gravely explained his
+errand. "I'm Johnson, the division superintendent. They've telegraphed
+me for a special, and I'm going to take you up myself. Mart is a friend
+of mine," he added, with some feeling.
+
+She thanked him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together
+they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive
+coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of
+spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short
+caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and
+the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up
+speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to
+the girl: "I guess you'd better take my chair; it's bolted to the floor,
+and you can hang on when we go round the curves."
+
+She obeyed instantly, and with her small hands gripping the arm-rests of
+the rude seat cowered in silence, while the clambering monster rushed
+and roared over the level lands and labored up the grades, shrieking now
+and again, as if in mingled pain and warning. Johnson and the brakeman,
+for the most part, kept to the lookout in the turret, and the girl rode
+alone--rode far, passing swiftly from girlhood to womanhood, so full of
+enforced meditation were the hours of that ride. It seemed that she was
+leaving something sweet and care-free behind her, and it was certain
+that she was about to face death. She had one perfectly clear
+conception, and that was that the man who had been most kind to her, and
+to whom she had given her promise of marriage, was dying and needed
+her--was calling for her through the night.
+
+Burdened with responsibility from her childhood, accustomed to make her
+own decisions, she had responded to this prayer, knowing dimly that this
+journey denoted a new and portentous experience--a fundamental change in
+her life.
+
+She had admired and liked Haney from the first, but her feeling even yet
+was very like that of a boy for a man of heroic statue--her regard had
+very little of woman's passion in it. She was appalled and benumbed by
+the thought that she was soon to look upon him lying prone. That she
+might soon be called upon to meet those bold eyes closing in death she
+had been warned, and yet she did not shrink from it. The nurse, latent
+in every woman, rose in her, and she ached with desire of haste, longing
+to lay her hand upon the suffering man in some healing way. His
+kindness, his gentleness, during the days of his final courtship had
+sunk deep--his generosity had been so full, so free, so unhesitating.
+
+She thought of her mother, and as a fuller conception of the alarm and
+anxiety she would feel came to her, she decided to send her a telegram.
+"She will know it was my duty to go," she decided. "As for the
+hotel--what does it matter now?" Nothing seemed to matter, indeed, save
+the speed of her chariot.
+
+The night was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down
+out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning
+encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with
+taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be
+otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on
+one other point--this journey committed her to Marshall Haney. There
+could be no further hesitation. "Some time, soon, if he lives, I must
+marry him," she thought, and the conception troubled her with a new
+revelation of what that relationship might mean. She felt suddenly very
+small, very weak, and very helpless. "He must be good to me," she
+murmured. And then, as the words of his prayer to her came back, she
+added: "And I'll be good to him."
+
+Far and farther below her shone the lights in the little hotel, and the
+busy and jocund scenes of her girlish life receded swiftly. At this
+moment her desk and the little sitting-room where the men lounged seemed
+a haven of peace and plenty, and the car, rocking and plunging through
+the night, was like a ship rising and falling on wild seas under unknown
+stars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clear light of the mountain dawn was burnishing brass into gold as
+the locomotive with its tolling bell slid up the level track at the end
+of its run, and came to a stealthy halt beside the small station.
+
+"Here we are!" called Johnson from his turret, and Bertha rose, stiff
+and sore with the long night's ride, her resolution cooled to a kind of
+passive endurance. "I'm ready!" she called back.
+
+Williams met her at the step. "It's all right, sis. Mart's still
+here--and waiting for you."
+
+Instantly, at sight of his ugly, familiar, friendly face, she became
+alert, clear-brained. "How is he?"
+
+"Pretty bad."
+
+"What's it all about? How did it happen?"
+
+"I'll clear that up as we go," he replied, and led the way to a
+carriage.
+
+Once inside, she turned her keen gaze upon him. "Now go
+ahead--straight."
+
+He did so in the blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the
+border, and who has no nice shading in act or word.
+
+"Is he dying?" she asked at the first pause.
+
+"I'm afraid he is, sister," he replied, gently. "That's what's made the
+night seem long to us; but you're here and it's all right now."
+
+That she was to look on him dying had been persistently in her mind, but
+that she was to see him mangled by an assassin added horror to her
+dread. In spite of her intrepid manner, she was still girl enough to
+shudder at the sight of blood.
+
+Williams went on. "He's weak, too weak to talk much, and so I'm going to
+tell you what he wants. He wants you to marry him before he dies."
+
+The girl drew away. "Not this minute--to-night?"
+
+"Yes; he wants to give you legal rights to all he has, and you've got to
+do it quick. No tellin' what may happen." His voice choked as he said
+this.
+
+Bertha's blood chilled with dismay. Her throat filled and her bosom
+swelled with the effort she made at self-control, and Williams, watching
+her with bright eyes of admiration, hurried on to the end. "Everything
+is ready. There is a priest, if you want him, and Judge Brady with a
+civil ceremony, if that will please you better, or we'll get a
+Protestant minister; it's for you to say. Only the knot must be tied
+good and tight. I told the boys you'd take a priest for Mart's sake. He
+says: 'Make it water-proof.' He means so that no will-breaking brothers
+or cousins can stack the cards agin you. And now it's up to you, little
+sister. He has only a few hours anyway, and I don't see that you can
+refuse, specially as it makes his dying--" He stopped there.
+
+The street was silent as they drew up to the saloon door, and only
+Slater and one or two of his friends were present when Bertha walked
+into the bar-room, erect as a boy, her calm, sweet face ashen white in
+the electric light. For an instant; she stood there in the middle of the
+floor alone, her big dark eyes searching every face. Then Judge Brady, a
+kindly, gray-haired man, advanced, and took her hand. "We're very glad
+to see you," he gravely said, introducing himself. Williams, who had
+entered the inner room, returned instantly to say: "Come, he's waiting."
+
+Without a word the bride entered the presence of her groom, and the
+doctor, bending low to the gambler, said: "Be careful now, Mart. Don't
+try to rise. Be perfectly still. Bertie has come."
+
+Haney turned with a smile--a tender, humorous smile--and whispered:
+"Bertie, acushla mavourneen, come to me!"
+
+Then the watchers withdrew, leaving them alone, and the girl, bending
+above him, kissed him. "Oh, Captain, can't I do something? I _must_ do
+something."
+
+"Yes, darlin', ye can. You can marry me this minute, and ye shall. I'm
+dyin', girl--so the doctor says. I don't feel it that way; but, anyhow,
+we take no chances. All I have is for you, and so--"
+
+She put her hand ever his lips. "You must be quiet. I understand, and I
+will do it--but only to make you well." She turned to the door, and her
+voice was clear as she said to those who waited: "I am ready."
+
+"Will you have Father Kearney?" asked Williams.
+
+She turned towards Haney. "Just as he says."
+
+The stricken miner, ghastly with the pain brought on by movement,
+responded to the doctor's question, only by a whisper: "The
+priest--first."
+
+The girl heard, and her fine, clear glance rested upon the face of the
+priest. Tears were on her cheeks, but a kind of exultation was in her
+tone as she said: "I am willing, father."
+
+With a look which denoted his appreciation of the girl's courage, the
+priest stepped forward and led her to her place beside her bridegroom.
+She took Haney's big nerveless hand in her firm grasp, and together they
+listened to the solemn words which made them husband and wife. It seemed
+that the gambler was passing into the shadow during the opening prayer,
+but his whispered responses came at the proper pauses, and only when the
+final benediction was given, and the priest and the judge fell back
+before the rush of the young doctor, did the wounded man's eyes close in
+final collapse. He had indeed reached the end of his endurance.
+
+The young wife spoke then, imperiously, almost fiercely, asking: "Why is
+he lying here? This is no place for him."
+
+The doctor explained. "We were afraid to move him--till you came. In
+fact, he wouldn't let me move him. If you say so now, we will take him
+up." With these words the watchers shifted their responsibility to her
+shoulders, uttering sighs of deep relief. Whatever happened now, Mart's
+will had been secured. At her command they lifted the table on which her
+husband lay, and the wife walked beside it, unheeding the throngs of
+silent men walling her path. Every one made way for her, waited upon
+her, eager to serve her, partly because she was Marshall Haney's wife,
+but more because of her youth and the brave heart which looked from her
+clear and candid eyes.
+
+She showed no hesitation now, gave out no word of weakness; on the
+contrary, she commanded with certainty and precision, calling to her aid
+all that the city afforded. Not till she had summoned the best surgeons
+and was sure that everything had been done that could be done did she
+permit herself to relax--or to think of rest or her mother.
+
+When she had sunk to sleep upon a couch beside her husband's bed,
+Williams, with a note of deep admiration, demanded of the surgeon:
+"Ain't she a little Captain? Mart can't die now, can he? He's got too
+much to live for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE HANEY PALACE
+
+
+One day early in the following summer a tall, thin man, with one
+helpless side, entered the big luminous hall of the Antlers Hotel at the
+Springs, upheld by a stalwart attendant, and accompanied by a
+sweet-faced, calm-lipped young woman. This was Marshall Haney and his
+young wife Bertha, down from the mountain for the first time since his
+illness, and those who knew their story and recognized them, stood aside
+with a thrill of pity for the man and a look of admiration for the girl,
+whose bravery and devotion had done so much to bring her husband back to
+life and to a growing measure of his former strength.
+
+Marshall Haney was, indeed, but a poor hulk of his stalwart self. One
+lung had been deeply torn, his left shoulder was almost wholly disabled,
+and he walked with a stoop and shuffle; but his physical weakening was
+not more marked than his mental mellowing. He was softened--"gentled,"
+as the horsemen say. His eyes were larger, and his face, once so stern
+and masterful, gave out an appealing expression by reason of the deep
+horizontal wrinkles which had developed in his brow. He had grown a
+mustache, and this being gray gave him an older look--older and more
+military. It was plain, also, that he leaned upon his keen-eyed,
+impassive little wife, who never for one moment lost her hold upon
+herself or her surroundings. Her flashing glances took note of
+everything about her, and her lips were close-set and firm.
+
+Williams, ugly and wordless as ever, followed them with a proud smile
+till they entered the handsome suite of rooms which had been reserved
+for them. "There's nothing too good for Marshall Haney and his
+side-partner," he exulted to the bell-boy.
+
+Thereupon, Mart, with a look of reverence at his young bride, replied:
+"She's airned it--and more!"
+
+A sigh was in his voice and a singular appeal in his big eyes as he sank
+into an easy-chair. "I believe I do feel better down here; my heart
+seems to work aisier. I'm going to get well now, darlin'."
+
+"Of course you are," she answered, in the tone of a daughter; then
+added, with a smile: "I like it here. Why not settle?"
+
+To her Colorado Springs was a dazzling social centre. The beauty of the
+homes along its wide streets, the splendor of its private carriages,
+affected her almost as deeply as the magnitude and glory of Denver
+itself; but she was not of those who display their weaknesses and
+diffidence. She ate her first dinner in the lofty Antlers dining-hall
+with quiet dignity, and would not have been particularly noticed but for
+Haney, who was well-known to the waiters of the hotel. Her association
+with him had made her a marked figure in their mountain towns, and she
+was accustomed to comment.
+
+She met the men who addressed her with entire fearlessness and candor
+(she was afraid only of women in good clothes), speaking with the easy
+slanginess of a herder, using naturally and unconsciously the most
+picturesque phrases of the West. Her speech was incisive and
+unhesitating, yet not swift. She never chattered, but "you bet" and "all
+right" were authorized English so far as she was concerned. "They say
+you can't beat this town anywhere for society, and I sure like the looks
+of what we've seen. Suppose we hang around this hotel for a while--not
+too long, for it's mighty expensive." Here she smiled--a quick, flashing
+smile. "You see, I can't get used to spending money--I'm afraid all the
+time I'll wake up. It's just like a dream I used to have of finding
+chink--I always came to before I had a chance to handle it and see if it
+was real."
+
+Haney answered, indulgently: "'Tis all real, Bertie. I'll show you that
+when I'm meself again."
+
+"Oh, I believe it--at least, part of the time," she retorted. "But I'll
+have to flash a roll to do it--checks are no good. I could sign a
+million checks and not have 'em seem like real money. I'm from Missouri
+when it comes to cash."
+
+Mrs. Gilman, who had always stood in bewilderment and wonder of her
+daughter, was entirely subject now. She and Williams usually moved in
+silence, like adoring subjects in the presence of their sovereigns. They
+had no doubts whatsoever concerning the power and primacy of gold; and
+as for Haney himself, his unquestioning confidence in his little wife's
+judgment had come to be like an article of religious faith.
+
+After breakfast on the second day of her stay Bertha ordered a carriage,
+and they drove about the town in the brilliant morning sunshine, looking
+for a place to build. She resembled a little home-seeking sparrow. Every
+cosey cottage was to her an almost irresistible allurement. "There's a
+dandy place, Captain," she called several times. "Wouldn't you like a
+house like that?"
+
+He, with larger notions, shook his head each time. "Too small, Bertie.
+We've the right to a fine big place--like that, now." He nodded towards
+a stately gray-stone mansion, with the sign "For Sale" planted on its
+lawn.
+
+She was aghast. "Gee! what would we do with a state-house like that?"
+
+"Live in it, sure."
+
+"It would need four chamber-maids and two hired men to take care of a
+place like that. And think of the money it would spoil to stock it with
+furniture!" Nevertheless, she gazed at it longingly. "I'd sure like that
+big garden and that porch. You could sit on that porch and see the
+mountains, couldn't you? But my ears and whiskers, the expense of
+keeping it!"
+
+They passed on to other and less palatial possibilities, and returned to
+the hotel undecided. The two women, bewildered and weary, diverged and
+discussed the matter of dress till the mid-day meal.
+
+"I like being rich," remarked the young wife, as they took their seats
+in the lovely dining-room, and looked about at the tables so shining, so
+dainty. "It would be fun to run a house like this, don't you think?" She
+addressed her mother.
+
+"Good gracious, no! Think of the bill for help and the worry of looking
+after all this silver! No, it's too splendid for us."
+
+Haney still retained enough of his ancient humor to smile at them. "I'd
+rather see you manage that big stone house with the porch which I'm
+going to buy."
+
+"You don't mean it?" said Bertha, while Mrs. Gilman stared at him over
+her soup.
+
+He went on quietly. "Sure! Me mind's made up. You want the garden and I
+like the porch; so 'phone the agent after dinner, and we'll go up and
+see to it this very afternoon."
+
+Bertha's bosom heaved with excitement, and her eyes expanded. "I'd like
+just once to see the _inside_ of a house like that. It must be half as
+big as this hotel--but to own it! You're crazy, Captain."
+
+The remote possibility of walking through that wonderful mansion took
+away the young wife's appetite, and she became silent and reflective in
+the face of a delicious fried chicken. The magic of her husband's wealth
+began to make itself most potently felt.
+
+Haney insisted on smoking a cigar in the lobby. Bertha took her mother
+away to talk over the tremendous decision which was about to be thrust
+upon them. "We want a house," said she, decisively, "but not a palace
+like that. What would we do with it? It scares me up a tree to think of
+it."
+
+"I guess he was only joking," Mrs. Gilman agreed.
+
+"I can see the porch would be fine for him," Bertha went on. "But,
+jiminy spelter, we'd all be lost in the place!"
+
+Haney called Williams to his side, and told him of the house. "It's a
+big place, but I want it. Go you and see the agent. My little girl needs
+a roof, and why not the best?"
+
+"Sure!" replied Williams, with conviction. "She's entitled to a castle.
+You round up the women, and I'll do the rest."
+
+The house proved to be even more splendid and spacious than its exterior
+indicated, and Bertha walked its wide halls with breathless delight.
+After a hurried survey of the interior, they came out upon the broad
+veranda, and lingered long in awe and wonder of the outlook. To the west
+lay a glorious garden of fruits and flowers; a fountain was playing over
+the rich green grass; high above the tops of the pear and peach trees
+(which made a little copse) rose the purple peaks of the Rampart range.
+
+"Oh, isn't it great!" exclaimed Bertha.
+
+Haney turned to the agent with a tense look on his pale face--a look of
+exultant power.
+
+"Make out your papers," said he, quietly. "We take the place--as it
+stands."
+
+Bertha was overwhelmed by this flourish of the enchanter's wand--but
+only for a moment. No sooner was the contract signed than she roused
+herself as to a new business venture. "Well, now, the first thing is
+furniture. Let's see! There is some carpets and curtains in the place,
+isn't there? And a steel range. It's up to me to rustle the balance of
+the outfit together right lively."
+
+And so she set to work quite as she would have done in outfitting a new
+hotel--so many beds, so many chairs in a room, so many dressers, and
+soon had a long list made out and the order placed.
+
+She spent every available moment of her time for the next two days
+getting the kitchen and dining-room in running order, and when she had
+two beds ready insisted on moving in. "We can kind o' camp out in the
+place till we get stocked up. I'm crazy to be under our own roof."
+
+Haney, almost as eager as she, consented, and on the third day they
+drove up to the door, dismissed their hired coachman, and stepped inside
+the gate--master and mistress of an American chateau.
+
+Mart turned, and, with misty eyes and a voice choked with happiness,
+said: "Well, darlin', we have it now--the palace of the fairy stories."
+
+"It's great," she repeated, musingly; "but I can't make it seem like a
+home--mebbe it'll change when I get it filled with furniture, but the
+garden is sure all right."
+
+They took their first meal on the porch overlooking the mountains,
+listening to the breeze in the vines. It was heavenly sweet after the
+barren squalor of their Cripple Creek home, and they did little but gaze
+and dream.
+
+"We need a team," Bertha said, at last.
+
+"Buy one," replied Haney.
+
+So Bertha bought a carriage and a fine black span. This expenditure
+involved a coachman, and to fill that position an old friend of
+Williams'--a talkative and officious old miner--was employed. She next
+secured a Chinese cook, the best to be had, and a girl to do the
+chamber-work. They were all busy as hornets, and Bertha lived in a glow
+of excitement every waking hour of the day--though she did not show it.
+
+Haney's check-book was quite as wonderful in its way as Aladdin's lamp,
+and little by little the women permitted themselves to draw upon its
+magic. The shining span of blacks, with flowing manes and champing bits,
+became a feature of the avenue as the women drove up and down on their
+never-ending quest for household luxuries--they had gone beyond mere
+necessities. Mart usually went with them, sitting in the carriage while
+they "visited" with the grocery clerks and furniture dealers. They were
+very popular with these people, as was natural.
+
+"Little Mrs. Haney" became at once the subject of endless
+comment--mostly unfavorable; for Mart's saloon-made reputation was
+well-known, and the current notion of a woman who would marry him was
+not high. She was reported, in the alien circles of the town, to be a
+vulgar little chamber-maid who had taken a gambler for his money at a
+time when he was supposed to be on his death-bed, and her elevation to
+the management of a palatial residence was pointed out as being
+"peculiarly Western-American."
+
+The men, however, were much more tolerant of judgment than their women.
+They had become more or less hardened to seeing crude miners luxuriating
+in sudden, accidental wealth; therefore, they nodded good-humoredly at
+Haney and tipped their hats to his pretty wife with smiles. As bankers,
+tradesmen, and taxpayers generally they could not afford to neglect a
+citizen possessed of so much wealth and circumstance.
+
+Mrs. Gilman presented a letter of introduction to the nearest church of
+her own persuasion, and went to service quite as unassumingly as in
+Sibley, and was greeted by a few of the ladies there cordially and
+without hint of her son-in-law's connections. Two or three, including
+the pastor's wife, made special effort to cultivate her acquaintance by
+calling immediately, but they were not of those who attracted Bertha;
+and though she showed them about the house and answered their questions,
+she did not promise to call. "We're too busy," she explained. "I haven't
+got more than half the rooms into shape, and, besides, we're to have my
+brother's folks down from the Junction--we're on the hustle all day
+long."
+
+This was true. She had been quite besieged by her former neighbors in
+Sibley, who found it convenient to "put up with the Haneys" while
+visiting the town. They were, in fact, very curious to study her in her
+new and splendid setting; and though some of them peeked and peered amid
+the beds, and thumped the mattresses in vulgar curiosity, the young
+housewife merely laughed. All her life had been spent among folk of this
+directly inquisitive sort. She expected them to act as they did, and,
+being a hearty and generous soul, as well as a very democratic one, she
+sent them away happy.
+
+Indeed, she won praise from all who came to know her. But that small
+part of the Springs--alien and exclusive--which considered itself higher
+if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the
+gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined
+to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback"
+as she met them on the boulevard.
+
+Of all this critical comment Bertha remained, happily, unconscious, and
+it is probable that she would soon have won her way to a decent circle
+of friends had not Charles Haney descended upon them like a plague. Mart
+had been receiving letters from this brother, but had said nothing to
+Bertha of his demands. "Charles despised me when he met me in Denver,"
+he explained to Williams. "I was busted at the time, ye mind." He
+winked. "And now when he reads in the papers that Mart Haney is rich, he
+comes down on me like a hawk on a June bug. 'Tis no matter. He may
+come--I'll not cast him out. But he does not play with me
+double-eagles--not he!"
+
+Charles Haney was not fitted to raise his brother's wife in the social
+scale, for he belonged to that marked, insistent variety of actor to be
+distinguished on trains and in the lobbies of hotels--a fat, sleek,
+loud-voiced comedian, who enacted scenes from his unwritten plays while
+ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in
+illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of
+those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and
+brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their
+first meeting.
+
+She amazed him. He had expected a woman of his own class--an
+adventuress, painted, designing; and to find this sweet little
+girl--"why, she's too good for Mart," he concluded, and shifted his
+hollow pretensions of sympathy from his brother to his sister-in-law.
+Before the first evening of his visit closed he sought opportunity to
+tell her, in hypocritic sadness, that Mart was a doomed man, and that
+she would soon be free of him. Bertha was disturbed by his gaze and
+repelled by his touch, but tried to like him on Mart's account. His
+mouthing disgusted her, and the good-will with which Haney greeted his
+brother turned into bitterness as the boaster and low wit began to
+display himself.
+
+"We all grew up in the street or in the saloon," Haney sadly remarked,
+"and you finished your education in the variety theatre, I'm thinking."
+
+The actor took this as a joke, and with a grin retorted: "That's better
+than running a faro-layout."
+
+"I dunno; a good quiet game has its power to educate a man," replied the
+gambler.
+
+That night, as she was preparing the Captain for bed, he remarked, with
+a sigh: "Life is a quare game! I mind Charley well as a cute little
+yellow-haired divil, always laughing, always in mischief, and me chasin'
+after him--a big slob of a boy. I used to carry him up an' down the
+tenement stairs. I learned him to skate--and now here he is drinkin'
+himself puffy, whilst I am an old broken-down hack at forty-five." He
+looked up at her with a sheen of tears in his eyes. "Darlin', 'tis a
+shame to be leanin' on you."
+
+She put her arm around his big grizzled head and drew it to her.
+
+"You can lean hard, Mart. I'm standin' by."
+
+"No, I'll not lean too hard," he answered. "I don't want your fine,
+straight back to stoop. I make no demands. I'll not spoil your young
+life. I'm not worth it. You're free to go when you can't stand me any
+longer."
+
+"Now, now, no more of that!" she warned. "When I have cause to knock,
+you won't need no ear-trumpet. Put up your hoof." He obeyed, and,
+stooping swiftly, she began to unlace the shoe which he could no longer
+reach. Her manner was that of a daughter who tyrannizes over an
+indulgent father. Her admiration and gratitude, so boyish once, were now
+replaced by an affection in which the element of sex had small place,
+and his love for her sprang also from a source far removed from the
+fierce instinct which first led him to seek her subduing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
+
+
+Charles Haney had no scruples. From the moment of his first meeting with
+his brother's young wife he determined to make himself "solid" with her.
+Convinced that Mart was not long for this world, he set to work to win
+Bertha's favor, for this was the only way to harvest the golden fortune
+she controlled.
+
+"Mart is just fool enough and contrary enough to leave every cent of his
+money to her." Here he placed one finger against his brow. "Carlos, here
+is where you get busy. It's us to the haberdasher. We shine."
+
+Notwithstanding all his boasting, he was not only an actor out of an
+engagement, but flat broke, badly dressed, and in sorry disrepute with
+managers. "I've been playing in a stock company in San Francisco," he
+had explained, "and I'm now on my way to New York to produce a play of
+my own. Hence these tears. I need an 'angel.'"
+
+He distinctly said "the first of the month" in this announcement, but as
+the days went by he only settled deeper into the snug corners of the
+Haney home, making no further mention of his triumphal eastward
+progress. On the contrary, he had the air of a regular boarder, and
+turned up promptly for meals, rotund and glowing in the opulence of his
+brother's hospitality.
+
+On the strength of his name he found favor with the tailors, and
+bourgeoned forth a few days later in the best cloth the shops afforded,
+and strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock before Bertha,
+keeping up meanwhile a pretension of sympathy and good-fellowship with
+Mart.
+
+In this he miscalculated; for Bertha, youthful as she seemed, was
+accustomed, as she would say, to "standing off mashers," and her
+impassive face and keen, steady eyes fairly disconcerted the libertine.
+"For Mart's sake, we'll put up with him," she said to her mother. "He's
+a loafer; but I can see the Captain kind o' likes to have him
+around--for old times' sake, I reckon."
+
+This was true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his
+egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the
+dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to
+see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he
+played it "to the limit," as Bertha would have said.
+
+And yet no one in the house realized how his presence reacted against
+Bertha.
+
+"What are we to think of a girl so obtuse that she permits a man like
+this fat, disgusting actor to dangle about her?" asked Mrs. Crego of her
+husband, who was Haney's legal adviser.
+
+"He's her husband's brother, you know," argued Crego.
+
+"All the same, I can't understand her. She looks nice and sweet, and you
+say she is so; and yet here she is married to a notorious gambler, and
+associating with mountebanks and all sorts of malodorous people. Why,
+I've seen her riding down the street with the upholsterer, and Mrs.
+Congdon told me that she saw her stop her carriage in front of a cigar
+store and talk with a barber in a white jacket for at least ten
+minutes."
+
+Crego laughed. "What infamy! However, I can't believe even the
+upholsterer will finally corrupt her. The fact is, my dear, we're all
+getting to be what some of my clients call 'too a-ristocratic.' Bertha
+Haney is sprung from good average American stock, and has associated
+with the kind of people you abhor all her life. She hasn't begun to draw
+any of your artificial distinctions. I hope she never will. Her barber
+friend is on the same level with the clerks and grocery-men of the town.
+They're all human, you know. She's the true democrat. I confess I like
+the girl. Her ability is astonishing. Williams and Haney both take her
+opinion quite as weightily as my own."
+
+Mrs. Crego was impressed. "Well, I'll call on her if you really think I
+_ought_ to do so."
+
+"I don't. I withdraw my suggestion. I deprecate your calling--in that
+spirit. I doubt if she expects you to call. I hardly think she has
+awakened to any slights put upon her by your set. Indeed, she seems
+quite happy in the society of Thomas, Richard, and Harry."
+
+"Don't be brutal, Allen."
+
+"I'm not. The girl is now serene--that's the main thing; and you might
+raise up doubts and discontents in her mind."
+
+"I certainly shall not go near her so long as that odious actor is
+hanging about. His smirk at me the other day made me ill."
+
+This conversation was typical of many others in homes of equal culture,
+for Bertha's position as well as her face and manner piqued curiosity.
+After all, the town was a small place--just large enough to give gossip
+room to play in--and the sheen of Mrs. Haney's wealth made her
+conspicuous from afar, while her youth and boyish beauty had been the
+subject of admiring club talk from the very first. Haney was only an old
+and wounded animal, whose mate was free to choose anew.
+
+"It makes me ache to see the girl go wrong," said Mrs. Frank Congdon,
+wife of a resident portrait-painter, also in delicate health (she was
+speaking to Mrs. Crego). "Think of that great house--Frank says she runs
+it admirably--filled with tinkers and tailors and candlestick-makers,
+not to mention touts and gamblers--when she might be entertaining--well,
+us, for example!" She laughed at the unbending face of her friend; then
+went on: "Dr. Cronk says the mother is a sweet old lady and of good New
+England family--a constitutional Methodist, he calls her. I wish she
+kept better company."
+
+"But what can you expect of a girl brought up in a pigsty. Her mother
+was mistress of a little miners' hotel in Junction City, Allen says, and
+the girl boasts of it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon smiled. "I'm dying to talk with her. She's far and away the
+most interesting of our newly rich, and I like her face. Frank has
+called, you know?"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"On business, of course. She has decided to have him paint her husband's
+picture. She's taken her first step upward, you see."
+
+"I should think she'd be content to have her saloon-keeper husband's
+face fade out of her memory."
+
+"Frank is enthusiastic. I'm not a bit sure that he didn't suggest the
+portrait. He is shameless when he takes a fancy to a face. He's wild to
+paint them both and call it 'The Lion Tamer and the Lion.' He considers
+Haney a great character. It seems he saw him in Cripple Creek once, and
+was vastly taken by his pose. His being old and sad now--his face is one
+of the saddest I ever saw--makes it all the more interesting to Frank.
+So I'm going to call--in fact, we're going to lunch there soon."
+
+"Oh, well, yes. You artists can do anything, and it's all right. You
+must come over immediately afterwards and tell me all about it, won't
+you?"
+
+At this Mrs. Congdon laughed, but, being of generous mind, consented.
+
+Crego was right. Bertha had not yet begun to take on trouble about her
+social position. She had carried to her big house in the Springs all the
+ideas and usages of Sibley Junction--that was all. She acknowledged her
+obligations as a householder, carrying forward the New England
+democratic traditions. To be next door made any one a neighbor, with the
+right to run in to inspect your house and furniture and to give advice.
+The fact that near-at-hand residents did not avail themselves of this
+privilege troubled her very little at first, so busy was she with her
+own affairs; but it was inevitable that the talk of her mother's church
+associates should sooner or later open her eyes to the truth that the
+distinctions which she had read about as existing in New York and
+Chicago were present in her own little city. "Mrs. Crego and her set are
+too stuck up to associate with common folks," was the form in which the
+revelation came to her.
+
+From one loose-tongued sister she learned, also, that she and the
+Captain were subjects of earnest prayer in the sewing-circle, and that
+her husband's Catholicism was a source of deep anxiety, not to say
+proselyting hostility, on the part of the pastor and his wife, while
+from another of these officious souls she learned that the Springs,
+beautiful as it was, so sunlit, so pure of air, was a centre of marital
+infelicity, wherein the devil reigned supreme.
+
+Her mother's pastor called, and was very outspoken as to Mart and
+Charles--both of whom needed the Lord's grace badly. He expressed great
+concern for Bertha's spiritual welfare, and openly prayed for her
+husband, whose nominal submission to the Catholic Church seemed not
+merely blindness to his own sin, but a danger to the young wife.
+
+Haney, however, though wounded and suffering, was still a lion in
+resolution, and his glance checked the exhortation which the minister
+one day nerved himself to utter. "I do not interfere with any man's
+faith," said he, "and I do not intend to be put to school by you nor any
+other livin'. I was raised a Catholic, and for the sake of me mother I
+call meself wan to this day, and as I am so I shall die." And the
+finality of his voice won him freedom from further molestation.
+
+Bertha's concern for her creed was hardly more poignant than Haney's,
+and they never argued; but she did begin to give puzzled thought to the
+social complications which opened out day by day before her. Charles,
+embittered by his failures, enlightened her still more profoundly. He
+had a certain shrewdness of comment at times which bit. "Wouldn't it jar
+you," said he one day, "to see this little town sporting a 'Smart Set'
+and quoting _Town Topics_ like a Bible? Why, some of these dinky little
+two-spot four-flushers draw the line on me because I'm an actor! What
+d'ye think o' that? I don't mind your Methodist sistern walking wide of
+me, but it's another punch when these dubs who are smoking my cigars at
+the club fail to invite me to their houses."
+
+Bertha looked at him reflectively throughout this speech, putting a
+different interpretation on the neglect he complained of. She had gone
+beyond disliking him, she despised him (for he was growing bolder each
+day in his addresses), and took every precaution that he should not be
+alone with her; and she rose one morning with the determination to tell
+Mart that she would not endure his brother's presence another day. But
+his pleasure in Charles' company was too genuine to be disturbed, and so
+she endured.
+
+The actor's talk was largely concerned with the scandal-mongery of the
+town, and very soon the young wife knew that Mrs. May, whose husband was
+"in the last stages," was in love with young Mr. June, and that Mr.
+Frost, whose wife was "weakly," was going about shamelessly with Miss
+Bloom, and all this comment came to her ears freighted with its worst
+significance. Vile suggestion dripped from Charles Haney's reckless
+tongue.
+
+This was deep-laid policy with him. His purpose was to undermine her
+loyalty as a wife. His approaches had no charm, no finesse. Presuming on
+his relationship, he caught at her hand as she passed, or took a seat
+beside her if he found her alone on a sofa. At such moments she was
+furious with him, and once she struck his hand away with such violence
+that she suffered acute pain for several hours afterwards.
+
+His attentions--which were almost assaults--came at last to destroy a
+large part of her joy in her new home. Her drives, when he sat beside
+her, were a torture, and yet she could not bring herself to accuse him
+before the crippled man, who really suffered from loneliness whenever
+she was out of the house or busy in her household work. He had never
+been given to reading, and was therefore pathetically dependent upon
+conversation for news and amusement. He was much at home, too, for his
+maiming was still so fresh upon him that he shrank from exhibiting
+himself on the street or at the clubs (there are no saloons in the
+Springs). Crego, whom he liked exceedingly, was very busy, and Williams
+was away at the mines for the most part, and so, in spite of Bertha's
+care, he often sat alone on the porch, a pitiful shadow of the man who
+paid court to the clerk of the Golden Eagle.
+
+Sometimes he followed the women around the house like a dog, watching
+them at their dusting and polishing. "You'll strain yourself, Captain,"
+Bertha warningly cried out whenever he laid hold of a chair or brush.
+And so each time he went back to his library to smoke, and wait until
+his wife's duties were ended. At such hours his brother was a comfort.
+He was not a fastidious man, even with the refinement which had come
+from his sickness and his marriage, and the actor (so long as he cast no
+imputations on any friend) could talk as freely as he pleased.
+
+Slowly, day by day, Charles regained Mart's interest and a measure of
+his confidence. Having learned what to avoid and what to emphasize, he
+now deplored the drink habits of his brothers, and gently suggested that
+the old father needed help. They played cards occasionally during such
+times as household cares drew Bertha away, and held much discussion of
+mines and mining--though here Mart was singularly reticent, and afforded
+little information about his own affairs. His trust in Charles did not
+go so far as that. With Crego, however, he freely discussed his
+condition, for the lawyer had written his new will, and was in
+possession of it.
+
+"I'm like a battered old tin can," he said once. "Did ye ever try to put
+a tin can back into shape? Ye cannot. If ye push it back here, it bulges
+there. The doctors are tryin' hard to take the kinks out o' me, but 'tis
+impossible--I see that--but I may live on for a long time. Already me
+mind misgives me about Bertie--she's too young to be tied up to a
+shoulder-shotten old plug like mesilf."
+
+To this Crego soothingly responded. "I don't think you need to worry.
+She's as happy as a blackbird in spring."
+
+Once he said to Bertha: "I niver intended to limp around like this. I
+niver thought to be the skate I am this day," and his despondency
+darkened his face as he spoke. "I could not blame you if you threw me
+out. I'm only a big nuisance."
+
+"You will be if you talk like that," she briskly answered, and that is
+all she seemed to make of his protest. She had indeed been reared in an
+atmosphere of loyalty to marriage as well as of chastity, and she never
+for a moment considered her vows weakened by her husband's broken frame.
+
+This fidelity Charles discovered to his own confusion one night as he
+came home inflamed by liquor and reckless of hand, to find her sitting
+alone in the library writing a letter. It was not late, but Mart,
+feeling tired, had gone to bed, and Mrs. Gilman was in Sibley.
+
+Bertha looked up as he entered, and without observing that he was drunk,
+went on with her writing, which was ever a painful ceremony with her.
+Dropping his coat where he stood, and with his hat awry on the red globe
+of his head, the dastard staggered towards her, his eyes lit with a
+glare of reckless desire.
+
+"Say," he began, "this is luck. I want 'o talk with you, Bertie. I want
+'o find out why you run away from me? What's the matter with me,
+anyhow?"
+
+She realized now the foul, satyr-like mood of the man, and sprang up
+tense and strong, silently confronting him.
+
+He mumbled with a grin: "You're a peach! What's the matter? Why don't
+you like me? Ain't I all right? I'm a gentleman."
+
+His words were babble, but the look in his eyes, the loose slaver of his
+lips, both scared and angered her, and as he pushed against her,
+clumsily trying to hook his arm about her waist, she struck him sharply
+with the full weight of her arm and shoulder, and he tottered and fell
+sprawling. With a curse in his teeth he caught at a chair, recovered his
+balance, and faced her with a look of fury that would have appalled one
+less experienced than she.
+
+"You little fool," he snarled, "don't you do that again!"
+
+"_Stop!_" She did not lift her voice, but the word arrested him. "Do you
+want to die?" The word _die_ pierced the mist of his madness. "What do
+you think Mart will say to this?"
+
+He shivered and grew pale under the force of his brother's name uttered
+in that tone. He began to melt, subsiding into a jelly-mass of fear.
+
+"Don't tell Mart, for Christ's sake! I didn't mean nothing. Don't do it,
+I beg--I beg!"
+
+She looked at him and seemed to grow in years as she searched his
+wretched body for its soul. "If you don't pull out of this house
+to-morrow I'll let him know just the kind of dead-head boarder you are.
+You haven't fooled me any--not for a minute. I've put up with you for
+his sake, but to-night settles it. You go! I've stood a lot from you,
+but your meal-ticket is no good after to-morrow morning--you _sabe_?
+It's you to the outside to-morrow. Now get out, or I call Mart."
+
+He turned and shuffled from the room, leaving his battered hat at her
+feet.
+
+She waited till she heard him close his door; then, with a look of
+disgust on her face, picked up his hat and coat, and hung them on the
+rack in the hall. "I'm sorry for Mart," she said to herself. "He _was_
+company for him, but I can't stand the loafer a day longer. I hope I
+never see him again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not get down to breakfast, and for this she was glad; but he
+sought opportunity a little later to plead for clemency. "Give me
+another chance. I was drunk. I didn't mean it."
+
+She remained inexorable. "Not for a second," she succinctly replied. "I
+don't care how you fix it with Mart. Smooth it up as best you can, but
+fly this coop." And her face expressed such contempt that he crept away,
+flabby and faltering, to his brother.
+
+"I've been telegraphed for, and must go," he said. "And, by the way, I
+need a little ready mon to carry me to the little old town. As soon as I
+get to work I'll send you a check."
+
+Mart handed him the money in silence, and waited till he had folded and
+put away the bills. Then he said: "Charles, you was always the smart one
+of the family, and ye'd be all right now if ye'd pass the booze and get
+down to hard work. It's _time_ ye were off, for ye've done nothin' but
+loaf and drink here. I've enjoyed your talk--part of the time; but I can
+see ye'd grow onto me here like a wart, and that's bad for you and bad
+for me, and so I'm glad ye're going."
+
+"Can't you--" He was going to ask for a position--something easy with
+big pay--when he saw that such a request would make his telegram a lie.
+
+As he hesitated Mart continued: "No, I'll back no play for ye. I'm a
+gambler, but I take no chances of that kind. If you see the old father,
+write and tell me how he is."
+
+Charles, though filled with rising fury, was sober enough to know in
+what danger he stood, and forcing a smile to his face, shook hands and
+went out to his carriage--alone.
+
+As Mart met Bertha a few minutes later he remarked, with calm
+directness: "There goes a cheap rounder and a sponge. I've been a
+gambler and a saloon-keeper, but I never got the notion that I could
+live without doin' something. Charles was a smart lad, but the divil has
+him by the neck, and to give money is to give him drink."
+
+Bertha remained silent, her own indictment was so much more severe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
+
+
+Colorado Springs lies in a shallow valley, under a genial sun, at almost
+the exact level of the summit of Mt. Washington. From the railway train,
+as it crawls over the hills to the east, it looks like a toy village,
+but is, in fact, a busy little city. To ride along its wide and leafy
+streets in summer, to breathe its crystalline airs in winter, is to lose
+belief in the necessity of disease. The grave seems afar off.
+
+And yet it was built, and is now supported, by those who, fearing death,
+fled the lower, miasmatic levels of the world, and who, having abandoned
+all hope (or desire) of return, are loyally developing and adorning
+their adopted home. These fugitives are for the most part contented
+exiles--men as well as women--who have come to enjoy their enforced stay
+here beside the peaks; and their devotion to the town and its
+surroundings is unmistakably sincere, for they believe that the climate
+and the water have prolonged their lives.
+
+Not all even of these seekers for health are ill, or even weakly, at
+present; on the contrary, many of them are stalwart hands at golf, and
+others are seasoned horsemen. In addition to those who are resident in
+their own behalf are many husbands attendant upon ailing wives, and
+blooming wives called to the care of weazened and querulous husbands,
+and parents who came bringing a son or daughter on whom the pale shadow
+of the White Death had fallen. But, after all, these Easterners color
+but they do not dominate the life of the town, which is a market-place
+for a wide region, and a place of comfort for well-to-do miners. It is,
+also, a Western town, with all a Western town's customary activities,
+and the traveller would hardly know it for a health resort, so cheerful
+and lively is the aspect of its streets, where everything denotes
+comfort and content.
+
+In addition to the elements denoted above, it is also taken to be a
+desirable social centre and a charming place of residence for men like
+Marshall Haney, who, having made their pile in the mountain camps, have
+a reasonable desire to put their gold in evidence--"to get some good of
+their dust," as Williams might say. Here and there along the principal
+avenues are luxurious homes--absurdly pretentious in some
+instances--which are pointed out to visitors as the residences of the
+big miners. They are especially given to good horses also, and ride or
+drive industriously, mixing very little with the more cultured and
+sophisticated of their neighbors, for whom they furnish a never-ending
+comedy of manners. "A beautiful mixture for a novelist," Congdon often
+said.
+
+Yes, the town has its restricted "Smart Set," in imitation of New York
+city, and its literary and artistic groups (small, of course), and its
+staid circle of wealth and privilege, and within defined limits and at
+certain formal civic functions these various elements meet and interfuse
+genially if not sincerely. However, the bitter fact remains that the
+microcosm is already divided into classes and masses in a way which
+would be humorous if it were not so deeply significant of a deplorable
+change in American life. Squire Crego, in discussing this very matter
+with Frank Congdon, the portrait-painter, put it thus: "This division of
+interest is inevitable. What can you do? The wife of the man who cobbles
+my shoes or the daughter of the grocer who supplies my sugar is, in the
+eyes of God, undoubtedly of the same value as my own wife, but they
+don't _interest_ me. As a social democrat, I may wish sincerely to do
+them good, but, confound it, to wish to do them good is an impertinence.
+And when I've tried to bring these elements together in my house I have
+always failed. Mrs. Crego, while being most gracious and cordial, has,
+nevertheless, managed to make the upholsterer chilly, and to freeze the
+grocer's wife entirely out of the picture."
+
+"There's one comfort: it isn't a matter of money. If it were, where
+would the Congdons be?"
+
+"No, it isn't really a matter of money, and in a certain sense it isn't
+a matter of brains. It's a question of--"
+
+"_Savoir faire._"
+
+"Precisely. You haven't a cent, so you say frequently--" Congdon stopped
+him, gravely.
+
+"I owe you fifty--I was just going down into my jeans to pay it, when I
+suddenly recalled--"
+
+"Don't interrupt the court. You haven't a cent, we'll say, but you go
+everywhere and are welcome. Why?"
+
+"That's just it. Why? If you really want to know, I'll tell you. It's
+all on account of Lee. Lee is a mighty smart girl. She has a cinch on
+the gray matter of this family."
+
+"You do yourself an injustice."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Crego pursued his argument. "There isn't any place that a man of your
+type can't go if you want to, because you take something with you. You
+mix. And Haney, for example--to return to the concrete again--Haney
+would make a most interesting guest at one's dinner-table, but the wife,
+clever as she is, is impossible--or, at least, Mrs. Crego thinks she
+is."
+
+Congdon fixed a finger pistol-wise and impressively said: "That little
+Mrs. Haney is a wonder. Don't make any mistake about her. She'll climb."
+
+"I'm not making the mistake, it's Mrs. Crego. I've asked her to call on
+the girl, but she evades the issue by asking: 'What's the use? Her
+interests are not ours, and I don't intend to cultivate her as a freak.'
+So there we stand."
+
+Congdon looked thoughtful. "She may be right, but I don't think so. The
+girl interests me, because I think I see in her great possibilities."
+
+"Her abilities certainly are remarkable. She needs but one statement of
+a point in law. She seems never to forget a word I say. Sometimes this
+realization is embarrassing. When she fixes those big wistful eyes on me
+I feel bound to give her my choicest diction and my soundest judgments.
+Haney, too, for all his wild career, attaches my sympathy. You're
+painting his portrait--why don't you and Lee give them a dinner?"
+
+"Good thought! I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the
+line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of
+hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women
+can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can.
+As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything--except
+borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this barber
+lover of Mrs. Haney's has done more to queer her with our set than
+anything else. They think her tastes are low."
+
+"That incident is easily explained. Winchell knew her in Sibley, and
+though he has undoubtedly followed her over here for love of her, he
+seems a decent fellow, and I don't believe intends any harm. I will
+admit her stopping outside his door to talk with him was unconventional,
+but I can't believe that she was aware of any impropriety in the act.
+Nevertheless, that did settle the matter with Helen. 'You can dine with
+them any day if you wish,' she says, 'but--' And there the argument
+rests."
+
+"Of course, you and I can put the matter on a basis of trade courtesy,"
+said Congdon; "but I confess they interest me enormously, and I would
+like to do them some little favor for their own sakes. Poor Haney will
+never be more of a man than he is to-day, and that little girl is going
+to earn all the money she gets before she is done with him."
+
+And so they parted, and Congdon went home to renew the discussion with
+his wife. "You must call. It's only the decent thing to do, now that the
+portrait is nearly done," he said.
+
+"I don't mind the calling, Frank," she briskly replied, "and I don't
+much mind giving a little dinner, but I don't want to get the girl on my
+mind. She has so much to learn, and I haven't the time nor energy to
+teach her."
+
+Congdon waved his finger. "Don't you grow pale over that," said he.
+"That girl's no fool--she's capable of development. She will amaze you
+yet."
+
+"Well, consider it settled. I'll call this afternoon and ask her to
+dinner; but don't expect me to advise her and follow her up. Now, who'll
+we ask to meet her--the Cregos?"
+
+"Yes, I'd thought of them."
+
+"Oh, I know all about it. You needn't stammer. You and Allen are getting
+a good deal out of the Haneys, and want to be decent in return. Well, I
+think well of you for it, and I'll do my mite. I'll have young Fordyce
+in, and Alice; being Quakers and 'plain people,' they won't mind. Ben is
+crazy to see the rough side of Western life, anyway. Now run away,
+little boy, and leave the whole business to me."
+
+As Crego had said, the Congdons were privileged characters in the
+Springs. They were at once haughty with the pride of esthetic
+cleverness, and humble with the sense of their unworthiness in the wide
+old-world of art. Lee was contemptuous of wealth when they had a pot of
+beans in the house, and Frank was imperiously truculent when borrowing
+ten dollars from a friend or demanding an advance of cash from a
+prospective patron. They both came of long lines of native American
+ancestry, and not only felt themselves as good as anybody, but a little
+better than most. They gave wit for champagne, art instruction for
+automobile rides, and never-failing good humor for house-room and the
+blazing fires of roomy hearths.
+
+Mrs. Congdon, of direct Virginian ancestry, was named Lee by a
+state's-rights mother, who sent her abroad to "study art." She ended by
+pretending to be a sculptor--and she still did occasionally model a
+figurine of her friends or her friends' babies; mainly, she was the
+aider and abettor of her husband, a really clever portrait-painter,
+whose ill health had driven him from New York to Colorado, and who was
+making a precarious living in the Springs--precarious for the reason
+that on bright days he would rather play golf than handle a brush, and
+on dark days he _couldn't_ see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was
+not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as
+he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted
+his laziness and incompetency.
+
+Lee was a devoted wife, and when she realized that his interest in the
+Haneys was deep and genuine her slight opposition gave way. It meant a
+couple of thousand dollars to Frank, but money was the least of their
+troubles--credit seemed to come along when they needed it most, and each
+of them had become "trustful to the point of idiocy," Mrs. Crego was
+accustomed to say. Mrs. Crego really took charge of their affairs, and
+when they needed food helped them to it.
+
+Starting for the Haneys on the street-car that very afternoon, Lee
+reached the gate just as Bertie was helping Mart into his carriage.
+There was something so genuine and so touching in this picture of the
+slender young wife supporting her big and crippled husband that Mrs.
+Congdon's nerves thrilled and her face softened. Plainly this
+consideration on the part of Mrs. Haney was habitual and ungrudging.
+
+Bertie, as she faced her caller, saw only a pale little woman with
+flashing eyes and smiling mouth, whose dress was as neat as a man's and
+almost as plain (Lee prided herself on not being "artistic" in dress),
+and so waited for further information.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Haney?" Lee began. "I'm Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Bertha threw the rug over Mart's knees before turning to offer her hand.
+"I'm glad to meet you," she responded, with gravity. "I've seen you on
+the street."
+
+Lee couldn't quite make out whether this remark was intended for
+reproach or not, but she went on, quickly: "I was just about to call.
+Indeed, I came to ask you and Mr. Haney to dine with us on Thursday."
+She nodded and smiled at Mart, who sat with impassive countenance
+listening with attention--his piercing eyes making her rather
+uncomfortable. "We dine at seven. I hope you can come."
+
+Bertha looked up at her husband. "What do you say, Captain?"
+
+"I don't see any objection," he answered, without warmth.
+
+Bertha turned, with still passive countenance. "All right," she said,
+"we'll be there. Won't you jump in and take a ride with us?"
+
+Lee, burning with mingled flames of resentment and humor, replied:
+"Thank you, I have another call to make--Thursday, then, at seven
+o'clock."
+
+"We'll connect. Much obliged," replied Bertha, and sprang into the
+carriage. "Go ahead, Dan. Good-day, Mrs. Congdon."
+
+Lee stood for an instant in amazement at this easy, not to say
+indifferent, acceptance of her tremendous offering. "Well, if that isn't
+cool!" she gasped, and walked on thoughtfully.
+
+Humor dominated her at last, and when she entered Mrs. Crego's house she
+was flushed with laughter, and recounted the words of the interview with
+so many subtle interpretations of her own that Mrs. Crego was delighted.
+
+Mrs. Congdon did not spare herself. "Helen, she made me feel like a
+bill-collector! 'All right,' said she, 'I'll be there,' and left me
+standing in the middle of the street. You've got to come now, Helen, to
+preserve my dignity."
+
+"I'm wild to come, really. I want to see what she'll do to us
+'professional people.' Maybe she will patronize us too."
+
+When Lee told Frank about it at night he failed to laugh as heartily as
+she had expected. "That's all very funny, the way you tell it, but as a
+matter of fact the girl did all she knew. She accepted your invitation
+and civilly asked you to take a ride. What more could mortal woman
+proffer?"
+
+"She might have invited me into the house."
+
+"Not at the moment. It was Mart's hour for a drive, and you were
+interfering with one of her duties. I think she treated you very well."
+
+"Anyhow, she's coming, and so is Helen. It tickled Helen nearly into
+fits, of course, and she's coming--just to see me 'put to it to manage
+these wet valley bronchos.'"
+
+"The girl may look like a bronk, but she's got good blood in her. She'll
+hold her own anywhere," replied Congdon, with conviction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
+
+
+For all her impassivity, Bertha was really elated by this invitation,
+for she liked Congdon, and had a very high opinion of his powers. She
+experienced no special dread of the dinner, for it appeared to her at
+the moment to be a simple sitting down to eat with some friendly people.
+She was not in awe of Mrs. Congdon, however much she might admire her
+husband's skill, and she knew their home. It was a small house on a side
+street, and did not compare for a moment with her own establishment, in
+which she had begun to take a settled pride.
+
+As they rode away she was mentally casting up in her mind a choice of
+clothes, when Haney remarked: "Bertie, I don't believe I'll go to that
+dinner."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, I'm not as handy with a cold deck as I used to be, and I don't
+think I ought to put me lame foot into another man's lap."
+
+"You're all right, Captain, and, besides, I'll be close by to help out
+in case you run up against a hard knock in the steak. Course you'll
+go--I want you to get out and see the people. Why, you haven't taken a
+meal out of the house since we moved, except that one at the Casino. You
+need more doin'."
+
+Haney was in a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you,
+Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel
+me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me _conge_ out of
+self-respect--just to give you open road."
+
+"Stop that!" she warningly cried. "Hello, there's Ed! He seems in a
+rush. Wonder what's eating him?"
+
+Winchell, dressed in a new suit of clothes, darted from the sidewalk to
+the carriage, his face shining. "Say, folks, I'm called East. Old man
+died yesterday, and I've got to go home." He was breathing hard with
+excitement.
+
+"Get in and tell us about it," commanded Bertha.
+
+He climbed up beside the driver, and turned on his seat to continue.
+"Yes, I've got to go; and, say, the old man was well off. I don't do no
+more barberin', I tell you that. I'm goin' to study law. I'm comin' back
+here just as soon as things are settled up. I've been talking with a
+fellow here--Lawyer Hansall; he says he'll take me in and give me a
+chance. No more barberin' for me, you hear me!"
+
+"'Tis a poor business, but a necessary," remarked Haney.
+
+Bertha was sympathetic. "I'm glad you're goin' to get a raise. Of
+course, I'm sorry about your father."
+
+"I understand--so am I. But he's gone, and it's up to me to think of
+myself. I know you always despised my trade."
+
+"No, I didn't. Men have to be shaved and clipped. It's like
+dish-washin', somebody has to do it. We can't all sit in the parlor."
+
+Winchell acknowledged the force of this. "Well, I always felt sneakin'
+about it, I'll admit, but that was because I was raised a farmer, and
+barbers were always cheap skates with us. We didn't use 'em much, in
+fact. Well, it's all up now, and when I come back I want you to forget I
+ever cut hair. A third of the old farm is mine, and that will pay my
+board while I study."
+
+Neither Haney nor his young wife was surprised by this movement on his
+part any more than he was surprised at their rise to wealth and luxury;
+both were in accordance with the American tradition. But as they rode
+down the street certain scornful Easterners (schooled in European
+conventions) smiled to see the wife of an Irish millionaire gambler in
+earnest conversation with a barber.
+
+Mrs. Crego, driving down-town with Mrs. Congdon, stared in astonishment,
+then turned to Lee. "And you ask me to meet such a woman at dinner!" she
+exclaimed, and her tone expressed a kind of bewilderment.
+
+Lee laughed. "You can't fail me now. Don't be hasty. Trust in Frank."
+
+"I'd hate to have my dinner partners selected by Frank Congdon. I draw
+the line at barbers."
+
+"You're a snob, Helen. If you were really as narrow as you sound I'd cut
+you dead! Furthermore, the barber isn't invited."
+
+"I can't understand such people."
+
+"I can. She don't know any better. You impute a low motive where there
+is nothing worse than ignorance. As Frank says, the girl is a perfectly
+natural outgrowth of a little town. I hope our dinner won't spoil her."
+
+Mrs. Congdon had put the dinner-hour early, and when the Haneys drove up
+in their glittering new carriage, drawn by two splendid black horses,
+she too had a moment of bewilderment, but her sense of humor prevailed.
+"Frank," she said, "you can't patronize a turnout like that--not in my
+presence."
+
+"To-night art's name is mud," he replied, with conviction, and hastened
+down the steps to help Haney up.
+
+The gambler waved his proffered arm aside. "I'm not so bad as all that,"
+said he. "I let me little Corporal help me--sometimes for love of it,
+not because I nade it."
+
+He was still gaunt and pale, but his eyes were of unconquerable fire,
+and the lift of his head from the shoulders was still leopard-like. He
+was dressed in a black frock-coat, with a cream-colored vest and gray
+trousers, and looked very well indeed--quite irreproachable.
+
+Bertha was clad in black also--a close-fitting, high-necked gown which
+made her fair skin shine like fire-flushed ivory, and her big serious
+eyes and vivid lips completed the charm of her singular beauty. Her
+bosom had lost some of its girlish flatness, but the lines of her hips
+and thighs still resembled those of a boy, and the pose of her head was
+like that of an athlete.
+
+"Won't you come in and take off your hat?" asked Mrs. Congdon. And she
+followed without reply, leaving the two men on the porch.
+
+Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was
+hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was
+concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the
+walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The
+chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a
+pleasant impression on Bertha, though she could not have told why. The
+ceiling was dark, the walls green, the woodwork stained pine, and yet it
+had charm.
+
+Mrs. Congdon explained meanwhile that Frank had made the big
+centre-table of plank, and the book-shelves as well. "He likes to tinker
+at such things," she said. "Whenever he gets blue or cross I set him to
+shifting the dresser or making a book-shelf, and he cheers up like mad.
+He's a regular kid anyway--always doing the things he ought not to do."
+
+In this way she tried to put her guest at her ease, while Bertha sat
+looking at her in an absent-minded way, apparently neither frightened
+nor embarrassed--on the contrary, she seemed to be thinking of something
+else. At last, to force a reply, Mrs. Congdon asked: "How do you like my
+husband's portrait of Mr. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she slowly replied. "It looks like him, and then again
+it don't. I guess I'm not up to hand paintin's. Enlarged photographs are
+about my size."
+
+"You're disappointed, then?"
+
+"Well, yes, I don't know but I am. I didn't think it was going to look
+just that way. Mr. Congdon says blue shadows are under anybody's ears in
+the light, but I can't see 'em on the Captain, and I do see 'em in the
+picture; that's what gets me twisted. When I look at the picture I can't
+see nothin' else."
+
+Her hostess laughed. "I know just how you feel, but that's the insolence
+of the painter--he puts on canvas what _he_ sees, not what his patron
+sees. The more money you pay for a portrait the more insolent the
+artist."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Crego came in, and (as she said afterwards) was
+presented to the gambler's wife "as though I were a nobody and she a
+visiting countess." Bertha rose, offered her hand, like a boy, in
+silence; she stood very straight, with very cold and unmistakably
+suspicious face. And Alice Heath, who entered with Mrs. Crego, shared
+this chill reception.
+
+Bertha, in truth, instantly and cordially hated Mrs. Crego; but she
+pitied the younger woman, in whom she detected another fugitive fighting
+a losing battle with disease. Miss Heath was very fair and very frail,
+with burning deep-blue eyes and a lovely mouth. She greeted Bertha with
+such sincere pleasure that the girl inclined to her instantly, and they
+went out on the porch together. Alice put her hand on Bertha's arm,
+saying: "I've wanted to meet you, Mr. Congdon has told us so much of
+you. Your life seems very romantic to me."
+
+The men all rose to meet Mrs. Congdon, and before Bertha had time to
+recover from the effect of the girl's words she found herself confronted
+by Ben Fordyce, who looked like a college boy, athletic and smiling. He
+was tall and broad-chested, with a round blond face and yellow hair. His
+manner was frank, and his voice deep. His hand, broad and strong, was
+hardened by the tennis-racket and calloused by the golf-stick, and
+somehow its leathery clasp pleased the girl. The roughness of his palm
+made him less alien than either Congdon or Crego.
+
+They went out to dinner immediately, and as she walked beside Mart she
+felt the young athlete's eyes resting upon her face, and the knowledge
+of this troubled her unaccountably. Mrs. Congdon seated him opposite her
+at the table, and he continued to stare at her with the frankest
+curiosity. She returned his gaze at last with a certain defiance, but
+found no offence in his eyes, which were round as his face, and of a
+sincere, steady gray. He was smooth-shaven, and his blond hair was
+rather short. All these peculiarities appeared one by one in the
+intervals between her attentions to Mart and her study of the
+furnishings of the table, which was decorated with candles and flowers
+in a way quite new to her.
+
+Fordyce was as fine as he looked. Nothing equivocal was in "that
+magnificent boy," as his friends called him, and his interest in little
+Mrs. Haney was that of the Easterner who, having been told that strange
+things take place in the West, is disappointed if they do not happen
+under his nose. He had heard much of the Haneys from Congdon, and had
+been especially impressed with the story of Bertha's midnight ride to
+the bedside of the dying gambler. The wedding in the saloon, her
+devotion to the wounded man, their descent upon the Springs, and their
+domestication in a stone palace--all appealed to his imagination. Such
+things could not happen in Chester; they were of the mountain West, and
+most satisfying to his taste.
+
+Bertha, on her part, had to admit that the people at the table were most
+kindly, even considerate. They made her husband the centre of interest,
+and passed politely over all his disastrous attempts to use his left
+hand. There were no awkward pauses, for, excepting one or two slips of
+tongue, Haney rose to the occasion. He was big enough and self-contained
+enough not to apologize for what he had been or what he was, and under
+Congdon's skilful guidance told of his experiences as amateur miner and
+gambler, growing humorous as the wine mellowed and lightened his
+reminiscences. He felt the sympathy of his audience. All listened
+delightedly with no accusation in their eyes--except in the case of Mrs.
+Crego, who still breathed, so it seemed to Bertha, a certain contempt
+and inner repugnance.
+
+Young Fordyce glowed with delight in these tales, reading beneath the
+terse lines of Haney's slang something epic, detecting a perfect
+willingness to take any chance. The fact that his bravery led to nothing
+conventionally noble or moral did not detract from the inherent interest
+of the tale; on the contrary, the young fellow, being of unusual
+imaginative reach and freedom, took pleasure in the thought that a man
+would risk his life again and again merely for the excitement of it.
+Occasionally he glanced at Judge Crego, to find him looking upon Haney
+with thoughtful glance. It was a little like listening to a prisoner's
+confession of guilt (as he afterwards said), but to him, as to Congdon,
+it was a most interesting monologue.
+
+It added enormously to the romance, so far as Ben Fordyce was concerned,
+to look across the table at the grave, watchful face of the girl who
+unfolded her husband's napkin or cut up his roast with deft hand--always
+careful not to interrupt his talk.
+
+As he thought of the quiet Quaker neighborhood from which he came, and
+contrasted these singular and powerfully defined personalities with the
+"men of weight" and the demure maidens of his acquaintance, Ben's blood
+tingled with a sense of the bigness and strangeness of the greater
+America. The West was no longer a nation; it was a world. To be in it at
+last was a delight as well as an education.
+
+Bertha, on her part, felt no strangeness in her position. Her marriage
+was a logical outcome of her life and surroundings. The incomprehensible
+lay in the shining women about her. Their ideas of life, their comment,
+puzzled her. Their clothes were of a kind which her own money could buy,
+but their manners, their grace of speech, their gestures, came of
+something besides money. Mrs. Crego was especially formidable, and made
+her feel the inadequacy of the black gown which she had thought very
+fine when she selected it, ready made, in a Denver store. She did not
+know that Mrs. Crego had dressed "very simply," at the suggestion of her
+hostess; but she did feel a certain condescension of manner, even in
+Alice, and was glad the Captain absorbed so much of the table-talk.
+
+Her time of trial came when the ladies rose and, at Mrs. Congdon's
+suggestion, returned to the porch, leaving the men to finish their
+cigars. Not one of Ben's little courtesies towards the women escaped
+her. His acquiescence, Congdon's tone of exaggerated respect, Crego's
+compliments, were all new to her, and in a certain sense she resented
+them. She doubted their sincerity a little, notwithstanding their
+grateful charm.
+
+Alice took her to herself and this was a great relief; for she feared
+Mrs. Crego's sharp tongue, and was not entirely sure of her hostess.
+
+Laying a slim hand on her arm, the Eastern girl began: "I am fascinated
+by you, Mrs. Haney. You have had such an interesting life, and you have
+such an opportunity for doing good."
+
+Bertha looked at her in blank surprise. "What do you mean?"
+
+"With your great wealth you can accomplish so much. Had you thought of
+that?"
+
+"No, I hadn't." The answer was blunt. "I've been so busy getting settled
+and looking after the Captain, I haven't had time to think of anything
+else."
+
+"Oh, of course; but by and by you'll begin to look about you for things
+to help--I mean hospitals and charities, and all that. The only time
+when I envy great wealth is when I see some wrong which money can right.
+Mr. Fordyce is a lawyer, but not a very famous one--he's only
+twenty-eight; and while we are likely to have all we really need, we
+can't begin to do what we'd like to do for others. I suppose Mrs.
+Congdon has told you of us?"
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"We live in Chester, but Mr. Fordyce has an office in Philadelphia. We
+have been engaged a long time, but I couldn't think of marrying while I
+was so ill. I'm afraid I stayed so long that not even this climate can
+help me."
+
+This was indeed Bertha's conviction, and her untactful silence said as
+much. Therefore, Alice hastened on to other more general topics. She was
+very sprightly, but Bertha maintained a determined silence through it
+all, quite unable to understand the girl's confidences.
+
+When the men came out Alice took Haney to herself, and they seemed to
+enjoy each other's society very keenly; indeed, their mutual absorption
+became so complete that Ben remarked upon it to Bertha. "Miss Heath has
+been crazy to meet your husband, Mrs. Haney. His adventurous life
+appeals to her, as to me, very deeply. We don't mean to be offensive,
+but to us you seem typical of the West."
+
+What he said at this time made less impression on her than the way in
+which he spoke. The light of an electric street-lamp fell upon his face,
+revealing its charming lines. On his fine hand a ring gleamed. Autumn
+insects were singing sleepily in the grass and from the trees. The
+laughter of girls came from the dusk of neighboring lawns, and over all
+descended the magical light of a harvest moon, flecking the surface of
+the little garden with shadows almost as definite as those cast by the
+flaming white globes of the street-lamps. It is on such nights that the
+heart of youth expands with longing and sadness.
+
+Crego and Congdon fell into hot argument (their usual method of
+conversation), leaving the young people to themselves, and, Ben with
+intent to provoke the grave little wife to laughter, told a funny story
+which reflected on Congdon's improvidence.
+
+Bertha was really grateful, for she felt herself at a great disadvantage
+among these fluent and interesting folk, who talked like the characters
+in novels. Their jests, their comment, meant little to her; but their
+gestures, their graceful attitudes, their courtesies to each other,
+meant much. They were something more than polite; they were considerate
+in a way which showed their thoughtfulness to be deeply grounded in
+habitual action. They used slang, but they used it as a garnish, not as
+a habit of speech. Expressions which she had read in books, but had
+never before heard spoken, flowed from their lips. Their sentences were
+built up for effect; in Crego's case this was more or less expected, but
+the phrases of Fordyce and Congdon were still more disconcerting. The
+art of their stories was a revelation of the neatness and precision of
+cultivated speech.
+
+When Mrs. Congdon led the way back into the house Ben stepped to Alice's
+side, saying, in a low tone: "I hope you haven't taken a chill. I beg
+your pardon, dearest; I should have watched you more closely."
+
+Once within-doors Mrs. Congdon insisted on Ben's singing, which he did
+with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of
+music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he
+explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an
+acquirement."
+
+His voice was indeed fresh and sweet, and he sang--as Bertha had never
+heard any one sing--certain love ballads, whose despairing cadences were
+made the more profoundly piercing, someway, by his happy boyish face and
+handsomely clothed and powerful figure. "'But I and my True Love Will
+Never Meet Again!'" seemed to be a fatalistic cry rather than a wail of
+sadness as it came from his lips, but its melody sank deep into the
+girl's heart. She sat in rigid absorption, her eyes fixed upon the
+splendid young singer as a child looks upon some new and complicated
+toy. The grace with which he pronounced his words, the spread of his
+splendid chest, his easy pose, his self-depreciating shrugs enthralled
+her. Surely this was one of the young princes of the earth. His voice
+came to her freighted with the passion of ideal manhood.
+
+He sang other songs--tunes not worthy of him--but ended with a ballad
+called "Fair Springtide," by MacDowell--a song so stern, so strange, so
+inexorably sad that the singer himself grew grave at last and rose to
+his best. Bertha was thrilled to the heart, saddened yet exalted by his
+voice. Her horizon--her emotional horizon--was of a sudden extended, and
+she caught glimpses of strange lands and dim peaks of fabled mountains;
+and when the singer declared himself at an end she sat benumbed while
+the others cheered--her hands folded on her lap. It seemed a profanation
+to applaud.
+
+Haney gloomed in silence also, but not for the same reason. "I might
+have sung like that once," he thought, for he had been choir-boy in his
+ragamuffin youth, and had regained a fine tenor voice at eighteen. Age
+and neglect had ruined it, however. For ten years he had not attempted
+to sing a note. This youth made him dream of the past--as it caused
+Bertha to forecast the future.
+
+While young Fordyce was putting away his music the Captain struggled to
+his feet, and Bertha, seeing a sudden paleness overspread his face,
+hastened to him.
+
+"I reckon we'd better be going," she said to Mrs. Congdon, with blunt
+directness.
+
+"It's early yet," replied her hostess.
+
+Haney replied: "Not for cripples. Time was when I could sit all night in
+the 'lookout's chair,' but not now. Ten o'clock finds me wishful towards
+the bed." He said this with a faint smile. But the pathos of it, the
+truth of it, went to Bertha's heart, as it did to Mrs. Congdon's. Not
+merely was his body maimed, but his mind had correspondingly been
+weakened by that tearing charge of shot.
+
+Something of his native Celtic gallantry came back to him as he said:
+"Sure, Mrs. Congdon, we've had a fine evening. You must come to see us
+soon."
+
+Ben was addressing himself to Bertha. "Do you ever ride?"
+
+"I used to--I don't now. You see, the Captain can't stand the jolt of a
+horse, so we mostly drive."
+
+"I was about to say that Alice and I would be glad to have you join us.
+We ride every morning--a very gentle pace, I assure you, for I'm no
+rough-rider, and, besides, she sets the pace."
+
+Bertha's face was pale and her eyes darkly luminous as she falteringly
+answered. "I'd like to--but--Perhaps I can some time. I'm much obliged,"
+and then she gave him her hand in parting.
+
+Mrs. Congdon was subtly moved by something in the girl's face as she
+said good-night, and to her invitation to come and see her cordially
+responded: "I certainly shall do so."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little Mrs. Haney rode away from her first dinner party in the silence
+of one whose thoughts are too swift and too new to find speech. Her
+brain, sensitive as that of a babe, had caught and ineffaceably retained
+a million impressions which were to influence all her after life. The
+most vivid and most powerful of these impressions rose from the glowing
+beauty of young Fordyce, whose like she had never seen; but as
+background to him was the lovely room, the shining table, the grace and
+charm of the conversation, and, dominating all, the music--quite the
+best she had ever heard. The evening--so simple, almost commonplace, to
+her hostess--was of unspeakable significance to the uncultured girl.
+
+She did not wish to talk, and when Haney spoke she made no reply to his
+comment. "A fine bunch of people," he repeated. "They sure treated us
+right. Crego's the fine man--we do well to make him our lawyer." As
+Bertha again failed to respond he resumed, with a little chuckle: "But
+Mrs. Crego is saying, 'I dunno--them Haneys is queer cattle.' And the
+little sick lady, sure she was as interested in me talk as Patsy
+McGonnigle. She drug out o' me some of me wildest scrapes. Poor little
+girl, 'twill soon be all up with her.... It's a fine young fellow she
+has. A Quaker by training, she says. My! my! What a prizefighter he'd
+make if his mind ran that way! Think of a Quaker with a chest like
+that--'tis something ferocious! He can sing, too, can't he? A fine
+lad--as fine as iver I see. Think of shoulders like his all wasted on a
+man of peace. I'm afraid the little lady will never put on the ring if
+she waits till she gets well."
+
+To this Bertha listened intently, but gave out no sign of interest. She
+was eager to be alone, eager to review all that had happened--all that
+had been said.
+
+For the first time since her marriage she felt Haney's presence to be
+just the least bit of a burden; and when they entered the house she
+urged his immediate retirement, though he was disposed to sit in the
+library and talk. "They were high-class," he said, again. "I never
+supposed I could make easy camp with such people. They sure treated us
+noble. They made us feel at home.... We must have some liquor like that.
+I've always despised wine and those that took it; but, bedad! I see
+there are two sides to that question. 'Tis not so thin as I thought it."
+
+Bertha at last got him safely bestowed, and was free to seek her own
+apartment, which she did at once. Her chamber, which adjoined her
+husband's to the west (he liked the morning sun), was a big room, and
+the young wife looked like a doll as she dropped into a broad tufted
+chair which stood in a square bay-window, and with folded hands looked
+out upon the ghostly shapes of the great peaks, snow-covered and
+moonlit.
+
+A thousand revelations of character as well as of manners lay in that
+short evening's contact with cultivated and thoughtful people. It argued
+much for her ancestry, for her own latent powers, that she responded
+with such bewildering readiness to the suggestions which rose like
+sparks of fire from that radiant hour.
+
+She had been made to feel dimly, vaguely, but multitudinously, the
+fibres and reaches of another world--the world of art, and that
+indefinable thing which the books call culture; and finally, in that
+splendid young Quaker, she was brought to know a man who could be
+jocular without being coarse, and whose glance was as sincere as it was
+flattering and alluring.
+
+She did not think of him as husband to Alice Heath, who seemed so much
+older in spirit as in body (more like an elder sister than a bride
+elect), and his consideration of her was that of brother rather than the
+devotion of a lover. How far he stood removed from Ed Winchell and the
+young fellows of Sibley! "And yet I can understand him," she thought.
+"He ain't funny, like Mr. Congdon. He don't say queer things, and he
+don't make game of people. And he don't orate like Judge Crego. He isn't
+laughing at us now, the way the others are. I bet they're havin' a good
+time over our blunders."
+
+She saw Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed
+like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those
+self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I
+reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his
+imperiousness, his contempt, had been melted and charmed away by the
+genial smiles of his auditors. Even Mrs. Crego had listened with a show
+of interest. It was as if a lonely old man had at last found
+companionship.
+
+What did all this mean? "Are they interested in him only because he's
+what they call a desperado? Did they ask us there to hear him tell
+stories of his wild life?" Questions of this kind also troubled her.
+
+The moon slid behind the mountain range while still the girl sat with
+pale face and wide dark eyes thinking, thinking, the wings of her
+expanding soul fluttering with vague unrest. Only once in a lifetime can
+such an experience come to a human being. Her swift ride to Marshall
+Haney's side that summer night--now so far away--was momentous, but its
+import was simple compared with the experiences through which she had
+just passed.
+
+She rose at last, chilled and stiffened, and went to her bed with a
+sense of foreboding rather than of new-found happiness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mart rose late next morning. "I had a bad night," he explained. "The
+mixed liquors I tuck got into me wound, I guess. It woke me twice,
+achin' and burnin'. You're lookin' tired yersilf, little girl. This high
+life seems to be wearin' on the both of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
+
+
+Ben Fordyce and his affianced bride rode home talking of the Haneys.
+"Aren't they deliciously Western!" she said.
+
+"Mrs. Haney certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite
+soberly; "she's like a quail--so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her
+devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter
+than a wife, don't you think so?"
+
+"They're great fun if you don't feel sorry for him as I do," Alice
+thoughtfully responded. "They say he was magnificent as a gambler. He
+admitted to me to-night that he longed to go back to the camp, but that
+he had promised his wife and mother-in-law not to do so. I never ran a
+gambling-saloon, but I can imagine it would be exciting as a play all
+the time, can't you? Here, as he said to me, he can only sit in the sun
+like a lizard on a log. It must seem wonderful to her--having all this
+money and that big castle of a house. Don't you think so? Wasn't she
+reticent! She hardly uttered a word the whole evening. Some way I feel
+sorry for them both. They can't be happy. Don't you see that? It is
+plain she doesn't love him as a wife should, while he worships her. When
+she's away he is helpless. 'I'm no gairdner,' he said, pathetically; 'I
+was raised on the cobble-stones. I wouldn't know a growin' cabbage from
+a squash.' So you see he can't pass his time in gardening."
+
+Ben's reply was a question. "I wonder if she would ride with us?"
+
+"Perhaps we would do better not to follow up the acquaintance, Ben. It's
+all very interesting to meet them as we did to-night, but they are
+impossible socially--that you must admit. If there is any possibility of
+our settling down here I suppose we must be careful to do the right
+thing from the start."
+
+Ben was a little irritated by this. "If I'm to settle here as a lawyer I
+can't draw social distinctions of that sort."
+
+"Certainly not--as a lawyer. Of course, you ought to know Haney; but for
+me to ride or drive with Mrs. Haney is quite a different matter.
+However, I don't really care. She attracts me, and, so far as I know, is
+just a nice little uncultivated woman. We might call on her in the
+morning, and see if she can go with us. It will commit us; but really,
+Ben, I am not going to drag Eastern conventions into this fresh big
+country. I'm willing to risk the Haneys."
+
+"I'm glad you take that view of it," said Ben.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bertha was in the yard when they rode up to the gate next morning.
+Dressed in a white sweater and a short skirt, and holding biscuits for a
+handsome collie to snatch from her hand, she made a charming picture of
+young and vigorous life. Her slim body was as strong and supple as the
+dog's, and her face glowed like a child's. Haney, sitting on the porch,
+was watching her with a proud smile.
+
+Alice glanced at her lover with admiration in her eyes. "What a glorious
+creature she really is!"
+
+Seeing visitors at her gate, Bertha came down without confusion to say
+good-morning, and to ask them to dismount.
+
+Ben, with doffed cap, replied by saying: "We've come to ask you to ride
+with us."
+
+Bertha looked up at him composedly. "Haven't a saddle, and I don't know
+that any of our horses are broken. But come again to-morrow, and I'll
+have an outfit."
+
+"There's no time like the present. Let me ride down to the barn and
+bring one up," volunteered Ben.
+
+"Don't need to do that, I'll 'phone. I didn't really expect you," she
+explained. "Get off and come in a few minutes, and I'll see what I can
+hustle together for an outfit. I haven't rode a lick since I left
+Sibley."
+
+Ben helped Alice to dismount, and Bertha led her to the house while he
+tethered the horses.
+
+"What a superb place you have here!" exclaimed Alice. "It is one of the
+best in the city."
+
+"We bought it for the porch," calmly replied the girl. "The Captain
+likes to sit where he can see the mountains. I'm not entirely done with
+the outfitting yet, but it beats a barn."
+
+Haney rose as they drew near, and smilingly greeted his visitors. "I
+should be out gatherin' the peanuts and harvestin' the egg-plants, but
+the dinner last night, not mentionin' Congdon's pink liquor, kept me
+awake till two."
+
+"Moral: Stick to Irish whiskey--or Scotch," laughed Ben.
+
+"I will. These strange liquors are not for strong men like ourselves."
+
+Ben took a seat at his invitation, while Bertha went in to 'phone for a
+horse and to "dig up" a riding-skirt. Alice was eager to see the
+interior of the house, but held her curiosity in check by walking about
+the beautiful garden, which ran to the very edge of a deep ravine. The
+trees hid the base of the mountain peaks, whose immitigable crags took
+on added majesty from the play of the delicate near-by branches against
+their distant rugged slopes.
+
+"You have a magnificent outlook here, Captain Haney."
+
+"'Tis so, and I try to be content with it; but it's hard for one who has
+roamed the air like a hawk all his life to be content with ridin' a
+wooden horse. I couldn't endure it if it weren't for me wife."
+
+His big form rested in his chair with a ponderous inertness which was a
+telltale witness to his essential helplessness. His left hand still
+failed to participate in the movements of his right, and yet, as he
+showed, he could, by special effort of will, use it. "I'm gaining all
+the time--but slowly," he went on. "I want to make a trip back up to the
+mines, and I think I'll be able to do it soon." He put aside his own
+troubles. "And you, miss, I hope the climate is doing you good?"
+
+"Oh, indeed, yes," she brightly responded. "I feel stronger every day."
+
+Ben at the moment experienced a sharp pang of uneasiness and pain, for
+Alice was looking particularly worn and thin and yellow; and when Bertha
+returned, flushed with her haste, the contrast between them was quite as
+distressing as that between the withered, dying rose and the opening,
+fragrant bud. The young man's heart rose to his throat. "We have waited
+too long," he thought, and resolved to again urge upon her a new
+treatment which they had discussed.
+
+"Come in and see the house," said Bertha, in brusque invitation. "It
+isn't ship-shape yet. I wanted to do it all myself, but I find it's a
+big proposition to go up against. It sure is. But I like it. I'd like
+nothing better than running a big hotel--not too big, but just big
+enough. I tell the Captain that when our mines 'pinch out' I'll go to
+Denver and start a hotel."
+
+She was quite communicative, but not at ease as she led them from room
+to room. Her manner was rather that of one seeking to conceal
+trepidation, and her fluency seemed a little out of character.
+
+In fact, she was trying to make the best possible impression on these
+people, whose sincere interest she felt; but with Ben's eyes fixed upon
+her so constantly, and a knowledge of Alice's delicate wit to trouble,
+she was more deeply embarrassed than ever before in her life. It was not
+her habit to blush or stammer, and she did not do so now, but she was
+carried out of her wonted reticence.
+
+"As I say, we bought the place for the porch. I didn't realize what I
+was being let into--if I had I might have shied. We're practically lost
+in the place. Except when some of the people come down from camp, we're
+alone. My mother helps out some, but she's up at the ranch a good deal."
+She opened the library door, and led the way before an easel, on which
+stood a huge canvas. "Here's the picture Mr. Congdon is paintin' of the
+Captain. I wanted him taken with his hat on, but Mr. Congdon said no,
+and his word went. I don't know whether I like this or not. It's got me
+twisted."
+
+Congdon had been after psychology rather than costume, that was evident
+at a glance, for the clothing counted for little in the portrait. Out of
+the shadow the face peered sadly, yet with a kind of ferocity, too--a
+look which made Alice Heath recoil from the man. In a certain way the
+artist had taken advantage of Mart's helplessness and loneliness. He had
+caught the sadness, sullenness, and remorselessness of his sitter rather
+than his gay, good-tempered smile. The face of this man was concerned
+with the past, not with the future; and yet on its surface it was a good
+likeness, as Ben said, and had both power and distinction. "I think it a
+cracker-jack piece of work," he ended.
+
+Bertha replied: "I suppose it is, and yet I can't see it. I'd rather it
+looked the way the Captain used to when he came down to the Junction.
+I'm sorry to have his sickness painted in that way."
+
+"That can't be helped. These artists are queer cattle; you can't drive
+'em," Ben remarked.
+
+Bertha smiled. "He wants to paint me now. 'Not on your life' says I.
+'You'd be doing double stunts with my freckles, and I won't stand for
+it.'" She laughed. "No sir-ree, I don't let any artist tip my freckles
+edgewise just to see how flip he is at it. I like Mr. Congdon, but I
+don't trust him--he's too much of a joker."
+
+Thereupon she led the way to the second floor, and showed them the
+furniture, which was mostly very costly and very bad, and at last said:
+"The third story is pretty empty yet. I don't know just what I'm going
+to do with it." She was looking at Alice. "I wish you'd come over and
+help me decide some day."
+
+"What fun!" cried Alice, speaking on the impulse. "I'd like to very
+much."
+
+"You see," Bertha went on, "my folks have always been purty poor, and
+I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know
+any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all
+to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled
+quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell
+me--except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did
+give me a few points on the library, which ain't so bad, we think; but
+all the rest of it I had to dig out myself, and it's slow work. But I
+guess we better go down; my horse will be here in a few minutes." Then,
+with lowered voice, she added: "I can't stay out but a little while. The
+Captain dreads to have me leave him even to go down-town. I hadn't ought
+to go at all."
+
+Ben began to perceive a real slavery in her life, and reassured her.
+"I'm glad you're coming. It will do you good, and it will be a pleasure
+to us too. We'll only be away an hour."
+
+As they returned to the porch, Bertha put her hand on Haney's shoulder,
+in the manner of one man to another, saying: "I'm going for a little
+ride with these people, Captain, if you don't mind."
+
+"Not a whiff," he answered. "I'll be here when you come back." Again a
+subtle cadence in his voice so belied his smile that Alice's heart
+responded to it.
+
+Bertha's horse proved to be a spirited animal, but she mounted him with
+the ease and celerity of a boy--riding astride, in the mountain fashion.
+"I haven't a long skirt," she carelessly remarked to Alice. That was all
+the explanation she offered, and Ben thought he had never seen anything
+more alert, more graceful, than her slim figure poised alertly in the
+saddle, her face glowing, her hair blown across her face.
+
+Alice, a timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was
+always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A
+pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at
+them--so young, so vigorous, and so blithe.
+
+"I should be sitting with Captain Haney on the porch," she thought, with
+bitterness. "I am out of place here."
+
+The words which passed between Bertha and her cavalier meant little, but
+their glances meant much. It was, indeed, a fateful ride. The liking,
+the deep interest, born of their first meeting, swept irresistibly into
+admiration. Their faces turned towards each other, youth to youth, as
+naturally as flowers swing towards the light.
+
+They fell into argument over saddles, over the difference between his
+manner of riding and her own. Her speech, so direct, so full of quaint
+slang, enchanted him, and Alice soon found herself the third party. And
+when they were for pushing into a gallop she acknowledged herself a
+clog. Concealing her disgust of herself under a bright smile, she called
+out: "Why don't you people gallop ahead, and let me jog along at my own
+gait?"
+
+"Oh no," replied Ben, "we don't want to do that. Are you tired?" He
+became anxious at once.
+
+"No, no! Please go! Mrs. Haney wants to race--I can see that; and I'd
+really like to see her ride--she sits her horse so beautifully."
+
+"Very well," Ben acquiesced, "we'll take a run ahead, and come back to
+you."
+
+Thereupon they set off, Bertha leading in a rushing gallop up a fine
+road which wound along a ravine, towards the top of a broad mesa. Alice,
+with slack rein in her small hand, rode slowly on in the vivid sunlight,
+a chill shadow rolling in upon her soul. As young as her lover in years,
+she nevertheless seemed at the moment twice his age. Everything
+interested him. Nothing interested her. He was never tired mentally or
+physically, and his smooth, unwrinkled face still reflected the morning
+sunlight of the world. "He is still the boy, while I am old and wrinkled
+and nerveless," she bitterly confessed.
+
+When they returned to her at the top of the mesa, flushed and laughing,
+her pain had deepened into despair. Up to that moment she had checked
+disease with a belief that some day she was to recover her health, that
+some day her wrinkles would be smoothed out and her cheeks resume their
+youthful charm; but now she knew herself as she was--a broken thing. The
+divine glow and grace of youth would never again come to her, while this
+vigorous and joyous girl would grow in womanly charm from month to
+month. "She is going to be very beautiful," she admitted; and even in
+the midst of her own discouragement she could not but admire Bertha's
+skill with the horse. She rode in the manner of a cowboy, holding her
+hands high and guiding her horse by pulling the reins across his neck.
+Ben was receiving lessons from her--absorbed and jocular.
+
+At the top of the mesa they all halted to look away over the
+landscape--a gray-green, tumbled land, out of which fantastic red rocks
+rose, and over which, to the west, the snowy peaks loomed. Ben drew a
+deep breath of joy. It seemed that the world had never been so
+beautiful. "Isn't it magnificent!" he cried. "I like this country!
+Alice, let's make our home here."
+
+She smiled a little constrainedly. "Just as you say, dear."
+
+"Why shouldn't we, when the climate is doing you so much good?"
+
+The horse that Bertha rode was prancing and foaming, eager for a renewal
+of the race, and Ben, seeing it, cried out: "Shall we go round by the
+hanging rock?"
+
+"I'm willing!" answered Bertha, her eyes shining with excitement.
+
+Alice shook her head. "I think I'll let you young things go your own
+gait, and I'll poke along back towards home."
+
+Ben rode near her, searching her face anxiously. "You're not tired--are
+you, sweetness?"
+
+"No, but I would be if I took that big circuit. But never mind me, I
+like to poke."
+
+"Very well," he answered, quite relieved, "we'll meet you at the
+bridge." And off they dashed with furious clatter, leaving her to slowly
+retrace her lonely way, feeling very tired, very old, and very sad.
+
+Bertha was perfectly, perilously happy. It was almost her first escape
+from the brooding care and weight of Haney's presence. She felt as she
+used to feel when speeding away on swift gallop to the ranch with some
+companion as care-free as herself. Since that fateful day when her
+mother fell ill and Marshall Haney asked her to marry him, she had not
+been permitted an hour's holiday. Even when absent from her husband her
+mind carried an inescapable picture of his loneliness and helplessness,
+and no complete relaxation had come with her temporary freedom. This
+day, this hour, she was suddenly free from care, from pain, from all
+uneasiness.
+
+She considered this feeling due to the saddle and to the clear air of
+the morning. "I will ride every day," she declared to Ben, with shining
+face, as they drew their horses to a walk. "I don't know when I've
+enjoyed a ride so much. I can't see why I haven't been out before. I
+used to ride a good lot; lately I've dropped it."
+
+"We'll call for you every morning," he replied. "As Alice gets stronger,
+we can go up into the canons and take long rides."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," she said; "we'll let her ride in the cart
+with the Captain, and take our dinner, and we'll all go up the North
+Canon some day, and eat picnic dinner there."
+
+"Good idea," he said, accepting her disposition of Alice without even
+mental dissent. "That will be jolly fun."
+
+They planned this and other excursions, with no sense of leaving any one
+behind or of cutting across conventional boundaries. Their native
+honesty and innocence of any ill intention prevented even a suspicion of
+danger, and by the time they joined Alice at the bridge they were on
+terms of intimacy and good-fellowship which seemed to rise from years of
+long acquaintance. Ben had promised to help her select a horse, and she
+had agreed to bring the Captain to call on Alice, who was staying with
+some friends not far away.
+
+This change in Bertha's manner extended to Alice, who returned it in
+kind. The guilelessness which shone from the young wife's clear eyes was
+unmistakable. She was growing handsome, too. The flush of blood in her
+cheeks had submerged her freckles, and Alice began to realize how the
+poor child's devotion to Marshall Haney had reacted against her native
+good health. "She is but a child even now," she thought.
+
+Haney was sitting on the porch where they had left him, the collie at
+his feet, but at sight of them returning he rose and hobbled slowly down
+the walk, his heart filled with tenderness and admiration for his wife.
+He had never ridden with her, but he had once seen her mounted, and one
+of his expressed wishes had been that he might be able to sit a saddle
+once more and ride by her side.
+
+"Come in and stay to dinner!" he called, hospitably, and Bertha eagerly
+seconded the invitation.
+
+But Alice replied: "I'm pretty tired; I think I'll go home. You can stay
+if you like, Ben."
+
+Ben, smitten with sudden contrition, quickly said: "Oh no; I will go
+with you. I'm afraid you've ridden too far."
+
+She protested against this, for Bertha's relief. "Not at all. It's a
+good tiredness. It's been great fun."
+
+And with promises of another expedition of the same sort they rode away,
+while Bertha and Haney remained at the gate to examine the new horse.
+
+As little Mrs. Haney re-entered the house with her husband the day
+seemed to lose its magical brightness, and to decline to a humdrum,
+shadowless flare. The house became cold and gloomy and the day empty.
+For the first time since its purchase she mentally asked herself: "What
+will I do now?" It was as if some ruling motive had suddenly been
+withdrawn from her life.
+
+This empty, aching spot remained with her all through the day, even when
+she took Haney for his drive down-town, and only disappeared for a few
+moments as they met young Fordyce on the street. It troubled her as she
+returned to the house, and she was glad that Williams came in to take
+supper with them, for his talk of the mine diverted her and deeply
+interested her husband.
+
+Williams eyed his boss critically. "You're gainin', Captain. You'll soon
+be able to make camp again."
+
+"I hope so, but the doctor says my heart's affected and it wouldn't be
+safe for me to go any higher--for a while."
+
+Williams smiled at Bertha. "Better send the missus, then. The men all
+have a great idea of her. They say she's a kind of mascot. McGonnigle
+asks me every time what she thinks of our new shaft. I've a kind of
+reverence for her judgment myself. They say women kind o' feel their way
+to a conclusion. Now, I'd like her to pass judgment on our work in _The
+Diamond Ace_."
+
+"I'd like to go up," said Bertha. But, in truth, she was no longer
+thinking of the mine: she was considering how she might make her table
+look as pretty as Mrs. Congdon's. Her first dissatisfaction with her own
+way of life filled her mind. "I must have some of those candles," she
+said to herself, while the men were still intent upon the mine. Her
+first step towards social conformity was at this moment taken.
+
+She felt herself akin to these people, and this assertion, subconscious
+and unuttered, brought something between Marshall Haney and herself. It
+was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was
+perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the
+Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the
+ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge
+she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day,
+though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, now piteously
+dependent upon her.
+
+He managed his morning paper very well, but when she read aloud to him
+he almost always went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
+
+
+Bertha was astir early the next morning, and quite ready to join the
+Fordyces as soon as breakfast was over; but they did not come. She
+waited and watched the whole forenoon, and when at twelve o'clock they
+had neither called nor sent word, her day suddenly sank into
+nothingness, like a collapsed balloon, and she faced her tasks with a
+weakness of will not native to her.
+
+Haney and Williams were both down street discussing some business matter
+with Crego, and this left her hours the more empty and unsatisfactory.
+As the dinner-hour drew near she drove to fetch her husband, hoping for
+a glimpse of the Fordyces on the way, but even this comfort was denied
+her, and she ached with dull pain which she could not analyze.
+
+As Haney settled himself in the carriage, he said: "Well, little woman,
+did ye have a good ride?"
+
+"I didn't go," she responded, with curt emphasis.
+
+"Ye did not--Why not?"
+
+"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
+repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."
+
+"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
+mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
+better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
+get ready at your ease."
+
+The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
+afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
+day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
+lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.
+
+"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
+in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
+buy the friends you really care for.
+
+On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
+had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
+explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
+again to-morrow."
+
+This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
+mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
+and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
+call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
+little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
+listened to me gabble," he added.
+
+Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend--a rather handsome
+house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
+blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
+her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
+Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
+Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
+don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
+and then. I'm glad you came."
+
+"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
+delicate face was wrinkled and withered.
+
+Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
+"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork--nothing permanently depresses
+me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"
+
+Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
+of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
+a child. Then she said: "I've bought a new horse."
+
+"Have you, indeed?"
+
+"Yes, and I've been expecting you to ride up to the line fence and call
+me out--I wanted to show him to you. He's a cracker-jack, all right."
+
+"We'll come over in a day or two. I never stay _down_ more than three
+days."
+
+Haney, lumbering round the corner of the house, called out, mellowly:
+"Here you are! Now don't move a hair." He bent and offered a broad white
+hand. "How are ye the day?"
+
+"Better, thank you. Ben, put a chair beside me; I want to talk to
+Captain Haney. He was interrupted the other night in the very middle of
+one of his best stories, and I'm going to insist on his finishing it."
+
+Haney faced Bertha with a look of humorous amazement on his face. "Think
+o' that, now! She remembers one of my best."
+
+"Indeed I do, Captain, and I can tell you just where you left off. You
+had just sighted the camp of the robbers."
+
+Haney clicked with his tongue, as if listening to a child. "There now! I
+must have been taking more grape-juice than was good for me to start on
+that story, for it's all about meself and the great man I thought I was
+in those days."
+
+"I love to hear about people who can ride a hundred miles in a night,
+and live on roots and berries, and capture men who bristle with
+revolvers. Please go on. Ben, you needn't listen if you don't want to.
+You can show Mrs. Haney the automobile or the garden."
+
+Ben laughed. "I like to hear Captain Haney talk quite as well as
+anybody, but I'll be glad to show Mrs. Haney any of your neighbors'
+things she cares to see."
+
+Alice turned to Bertha. "I suppose the Captain's tales are all old songs
+in your ears?"
+
+"No, they're mostly all new to me. The Captain never tells stories to
+me."
+
+Haney winked. "She knows me too well. She wouldn't believe them."
+
+"Go on, please," said Alice. And so Haney took up the thread, though he
+protested. "'Tis a tale for candle-light," he explained.
+
+Ben was studying Bertha with renewed admiration. "Where did she get that
+exquisite profile?" he thought.
+
+The story was again interrupted by a group of callers, among them Mrs.
+Crego, and though Alice loyally stood by the Haneys and introduced them
+boldly, Mrs. Crego's cold nod and something that went out from the eyes
+of her companions made Bertha suffer, and she went away with a feeling
+of antagonism in her heart. Did these people consider her beneath their
+respect?
+
+Haney remarked as they rode away: "If black eyes could freeze, sure we'd
+be shiverin' this minute. Did ye see Mrs. Crego pucker up when she
+sighted us?"
+
+"I did, and it settled her for me," replied Bertha.
+
+The intimacy thus established between the Haneys and the Congdon circle
+furnished the gossip of the "upper ten" with vital material for
+discussion. Mrs. Crego most decidedly disapproved of their calling, and
+advised Alice Heath against any further connection with the gambler's
+wife.
+
+"What good can it possibly lead to? It's only curiosity on your part,
+and it isn't right to disturb the girl's ideals--if she has any."
+
+To this Alice made no reply, but Ben stoutly defended the young wife.
+"She would have been as good as any of us with the same education. The
+poor little thing has had to work since her childhood, and that has cut
+off all training. As for Haney, he isn't a bad man. I suppose he argues
+that as some one must keep a gambling-house, it is best to have a good
+man do it."
+
+The sense of being to a degree freed from the ordinary restraints of
+social life made Alice very tolerant. But, as it chanced, they did not
+go out the next day; indeed, it was several days before they again rode
+up to the Haney gate. They found Bertha dressed and ready for them (as
+she had been each morning), and when she came out to them her heart was
+glowing and her face alight.
+
+"We've come to see the new horse!" called Ben.
+
+Haney was at the gate with a smile of satisfaction on his face when the
+horse was brought round. "There is a steed worth the riding!" he
+boasted. "I told Bertie to get the best. I would not have her riding a
+'skate' like that one the other morning. She'll keep ye company this
+day."
+
+Ben exclaimed, with admiration: "I see you know horse-kind, Captain!"
+
+"I do," responded Haney. "And now be off, and remember you take dinner
+with us to-day."
+
+As they moved away he took his customary seat on the porch to wait for
+their return--patient in outward seeming, but lonely and a little
+resentful within.
+
+Bertha suggested a ride up the Bear Canon, but Ben was quick to say:
+"That is too far, I fear, for Alice."
+
+Bertha's glance at Alice revealed again, but in clearer lines, the
+sickness and weariness and the hopelessness of the elder woman's face,
+and Ben's consideration and watchful care of her took something out of
+the ride. The rapture, the careless gayety, of their first gallop was
+gone.
+
+An impatience rose in the girl's soul. With the cruelty of youth she
+unconsciously accused the other, resenting the interference with her own
+plans and pleasures. She felt cheated because Ben permitted himself no
+racing, no circuits with her--and yet outwardly and in reality she was
+deeply sympathetic. She pitied while she accused and resented.
+
+Their ride was short and unsatisfying. But as her guests remained for
+luncheon--Bertha was learning to call it that--the outing ended in a
+rare delight; for while "the two invalids" sat on the piazza, Bertha
+showed Ben her garden and stables, and the greenhouses she was building,
+and this hour was one of almost perfect peace.
+
+Ben, once outside Alice's depressing presence, grew gay and
+single-minded in his enjoyment of his hostess and her surroundings.
+
+"It must seem like Aladdin and his wonderful lamp to you," he said, as
+they stood watching the workmen putting in the glass to the greenhouses.
+"All you have to do is rub it, and miracles happen."
+
+"That's just what it does," she answered, with gravity. "I give myself a
+knock in the head every time I write out a check, just to see if I am
+awake; but I can see I'll get used to it in time. That's the funny
+thing: a feller can get used to anything. The trouble with me is I don't
+know what to do nor how to do it. I ought to be learning things: I ought
+to go to school, but I can't. You see, I had to buckle down to work
+before I finished the high-school, and I don't know a thing except
+running a hotel. I wish you'd give me a few pointers."
+
+"I'll do what I can, but I am afraid my advice wouldn't be very
+pertinent. What can I help you on?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Alice"--she spoke the word with a little
+hesitation--"said something to me the other day about charity, and all
+that. Well, now, I'm helping mother's church--a little--and I'm helping
+up at Sibley, but I don't know what else to do. I suppose I ought to do
+some good with the money that's rolling in on us. I've got my house
+pretty well stocked and fitted up, and I'm about stumped. I can't sit
+down, and just eat and sleep, ride and drive, can I?"
+
+"There are women who do that and nothing else."
+
+"Well, I can't. I've always had something to do. I like to play as well
+as the next one, but I don't believe I could spend my time here just
+sitting around."
+
+"It's no small matter to run such a house as this."
+
+"Well, there's something in that; but the point is, what's it all for?
+We're alone in it most of the time, and it don't seem right. Another
+thing, most of our old friends fight shy of us now. I invite 'em in, and
+they come, but they don't stay--they don't seem comfortable. They are
+all wall-eyed to see the place once, but they don't say 'hello' as they
+used to. And the people next door here--well, they don't neighbor at
+all. You and the Congdons are the only people, except a few of mother's
+church folks, who even call. Now, what's the matter?"
+
+He was now quite as serious as she. "I suppose your own folks feel that
+your wealth is a barrier."
+
+"Why should they? I treat 'em just the same as ever. I'm not the kind to
+go back on my friends because I'm Marshall Haney's wife. If I'd earned
+this money I might put on airs; but I haven't--I've just married into
+it."
+
+"How did you come to do it?" he asked, quickly--almost accusingly.
+
+Her tone again faltered, and her eyes fell. "Well, it was like this:
+Mother was sick and getting old, and I was kind o' tired and
+discouraged, and the Captain was mighty nice and kind to us; and then
+I--And so when the word came that he was hurt--and wanted me--I went."
+Here she looked up at him. "And I did right, don't you think so?"
+
+He was twisting a twig in his fingers. "Oh yes, certainly. You've been a
+great comfort to him. You saved his life probably, and he really is a
+fine man in spite of--" He broke off.
+
+She took up his phrase. "In spite of his business. I know, that was
+mother's main objection to him. But, you see, he cleaned all out of that
+before I married him. He hasn't touched a card since."
+
+He was almost apologetic. "I've been brought up to despise gamblers--I'm
+a Quaker, you know, by family. But I like Captain Haney, and I can see
+that from his point of view a 'straight game,' as he calls it, is not a
+crime."
+
+"Yes, that's one good thing in his favor--he never let a crooked deal
+pass in his place. But, after all, I can't forget that he was a gambler,
+and other people can't, and his record is dead against us here." Her
+face was dark as she resumed. "I'm a gambler's wife. Ain't that so?
+Didn't you hear of me in that way? Weren't you warned against us?"
+
+His honest eyes quailed a little. "It is true your husband is called a
+gambler rather than a miner."
+
+"Well, he was. That's right, but he isn't now. I'm not complaining about
+the part that can't be helped, but I want to do something to show we are
+in line to-day, and so does the Captain. We want to make our money
+count, and if you can tell us what to do we'll be mightily obliged."
+
+The young Quaker was more profoundly enthralled by this unexpected
+confession of the girl than by any other word she could have uttered.
+His own knowledge of life was neither wide nor deep, and his sense of
+responsibility not especially keen; and yet he experienced a thrill of
+pleasure and a certain lift of spirit as he stood looking down at
+her--the attitude of confidential spiritual adviser began at the moment
+to yield a sweet satisfaction as well as an agreeable realization of
+power. How much Haney's mines were pouring forth he did not know, but
+their wealth was said to be enormous. Every day added to the
+potentiality of this gray-eyed girl who stood so trustfully, so like a
+pupil, before him.
+
+He spoke with emotion. "I'll do what I can to advise you and help you,
+and so will Alice. Allen Crego is a good man--he has your legal
+business, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I think he's square, and I like him. But I can't go to Mrs. Crego;
+she despises us--that's one good reason." She smiled faintly. "But it
+ain't legal advice I want--it's something else. I don't know what it is.
+Our minister isn't the man, either. I guess I want somebody that knows
+life, and that ain't either a lawyer or a minister. I want some one to
+take our affairs in hand. I need all kinds of advice. Won't you give it
+to me?"
+
+He smiled. "I'd like to help, but I am only a lawyer--and a very young
+one at that."
+
+"I don't think of you as a lawyer; you're more than that to us."
+
+"What am I, then?"
+
+The color danced along her cheek as she uttered a phrase so current in
+the West that it has a certain humorous sound: "You're a gentleman and a
+scholar."
+
+"Thank you. But I fear you mean by that that I take life very easily."
+
+She grew serious again. "No, I don't. Anybody can see you're honest. I
+trust you more than I do Judge Crego, and so does the Captain. You can
+tell us things we want to know. We both know a little about business,
+but we don't know much about other things. That's where we both fall
+down."
+
+This frank expression of regard brought about a moment of emotional
+tension, and Ben hesitated before replying. At last he said: "I hope I
+shall always deserve your confidence. I wish I had the wisdom you credit
+me with. I wonder what I can tell you?"
+
+"Tell me what you would do if you were in my place."
+
+Quick as a sunbeam his smile flashed out. "Be your own good, joyous
+self. Whatever you do, don't lose what you are now--the quality which
+attracted Alice and me to you. Don't try to be like other rich people."
+
+The sight of the Captain and Alice walking slowly towards them cut short
+the further admission of his own careless inexperience, and they all
+took seats beneath a big pear-tree which shaded a semicircular wire
+settee.
+
+Haney had been confessing a little of his loneliness. "I will not
+believe that me work in the world is done. 'Tis true, I took very little
+care of me good days; but I was happy in me business, such as it was. Me
+little wife there saves me from the blue divils when she's about, but
+when I'm alone, sure it's deep in the dumps I go. Sometimes me mind
+misgives me, to think of her tied to an old stump of a tree like me! But
+maybe she's right--maybe I'm to recover me powers and be of use."
+
+To this Alice could only reply, as comfortingly as she could: "You've
+given her a good deal, Captain."
+
+"So I have, but I mean to give more. As soon as I'm able to travel we're
+going down the hill to see the world. Sometimes when we sit on our porch
+and talk of it, it seems as if I could see the whole of the States
+spread out before us--Chicago, Washington, New York, and all to choose
+from. I can't get over the surprise of having the stream of money keep
+comin'. I used to work hard--you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I
+used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind,
+though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit
+and twist me two thumbs--and one of them bog-spavined, at that."
+
+To this Alice had made no reply, for they were within earshot of Ben and
+Bertha. Haney called out: "Sure, it must be near dinner-time, Bertie!--I
+mean luncheon, ma'am--I'm lately instructed."
+
+They all laughed in tune to his humor, and Bertha replied: "No more
+twelve-o'clock dinners for us, Captain."
+
+Haney groaned. "This fashionable life will be the death of me. Sure, I
+eat and talk by rule a'ready. Where it will end I dunno."
+
+Happily the bell soon relieved the strain, but the talk at the table
+continued to be very personal--it could not be prevented, for each of
+these four people was at a turning-point in his or her life. Haney,
+feeling the slow tide of returning vigor in his limbs, was in trouble
+thinking of what he was to do. Bertha, just beginning to tremble beneath
+the mysterious stir of an all-demanding love, was uneasy, feverish, and
+self-conscious. Alice, sensing the approach of weakness and decay, yet
+struggling against it, was inwardly in despair. While Ben, hitherto
+careless, facing life with unwrinkled brow, was appreciating, for the
+first time, the positive responsibilities of manhood. Bertha's expressed
+wish to employ his best judgment exalted him while it troubled him.
+
+For a time the burden of the conversation was his. Haney was in a
+reflective mood, and Bertha busied with the table service, which she was
+trying to raise to the level of her honored guests, was distracted.
+Alice, tired and a little dispirited, added nothing to the youthful
+spirit of the meal.
+
+At last, just when the conversation seemed about to flag out, Haney,
+lifting his head, began in a new tone: "Mr. Fordyce, my little girl and
+I have decided we want you to take Crego's place as our lawyer. I hope
+you'll be able to do it."
+
+Alice looked up in surprise. "But you don't mean to take it from Mr.
+Crego?"
+
+Haney's face grew hard. "I am under no obligation to Crego, and I prefer
+to have as me lawyer a man who can neighbor with me, and whose wife is
+not above nodding when me own wife passes by."
+
+Alice hastened to defend the Cregos. "You mustn't be unjust to Mrs.
+Crego."
+
+"I'm not," said Haney, "nor to Crego either. I've paid for his time, and
+paid well--as I'm willing to pay for yours." He turned to Ben. "I need
+advice, and I want to feel free to go for it."
+
+Ben replied: "I'd like to accept your business, Captain, but you see it
+would not be professional for me to profit at the expense of my friend,
+and, besides, I haven't really settled here yet."
+
+Haney looked disappointed. "I thought ye had. Well, I am going to cut
+loose from Crego anyhow, and I shall tell him why."
+
+Bertha cried out: "No, don't do that."
+
+He acquiesced. "Very well, then I won't tell him why; but I'm going to
+quit him! So if you don't care to take on me business, I'll give it to
+Jim Beringer. It pays a good bit of money, and will pay more. I'll make
+it profitable to ye."
+
+Alice looked at Ben. "Of course, if he is going to leave Mr. Crego
+anyway--"
+
+"But that would mean making our permanent home here, and setting up an
+office."
+
+"Well, why not? I can't live in the East any more; that we have tested.
+I am willing to decide now. It would give you a start here, and,
+besides, I think you can be of use to the Captain."
+
+Ben still hesitated. "It seems rather treacherous to Crego some way. But
+if you have definitely decided against him--"
+
+"We have," said Bertha. "We talked it all over yesterday. We want you."
+
+Haney's face was very grave now. "There is one thing more, Mr. Fordyce.
+Mart Haney's reputation must be taken into account. It won't do you anny
+good to be associated with him. I don't know that it will do you anny
+harm, but I'm dom sure it will do you no good to be associated with me."
+
+Alice interposed, quickly. "A lawyer can't choose his clients--at least,
+a _young_ lawyer can't."
+
+Haney ignored the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover
+up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life
+has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the
+high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is
+defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a
+fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all
+luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I
+had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, that led me to
+go West and jine the Indians, and by stealin' rides and beggin' me bread
+I reached Dodge City. 'Twas all chance that I didn't die on the way. Me
+mother, poor soul, was worried and I knew it, and finally I put me fist
+to it and wrote her a letter to say I was all right. She wrote beggin'
+me to return, which I did a couple of years later; but Troy was too slow
+for me then, and again I pulled out. I was always takin' risks. Danger
+was me delight. I had no trade, but I had faith in me luck. I won--I
+almost always won. And so I came to be a gambler along with bein'
+sheriff and city marshal, and the like o' that, in one mountain town or
+another, but I always played fair. A man who plays a square game is a
+gambler. The man who deals underhand is a crook. I'm no crook. I love
+the game. To know that the cards are stacked against the other player
+takes all the fun out of the deck for me. I want the other felly to have
+an equal chance with me--else 'tis no game, but a hold-up. No man ever
+rightfully accused me of dealing against him. Yes, 'tis true, me world
+is a world of risk." He looked at Alice. "Sure, the Look-Out up
+above--if there is such--is there to see that we all have a show for our
+ace. If anything interferes with that the game is a crooked one."
+
+Alice began to perceive something big and admirable in this man's
+spirit. She was not of his faith--quite the contrary. She was a
+fatalist. Nothing happened in her world. But she was imaginative enough
+to understand his point of view.
+
+Haney went on. "I know all the tricks. I lairned them, not to use in the
+game, but to keep them _out_ of the game. I had too much faith in me
+luck to ever weaken."
+
+"Did you never lose?" asked Ben.
+
+"Many the time, indeed, but only for a short streak. Take this mine, for
+instance. A man comes into me house full of confidence in himself,
+plays, and goes broke. The fury of the game bein' in him, he says: 'I'll
+put me prospect hole against five hundred dollars.' 'Roll the wheel,'
+says I, and I won his hole in the ground. 'Twas me luck. That prospect
+turned out a mine. 'Twas his luck to lose. He was a full-grown man; he
+knew the game and went into it with his eyes open. Truth was, he
+considered the mine a 'dead horse,' and was hopin' to take a fall out o'
+me. Me little girl here is disturbed about the way the mine came to us,
+but she needn't be. 'Twas all in the game. I'm sayin' 'twas in the game
+that another crazy fool should blow me to pieces--I don't complain. I
+take me chances. Now"--here he faced Ben, and his grave tone
+lightened--"as I understand it, you're not a rich man?"
+
+Ben flushed a little. "No, I haven't earned much so far; but it's up to
+me to get busy."
+
+"And ye expect to marry soon?"
+
+This question sent a thrill to the heart of each of the three young
+people listening--a thrill of fear, of doubt. And Ben said, slowly,
+perceiving Haney's fatherly good-will: "Yes, we expect to set up
+housekeeping, as the old-fashioned people say, as soon as Alice is a
+little stronger."
+
+"Very well, then," Haney went on like one who has made his point,
+"here's _your_ chance. Your fee with me will pay your coal bills anyway.
+We're likely to take a good dale of your time, but you'll lose nothing
+by that."
+
+Bertha, with big yearning eyes fixed upon Ben's face, waited in a quiver
+of hope as he replied: "Of course, Captain Haney, I can't subscribe to
+your defense of gambling, and if you were still a gambler, in the strict
+sense of the word, I couldn't accept this position, for it is something
+more than legal. But as you have given up all connection with cards and
+liquor selling, I see no reason why I should not accept your
+offer--provided I can be of service in the manner you expect." He looked
+across the table at Bertha, and reading there the same entreaty which
+she had expressed in the garden, he added, firmly and definitely: "Yes,
+I will accept, and be very much obliged to you."
+
+Haney extended his hand, and they silently clasped palms in the compact.
+
+They parted in a glow of mutual confidence and liking, and Alice's voice
+quivered as she thanked their host. "I think it very fine of you,
+Captain Haney. This may be the means of establishing Mr. Fordyce in
+business here."
+
+His eyes twinkled in reply. "I will do all I can to help him, for he
+takes me eye."
+
+Ben's last glance and the pressure of his hand left in Bertha's brain a
+glow which remained with her all the rest of the day, and she carolled
+like a robin as she trod her swift way about the house.
+
+The next morning, as they sat at breakfast, Mart briskly said: "Well,
+little woman, I've decided, now that I have a man I can trust with me
+business, to make the trip East. As soon as he has the mines in hand
+we'll start. Can you be ready to go Monday week?"
+
+"Sure thing," she answered, quickly. But even as she spoke a nameless
+pang that was neither joy nor exultation shot through her heart. For the
+first time she realized that she had lost her keen desire to explore the
+glittering plain which lay below her feet. A fairer world, a perfectly
+satisfying world, was opening before her in the high country which was
+her home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
+
+
+This change of legal adviser, while very important to Ben Fordyce and
+the Haneys, did not seem to trouble Allen Crego very much. As a matter
+of fact, he was about to run for Congress, and had all the business he
+could attend to anyway. He liked the young Quaker, and responded "All
+right" in the frank Western fashion, sending the Haneys away quite as
+solidly friendly as before. To Ben he was most cordial. "I'm glad you're
+going to settle here, and I'm specially glad you've got a retainer; for
+the field is overcrowded, and it may take a long time for you to get a
+place. We old fellows who came down along with the pioneers have an
+immense advantage. I wish you every success." And he meant it.
+
+Only when he got home to Mrs. Crego did he come to realize what a
+horrible injury he had permitted "a young and inexperienced Eastern boy"
+to do himself. "This connection will ostracize them both," his wife
+said.
+
+He answered a little wearily. "Oh, now, my dear, I think you take your
+social Medes and Persians too seriously. We lawyers can't afford to
+inquire into the private affairs of our clients too closely--especially
+if they are derived from the pioneer West. Ben Fordyce doesn't become
+responsible for Haney's past; it is a business and not a social
+arrangement."
+
+"That's like a man," she responded; "they never see anything till it
+bumps their noses. They've both called on the Haneys and gone riding
+with them--or with the girl. They've even eaten luncheon there!"
+
+"How dreadful! Mrs. Crego, you shock me!"
+
+"If any evil comes of this--and there will be sorrow in it--you'll be
+morally responsible. In the old days it didn't matter, but now nobody
+who is anybody in this town can associate with people like the Haneys
+and not be hurt by it."
+
+The judge ceased to smile. "Now, let this end the discussion. Fordyce
+has sense enough to take care of himself. He's just the man for
+Haney--he has time, good nature, and splendid connections. I am glad to
+be rid of the business, and I am delighted to think this young fellow
+has pleased Haney--"
+
+"It isn't Haney. Don't you see? It's that girl. She has urged it--I'm
+perfectly sure."
+
+"Stop right there!" he commanded, sharply. "I don't want to hear a word
+of your insinuations. I'm tired of them. I'm ashamed of you." And he
+took up his paper and walked away from her.
+
+She was defeated at the moment, but hurried to the Congdons with her
+news. Lee looked quite serious enough. "I don't believe I like that
+either. What do you think, Frank?"
+
+"All depends on Ben. If he makes it a business deal and keeps it so all
+right; if he don't, it may go against him in the town, as Helen says."
+
+"Don't you think you'd better go see him and have a talk?"
+
+"Nixie!" he answered, in swift negation. "Little Willie don't want to
+tackle that delicate job. I'm subtle, but not so subtle as that. Alice
+Heath knows all we know and more, and you can bet they've talked the
+whole thing over."
+
+"But they may not realize the position of the Haneys."
+
+"They may not; but I suspect they think they can carry any connection
+they choose to make, and I mostly think they can--ten generations of
+Quaker ancestry--"
+
+"But the people there don't know their ancestry."
+
+"Well, go talk to them. I abdicate. Besides, I like the Haneys."
+
+Mrs. Crego now laid her joker on the table. "Here's the point. That girl
+is _taken_ with Ben--it's all her plan."
+
+Congdon started. "Sh! Don't say that out loud, Nell. That little wife is
+true as steel."
+
+"I don't care. My prophetic soul--"
+
+Lee put in. "Prophetic pollywogs! Why, Helen, the girl is as simple and
+straightforward as a boy of twelve."
+
+"She seems that way, but I could see she was wonderfully attracted by
+Ben and his singing that night here."
+
+"That may be; so was I. Anyhow, I agree with Frank: it would be cruel to
+say such a thing--even if it were so, which I don't for an instant
+believe. At the same time, I admit the connection will make talk and may
+create a prejudice. Maybe we'd better see Ben." She looked at her
+husband.
+
+He waved a protesting finger before his face. "Not on your life! Ben and
+I are friends. I like him immensely--too much to think of running such a
+frightful risk of offending him. If you interfere you do so at your own
+peril."
+
+Lee finally acquiesced in his judgment, and Mrs. Crego went home more
+deeply troubled than her acquaintance with Alice Heath would seem to
+warrant. "Helen's an estimable person," said Frank Congdon, "and on the
+whole I like her; but I wish she didn't take quite so much evil for
+granted."
+
+So as no one warned Ben Fordyce, he went gayly forward and hired a
+couple of nice rooms in a sightly block, and hung out a gilded sign. "I
+am a citizen of Colorado now," he said to the Captain and Bertha the
+first time they called at his office.
+
+Alice was there, and they were deep in discussion of the merits of a
+pile of new rugs which were to match the wall-paper. Ben stoutly stood
+for the "ox-blood" and she for the "old gold." Ben explained. "The
+entire extravagance of this office is due to her." He pointed an
+accusing finger at Alice, who nodded shamelessly. "I was all for
+second-hand stuff, both for economy's sake and to show I'd been in
+practice a long time."
+
+"You'd need a battered second-hand set of whiskers to match," she
+replied, and they all laughed at the notion. "No, Captain, being sure
+Ben couldn't deceive anybody as to his age and experience, I argued for
+signs of prosperity. New-born success has its weight, you know."
+
+"Sure it has."
+
+"People like silken rugs and mahogany furniture, even in the West."
+
+"They do," Haney agreed.
+
+Bertha, standing silently by, was vaguely resenting Alice's presence.
+This feeling was not defined, but it was strong enough to darken her
+face and take the sparkle out of her eyes. She would have liked to do
+this work of fitting up his rooms; and he, on his part, saw that she was
+in sombre mood, and sought opportunity to come to where she stood. "I'm
+being congratulated on all sides for becoming a citizen of Colorado.
+It's quite like being initiated into some new club. In an Eastern town
+they'd let me jolly well alone. I'm going to like it immensely, I know,
+and it's really due to you."
+
+She found words difficult at the moment. His face and voice dazzled her
+like an open door towards sunshine, and after a moment's pause she
+looked round the room, saying: "It's going to be fine."
+
+"I want it comfy, so that you and the Captain will feel like coming down
+often. We have a great deal to talk over before I shall really have a
+full understanding of your affairs. I'm going to bone into my books
+hard," he added, boyishly. "To tell the truth, I've taken life pretty
+easy. You see, my father left me a regular income, big enough to support
+me while I was studying law, but not enough to marry on." She couldn't
+have told why, but this subject troubled her and confused her. She
+turned away again as he continued: "Alice has a little, not much, in her
+own right, and so it is really up to me to settle down and get to work.
+Please don't think you are taking the time of a rich and busy man like
+Crego. I am very grateful to you. It will enable us to plan a home here
+in the West."
+
+Again that keen pang went through her heart, and he, looking towards
+Alice, so worn and drooping, was touched with dismay, almost fear.
+
+She was talking to the Captain, but was furtively watching Bertie and
+Ben. "How erect and radiant and happy they are," she thought, and a
+doubt of the girl came into her mind. "She is so untrained and so
+young!" And in this mental exclamation she put her first fear that Ben
+might find his position as legal adviser complicated by the admiration
+of the Captain's wife.
+
+Something weirdly intuitive had come to Alice Heath in these later
+years. As her health declined and her flesh purified, she had come to
+possess uncanny powers of vision, and at times seemed to read the very
+innermost thoughts of those about her. The loss of her beauty, which had
+been exquisite as that of a rose, had made her morbid--which she knew
+and struggled against. She forecast the future, and this is disquieting
+to any one. "Here at this moment," she often said to herself, "my world
+is flooded with sunshine--a static world in appearance. But how will it
+be ten years from now? The clock ticks, the sun passes, the universal
+sway of death extends." With the same acuteness with which she read
+other minds she read her own; but knowing that such imaginings were
+unnatural and distressing, she fought against them; yet they came in
+spite of herself. And the picture of Bertha standing there beside Ben
+filled her with a prophetic vision of what the girl-wife was to become:
+"She will grow in grace and in dignity, in understanding. She's of good
+stock. She's like a man in her power to raise herself above lowly
+conditions. Why are there not female Lincolns? There are, and she is one
+of them. Nearly all our great men were born and reared under conditions
+ruder than those which surrounded this girl. Why can't she rise? She
+will rise--and then--"
+
+She did not pursue the clew further, for the Captain was speaking. "And
+you, miss, can be of just as great service to me wife. She's alone with
+me here in this town, and I'm a heavy load for her to carry. I am so.
+Now that her house is in order the days are long. The people she'd like
+to know don't drop in, and I suspect it's because she's Mart Haney's
+wife."
+
+She resumed her sprightly manner. "Oh no; I'm afraid if she were a poor
+girl she'd find these same people still more indifferent."
+
+"True, miss. But would they act the same if she were Mart Haney's
+widow?"
+
+She flashed a deep-piercing, wondering glance at him. "Ah, that would be
+different. And yet," she hastened to say, "that would not make her
+acceptable to the really best people."
+
+"What would, miss?" he asked, simply. "I'm a rough man, and I've led a
+rough life. I begin to see things now that I never saw before. What
+would give Bertha standing among the people you speak of?"
+
+"Education, character. By character I mean she must be a personality."
+
+"That she is!" He was emphatic in this.
+
+"She certainly is a fascinating girl, and she promises to be a still
+more interesting woman."
+
+"I'm not a wooden-head, miss. As a gambler, it was me business to read
+men's faces. I see more than my little girl gives me credit for. I think
+I know why Mrs. Crego can't see us as we pass by, and I was wise to them
+friends of yours the other day when they curled their tails and showed
+their teeth at sight of us. It's because Bertie is the wife of a
+gambler. Isn't that so, now?"
+
+She rose with a start, for Bertha was coming towards them. "Hush! don't
+talk about it any more--at present." And at this moment there passed
+before her eyes a vision of this big man, crushed and writhing on a
+mountain-side, among deep green ferns. It lasted but an instant, like
+the memory of an event in childhood; a spot transient as a
+shadow--disconnected, without precursor or sequence; like a cloud over
+the wheat it gloomed a moment and was gone, and she gave herself up to
+the influence of the sunny room and Ben's joyous plans.
+
+This vision came back to her when she was alone in her own room an hour
+later, and stayed with her persistently. What did it mean? Did it
+presage an accident to him, or had it arisen from a vague knowledge of
+the cause of his wounding?
+
+This singular and distressing rule governed her dreams of the future.
+They were all of sorrow, death, physical calamities; never, or very
+rarely, of health and happiness; therefore, she seldom spoke of them.
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," her father was wont to
+say, and she had come to the same conclusion. Besides her faith in her
+predictive dreams was by no means fixed. She had reached but one
+comforting conclusion, and that was negative. If no vision came to
+reveal the future of any friend, she rested secure in the belief that he
+or she at least was to be free of disaster. It was a sweet and
+comforting fact to remember that no vision of Ben's future had ever
+entered her consciousness. She did not even dream of him. And this was
+still more wonderful, for she had always understood that those we love
+are ever in our thoughts in slumber.
+
+For some reason the day had been most wearing, and to dress for dinner
+was an effort. But she made herself as lovely as she could for Ben's
+sake--and for the sake of the Congdons with whom they were to dine. "We
+are to be alone," Lee had 'phoned, "for I want to talk with you like a
+Dutch aunt."
+
+Alice knew as well as if Lee had spoken it what was coming. They were
+going to protest against Ben's intimacy with the Haneys. And as soon as
+they were in their carriage she warned Ben. "You want to be on your
+guard to-night. The Congdons are going to advise you against accepting
+this retainer from Captain Haney."
+
+He was too happy to do more than jokingly reply: "Too late! Bribe is in
+hand, and money mostly spent. What I want to ask you is more important.
+When are we to start our 'love in a cottage' idyl? It really looks
+possible now. Isn't it beautiful to think we can really keep house out
+here and pay our way?"
+
+"Oh, Ben!"--there was a wail in her voice--"I don't seem to gain as I
+should! I'm completely tired out to-night."
+
+He was all concern instantly, and putting his arm about her, tenderly
+exclaimed: "Dear heart, it was my fault. You shouldn't have gone down at
+all."
+
+"But don't you see how revealing it is? If I can't go down to your
+office to superintend the arrangement of a few rugs and chairs, how can
+I keep a house--your house--in order? No, dear boy, we mustn't think of
+it--not now; perhaps by spring, but certainly not now."
+
+He was both saddened and perplexed, and yet his disappointment was not
+so keen as it had been when she had put off their wedding-day the first
+time, and when she turned a white, despairing face up to him, saying
+wildly: "Oh, Benny, why don't you give me up and marry some nice young
+girl?" He only took her in his arms and shut her lips with a kiss.
+
+"No more such talk," he said; "you're tired and a little morbid. Lee's
+lecture will do you good. I hope she gets after you for letting yourself
+down into these detestable moods."
+
+Signs of their troubled ride were on their faces as they entered the
+Congdon sitting-room (which also served as hall), and Lee put her arm
+about her guest with compassion uppermost in her heart. "You don't look
+a bit well to-night. What have you been doing?"
+
+"Nothing. That's the worst of it. If I'd been scrubbing floors or
+cleaning silver I'd feel that I had a right to be tired, but I've only
+been down to Ben's new office overseeing the laying of three rugs. I
+didn't lift a hand, and now look at me!"
+
+When they were in the privacy of Lee's dressing-room the hostess studied
+her guest critically. "You've something on your mind," she announced.
+
+"I always have something on my mind."
+
+"I know you do, and if you're ever going to get well you must get it off
+your mind. Do I know what it is?"
+
+"If you don't, you ought to. Since this retainer from Captain Haney, Ben
+is urging an immediate marriage."
+
+Lee Congdon was an unconquerable realist and truth-teller, and she could
+not at the moment utter any other than a divergent word. "We got you
+here to-night to talk over that Haney business. We don't entirely like
+it; at least, I don't. Frank has no responsibility, never had. Haney is
+not a bad man, and she isn't a bit low or common; but folks think she
+is. And it's going to hurt you both, I'm afraid, to have anything to do
+socially with them."
+
+"Oh, socially!" Alice cried, in disgust. "I thought we were coming to
+the big and boundless West, where such things don't count."
+
+"You have, and you haven't. The Springs is a little of the West, a
+little of England, and a good deal of the East. It's a foolish town in
+some ways, and I warn you lots of nice people will find it inconvenient
+to call on you for fear of meeting Mrs. Haney."
+
+"Oh, rats!"
+
+"Absurd, isn't it? I'm glad you put on that dress. You don't look tired
+now; your cheeks are blazing."
+
+"With wrath--not health."
+
+"At me?"
+
+"Oh no. At these people who assume to dictate whom we shall know."
+
+"They don't do that, dear; they only think you're paying too much for
+Ben's new office. But come down to dinner; we'll fight this out later."
+
+Congdon was outspoken in his admiration. "By the Lord, the climate is
+getting in its work! Why, Alice, you're radiant. You're ten years
+younger to-night!"
+
+"That's because I'm angry."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Your townspeople. Lee has made me feel as if I were the club-bar topic
+to-night."
+
+Congdon became solemn--grim as a brazen image. "Mrs. Congdon, you've
+been making some of your tactful remarks."
+
+"I have not. I've been talking straight from the shoulder, as I advise
+you to do."
+
+He capitulated. "After the turkey. Come on, Ben, we're in for a lecture
+by the Professor-Doctor Lee Congdon."
+
+Under the influence of his humor they took seats about the pretty,
+candle-lit table as gay a group as the city held--apparently; for Alice
+was of that temperament which responds quickly and buoyantly to humor,
+and Frank Congdon never took anything quite seriously--except his
+portrait-painting. He could do a cake-walk with any one, but he would
+not discuss art with the unsympathetic. He always had a new story to
+tell of his amazing experience. Something was always happening to him.
+Other men come and go up and down the whole earth without an adventure,
+but no sooner does Frank Congdon slip out of the door than the
+fates--generally the humorous ones--pounce upon him. Drunken women claim
+him for a son. Sheriffs arrest him in the mountains and transport him
+long distances, only to find him the wrong man. Confused Swedish mothers
+give him babies to hold in the cars, and rush out just in time to get
+left. And these tales lose nothing in his recount of them.
+
+In the present instance he took up half the dinner-hour with a
+description of his latest mishap. A neighbor's cook had suddenly gone
+mad, and had charged him with putting a spell over her. "Somebody calls
+me up on the 'phone this morning: 'Is this Frank Congdon?'... 'Yes.' ...
+'Hello, Frank, this is Henry. What you been doing to my cook?' ... 'What
+does she say I have?' ... 'Says you've hypnotized her--put a spell over
+her.' ... 'I pass.' ... 'Fact; she's crazy as a bed-bug, and we can't do a
+thing with her--and she was _such_ a good girl. How could you,
+Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see
+her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't
+have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests.
+"Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word,
+I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and
+over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with
+the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my
+appearing suddenly at the door a la Svengali, and with a majestic wave
+of the hand lift the cloud from her brain. 'Not on your tintype,' says
+I; 'I guess this is a case for the police. If I put this spell on that
+hell-cat it must have been by "absent treatment" during sleep, and it's
+me to my studio again.' ... 'No you don't,' said Henry. 'You stay till
+this incubus is cleared away. It ain't reasonable to suppose that an
+ignorant maid like this is going to charge a complete stranger with a
+crime of this kind unless--'
+
+"'That's what I say. It isn't reasonable, I refuse to believe it.' Just
+then something seemed to break loose in the back part of the house.
+Wash-boilers seemed to be falling on the kitchen range, and wild yells
+made Mrs. Henry turn pale.
+
+"'That's your work, monster!' shrieked Henry.
+
+"'Is it?' I said. 'My opinion is she's broke into your wine-cellar. It's
+you to the police.'
+
+"'Go calm her. Come, it's a fine chance to experiment.'
+
+"'So it is--with a cannon. Do you mean to tell me seriously that she
+thinks I've hypnotized her?'
+
+"Then he got down to business, and assured me that he was telling the
+truth. This interested me, and I thought I'd chance opening the
+door--particularly as everything was quiet inside."
+
+His company was very tense now, so vividly had he set the whole scene
+before them. "I opened the door, and found her standing at the far side
+of the room, her hair in ropes and her eyes wild. She was 'bug-house'
+all right. 'Karen,' I said, in my most hypnotic voice, 'I lift the
+spell. You are free. Go back to work.'"
+
+"What happened?" asked Alice, breathless with excitement.
+
+His face was grave and his voice sad. "Not a thing! My Svengali pass
+didn't work. I was as the idle wind to her. Therefore, I withdrew and
+'phoned the police."
+
+"What an extraordinary thing," said Ben.
+
+Mrs. Congdon brightly answered: "It would be for any one else, but I'm
+so used to that now I don't mind. Whenever the telephone bell rings I
+expect to hear that Frank is sued for breach of promise, or arrested for
+burglary, or some little thing like that. If he were only a novelist
+he'd make our everlasting fortune. But I know why he started this
+story--he wants to head off my talk with you about the Haneys, and I
+don't intend to let him do it. Have you taken on Haney's legal
+business?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For good and all?"
+
+"Yes. He's advanced me part of my fee, and I've spent it for desks,
+rugs, and office rent. I think I may say the offer is accepted."
+
+"I'm sorry," she said, simply.
+
+Her husband objected. "I don't see why. Haney is a man of large means,
+his mines are paying hugely, and he needs some one to look after the
+investment side of his income, and to keep tab on the output of the
+mines, and to be ready to settle any legal points that may come up.
+Ben's just the boy to do this."
+
+Lee was firm. "That's one side of it. But these young people should not
+start in wrong. Haney's past is said to be criminal, and Mrs. Haney is
+called low--"
+
+Congdon hotly interrupted. "Who says so? It's a lie!"
+
+"That's the talk over town. It was all right for Crego to transact their
+business, for he is an old and well-known lawyer here; but it's
+different with Ben, who is just starting."
+
+Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I
+do."
+
+"How bad do you need it?" she asked.
+
+"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He
+looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in
+the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs.
+Congdon perceived it.
+
+"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.
+
+"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel
+able to buy or rent and keep house--or I didn't till Haney made this
+offer."
+
+"How did he come to make it?"
+
+His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring
+himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha,
+and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be
+misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must
+come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He
+thinks I am at once able and honest."
+
+"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."
+
+Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use,
+said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm
+too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."
+
+"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.
+
+She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to
+any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a
+dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce.
+"There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they
+were alone.
+
+"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I
+don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have
+her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else.
+A wonder it wasn't with me."
+
+"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."
+
+"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
+
+
+Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort--just what he
+needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to
+his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law
+journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys
+regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal
+for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This
+filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the
+carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the
+afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost
+daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated
+Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was,
+as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing
+the outcome of it all.
+
+"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs.
+Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled
+under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.
+
+Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly
+yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing
+rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but
+her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came
+into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired
+feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases
+which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of
+her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little
+niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.
+
+At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required
+a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding
+(the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume
+the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but
+she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And
+he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the
+first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong
+and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll
+wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."
+
+These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with
+such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like
+some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant
+and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out,
+glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old
+Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did
+not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and
+called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign
+of his growing inertness.
+
+And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice
+suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.
+He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha
+persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and
+if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.
+
+Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego),
+found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to
+be--as they were--innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume
+the role of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the
+suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben
+one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."
+
+He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."
+
+"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study--to
+prepare yourself for other clients--when they come."
+
+He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do
+get in an hour or two every day."
+
+"But you ought to study _six_ hours every day. Aren't the traditions of
+Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax,
+and study in the light of pine knots all night?"
+
+He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.
+But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law
+at all."
+
+She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy,
+Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"
+
+"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I
+really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.
+Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they
+are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."
+
+"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.
+
+"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but
+I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've
+always felt that yourself."
+
+"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.
+Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of
+course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would
+be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"
+
+"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you
+know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."
+
+It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual
+way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in
+case he should forget--as he was likely to do--and allude to "Bertha" in
+her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely
+said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her--I mean I'm sorry she
+can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is
+improving very rapidly."
+
+"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through
+the town library--a book every other day, she tells me."
+
+"Novels, I fear."
+
+"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.
+Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised
+her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've
+suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."
+
+He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the
+look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to assume the position of mentor
+as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual
+supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her
+daily life as absolutely as a husband--more absolutely, in fact; for she
+obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these
+facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his
+feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and
+therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal
+anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.
+
+He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her
+upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously
+about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one
+of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening
+to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to
+take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to
+render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite
+differently about that.
+
+"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says,
+she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made
+man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex
+is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my
+father's ability?"
+
+"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to
+draw from."
+
+"No; but her father was an educated man--a civil engineer, she tells me,
+who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an
+inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor--they nearly all do."
+
+"But the mother?"
+
+"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's
+broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so
+bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I
+think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she
+did--barbers and railway hands, and all that--and be what she is to-day.
+If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have
+gone far."
+
+"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.
+Congdon.
+
+"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"
+
+"And his legatee!"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."
+
+They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying
+something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why
+she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over
+Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."
+She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going
+to make it as pretty as I can."
+
+"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"
+
+"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben
+wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like
+the girl."
+
+Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course
+I'll come. Who else will?"
+
+"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos--"
+
+"Not the missus?"
+
+"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really
+promises to be smart!"
+
+Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be
+smart--Mrs. Haney?"
+
+The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.
+Haney."
+
+"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and
+she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this
+town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's
+doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your
+life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't
+think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is
+putting her on?"
+
+"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"
+
+"Well, it was."
+
+"The Captain was in it?"
+
+"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the
+fire."
+
+The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the
+end. Poor old Captain."
+
+Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she
+pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old
+way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.
+He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these
+things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special
+license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then
+she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it.
+I'm not going to keep it,' she said."
+
+"That was for effect," remarked Lee.
+
+"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes
+and say such things."
+
+Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,'
+then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is
+nothing, intellect is nothing--it's all a question of whether we're
+good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so
+hard to please."
+
+"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.
+
+"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I
+accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and
+commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the
+hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was
+she dressed?"
+
+"In perfect good taste--almost too good. She looked like one of Joe
+Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries
+that sort of thing well--she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could
+have a year in Paris--wow!--well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"
+
+"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted
+Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination.
+I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus
+far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public.
+But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting
+power."
+
+Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the
+reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you
+look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."
+
+Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"
+
+"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney,
+we better put on our swellest ginghams."
+
+Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she
+was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her
+for a long time--since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed
+since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it
+was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a
+vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to
+their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me
+only failing health, and dares not speak."
+
+She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too
+long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she
+despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And
+she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face,
+and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a
+smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant
+as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
+
+
+The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in
+outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young
+wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner.
+She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a
+high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her
+critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university
+who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette
+up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns.
+Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which
+revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed the
+growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and
+turquoise--not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of
+all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as
+she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr
+to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually
+uncertain of step.
+
+Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he
+greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of
+his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with
+a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called
+beautiful--and by him--had been outside the circle of her most daring
+hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of
+musical bells--entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his
+right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry
+clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one
+said--except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain
+down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with
+his napkin and his fork.
+
+The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on
+her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice--half-laughing, but tender
+also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning
+my salary while you're gone."
+
+"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times,
+but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you--and
+Alice--come with us?"
+
+"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out
+of the question."
+
+"He'll pay you wages just the same."
+
+"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and
+I can't think of going without her."
+
+This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her
+face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table
+was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the
+great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a
+graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She
+vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of
+the best the world over--that it was of a part and interfused with the
+dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be _au fait_,"
+Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath _knows_."
+
+Mrs. Crego, who sat nearly opposite, stared at the girl in stupefaction.
+"She makes me feel dowdy," she had confessed to Lee in the
+dressing-room. "Why didn't you warn me to come in my best? Who has been
+coaching her? Alice Heath, I suppose." She now wondered as sharply over
+the girl's manner; for Bertha, carried out of herself by Ben's word of
+praise, felt no desire to drink or to eat, and her reticence and the
+delicacy of her appetite conferred a distinction which concealed her
+lack of small talk, and protected her from the criticism to which
+exuberance of manner ordinarily exposed her.
+
+She was deeply impressed, too, with Ben's management of the waiters, and
+with the ease and skill with which he supported Alice in carrying
+forward the courses. It was a revelation of training which instructed
+her absurdly, for her mind was quick to link and compare. It leaped so
+swiftly and so subtilely along connecting lines of thought that a hint
+alone sufficed to set in motion a hundred latent memories and inherited
+aptitudes. Her father had been a man of native refinement, and she
+possessed unstirred deeps of character, as Alice now well understood.
+And from her end of the table she glanced often at the sweetly smiling
+girl-wife whose beauty abashed Haney. At last she said to him: "Your
+wife is very lovely to-night, Captain."
+
+He hesitated a moment; then replied, slowly: "She is. She's as fine as
+anny queen!" Then after another pause, added: "And the more shame to me,
+being what I am! She's a good girl, miss, true as steel. Never a word of
+complaint or a frown. She bears with me like an angel."
+
+"You're doing a great deal for her."
+
+His face lightened. "So she says. I mean to do more. I mean to show her
+the world. That's the only comfort I have; my money is giving her nice
+clothes and a home as good as anny, and to-night I feel 'tis giving her
+friends."
+
+"But she is worth while, even without the money."
+
+"True," he quickly said. "But I take comfort in the consideration that
+had I not carried her away she'd be in Sibley Junction this night."
+
+"Sibley Junction! Can this radiant young creature sitting there at the
+head of my table be the clerk of the Golden Eagle Hotel?" thought Alice.
+"Money is magical! No wonder we all work for it--and worship it!"
+
+The dinner was both early and short, in order that Bertha and the
+Captain might take the train at ten o'clock. And as they were to have
+the drawing-room in the sleeping-car (Ben's suggestion), they went
+directly to the coach in their party clothes. And so it happened that
+this little woman, who had never occupied a berth in a Pullman, entered
+her compartment in the robes of a princess.
+
+Alice had suggested a maid, but Bertha would not hear to that; but she
+was willing that their coachman should go along to help the Captain. Ben
+had interposed here, and said: "You need some one used to travelling. I
+know a colored fellow who is out of service just now, and would like to
+come to you. He's a good, reliable man, and a fine nurse." So she had
+engaged him. He was on the platform as they drove up--a slight, quiet
+man, of gentle speech and indeterminable age, who took charge of the
+Captain at once, as if he had been his servant for years.
+
+Alice said good-bye at the carriage door, but Ben went with them into
+the coach. And in the excitement of getting to the train and into the
+car Bertha had been able to forget the sick feeling about her heart. But
+now, as he turned and said, "It's nearly time to start," and held out
+his hand in parting, a desolation, a loneliness, a helpless hunger swept
+over her, the like of which had never anguished her before.
+
+"I wish you were going too!" she faltered, her speech broken and full of
+sad cadences.
+
+He, too, was tense with emotion as he answered: "I wish I were, but I
+can't--I must not!" Then, with the gesture of a brother, he bent and
+kissed her and turned away, blind to everything else but his pain, and,
+so stumbling and shaken, vanished from her sight.
+
+For a moment she remained standing in the aisle, the touch of his lips
+still clinging to her cheek, surprised, full of bewildered defence;
+then, as reckless of on-lookers as he had been, she rushed to the window
+in swift attempt to catch a final glimpse of him. But in vain; he had
+hurried away without looking back, her look of wonder and surprise still
+dazzling him with its significance. A kiss with him, as with her, had
+never been a thing lightly given or received, and this caress, so simple
+to others, sprang from an impulse that was elemental. That he had both
+shocked and angered her he fully believed; but the arch of her brows,
+the wistful curve of her lips, and the pretty, almost childish, push of
+her hands against his breast were still so appealingly vivid that he
+entered the carriage and took his seat beside Alice with a kind of
+rebellious joy hot in his blood.
+
+However, as his passion ebbed his uneasiness deepened, and he went to
+his room that night with a feeling that his connection with the Haneys,
+so profitable and so pleasant, was in danger of being irremediably
+broken off. "She will be justified in refusing ever to see me again," he
+groaned. And in this spirit of self-condemnation and loneliness he took
+up his work next day.
+
+Bertha's self-revelation was slower. She was so young and so innately
+honest and good that no sense of guilt attached to the pleasure she felt
+in the sudden revelation that this splendid young man loved her--a
+pleasure which grew as the first shock of the parting, the pain, and the
+surprise wore away. "He likes me! He said I was beautiful! He kissed
+me!" These were the rounds in the ladder of her ascent, and she was
+carried high, only to fall into despair. For was she not leaving him and
+all the pleasant people she had come so recently to know--hurrying away
+into darkness with a crippled man, old before his time, out into a world
+of which she knew little--for which, at this moment, she cared nothing?
+
+She went back, a few moments later, with this sorrow written on her
+face, to find Lucius, the colored man, deftly preparing the Captain for
+bed. The old borderer looked up with a smile, in which shame and sadness
+mingled. "Well, Bertie, I didn't think I'd come to this--me, that could
+once sit in me saddle and pick a dollar out o' the dust. But so it is."
+
+"I'll take care of you!" she cried, in swift contrition. Turning almost
+fiercely to the valet, she said: "You can go, I'll 'tend to him!"
+
+The Captain stopped her gently. "No, darlin', Ben's right; I'm too
+clumsy and heavy for you. I need just such a handy man. Now, now! Let
+be!... Go ahead, Lucius, strip off these monkey-fixens, and dom the man
+that gets me into them again."
+
+Efficient as she was, the girl could not but admit that Lucius was
+better able to serve her husband than herself. He was both deft and
+strong; and though the swaying of the car troubled his master, he
+steadied him and guided him and stowed him away as featly as if it were
+the fiftieth instead of the first time; then, with a few words of
+explanation to the wife, he quietly withdrew, and shut the door with a
+final touch of considerate care which was new to her.
+
+She would have been less troubled by him had he been a black man, but he
+was not. He seemed more like a Spaniard, and his grizzled mustache,
+yellowish skin, and big dreamy black eyes lent him a curious
+distinction, and the thought that he was to take her place as crutch and
+cane to the Captain gave her a sense of uselessness which she had not,
+up to this moment, confessed.
+
+His suggestions, combined to the minute instructions of Miss Franklin,
+enabled her to get to her bunk in fair order, but no sleep came to her
+for hours. She longed for her mother more childishly than at any time
+since her marriage. She reproached herself for not bringing Miss
+Franklin. "Why did I come at all?" she wailed, in final accusation.
+
+There had been a time when the thought of this trip--of Chicago, New
+York, and Washington--was big in her mind, but it was so no longer.
+These great cities were but names--empty sounds compared to the
+realities she was leaving: her splendid house, her horses and dogs--and
+her daily joy in Ben Fordyce. She did not put these visits in their
+highest place, not even when remembering his parting kiss, but she dwelt
+upon the inspiriting morning drives, the talks in the mellow-tinted,
+sunshine-lighted office. She recalled the lunches they took together and
+the occasional wild gallops up the canon--these she treasured as the
+golden realities, for the loss of which she was even now heart-sick.
+
+One thought alone steadied her--gave her a kind of resignation: the
+Captain wanted to find his sisters, to revisit the scenes of his youth,
+and it was her duty to go with him. And in this somewhat dreary comfort
+she fell asleep at last.
+
+She was awakened next morning by a pleasant voice saying: "The first
+call for breakfast has been made, Mrs. Haney." And she looked up to find
+Lucius peering in at the door with serious, kindly eyes. He added,
+formally: "If I can assist you in any way call me, and please let me
+know when you are ready to have me come in."
+
+His speech was so precise and his manner so perfect that Bertha was
+puzzled and a little embarrassed by them. It seemed abnormal to have a
+hired servant so polished, so thoughtful. She dressed hurriedly, while
+the Captain yawned and talked between his yawning. "That yellow chap is
+sure handy. I wish I'd had him before; 'twould have saved you a power o'
+work and worry. Did ye sleep last night?"
+
+"Not very well. I hope you did. You can't complain of the bunk."
+
+"'Tis luxurious--'tis so! But there's nothing like the west side of
+Colorado Avenue, after all, or a bed of pine boughs beside a roaring
+mountain stream. 'Twas a fine little supper Ben gave us last night."
+
+The level lands awed and depressed the mountain girl. They seemed to
+type the flat and desolate spiritual world into which she was entering,
+and the ride seemed interminable, carrying her every hour farther from
+the scenes and sounds to which her love clung. She was bitterly
+homesick, and nothing seemed to promise comfort. She gazed with
+lack-lustre eyes on the towns and rivers along the way, and she entered
+the great inland metropolis by the lake with dread and a deepening sense
+of her inexperience and youth.
+
+On the neighboring track stood the return sleepers headed for the hills,
+and she acknowledged a wild desire to take her place among the jocund
+folk who stood on the observation-platform exchanging good-byes with
+friends. Thunderous, smothering, and vast the city seemed as they drove
+through it on their way to the hotel, and upon reaching her room she
+flung herself down on her bed and sobbed in a frenzy of homesickness.
+
+Haney, who had never before perceived a tear on her face, was startled,
+and stood in puzzled pain looking down at her, while the tactful Lucius
+went about the unpacking of the trunks, confident that the shower would
+soon be over.
+
+"What's the ail of it?" asked the Captain. "Tell me, darlin'. Are ye
+sick?"
+
+She shook her head from side to side, like a suffering and weary child,
+and made no further answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
+
+
+Bertha woke next morning with a sense of weariness and desolation still
+at her heart, but she dressed and went to breakfast with Haney at an
+hour so early that the dining-room was nearly empty. Lucius, with quiet
+insistence upon the importance of his employers, had secured a place at
+a window overlooking the lake, and was glad to see his mistress brighten
+as her eyes swept the burnished shoreless expanse.
+
+Haney, still troubled by her languid air and gloomy face, took heart,
+and talked of what Chicago was in the days when he saw it and what it
+was now. "People say it don't improve. But listen: when I was here the
+Palmer House was the newly built wonder of the West, the streets were
+tinkling with bobtail horse-cars. And now look at it!"
+
+Bertha went back to her room, still in nerveless and despondent mood,
+not knowing what to do. The Captain proposed the usual round. "We'll
+take an auto-car, and go to the parks, and inspect the Lake Shore Drive
+and the Potter Palmer castle. Then we'll go down and see where the
+World's Fair was. Then we'll visit the Wheat Pit. 'Tis all there is,
+bedad."
+
+Lucius, who had been answering the 'phone in the hall, came in at the
+moment to say; "A lady wishes to speak with Mrs. Haney."
+
+"A lady! Who?"
+
+"A certain Mrs. Brent--a friend of Miss Franklin's."
+
+Bertha's face darkened. "Oh I'd forgot all about her. Miss Franklin gave
+me a letter to her," she explained, as she went out.
+
+She had no wish to see Mrs. Brent. On the contrary, she had an aversion
+to seeing or doing anything. But there was something compelling in the
+cool, sweet, quiet voice which came over the line, and before realizing
+it she had promised to meet her at eleven o'clock.
+
+Mrs. Brent then added: "I am consumed with desire to see you, for Dor--I
+mean Miss Franklin--has been writing to me about you. You're just in
+time to come to a little dinner of mine--don't make any engagement for
+to-morrow night. I'm coming down immediately."
+
+Bertha quite gravely answered, "All right, I'll be here," and hung up
+the receiver, committed to an interview that became formidable, now that
+the sweetness of the voice had died out of her ears.
+
+"Who was it?" asked the Captain.
+
+"A friend of Miss Franklin's--sounds just like her voice, but I think
+she's only a cousin. She wants to see me, and I've promised to be here
+at eleven."
+
+The Captain looked a little disappointed. "Well, we can take a spin up
+the lake. Lucius, go hire a buckboard and we're off."
+
+"There's an auto-car waiting, sir. I ordered it half an hour ago."
+
+The gambler looked at him humorously. "Ye must be a mind-reader."
+
+A tap on the door called the man out, and when he returned he bore a
+telegram. "For you, Captain," he said, presenting it on the salver.
+
+The gambler took it with sudden apprehension in his face. "I hope
+there's no trouble at the mine," he muttered.
+
+Bertha, leaning over his shoulder, read it first. "It's from Ben!" she
+called, joyously. "Ain't it just like him?"
+
+This message seemed a little bit foolish to Haney.
+
+     "Just to say hello! All well here. Have a good time.
+     "FORDYCE."
+
+To Bertha it made all the difference between sunshine and shadow. She
+thrilled to it as if it had been a voice. "He knew I'd be homesick, and
+so he sent this to cheer me up," she said. And in this she was right.
+Her shoulders lifted and her face cleared. "Come on, Captain, if we're
+going."
+
+As they came down the elevator, men in buttons met them, and attended
+them to the door, and turned them over to still other uniformed
+attendants, who were fain to help them into the auto-car; for Lucius had
+managed to convey to the hotel a proper sense of his employer's money
+value. He himself was always close to his master's side, for lately
+Haney had taken to stumbling at unexpected moments, and his increasing
+bulk made a fall a real danger.
+
+A thrill of delight, of elation, ran through the young wife as she
+glanced up and down Chicago's proudest avenue. It conformed to her
+notion of a city. The level park, flooded with spring sunshine, was
+walled on the west by massive buildings, while to the east stretched the
+shining lake. From here the city seemed truly cosmopolitan. It had
+dignity and wealth of color, and to the girl from Sibley Junction was
+completely satisfying--almost inspiring.
+
+It was uplifting also to be attended to a splendid auto-car by willing,
+alert servants, and to feel that the passers-by were all envious of her
+careless ease. Bertha forgot her homesickness, and took her seat in the
+spirit of one who is determined to have the worth of her money (for once
+anyhow), and the pedestrians, if they had any definite notion of her at
+all, probably said: "There goes a rich old cattle king and his pretty
+daughter. It's money that makes the 'mobile go."
+
+She held to this pose for half an hour, while they threaded the tumult
+of Wabash Avenue, and, crossing the river, swept up the Lake Shore
+Drive. But the lake filled her with other thoughts. "I wish we had this
+at the Springs," she said. "This is fine!"
+
+"We have our share," answered he. "If we had this at our door, there
+wouldn't be anything left to go to."
+
+They whizzed through the park, and down another avenue into the thick
+tangle of traffic, which scared them both, and so back to the hotel, the
+Captain saying: "My! my! but she has grown. 'Tis twenty years since I
+took this turn."
+
+In some strange way Bertha had drawn courage, resolution, pride, and
+ambition from what she saw on this short ride. That she was in a car and
+mistress of it was in itself a marvellous distinction, and the thought
+of what she would have been--as a "round-tripper" from Sibley
+Junction--added to her pleasure and pride. She was always doing sums in
+her head now. Thus: "Suppose our excursion does cost twenty dollars per
+day; that's only one hundred and fifty per week, six hundred per month,
+and our income is ten times that, and more." She had not risen above the
+habit of calculation, but she was fast rising to higher levels of
+expenditure.
+
+She met Mrs. Brent with something of this mood in her manner, but was
+instantly softened and won by her visitor, who did not in the least
+resemble Miss Franklin in appearance, though her voice was wonderfully
+the same. Her eyes were wide, her brow serene, and her lips smiling.
+
+"Why, you're a child," she said--"a mere babe! Dorothy didn't tell me
+that."
+
+Bertha stiffened a little, and Mrs. Brent laughingly added: "Please
+don't be offended--I am really surprised." And then her manner became so
+winning that before the Western girl realized it she had given her
+consent to join a dinner-party the following night. "Come early, for we
+are to go to the theatre afterwards. I'll have some of the university
+people in to see you. Miss Franklin has made us all eager to meet you."
+
+Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was
+curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor
+kept her from openly rebelling.
+
+The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he
+said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf--when the time served;
+but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to
+keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."
+
+Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they
+parted very good friends.
+
+As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and,
+going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's
+big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"
+
+Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's
+well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman,
+and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic
+gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian
+life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.
+I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.
+They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 P.M." And she went out,
+leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.
+
+Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had
+brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and
+said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second
+sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said
+he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How
+would it do to slide over and see?"
+
+"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent
+and the dinner.
+
+Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We
+can hardly get to it with a machine."
+
+"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister
+anyhow."
+
+Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On
+the way Haney talked of his sister Fanny. "She was a bouncing,
+jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was
+two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was
+fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of
+it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen,
+which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far
+older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes
+patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For
+all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."
+
+The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her
+lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of
+homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come
+away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."
+
+"Miss Franklin will see after it."
+
+"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up
+to housekeeping--it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this
+minute!"
+
+This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West
+Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving
+the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make
+each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the
+driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned
+abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting
+block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house--a relic
+of the old-time city.
+
+The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at
+this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the
+seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At
+the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or
+two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."
+
+"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the
+specification," he answered.
+
+By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door,
+and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"
+
+"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.
+
+"That's me," the woman retorted.
+
+"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this
+minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.
+
+The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so
+like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.
+
+As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old
+sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me
+mouth."
+
+"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in
+anticipation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"
+
+He shook her hand--the kiss was out of his inclination--and responded in
+the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke
+out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."
+
+"Who's with you in the carriage?"
+
+"Mrs. Haney, bedad."
+
+"Naw, it is not!"
+
+"Sure thing!"
+
+"She's too young and pretty--and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints,
+man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the
+eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."
+
+"The same to you."
+
+"I get little chance to practise it these days."
+
+"'Tis the same here."
+
+"But how came ye hurt?"
+
+"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and
+one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."
+
+She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and
+sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in--I'm not perticular."
+
+"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into
+something like sweetness and dignity.
+
+"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."
+
+As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home
+and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on
+a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this
+association. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a
+fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was
+disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said
+bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out
+and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."
+
+Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no
+way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of
+her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same
+squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.
+
+"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me
+brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"
+
+The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck
+in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of
+luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.
+The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with
+children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the
+air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the
+ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other
+the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all
+its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly
+moved Haney.
+
+"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs
+are her's."
+
+"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put
+in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."
+
+"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now--sure it's the very one we used to
+fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."
+
+"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied--tears of
+pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye--it's to
+see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us,
+Mart."
+
+"She was!" he answered.
+
+"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand
+in better light to-day I'm thinkin'--though the father did the best he
+knew."
+
+"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders
+now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."
+
+Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine
+lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust
+of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good
+humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was
+charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she
+could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was
+like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less
+of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The
+deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this
+woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest,
+leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into
+the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.
+
+McArdle was a small bent man, with a black beard, a pale serious face
+and speculative eyes. He looked like a wondering, rather cautious animal
+as he came in. He wore a cheap gray suit and a celluloid collar, and was
+as careless in his way as his wife. It was plain that he was gentle,
+absent-minded, and industrious.
+
+He listened to his wife's voluble explanations in silence, inwardly
+digesting all that was said, then shook hands--still without a word. And
+when all these preliminaries were over he laid his hat aside and ran his
+fingers through his thin hair with a perplexed and troubled gesture,
+asking, irrelevantly: "How's the weather out there?"
+
+Nobody saw the humor of this but his wife, who explained: "Pat is a
+fiend on the weather. He was raised on a farm, ye see, and he can't get
+over it. I say to him: 'What difference does the state o' the weather
+make to you, that's under a roof all day?' But divil a change does it
+make in him. The first thing in the morning he turns to the weather
+report."
+
+McArdle's eyes showed traces of a smile. "If it weren't for the papers
+and the weather reports, me days would be alike. But sit by," he added,
+hospitably, waving his hand towards the table, on which the dinner was
+steaming.
+
+They were drawing up to the board when a puffing and blowing, and the
+furious clatter of feet announced the inrushing of the children.
+
+Not the mother's shrill whooping, but the sight of the strange guests,
+transformed them into mutes. The carriage outside had filled them with
+wild alarms, but the sight of their parents alive, and entertaining
+guests of shining quality, was almost as satisfyingly unusual as death
+and a funeral.
+
+They were a noisy, hearty throng, and Bertha's heart went out to poor
+Patrick McArdle, who sat amid the uproar, silent, patient, the heroic
+breadwinner for them all. No wonder he was old before his time. Slowly
+her antipathy died out. She began to find excuses even for the mother.
+To feed such a herd of little pigs and calves, even out of wooden
+troughs, would require much labor; to keep them buttoned, combed, and
+fit for school was an appalling task. "Mart must help these folks," she
+said to herself.
+
+McArdle had nothing to say during the meal, and Bertha could see that
+his family did not expect him to do more than answer a plain question.
+Indeed, the children created a hubbub that quite cut off any connected
+intercourse, and Fan, with a grin of despair, at last said: "They'll be
+gorged in a few minutes, and then we'll have peace."
+
+"This is what lack of money means," Bertha was thinking. And her house,
+her automobile, her horses, became at the moment as priceless, as
+remote, as crown jewels and papal palaces. Then, conversely, she grew to
+a larger conception of the possibilities which lay in sixty thousand
+dollars a year. Not only did it lift her and all hers above the heat and
+mire and distress of the world of toil, it enabled them to help others.
+
+Swiftly the children filled their stomachs, and, seizing each a piece of
+cake or pie, withdrew, leaving the old folks and their guests in peace.
+
+Thereupon, McArdle, taking a pipe from his pocket and knocking it
+absent-mindedly on the seat of the chair, dryly remarked: "Now that we
+can hear ourselves think, let's have it all over again. Who air ye, and
+why air ye here?"
+
+Being told a second time that this was his brother-in-law, a miner from
+Colorado, he shook hands all over again, and accepted Mart's cigar with
+careful fingers, as if fearing to drop and break the precious thing.
+
+Bertha said: "I think we'd better be going, Captain. Our carriage is
+outside."
+
+"Gracious Peter," cried Mrs. McArdle, "I forgot all about it! Is he by
+the day or by the hour?"
+
+Mart answered, with an amused smile. "Well, now, I don't know. I think
+by the hour."
+
+"Ye're makin' a big bluff, Mart. We're properly impressed," said his
+sister. "Go pay him off, and save the money."
+
+McArdle put in a query. "You must have a good thing out there?"
+
+"'Tis enough to pay me carriage hire," answered Mart. And his tone
+satisfied McArdle, who, with reflective eye on Bertha, puffed away at
+his cigar, while Mart gave his promise to call again. "I'll come over
+and get you all, and take you to the theatre in me auto-car," he said,
+as he rose. "But we must be going now."
+
+Fan was beginning to perceive in him more and more of the man of power
+and substance, and her manner changed. "Ye were always the smartest of
+the lot of us, Mart."
+
+"No, I was not. Charles was the bright boy."
+
+"So he was, but he was lazy. That was why he took up with
+play-acting--'tis an easy job."
+
+"Even that is too much work for him," remarked McArdle.
+
+"I reckon that's right," laughed Mart, as he turned towards the door.
+
+"Come again, if ye find time," called Fan, as they went down the steps.
+
+McArdle, with his cigar in his hand, waved it in a sign of parting. And
+so their visit to the McArdles closed.
+
+Mart turned to his silent and thoughtful wife, and said, with a great
+deal of meaning in his voice: "Well, now, what do you think of that for
+a fine litter of pups?"
+
+"They seem hearty."
+
+"They do. 'Tis on such that the future of the ray-public rests." And
+then he added: "Sure, Bertie, it gripped me heart to see the mother's
+old chair!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A DINNER AND A PLAY
+
+
+Lucius seemed to know the city very well, and to have a list of its
+principal citizens in his memory. He knew the best places to shop and
+the selectest places to eat, and Bertha soon came to ask his advice
+about other and more intimate affairs. She showed him Mrs. Brent's card,
+and explained that they were going out there to dinner.
+
+"I know the locality," he said, much impressed, "and I think I know the
+house. It's likely to be quietly swell, and you'd better wear your best
+gown."
+
+"The black dress," said Haney, who was a deeply concerned witness. "I
+like that."
+
+Lucius was respectful, but firm. "You are very well in that, Mrs. Haney.
+But if I were you I'd have a new gown; you'll need it. I know just the
+saleslady to fit you out."
+
+"But I've only worn the black dress once!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+Lucius explained that people who went out much in the city made a point
+of not wearing the same gown in the same circle a second time. "And as
+you only have two presentable evening gowns, you certainly need
+another."
+
+Haney joined in, emphatically. "Sure thing! What's the good of money if
+you don't use it to buy things?"
+
+Tremulous with the excitement of it, she went with the Captain to
+several of the largest and most sumptuous establishments on State
+Street. And Lucius, who accompanied them, ostensibly to be of service to
+his master, was of the greatest service to his mistress, he was so
+quiet, so unobtrusive, so thoroughly the footman in appearance, so
+helpful, and so masterful, in fact; a faint shake of his head, a nod, a
+gesture decided momentous questions.
+
+The girl, sitting there surrounded by scurrying clerks and saleswomen,
+had a return of her bewilderment and doubt. "Can it be true that I can
+buy any of these cloaks and hats?" she asked herself. What was the magic
+that had made her lightest wish realizable? When a splendid cloak fell
+round her shoulders, and she looked in the glass at the tall figure
+there, she glowed with pride.
+
+"Madam carries a cloak beautifully," the saleswoman said, with
+sincerity. "This is our smartest model--perfectly exclusive and new.
+Only such a figure as the madam's properly sets it off."
+
+While the women were making measurements for some slight alterations,
+Lucius said: "It would be nice if you decided on that automobile, and
+took Mrs. Haney to the dinner in it."
+
+Haney's face lighted up. "I will! Sh! not a word. We'll surprise her."
+
+"If you don't mind I'll hustle up a footman's livery."
+
+"So do. Anything goes--for her, Lucius."
+
+Bertha thought she had already rubbed the side of her wonderful lamp to
+a polish. But under the almost hypnotic spell of her West-Indian
+attendant she bought shoes, hats, hosiery, and toilet articles till her
+room looked "like Christmas morning," as Haney said, and yet there was
+little that could be called foolish or tawdry. She wore little jewelry,
+having resisted Haney's attempt to load her with rings and necklaces.
+Miss Franklin had impressed upon her the need of being "simple." When
+she put on her dinner-dress and faced him, Mart Haney was humbled to
+earth. "Sure, ye're beautiful as an angel!" he exulted, as if addressing
+a saint. And as she swept before the tall glass and saw her radiant self
+therein, she thought of Ben, and her face flamed with lovely color. "I
+wish he could see me now!" she inwardly exclaimed.
+
+Miss Franklin, in writing to her friend, Mrs. Brent, had said: "In a
+sense, the Haneys are 'impossible'--he is an ex-gambler, and she is the
+daughter of a woman who kept a miner's boarding-house in the mountains.
+But this sounds worse than it really is. I like the Captain. Whatever he
+was in the days before his accident I don't know--they say he was a
+terror. But when I entered the family he was as he is now--a pathetic
+figure. He isn't really old; but he's horribly crippled, and takes it
+very hard. He is kindness itself to his wife and to every one round him,
+and will be grateful for anything you do for him. Bertha is young but
+maturing very rapidly, and there's no telling where she will stop. She's
+been studying with me, and I've told her you will advise her while she's
+in Chicago. You needn't go far with her if you don't want to. The
+Hallidays and Voughts won't mind the back pages of the Haney history,
+and you needn't say anything about the Captain's career if you don't
+want to. He's a big mine-owner now, and is out of the gambling and
+saloon business altogether. Bertha is perfectly eligible in herself. And
+as many of us started on farms or poor little villages, we can't afford
+to take on any airs over her. She's of good parentage, and as true as
+steel. She likes the Captain, and is devoted to him."
+
+Dr. Brent was not connected with the university, but his wife's brother
+had been a student there, and was now an instructor in one of the
+scientific departments. And Mrs. Brent's charm of manner and the
+Doctor's easy-going hospitality made their fine little Kenwood home the
+centre of a certain intellectual Bohemia on the borders of the
+institution, and the "artistic gang" occasionally met and genially
+interfused with the professors round the big Brent fireplace. Being rich
+in his own right, Brent took his practice in such moderation as to be of
+the highest effectiveness when he consented to operate, and was in
+demand for difficult surgical cases. He was slender, blond, and languid
+of movement--not in the least suggestive of the Western hustle of
+Chicago, and yet he was born within twenty miles of the court-house.
+Indeed, it was the spread of the city which had enriched his father's
+estate, and which now permitted him to work when he felt like it, and to
+assemble round his hearthstone--an actual stone, by the way--the people
+he liked best. The amount of hickory wood he burned was stupendous.
+
+Mrs. Brent was known as "the audacious hostess," because she was not
+afraid to invite anybody who interested her. "You take your reputation
+in your hand," her friends often said to those about to make their first
+call. "You may meet an actor from New York or a stone-mason from the
+West Side--one never knows." Their house was an adaptation of the
+"mission style" of California and possessed one big room on the first
+floor which their friends called Congress Hall.
+
+Miss Franklin was certain that this circle would enjoy the Captain once
+he became at ease, and she really hoped Mrs. Brent would "advise the
+girl," and, as she put it, "Help her to get at the pleasant side of
+Chicago. She's very rich and she's intelligent, but she is very raw!
+She's very like a boy, but she's worth while. She wanted me to come with
+her, but I could have done so only by giving up here and going as her
+companion, and that I'm not ready to do--at present."
+
+After carefully considering all these points, Mrs. Brent 'phoned her
+friends, being careful to explain that Dorothy Franklin had sent her
+"some fleecy specimens of Colorado society," and that she was asking a
+few of "the bold and fearless" among her set to meet them.
+
+"Who are the guests of honor?" she was asked by each favored one.
+
+Each received the same reply: "Marshall Haney, the gambler prince of
+Cripple Creek, and his bride, Dead-shot Nell, biscuit-shooter, from
+Honey Gulch."
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"Hope to die!"
+
+"It's too good to be true! Of course I'll come. Do we have a quiet game
+after dinner?"
+
+"Ah, no, that would be too cruel--to Captain Haney. No; we go to the
+theatre. So be on hand at 7 P.M., sharp."
+
+In this way she had prepared her friends to be surprised by Bertha's
+good looks and the Captain's tame and courteous manner, but was herself
+soundly jarred when her "wild-West people" came up to the door in an
+auto-car that must have cost five or six thousand dollars, and when a
+colored footman, in bottle-green uniform, leaped out to open the door
+for them (it was Lucius in his new suit--he was playing all the parts).
+Brent, with a comical look at his wife, remarked: "I suppose this is in
+lieu of broncos?"
+
+"They _are_ branching out!" she gasped. "And see her clothes!"
+
+She might well exclaim, for Bertha, in her long cloak, her head bare,
+and her pretty dress showing, did not in the least resemble the picture
+Miss Franklin had drawn; neither did she resemble the demure, almost
+sullen girl Mrs. Brent had met in the hotel. The Captain, too, for the
+second time in his life, wore evening dress, but citing to his sombrero;
+so that he resembled a Tennessee congressman at the Inaugural Ball as he
+came slowly up the short walk, and Mrs. Brent deeply regretted that no
+one was present to take the shock with herself and the doctor.
+
+The maid at the door, who knew nothing of the wild reputation of the
+Haneys, guided them up-stairs to their respective dressing-rooms, and
+helped to remove their wraps so expeditiously that they were on their
+way back to the first floor before any other guests arrived. Bertha was
+delighted but not awed by the fine room into which they were ushered,
+for was not her own house larger and more splendid? She had grown
+accustomed to big things--it was the tasteful beauty of the room that
+moved her.
+
+In the side of the room a big plain brick fireplace was filled with a
+crackling fire, and in the light of it stood her host and hostess.
+Bertha was glad to find them alone--she had expected to face a room full
+of people. She was not specially attracted to Dr. Brent, and remained so
+coldly restrained that he was quite baffled and turned away to the
+Captain, who sought the fire, saying: "This looks good. I feel the cold
+now--I don't know why I should."
+
+This opened the way to a very confidential talk on wounds and diet.
+
+Bertha's new gown of pale blue made her look very young and very sweet,
+and the eager guests were sadly disappointed in her--that is to say, the
+ladies were; the men seemed quite content with her as she was. They took
+the "biscuit-shooter" description to be a piece of fooling on Mrs.
+Brent's part, and as they had no time after dinner to get the Captain
+started they remained quite convinced that he, too, had been maligned in
+their hostess's description.
+
+As a result, Mrs. Brent and her other guests were forced to do the
+talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but
+had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she
+listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase,
+making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people
+round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon
+circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful of manner, reminded
+her of Ben. None of them were entirely strange to her now, and yet she
+dimly apprehended something uncomplimentary veiled beneath their polite
+regard. She did not entirely trust any of them--not even her host.
+Indeed, she liked Mrs. Brent less than at their first meeting in the
+hotel.
+
+The dinner was rather hurried, and they would have been late had it not
+been for Haney's new auto-car, which carried six, and made two trips to
+the station unnecessary. It was fine to see the Captain put his machine
+at the disposal of his hostess. "I told Lucius to wait," he boasted, "I
+thought we might need him."
+
+Dr. Brent succeeded at last in drawing his pretty guest into
+conversation by remarking on the Captain's color. "He's feeding
+improperly, if you don't mind my saying so. He's putting on weight, he
+tells me, but feels cold and nerveless. Cut him down on starchy foods.
+How long is it since he was hurt?"
+
+"About eight months."
+
+"Must have been a tearing beast of an accident to wing a man of his
+frame."
+
+"It was. Tore his whole side to pieces."
+
+"Who put him together--Steele, of Denver?"
+
+"No, a man in Cripple."
+
+"Sure he was the right man?"
+
+"He was the best I could get."
+
+"You arouse my professional egotism. I'd like to examine the Captain if
+you don't object--not for any fee, you understand. But a fellow of his
+build and years--he tells me he's only forty-five--"
+
+"Only forty-five," thought the girl. "What strange ideas these older
+people have! And Ben was twenty-six." Just what the doctor said
+afterwards she didn't hear, for she was thinking of the swift, wide arc
+of change through which her mind had swung from the time when Marshall
+Haney first came to Sibley--so grand of stride, so erect, so powerful.
+He, too, seemed young then; now he was old--old and feeble--a man to be
+advised, protected, humored. She dimly understood, too, that
+corresponding change had come to her; that she was far away from the
+girl who had stood behind the counter defending herself against the
+love-making of the bummers and drummers among her patrons--and yet she
+was the same, after all. "I've not changed as much as he has," was her
+conclusion. And she enjoyed the gayety and beauty of her companions, but
+she said little to express it.
+
+The play that night appalled her by its fury of passion, its mockery of
+woman, its cynical disbelief in man. With startling abruptness and in
+most colloquial method it delineated the beginning of a young wife's
+wrong-doing, and when the lover caught the innocent, ensnared woman to
+his bosom a flaming sword seemed to have been plunged into Bertha's own
+breast. She quivered and flushed. And when the actress displayed the
+awakened conscience of the erring one, putting into words as well as
+into facial expression her feeling of guilt and remorse, the girl-wife
+in the box shrank and whitened, her big eyes fixed upon the sobbing,
+suffering character before her, defending herself against the dramatist
+as against an enemy. He was a liar! There was no wrong in Ben's kiss and
+no remorse in her own heart as she remembered the caress. "Even if he
+loves me, that doesn't make him horrible!"
+
+The dramatist went remorselessly on. He showed the husband--old, coarse,
+brutal. He put him in sharpest relief in order that the woman should be
+tempted to her ruin, and in the end the lover--virile, handsome and
+unscrupulous--wins the tortured woman's soul--and they flee, leaving the
+usual note behind.
+
+"What can you expect?" remarked the cynical friend of the injured
+husband. "Given a young and lovely wife like Rose and an old limping
+warrior like you, and an elopement follows as a matter of course, Q. E.
+D." And so the curtain fell.
+
+Relentless realist in the first act, the dramatist in the second act
+began to hedge. He made the life of the erring woman conventionally
+miserable. Her lover beat her, neglected her, and finally deserted her.
+And in the last act she crawled back into her husband's home like a
+starved cat to die, while he, scarred old beast, cried out: "The wages
+of sin is death!" Whether the writer intended this scene to be ironical
+or not, the effect was to awaken a murmur of laughter among the
+ill-restrained of the auditors. But Bertha, hot with anger towards both
+author and players, could not join in Mrs. Brent's smiling comment:
+"Isn't that comical!"
+
+The doctor coolly said: "A good conventional British ending. Why didn't
+he clap a pair of wings on the old reprobate and run him up on a wire,
+the way they used to do in translating little Eva in 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'?"
+
+Afterwards Mrs. Brent proposed that they go to a German restaurant and
+have some beer and skittles; but this struck harshly on Bertha, who
+still palpitated with the passion of the play. "I reckon we'd better
+not. The Captain is pretty tired, and, if you don't mind, we'll quit
+now."
+
+Without saying "I've had a lovely time," she shook hands all round, and,
+taking her husband's arm, moved off into the street, leaving her hostess
+a little uneasy and wholly perplexed. Mrs. Brent's joke about the
+Captain and his wife had, as the doctor expressed it, "queered the whole
+affair."
+
+"But how did she know?"
+
+"She's a good deal sharper than you gave her credit for being," he
+replied. "You Easterners never can learn to take diamonds in the rough."
+
+Bertha's mind was in tumult, and she wished to be alone. Mart irritated
+her. She refused to talk to him about the play or the dinner, and,
+turning him over to Lucius, went at once to her own bed. Thus far she
+had not attempted to closely analyze her relationship to Marshall Haney.
+He had been to her a good friend rather than a husband, a companion who
+needed her, and who had given her everything she asked for. Keenly
+forward, almost precocious on the calculative side, she had remained
+singularly untroubled on the emotional side. She knew that certain
+problems of sex existed in the world, and she was only mentally aware of
+temptations--she had never really felt them. Now all at once her whole
+nature awoke. Her mind engaged a legion of vaguely defined enemies. Out
+of the shadow stepped words of no weight, of no significance hitherto,
+encircling her, panoplied with meaning. The half-heard comment of the
+camp, the dimly perceived gossip of the Springs, the flattering looks of
+the artists--all helped her to see herself as she was: a handsome young
+girl, like that on the stage, married to a crippled middle-aged man of
+evil history.
+
+"But he is good to me," she argued against her new self. "I was poor,
+and he has made me rich; and all I've done is to nurse him and keep
+house for him." With this thought came a realization that she had never
+been a full and complete wife to him. And with a flush of shame and
+repulsion she added: "And now I never can be. No matter if he were to
+become as straight, as strong, and as handsome as he was in those days,
+I cannot love him as a wife should."
+
+Once having admitted this feeling of repulsion, once having clearly
+perceived the vast distance between herself and her husband, the
+repulsion deepened, the separating space widened. He seemed ten years
+older as they met next morning, and his face was heavy and his frame
+lax. Her pity had not lessened, but it was mixed now with a qualifying
+emotion which she had not yet acknowledged to be disgust. His skin was
+waxy white and his jowls drooping. "I'm not at all up to the work," he
+said, with a return of his humor. "'Tis a killing pace we've struck,
+Bertie, and the old man must take the flag if you keep it up."
+
+"I don't intend to keep it up," she answered, shortly. "I think we'd
+better go home." At the word "home" a little thrill went through her. It
+was so bright and big and desirable, that mansion under the purple
+peaks.
+
+"No; I must go trail up me old dad, and leave him provided for. Fan
+doesn't even know his address (the more shame to her), but I'll find
+him. If ye're tired and would rather go home, I'll go on alone."
+
+"Oh no, you mustn't do that!" she exclaimed instantly, feeling the
+sincerity of his desire to please her. "I'll go, but we mustn't stay
+long." And she took up the direction of his life again. The mood of the
+night had passed away, leaving only a clearer perception of his growing
+age and helplessness.
+
+"You must let Dr. Brent examine you," she said, a little later. "He
+don't think your lameness is caused by your wound. He says you're out of
+condition."
+
+He looked at her with shadowed face and sorrowful eyes. "I'm only a poor
+old skate, wind-broken and lazy. Ye have the right to cut me loose any
+time."
+
+"You mustn't talk like that," she said, sharply. "When I want to cut
+loose I'll let you know."
+
+"I hold ye to that," he answered, with intent look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
+
+
+Bertha, deeply engrossed in the conceptions called up by this visit, did
+not feel like calling upon the Mosses, even though they were almost next
+door. She was troubled, too, with a feeling of helplessness in the use
+of a pen. She wanted to write to Fordyce, but was afraid to do so,
+knowing that a letter would disclose her ignorance of polite forms; but
+this, instead of discouraging her, roused her to a determination to
+learn. This was the saving clause in her character. She acknowledged
+shortcomings, but not defeats. Here again she was of the spirit that
+lifts the self-made man.
+
+The Congdons had been most generous of letters of introduction, and in
+addition to those to Mrs. Brent and the Mosses, Bertha was in possession
+of two or three envelopes addressed to people in New York City,
+presumably artists also, as they bore the names of certain studios. The
+note to Moss was unaffected and simple in itself, quite innocent of any
+qualification, but the letter which had privately preceded it was in the
+true Congdon vein, and Moss, like Mrs. Brent, did not delay his call.
+His card was in the Haney box when they returned. "Sorry to miss you.
+Come into my studio at five if you can," he had pencilled on the back.
+
+"Your artistic bunch," Congdon had written, "won't mind meeting one of
+the most successful and picturesque of our gamblers, Marshall Haney,
+especially as the walls of his big house are bare and his wife is
+pretty. They are ripping types, old man; not in the 'best society,' you
+understand, but I know you'll like 'em. Be as good to 'em as you can
+without involving anybody. Little Mrs. Haney is a corker. Good start on
+a self-made career. They're both unsophisticated in a way, and a little
+real sympathy will drag their secret history to the light. Do a sketch
+of her for me. She's likely to be famous. Haney is rolling in dough
+these days--(miner)--and she's bound for some whooping big thing, I
+don't know what, but she's like a country boy with a stirring ambition.
+It wouldn't surprise me to see her on Fifth Avenue one of these days.
+With these few burning words I commend them into your plastic hands.
+Don't let Sammy paint her, for God's sake. Oh yes, I worked 'em for a
+couple of canvases. What do you think. In this buoyant climate we all
+move. Yours in the velvet."
+
+With such a letter before him Joe Moss awaited his amazing guests with
+impatience, cautioning the few who were in the secret not to dodge when
+the Captain reached for his pocket-handkerchief. "And, above all, you
+are to praise Colorado and condemn the East as a place of residence."
+Joe prided himself on his _savoir faire_ and on his apparel, which had
+nothing about it to distinguish the sculptor. "In fact," he often said,
+"there _are_ people who say I'm not a sculptor. Be that as it may, I
+manage by daily care to look like a clerk in a hardware store."
+
+And he did. He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and
+trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand
+tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red
+tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we
+melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be
+distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always included Julia, his
+wife, in this way (although she never "modelled a lick"), for she wrote
+all his letters, made out all his checks, and took charge of him
+generally. Some said his success was due to her management. She was a
+dark-eyed, smiling little woman, exquisite in her dress and brisk in her
+manner.
+
+Their studio occupied the whole north side of the attic of a big office
+building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst
+of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his
+choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture.
+I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my
+way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to
+make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business
+men, not to avoid them. I like the roar of trade."
+
+The Haneys, therefore, led by the sagacious Lucius, soon found
+themselves in the Wisconsin Block, and shooting aloft in a bronze
+elevator that seemed fired from a cannon ("express to the 10th floor"),
+with nothing to suggest art in the men or in the signs about them. On
+the thirteenth story they alighted, and, walking up one flight of
+stairs, found themselves at the end of a bright hall, before a door
+which bore, in simple gold letters, "Jos. Moss, Sculptor." Bertha heard
+laughter within, and her heart misgave her. It was not easy for her to
+meet these artist folk. Of business men, miners, railway managers she
+was unafraid, but these people who joke and bully-rag each other and
+talk high philosophy one minute and gossip the next, like the Congdons,
+were "pretty swift" for her. After a moment's pause she said to the
+Captain, "They can't kill us; here goes!" and knocked gently.
+
+Moss himself opened the door, and his cordial, "How de do, Mrs. Haney,"
+established him in her mind at once as a good fellow. He was quite as
+direct as Congdon. "I'm glad to see you," he said to the Captain. "Come
+in." He looked keenly at Lucius, who composedly explained himself. "The
+Captain is a little lame, and I just came along to see that he got here
+all right. I'll be back at 5.30."
+
+The door opened into a big room, which was darkened at the windows and
+lighted by shaded electric globes. It was cool and bare in effect.
+Around a small table in a far corner a half-dozen people were sitting.
+Mrs. Moss, who was pouring tea, rose in her place at the tea-urn as her
+husband approached, and cordially shook hands with her guests. "I'm very
+glad you came. Please tell me how you'll have your tea," she said.
+
+Bertha was accustomed to take her tea "any old way," and said so, being
+influenced by Mrs. Moss' candid eyes and merry smile. Haney, with a
+queer feeling of being on the stage as a character in a play, sank
+heavily into the chair at his hostess' right hand and said: "I never
+took tea in my life, but I'm not dodgin' anything you mix."
+
+Joe earnestly protested. "Don't do it, Captain, there's some Scotch down
+cellar."
+
+Mrs. Moss indicated one or two other dimly seen faces about her and
+introduced their owners in a most casual manner while she compounded a
+hot drink for her Western guest.
+
+"How long have you been in our horrible town, Mr. Haney?" she asked,
+heedful of Joe's warning.
+
+"One day, ma'am."
+
+"You're just 'passing through,' I presume--that's the way all Colorado
+people do."
+
+Haney smiled. He was getting the drift of her remarks. "'Tis natural,
+ma'am; for, you see, 'tis a long run and a heavy grade, and hard to
+side-track on the way."
+
+Bertha, to whom Moss addressed himself, was candidly looking about
+her--profoundly interested in what she saw. Dim forms in bronze and
+plaster stood on shelves, brackets, and pedestals, and at the end of the
+long room a big group of figures writhed as if in mortal combat. It was
+a work-shop--that was evident even to her--with one small nook devoted
+to tea and talk.
+
+"Would you like to poke about?" he asked, anticipating her request.
+
+"Yes, I would," she bluntly replied.
+
+"There isn't much to see," he said. "I'm the kind of sculptor who works
+on order. I believe in the 'art for service' idea, and when I get an
+order I fill it as well as I can, make it as beautiful as I can, and
+send it out on its mission. I'd like to model mantel-pieces and
+andirons, because they are seen and actually influence people's lives.
+What I started to say was this: my stuff all goes out--my real stuff; my
+fool failures stay by me--this thing, for instance." He indicated the
+big clump of nude forms. "I had an 'idea' when I started, but it was too
+ambitious and too literary. Moreover, it isn't democratic. It don't gibe
+with the present. I'd be a wild-animal sculptor if I knew enough about
+them."
+
+It was a profoundly moving experience for this raw mountain-bred girl to
+stand there beside that colossal group while the man who had modelled it
+took her into his confidence. There was no affectation in Moss's candor.
+He had come to a swift conclusion that Congdon had attempted to let him
+into a trap, for Bertha's reticence and dignity quite reassured him. If
+she had uttered a single one of the banal compliments with which
+visitors "kill" artists he would have stopped short; but she didn't, she
+only looked, and something in her face profoundly interested him.
+Suddenly she turned and said:
+
+"Tell me what it means."
+
+"It don't mean anything--now. Originally I intended it to mean 'The
+Conquest of Art by the Spirit of Business,' or something like that. I
+started it when I was fresh from Paris, and wore a red tie and a pointed
+beard. I keep it as a record of the folly into which exotic instruction
+will lead a man. If I were to go at it now I'd turn the whole thing
+around--I'd make it 'Art Inspiring Business.'"
+
+Bertha did not follow his thought entirely, but she felt herself in the
+presence of a serious problem and listening to something deep down in
+the heart of a strong man. Here was another world--not an altogether
+strange world, for Congdon had also talked to her of his work--but a
+world so far removed from her own life that it seemed some other planet.
+"How well he talks," she thought. "Like a book."
+
+"How charming she is," he was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of
+her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he had picked
+up.
+
+They wandered up and down the long room while he showed her tiles for
+mantel decoration, bronze cats' heads for door-knobs, and curious and
+lovely figures for lamps and ash-trays. "I take a shy at 'most
+everything," he explained.
+
+"Do you sell these?" she asked, indicating some designs for electric
+desk-lamps.
+
+He smiled. "Sometimes--not as often as I'd like to."
+
+"How much are they?"
+
+"Fifty dollars each."
+
+"I'll take them both," she said, and her pulse leaped with the pride of
+being a patron of art.
+
+"Now see here, Mrs. Haney, I'm not displaying these to you as a
+salesman--not that I'm so very delicate about offering my things, but I
+try to wait till a second visit." He really did feel mean about it.
+"Don't take 'em--wait till to-morrow. They're pretty middling bad
+anyway. They're supposed to be mountain lions, but as a matter of fact I
+never saw a mountain lion outside the Zoo."
+
+"They're lions, all right. I want 'em, and I know the Captain will like
+'em." She stepped back to call Haney. But finding him surrounded by all
+of the other callers (they had "got him going" telling stories of his
+wild life in the West), she turned to the sculptor with a smile, saying:
+"Never mind, _I_ know they're what he needs--if he don't." And Moss,
+recalling Congdon's description of the Haneys' material condition,
+answered: "Very well, if you insist; but I really feel as though I had
+played a confidence game on you."
+
+"Can you fix 'em up with lights?" she asked, eager as a child. "I mean
+right now."
+
+"Certainly." He unscrewed a couple of small bulbs from a near-by
+bracket, and, putting them into place on the lamps, turned on the
+current. She laughed out in delight. One of the lions was playing with
+the stem which supported the light. As if rising from a sleep, he lay
+upholding the globe on one high-raised paw. The other--a counterpart, or
+nearly so in pose--had a different expression. The cub was snarling and
+clutching at the light, as if it were a bird about to escape.
+
+"I had an idea of putting them on the corners of a mantel to light a
+piece of low relief," he explained, "but I never got at the relief. It
+ought to be characteristic Western scenery, and I've never seen the
+West. Shameful, isn't it?"
+
+"I want you to do that mantel for me," she said. "I don't know what you
+mean by 'low relief,' but I know it would be up to these, and they are
+_right_!"
+
+"Your trust in me is beautiful, Mrs. Haney, and maybe I'll come out this
+summer and try to meet it."
+
+"I wish you would," she said, and she meant it. "I'll show you
+Colorado."
+
+"If you're starting to be a patron of art, Mrs. Haney, don't overlook
+Congdon; he's a first-class man." He became humorous again. "We're
+moving swiftly, but I'm going to tell you that he wanted me to make a
+sketch of you. If you'll be so good as to give me two or three sittings,
+I'll do something we can send out to him--if you wish."
+
+"What do you mean by a sketch?"
+
+"Something like this." And, leading her before a curious, half-human,
+veiled object, he began to unwind damp yellow cloths till at last the
+head of a young woman appeared on a small revolving stand. It was very
+dainty, very sweet, and smiling.
+
+Bertha was puzzled. "It ain't your wife, and yet it looks like her."
+
+"It is my wife's sister--a quick study from life--just the kind of thing
+Frank wants. Will you sit for me A couple of mornings will answer." He
+was eager to do her now. Her profile, so clear, so firm, so strangely
+boyish, pleased him. He could feel the "snap" that the sketch would have
+when it was done.
+
+Bertha considered. She owed a great deal to the Congdons, and she liked
+this man. Her homesickness at the moment was abated, and to stay two, or
+even three, days in Chicago promised at the moment to be not so
+dreadful, after all.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it," she decided. "I don't know what Mr. Congdon will do
+with a picture of me, but that's his funeral." And her laughing lip made
+her seem again the untaught girl she really was.
+
+As they went back to the group around the Captain, Julia Moss treated
+her husband to a glance of commiseration, thinking him a bored and
+defeated man. "You've missed the Captain's racy talk," she whispered.
+
+Haney was enjoying himself very well in the "centre of the stage," and
+doing himself credit. Never in his life had he known a keener audience
+than these artists, who studied him from every point of view.
+
+"Yes," Haney was saying, "'tis possible to bust a bank if the game is
+straight--that is, at faro; but most machine games are built so that
+'the house'--that is, the bank--is protected. My machines was always
+straight. I'd as soon turn a sausage-grinder as run a wheel that was
+'fixed' in me favor."
+
+Bertha did not like this talk of his abandoned trade, and her cheeks
+burned as she put her hand on his shoulder. "I reckon we'd better be
+going."
+
+He recovered himself. "Of course I quit all that when I married," he
+explained, and dutifully rose.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Haney," pleaded Mrs. Moss, "don't take him away! We were just
+getting light on the game of faro. Please sit down again."
+
+Bertha resented this tone. "No, we've got to go. Glad to have met you."
+She nodded towards the men who had risen. "Much obliged," she said again
+to Moss. "I'll send for them things to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Moss cordially insisted on their coming again.
+
+"She's going to pose for me," reported Moss. "To-morrow morning at ten?"
+he inquired.
+
+"Ten suits me as well as any time," Bertha replied.
+
+Mrs. Moss beamed at Haney. "You come, too, Captain. I want to know more
+about those delightful games of chance."
+
+Bertha went back to her hotel with throbbing brain. The day had been so
+full of experience! She was tired out and fairly bewildered by it all.
+
+As her excitement ebbed and she had time to recover her own point of
+view, Colorado, her home, the Springs, and the memory of her own people
+came rushing back upon her, making the city and all it contained but a
+handful of east wind. Ben's kiss burned vividly again upon her lips.
+"Was it wrong of him to say what he did?" she began to ask herself. A
+good-bye kiss would not have so deeply stirred her; it was his face, his
+voice, his intensely uttered words which deeply thrilled her, even now,
+as she recalled them one by one. "You are beautiful and I love you."
+These were the most important words to a woman, and they had come at
+last to her.
+
+Then her cheek flushed with shame of her husband as she remembered his
+gambling talk at the studio. "Why _must_ he always go back to that?" she
+asked, hotly.
+
+They ate their dinner in the big dining-room surrounded by waiters,
+while the Captain discussed his sister and her family. "I'll do
+something for Fan," he said. "She's a different sort from Charles.
+McArdle seems a hard-workin' chap, the kind that a little help wouldn't
+spile. What do you think of buyin' them a bit of a house somewhere?"
+
+Bertha listened with a languor of interest new to her, and when he
+repeated his question and asked her if she were tired, she answered:
+"Yes; and I think I'll go to bed early to-night. It's been a hard day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
+
+
+Joe Moss was delighted with the Haneys, for they talked of their native
+West as people should talk. They were as absolute in their convictions
+as a Kentuckian. For them there was no other "God's country," and as it
+was his latest dream to go West and "do a big thing on a cliff or
+something" he put off every other engagement to enjoy their racy speech.
+He said at the first sitting: "I've had an idea of working the
+Thorwaldsen trick: find some fine site out there, some wall of rock
+close to the railway, and hew out a monster grizzly or mountain lion.
+The railway could then advertise it, you see; trains could stop there
+'five minutes to permit a view of Moss's Lion'; they could use a cut of
+it on all their folders. If there was a spring near by they could
+advertise the water and bottle it, a picture of my lion on the label.
+Ah, it is a fine scheme!"
+
+"'Tis so," said Haney. "I wonder nobody thought of it before."
+
+"It takes a Yankee, after all, to plan new suspender buttons," the
+sculptor replied. And all the time he talked his hands were dabbling,
+his thumbs gouging, his dibble cutting and smoothing.
+
+Haney watched him with amused glance. "Sure, I didn't know ye went at it
+so. I thought ye chipped each picture out o' stone." And when the
+process of molding in plaster was explained to him, he said: "'Tis like
+McArdle's trade entirely. He takes a rise in the world since I know he's
+an artist like yourself."
+
+"What is his 'line'?"
+
+"Pattern-maker for a stove foundry."
+
+Moss beamed. "Just what I'd like to be if they'd only pay a little more
+wages and furnish a better place to work."
+
+Bertha never knew when he was in earnest, so habitually mocking was his
+tone. But she grew towards a perception of his ideal, and dimly
+apprehended in him a mind far beyond any she had ever known. Mrs. Moss,
+almost as reticent as Mrs. Haney herself, came and went about the studio
+brightly, briskly, keeping vigilant eye on her husband's mail,
+moistening his "mud ladies," and defending him from inopportune callers,
+insistent beggars, and wandering models. Bertha, though sitting with the
+stolid patience of a Mississippi clam-fisher, was thinking at express
+speed. Her mind was of that highly developed type where a hint sets in
+motion a score of related cognitions, and a word here and there in
+Moss's rambling remarks instructed her like a flash of light. She was at
+school, in a high sense, and improving her time. The sketch was
+expanding into a carefully studied portrait bust and Moss was happy.
+
+One day a fellow-artist came in casually, and they both squinted,
+measured, and compared the portrait and herself with the calm absorption
+of a couple of prize-pig committeemen at a cattle-show. "You see, this
+line is shorter," the stranger said, almost laying his finger on
+Bertha's neck. "Not so straight, as you've got it. That's a fine line--"
+
+"I know it is!"
+
+"And you don't want to spoil it. I don't like your fad for cutting down
+the bust. The neck is nothing but a connecting link between the head and
+the bust. Now here you have a charming and youthful head and face--let
+the neck at least suggest the woman below."
+
+"Oh yes, that's good logic, provided you're after that. But what I want
+here is spring-time--just a fresh, alert, lovely fragment. This pure
+line must be kept free from any earthiness."
+
+"I suppose you know what you want; I won't say you don't. But if I were
+painting her, I'd get that sweeping line there that ends by suggesting
+the summer."
+
+They talked disjointedly, elliptically, and of course mainly of the
+clay; and yet Bertha grew each moment more clearly aware that they
+considered her not merely interesting but beautiful, and this was a most
+momentous and developing assurance. She had hoped to be called
+"good-looking," but no one thus far (excepting Ben Fordyce) had ever
+called her beautiful; and these judgments on the part of Joe Moss and
+his brother artist were made the more moving by reason of their
+precision of knowledge and their professional candor. They spoke as
+freely in discussion of her charm as if she were deaf and dumb.
+
+The painter, who had been introduced in a careless way as "Mr. Humiston,
+of New York," turned to Bertha at last, and, assuming the ordinary
+politeness of a human being, said: "I'd like to make a study of you,
+too, Mrs. Haney, if you'll permit. I can bring my canvas in here and
+work with Joe, so that it needn't be any trouble to you."
+
+Bertha, her wealth still new upon her, had no suspicion of the motives
+of those who addressed her, was deeply flattered by this request, and as
+Moss made no objection, she consented.
+
+The only thing that troubled Moss was her growing tendency to lapse into
+troubled thought. "Remember, now, you're the crocus, the first violet,
+or something like that--not the last rose of summer. Don't think, don't
+droop! There, that's right! What have you to think or droop about? When
+you're as old and blase as Humiston there, you'll have a right to ponder
+the mysteries, but not now. You and I are young, thank God!"
+
+Humiston was dabbling at his small canvas swiftly, lightly, as unmoved
+by his fellow-artist as if his voice were the wind in the casement. He
+was a tall, sickly looking man with grizzled hair, and pale, deeply
+lined face. He was fresh from Paris with a small exhibition of his
+pictures, which were very advanced, as Mrs. Moss privately explained to
+Bertha. "And he's rather bitter against Americans because they don't
+appreciate his work. But Joe asks: 'Why should they?' They're
+undemocratic--little high-keyed 'precious' bits; pictures for other
+artists, not real paintings, or they are unacceptable otherwise. He's a
+wonderful technician, though, and he'll make an exquisite sketch of
+you."
+
+The Western girl-wife was completely fascinated by this small, dusky,
+dim, and richly colored heart of the fierce and terrible city whose
+material bulk alone is known to the world. To go from the crash and roar
+of the savage streets into this studio was like climbing from the level
+of the water in the Black Canon to the sunlit, grassy peaks where the
+Indian pink blossoms in silence. She was of the aspiring nature. She had
+commonly played with children older than herself. She had read books she
+could not understand. She had always reached upward, and here she found
+herself surrounded by men and women who excited her imagination as
+Congdon had done. They helped her forget the doubt of herself and her
+future, which was gnawing almost ceaselessly in her brain, and she was
+sorry when Moss said to her: "Come in once more, to-morrow, and see me
+do the real sculptor's act. No, don't look at it" (he flung a cloth over
+his work); "you may look at it to-morrow."
+
+"May I see my picture?" she asked of Humiston.
+
+He turned the easel towards her without a word.
+
+"Good work!" cried Moss.
+
+Mrs. Moss came from her dark corner. "I knew you'd do something
+exquisite."
+
+Bertha looked at it in silence. It was as lovely in color as a flower, a
+dream-girl, not Bertha Haney. And at last she said: "It's fine, but it
+isn't me."
+
+Humiston broke forth almost violently. "Of course it isn't you; it's the
+way you look to me. I never paint people as they look to themselves nor
+to their friends. I am painting my impression of you."
+
+"Do you really see me like that?" she both asked and exclaimed. And at
+the moment she was more moving than she had ever been before, and
+Humiston, in a voice of anguish, cried:
+
+"My God, why didn't I do her like that?" And he fell to coughing so
+violently that Bertha shuddered.
+
+Moss defended himself. "I couldn't do her in _all_ her fine poses," he
+complained. "I had to select. Why didn't you do her that way yourself?"
+
+The painter put his short-hand sketch away with a sigh. "If you venture
+as far as New York, I hope you and the Captain will visit my studio," he
+said.
+
+With no suspicion of being passed from hand to hand, she promised to
+send him her address, and said: "I'd like to see the pictures you have
+here."
+
+Moss became abusive. "Now see here, Jerry, I can't let you take Mrs.
+Haney to that show of yours. I'll go myself to point out their weak
+points."
+
+"I know their weak points a bloody sight better than you do," answered
+Humiston, readily.
+
+"If you do you don't speak of 'em."
+
+"Why should I? You don't call out the defects of your 'hardware,' do
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Moss interposed. "That's just what he does do, and it hurts trade.
+I think I'll take Mrs. Haney over to see the pictures myself."
+
+Humiston brightened. "Very well; but you must all lunch with me. You're
+about the only civilized people I know in this crazy town, and I need
+you."
+
+"No," said Bertha. "It's our treat. You all come over and eat with us."
+
+Haney, who had been keeping in the background, now came forward. "I
+second that motion," he heartily said. "We don't get a chance every day
+to feed a bunch of artists."
+
+"You can have that pleasure any day here," said Moss. "Our noses are
+always over the bars, waiting."
+
+When she emerged from the gallery an hour later Bertha enjoyed an
+exalted sense of having been carried through some upper, serener world,
+where business, politics, and fashion had little place. It was "only a
+dip," as Mrs. Moss said--just to show the way; but it set the girl's
+brain astir with half-formed, disconnected aspirations. Only as she
+re-entered the hotel (the centre of obsequious servants) did she become
+again the wife of Marshall Haney, and Mrs. Moss, noting the eager
+attention of the waiters, was amazed and delighted at the look of calm
+command which came over the girl's face.
+
+"Art is fine and sweet as a side issue," said Julia to her husband, as
+they were going in, "but money makes the porters jump."
+
+Bertha, composed and serious, seated her guests at a table which had
+been reserved for her near a window and charmingly decorated with
+flowers. She put Moss at her left hand and Humiston at her right, and as
+the Eastern man settled into place, he said: "Really, now, this isn't so
+bad." His experienced eye had noted the swift flocking of the waiters,
+and with cynical amusement he commented upon it. "These people must
+_smell_ of money!" and in his heart acknowledged that he and Moss were
+not so very different from the servitors, after all. "They're out for
+tens, we're after thousands; that's the main point of difference."
+
+Bertha, once the cutlets were served, was able to give attention to the
+talk--Humiston's talk (he was celebrated as a monologist), for he had
+resumed the discussion into which he and Moss had fallen. "I don't
+believe in helping people to study art. I don't believe in charity. This
+interfering with the laws of the universe that kill off the crippled and
+the weakly is pure sentimentalism that will fill the world with
+deformed, diseased, and incapable persons."
+
+"You're a vile reactionary!" cried Moss.
+
+"I am not--I'm for the future. I want to see the world full of beauty."
+
+"Physical beauty?"
+
+"Yes, physical beauty. I want to see vice and crime and crooked limbs
+and low brows die out--not perpetuated. I believe in educating the
+people to the lovely in line and color."
+
+As he pursued this line of inexorable argument Bertha looked at him in
+wonder. Did he mean what he said? His burning eyes seemed sincere--and
+yet he did not fail to accept a second helping of the mushrooms. There
+was power in the man. He pushed the walls of her intellectual world very
+wide apart. He came from a strange, chaotic region--from a land where
+ordinary modes and motives seemed lost or perverted. He took a delight
+in shocking them all. Morality was a convention--a hypocritic agreement
+on the part of the few to reserve freedom to themselves at the expense
+of the many. "Art is impossible to little people, to those who starve
+the big side of their nature, for fear of Mrs. Grundy. Look at the real
+people--Rachel, Wagner, Turner, Bernhardt, and a thousand others. Were
+they bound by the marriage laws? What will these crowds of tiny men and
+petty women do who come from the country parlors and corn-shocks of the
+West? They will puddle around a little while, paint and muddle a few
+petty things, then marry and go back to the ironing-board and the furrow
+where they belong. What's the matter with American art? It's too cursed
+normal, that's what. It's too neat and sweet and restrained--no license,
+no "go" to it. What's the matter with you, to be personal?"
+
+"Too well balanced."
+
+"Precisely. You _talk_ like a man of power, but model like a cursed
+niggling prude. You're bitten with the new madness. You're the Bryan of
+art. 'The dear people' is your cry. Damn the people! They don't know a
+good thing when they see it. Why consider the millions? Consider the
+few, those who have the taste and the dollars. That's the way all the
+big men of the past had to do. Look at Rubens and Michael Angelo and
+Titian--all the big bunch; they were all frank, gross feeders, lovers of
+beauty, defiant of conventions."
+
+He had forgotten where he sat, but he was not neglecting his hostess. He
+took a satanic satisfaction in seeing her lovely eyes widen and glow as
+he went on. Subtly flattering her by including her among the very few
+who could understand his ideals, he seemed to draw her apart to his
+side--appealing to her for support against the coarse and foolish hosts
+represented by the Mosses, while Marshall Haney sat in a kind of stupor,
+his eyes alone speaking, as if to ask: "What the divil is the little man
+with the cough so hot about?"
+
+Moss, accustomed to Humiston's savage diatribes, roared out objections
+or laughed him to scorn, while Mrs. Moss tried her best to turn the mad
+artist's mind upon more suitable subjects. He had been deeply hurt and
+financially distressed by the failure of his exhibits in Pittsburg and
+Chicago, and was now taking it out on his friends. His passion, his
+bitter, vengeful cry against the ignorant masses of the world was
+something Bertha had read about, but never felt; but she quivered now
+with the half-disclosed fury of the disappointed austere soul.
+
+Could it be possible that this savage man, so worn and ill, had painted
+those dim, vague pictures of flower-like girls whose limbs were involved
+in blossoming vines?
+
+He concluded at last: "The only place in the world to-day for an artist
+is Paris. In no other city can he live his own life in frank fulness,
+and find patrons who see the subtlest meaning of a line."
+
+Bertha was tired of all this--mentally weary and confused; and she felt
+very grateful to Mrs. Moss, who came to the rescue the moment Humiston
+paused.
+
+"There, Mrs. Haney, that is the end of Professor Jerry Spoopendyke's
+lecture on the undesirability of America as a place of residence--_for
+him_. Of course, he don't mind selling his pictures just to enlighten
+our night of ignorance, but as for going to Sunday-school or keeping the
+decalogue, that's our job."
+
+Humiston had the grace to smile. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Haney, I have
+been a fool. But that monkey over there--Joe Moss--provoked me with his
+accursed heresies about the democracy of art. Art has no democracy, and
+democracy will never have an art--"
+
+"There, there!" warned Moss, "you said all that before."
+
+The painter wrenched himself away and turned to Bertha. "You _are_
+coming to New York, Mrs. Haney?"
+
+"I don't know," she said. "We may."
+
+"If you do, don't fail to let me know. I would like to see you."
+
+"All right," said Bertha, "I'll send you a line." And her frank smile
+made him sorry to say good-bye even for the day.
+
+As Mart was going up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all
+kinds of people to make up a world--Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the
+t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin'
+a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end I dunno."
+
+When alone in her room, Bertha's mind again reverted to Ben Fordyce. As
+she compared him with Humiston, he seemed handsomer and more boyishly
+frank than ever. What did Joe Moss mean by calling Mr. Humiston "blase."
+She had seen that word in novels and it always meant something wicked.
+How could this weary, sick man be wicked? She pitied him and wished to
+help him. "Why should he take so much interest in me? He don't have to.
+Of course the Mosses are nice to me on Congdon's account, but why does
+this great artist want me to come to his studio in New York? He talks
+poor, so maybe he wants me to buy some of his pictures." That her money
+was a lure for wasps she did not yet realize. That the waiters and
+clerks buzzed round her because she was rich, she knew; but that these
+men, who talked of beauty and the higher life, could flatter her with
+attentions with a base motive was incredible.
+
+She was shrewd as her Yankee forbears, but she was also an idealist, and
+these artist folk now seemed to her the highest types she had ever known
+or was likely to know. She felt the mystery and the power in Humiston's
+personality, and his bitter and rebellious, almost blasphemous, words
+were counterpoised by his paintings, which she acknowledged to be
+beautiful--too beautiful for her to comprehend. He looked like a man of
+sorrow and weary of battle, and she longed to know more about him. When
+he was not fierce he was melancholy; evidently his life had been a
+failure. "Why shouldn't I buy some of his pictures?" she asked herself.
+
+Hitherto the answer to any such question had been, "Can we afford it?"
+but now another and deeper query came in answer, like an echo: "Is it
+right to spend Mart Haney's money? I am only his trained nurse, not his
+wife," and she now knew that she could not be his wife. She shrank from
+the weight of his hand, and each day made clearer the wide spaces of
+years, of family, of ideals, which lay between them. The kiss Ben
+Fordyce had pressed upon her lips had brought this revelation. But of
+this she was not yet aware; she was only conscious of a growing dread of
+the future. Her duties as his nurse were lightening. Lucius, indeed, now
+took many of her tasks upon himself, and she no longer helped him with
+his shoes or coat, and, what was still more significant, she could not
+calmly think of going back to these wifely services.
+
+She dwelt treacherously on Haney's own admission: that she had been in a
+sense entrapped. He had believed himself a dying man at the time, and
+she had been too excited, too exalted by the lurid romance of the scene
+to be clear about anything save the wish and the will to save him; and
+now she knew that at bottom of all her willingness to serve him lay the
+consciousness that he was on his death-bed. Afterwards he had been to
+her only a big-hearted, generous friend, in need of love and
+companionship. This understanding had made it easy for her to prepare
+his meals, to help him, as a nurse would help him, to dress and undress.
+She had lost all of the fear and much of the admiration in which she
+used to greet him as he swung into the office of her little hotel. He
+had become to her an invalid, a child to be jollied and humored, and yet
+respected; for no one could have been kinder or more scrupulously just
+than he. And it was the recollection of all his acts of self-sacrifice
+and loving patience which gave her assurance that he would never require
+obedience, though he might sue for it.
+
+Her danger lay in herself. "If he _does_ ask me to be his real
+wife--then I must either agree or leave. It won't be right for me to
+take all these benefits unless--"
+
+And with this thought, the big house in the Springs, the sleek horses,
+their shining carriages, the auto-car, her dresses, the service of the
+big hotel, and the consideration her husband's money gave to her, all
+assumed a new and corrupting lustre. She was growing accustomed to
+luxury and the thought of giving it up made her shiver like one who
+faces a plunge into a dark night and an icy river. Besides, her
+sacrifice would involve others. Her mother, her brother, were already
+roundly ensnared in Mart's bounty.
+
+Her head was aching with it all, when a comforting thought came to her.
+It was not necessary to decide it at that moment, and with a sigh of
+relief she threw it aside and sat down to write a letter to her mother.
+
+"I ought to have written before, but I've been jumped right into the
+middle of things here. The letters Frank Congdon gave me took me into an
+artistic bunch about as gay and queer as Frank is, but they've been
+mighty nice to me. I've been setting for my bust to Mr. Moss, who is a
+sculptor. He has a big studio clear on the top of one of the tallest
+blocks here and has some dandy lamps and things. I've bought some to
+bring back. I met a Mr. Humiston there from New York, and he made a
+sketch of me--wants me to see his studio in New York. I don't know
+whether I'll go on or let Mart go with Lucius. Lucius is all right--I
+don't see how I got on without him. He knows everything. I wish I had
+half the education he's got. He's up on all the society ways and puts me
+on. For instance, he told me the nice thing would be to give a dinner to
+this artist push and to the people that Dorothy give me a letter to, and
+I'm going to do it. Lucius will look out for the whole thing. You should
+see the way the waiters tend. I reckon Lucius has told 'em we're made of
+money. I'm afraid we're getting spoilt, Muzz. It would be pretty tough
+to go back to the hotel now, wouldn't it?
+
+"We went to see Mart's sister, Fanny. Her house was a sight. It was
+clean enough, but littered--well, litter is no name for it--but she's a
+good old thing and so is McArdle. He sat and looked at us the whole time
+like a turkey blind in one eye--never said a word the whole time but
+'pass the p-taties.' I liked him though. He's a kind of sculptor,
+too--makes patterns for all these little acorns and leaves and
+do-funnies on stoves. They've got forty-'leven children and need help
+and I'm perfectly willing Mart should help 'em. We're looking up houses
+now. He's going to buy a place for 'em on the west side. Wednesday night
+I went to see the Doctor Brents, Dorothy's friends. They had a
+dinner--very nice, but they all kind o' sat 'round and waited for us to
+perform. I guess they thought we were mountain lions. But they didn't
+make much out o' me. They was one chap there with goggles who looked at
+Mart like an undertaker. He's a scientific doctor--one of these fellers
+that invent new ways of doing things. His name is Halliday. I liked Dr.
+Brent pretty well--but Mrs. Brent only so-so. The doctor wants to
+'dagnose' Mart's case--says it won't cost a cent. We all went to a show
+at night and the Captain was just about petered to a point. He's better
+though. The lower altitude helps his circulation. I guess his heart _is_
+affected. He's afraid now he won't ever be able to go back to the mines.
+He wants to slide on to New York and see his father and wants me to
+go--but I'd rather come home--I'm homesick for the hills. They're nice
+to me here--but I want to see the old Peak once more. Tell" (here she
+wrote "Ben" and blotted it) "tell Mr. Fordyce that we're all right and
+to keep us posted every day. We see by the papers that the mine-owners
+are going to throw the unions out of business. If they try that they'll
+be war again. We'll be home soon--or at least I will. I'm getting
+home-sicker every minute as I write."
+
+She added a postscript. "Don't show my letters to _any one_. I wish I'd
+'a' had a little more schooling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE FARTHER EAST
+
+
+Haney visibly brightened as the days went by, and took long rides in his
+auto, sometimes with Bertha, sometimes alone with Lucius, and now and
+then with some old acquaintance, who, having seen his name in the paper,
+ventured to call. They were not very savory characters, to tell the
+truth, and he did not always introduce them to Bertha, but as his health
+improved he called upon a few of the more reputable of them,
+billiard-table agents, and the like of that, and to these proudly
+exhibited his wife.
+
+Bertha had hitherto accepted this with boyish tolerance, but now it
+irritated her. Some of these visitors presumed on her husband's past and
+treated her with a certain freedom of tone and looseness of tongue which
+made plain even to her unsuspecting nature that they put no high value
+on her virtue--in fact, one fellow went so far as to facetiously ask,
+"Where did Mart find you? Are there any more out there?" And she felt
+the insult, though she did not know how to resent it.
+
+Haney, so astute in many things, saw nothing out of the way in this
+off-hand treatment of his wife. He would have killed the man who dared
+to touch her, and yet he stood smilingly by while some chance
+acquaintance treated her as if she had been picked out of a Denver
+gutter. This threw Bertha upon her own defence, and at last she made
+even impudence humble itself. She carried herself like a young warrior,
+sure of her power and quick of defence.
+
+She refused to invite her husband's friends to lunch, and the first real
+argument she had thus far held with him came about in this way. She
+said, "Yes, you can ask Mr. Black or Mr. Brown to dinner, but I won't
+set at the same table with them."
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"Because they're not the kind of men I want to eat with," she bluntly
+replied. "They're just a little too coarse for me."
+
+"They're good business men and have fine homes--"
+
+"Do they invite you to their homes?"
+
+"They do not," he admitted, "but they may--after our dinner."
+
+"Lucius says it's their business to lead out--and he knows. I don't mind
+your lunching these dubs every day if you want to, but I keep clear of
+'em. I tell you those!"
+
+And so it fell out that while she was going about with the Mosses and
+their kind, Mart was explaining to Black and Brown that his wife "was a
+little shy." "You see she grew up in the hills like a doe antelope, and
+it's hard for her to get wonted to the noise of a great city," he
+laboriously set forth, but at heart he did not blame her. He was coming
+to find them a little "coarse" himself.
+
+Humiston was deeply enthralled by Bertha's odd speech, her beauty, her
+calm use of money, and lingered on day by day, spending nearly all his
+time at Moss's studio or at the hotel, seeking Mrs. Haney's company. He
+had never met her like, and confessed as much to Moss, who jocularly
+retorted: "That's saying a good deal--for you've seen quite a few."
+
+Humiston ignored this thrust. "She has beauty, imagination, and immense
+possibilities. She don't know herself. When she wakes up to her power,
+then look out! She can't go on long with this old, worn-out gambler."
+
+"Oh, Haney isn't such a beast as you make him out. Bertha told me he had
+never crossed her will. He's really very kind and generous."
+
+"That may be true, and yet he's a mill-stone about her neck. It's a
+shame--a waste of beauty--for the girl is a beauty."
+
+It was with a sense of relief that Moss heard Bertha say to his wife: "I
+guess I've had enough of this. It's me to the high ground to-morrow."
+
+"Aren't you going on to the metropolis?"
+
+"I don't think it. I'm hungry for the peaks--and, besides, our horses
+need exercise. I think I'll pull out for the West to-morrow and leave
+the Captain and Lucius to go East together. I don't believe I need New
+York."
+
+To this arrangement Haney reluctantly consented. "You're missin' a whole
+lot, Bertie. I don't feel right in goin' on to Babylon without ye. I
+reckon you'd better reconsider the motion. However, I'll not be gone
+long, and if I find the old Dad hearty I may bring him home with me.
+He's liable to be livin' with John Donahue. Charles said he was a
+shiffless whelp, and there's no telling how he's treating the old man.
+Anyhow, I'll let you know."
+
+She relented a little. "Ma'be I ought to go. I hate to see you starting
+off alone."
+
+"Sure now! don't ye worry, darling. Lucius is handy as a bootjack, and
+we'll get along fine. Besides, I may come back immegitly, for them
+mine-owners are cooking a hell-broth for us all. Havin' a governor on
+their side now, they must set out to show their power."
+
+Ben kept them supplied with home papers, and as Bertha took up one of
+these journals she found herself played upon by familiar forms and
+faces. The very names of the streets were an appeal. She saw herself
+sporting with her hounds, riding with Fordyce over the flowery Mesa, or
+facing him in his sun-bright office discussing the world's events and
+deciding upon their own policies and expenditures. She grew very
+homesick as these pleasant, familiar pictures freshened in her vision,
+and her faith in Ben's honesty and essential goodness came back to her.
+Moreover her mind was not at rest regarding Haney; much as she longed to
+go home, she felt it her duty to remain with him, and as she lay in her
+bed she thought of him with much the same pity a daughter feels for a
+disabled father. "He's given me a whole lot--I ought to stay by him."
+
+She admitted also a flutter of fear at thought of meeting Ben Fordyce
+alone, and this unformulated distrust of herself decided her at last to
+go on with Mart and to have him for shield and armor when she returned
+to the Springs.
+
+There are certain ways in which books instruct women--and men, too, for
+that matter--but there are other and more vital processes in which only
+experience (individual or inherited) teaches. In her desultory reading,
+little Mrs. Haney, like every other citizen, had taken imaginative part
+in many murders, seductions, and marital infidelities; and yet the
+motives for such deeds had never before seemed human. Now the dark
+places in the divorce trials, the obscure charges in the testimony of
+deserted wives, were suddenly illumined. She realized how easy it would
+be to make trouble between Mart and herself. She understood the stain
+those strangers in the car could put upon her, and she trembled at the
+mere thought of Mart's inquiring eyes when he should know of it. Why
+should he know of it? It was all over and done with. There was only one
+thing to do--forget it.
+
+Surely life was growing complex. With bewildering swiftness the
+experiences of a woman of the world were advancing upon her, and she,
+with no brother or father to be her guard, or friend to give her
+character, with a husband whose very name and face were injuries, was
+finding men in the centres of culture quite as predatory as among the
+hills, where Mart Haney's fame still made his glance a warning. These
+few weeks in Chicago had added a year to her development, but she dared
+not face Ben Fordyce alone--not just yet--not till her mind had cleared.
+
+In the midst of her doubt of herself and of him a message came which
+made all other news of no account. He was on his way to Chicago to
+consult Mart (so the words ran), but in her soul she knew he was coming
+to see her. Was it to test her? Had he taken silence for consent? Was he
+about to try her faith in him and her loyalty to her husband?
+
+His telegram read: "Coming on important business." That might mean
+concerning the mine--on the surface; but beneath ran something more
+vital to them both than any mine or labor war, something which developed
+in the girl both fear and wonder--fear of the power that came from his
+eyes, wonder of the world his love had already opened to her. What was
+the meaning of this mad, sweet riot of the blood--this forgetfulness of
+all the rest of the world--this longing which was both pleasure and
+pain, doubt and delight, which turned her face to the West as though
+through a long, shining vista she saw love's messenger speeding towards
+her?
+
+Sleep kept afar, and she lay restlessly turning till long after
+midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and
+her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She
+rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical
+weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever known
+before.
+
+Haney was also up and about, an hour ahead of his schedule, sure that
+Ben's business concerned the mine. "It's the labor war breaking out
+again," he repeated. "I feel it in my bones. If it is, back I go, for
+the boys will be nading me."
+
+They went to the station in their auto-car, but, at Bertha's suggestion,
+Mart sent Lucius in to meet their attorney and to direct him where to
+find them. The young wife had a feeling that to await him at the gate
+might give him a false notion of her purpose. She grew faint and her
+throat contracted as if a strong hand clutched it as she saw his tall
+form advancing, but almost instantly his frank and eager face, his clear
+glance, his simple and cordial greeting disarmed her, transmuted her
+half-shaped doubts into golden faith. He was true and good--of that she
+was completely reassured. Her spirits soared, and the glow came back to
+her cheek.
+
+Fordyce, looking up at her, was filled with astonishment at the picture
+of grace and ease which she presented, as she leaned to take his hand.
+She shone, unmistakable mistress of the car, while Haney filled the role
+of trusted Irish coachman.
+
+As he climbed in, the young lawyer remarked merrily, "I don't know
+whether I approve of this extravagance or not." He tapped the car door.
+
+"It's mighty handy for the Captain," she replied. "You see he can't get
+round in the street-cars very well, and he says this is cheaper than
+cabs in the long run."
+
+"It has never proved economical to me; but it _is_ handy," he answered,
+with admiration of her growing mastery of wealth.
+
+And so with something fiercely beating in their hearts these youthful
+warriors struggled to be true to others--fighting against themselves as
+against domestic traitors, while they talked of the mine, the state
+judiciary, the operators, and the unions. Their words were impersonal,
+prosaic of association, but their eyes spoke of love as the diamond
+speaks of light. Ben's voice, carefully controlled, was vibrant with the
+poetry that comes but once in the life of a man, and she listened in
+that perfect content which makes gold and glory but the decorations of
+the palace where adoration dwells.
+
+The great, smoky, thunderous city somehow added to the sweetness of the
+meeting--made it the more precious, like a song in a tempest. It seemed
+to Ben Fordyce as if he had never really lived before. The very need of
+concealment gave his unspoken passion a singular quality--a tang of the
+wilding, the danger-some, which his intimacy with Alice had never
+possessed.
+
+The Haneys' suite of rooms at the hotel called for comment. "Surely
+Haney is feeling the power of money--but why not; who has a better right
+to lovely things than Bertha?" Then aloud he repeated: "How well you're
+looking--both of you! City life agrees with you. I never saw you look so
+well."
+
+This remark, innocent on its surface, brought self-consciousness to
+Bertha, for the light of his glance expressed more than admiration; and
+even as they stood facing each other, alive to the same disturbing
+flush, Lucius called Haney from the room, leaving them alone together.
+The moment of Ben's trial had come.
+
+For a few seconds the young wife waited in breathless silence for him to
+speak, a sense of her own wordlessness lying like a weight upon her.
+Into the cloud of her confusion his voice came bringing confidence and
+calm. "I feel that you have forgiven me--your eyes seem to say so. I
+couldn't blame you if you despised me. I won't say my feeling has
+changed, for it hasn't. It may be wrong to say so--it is wrong, but I
+can't help it. Please tell me that you forgive me. I will be happier if
+you do, and I will never offend again." His accent was at once softly
+pleading and manly, and, as she raised her eyes to his in restored
+self-confidence, she murmured a quaint, short, reassuring phrase: "Oh,
+that's all right!" Her glance, so shy, so appealing, united to the
+half-humorous words of her reply, were so surely of the Mountain-West
+that Ben was quite swept from the high ground of his resolution, and his
+hands leaped towards her with an almost irresistible embracing impulse.
+"You sweet girl!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Don't!" she said, starting back in alarm--"don't!"
+
+His face changed instantly, the clear candor of his voice reassured her.
+"Don't be afraid. I mean what I said. You need have no fear that I--that
+my offence will be repeated;" then, with intent to demonstrate his
+self-command, he abruptly changed the subject. "The Congdons sent their
+love to you, and Miss Franklin commissioned me to tell you that she will
+give you all her time next summer--if you wish her to do so."
+
+She was glad of this message and added: "I need her, sure thing. Every
+day I spend here makes me seem like Mary Ann--I don't see how people can
+talk as smooth as they do. I'm crazy to get to school again and make up
+for lost time. Joe Moss makes me feel like a lead quarter. Being here
+with all these nice people and not able to talk with them is no fun.
+Couldn't I whirl in and go to school somewhere back here?"
+
+"Oh no, that isn't necessary. You are getting your education by
+association--you are improving very fast."
+
+Her face lighted up. "Am I? Do you mean it?"
+
+"I do mean it. No one would know--to see you here--that you had not
+enjoyed all the advantages."
+
+"Oh yes, but I'm such a bluff. When I open my mouth they all begin to
+grin. They're onto my game all right."
+
+He smiled. "That's because of your picturesque phrases--they like to
+hear you speak. I assure you no one would think of calling you awkward
+or--or lacking in--in charm."
+
+Haney's return cut short this defensive dialogue, and with a sense of
+relief Bertha retreated--almost fled to her room--leaving the two men to
+discuss their business.
+
+At the moment she had no wish to participate in a labor controversy. She
+was entirely the woman at last, roused to the overpowering value of her
+own inheritance. Her desire to manage, to calculate, to plan her
+husband's affairs was gone, and in its place was a willingness to
+submit, a wish for protection which she had not hitherto acknowledged.
+She brooded for a time on Ben's words, then hurriedly began to
+dress--with illogical desire to make herself beautiful in his eyes. As
+she re-entered the room she caught Haney's repeated declaration--"I will
+be loyal to the men"--and Ben's reply.
+
+"Very well, I'll go back and do the best I can to keep them in line, but
+Williams says the governor is entirely on the side of the
+mine-operators."
+
+"Does he?" retorted Haney. "Well, you say to the governor that Mart
+Haney was a gambler and saloon-keeper during the other 'war,' and now
+that he's a mine-owner, with money to hire a regiment of deppyties, his
+heart is with the red-neckers--just where it was. Owning a paying mine
+has not changed me heart to a stone."
+
+Ben, as well as Bertha, understood the pride he took in not whiffling
+with the shift of wind, but at the same time he considered it a foolish
+kind of loyalty. "Very well, I'll take the six-o'clock train to-night in
+order to be on hand."
+
+"What's the rush?" said Haney; "stay on a day or two and see the town
+with us--'tis a great show."
+
+Bertha, re-entering at this moment in her shining gown, put the young
+attorney's Spartan resolution to rout. He stammered: "I ought to be on
+the ground before the mine-owners begin to open fire, and,
+besides--Alice is not very well."
+
+At the mention of Alice's name Bertha's glance wavered and her eyelids
+fell. She did not urge him to stay, and Haney spoke up, heartily: "I'm
+sorry to hear she's not well. She was pretty as a rose the night of the
+dinner."
+
+"She lives on her nerves," Ben replied, falling into sadness. "One day
+she's up in the clouds and dancing, the next she's flat in her bed in a
+darkened room unwilling to see anybody."
+
+"'Tis the way of the White Death," thought Haney, but he spoke
+hopefully: "Well, spring is here and a long summer before her--she'll be
+herself against October."
+
+"I trust so," said Ben, but Bertha could see that he was losing hope and
+that his life was being darkened by the presence of the death angel.
+
+Haney changed the current of all their thinking by saying to Bertha: "If
+you are minded to go home, now is your chance, acushla. You can return
+with Mr. Fordyce, while Lucius and I go on to New York the morning."
+
+"No, no!" she cried out in a panic. "No, I am going with you--I want to
+see New York myself," she added, in justification. The thought of the
+long journey with Ben Fordyce filled her with a kind of terror, a
+feeling she had never known before. She needed protection against
+herself.
+
+"Very well," said Haney, "that's settled. Now let's show Mr. Fordyce the
+town."
+
+Ben put aside his doubt and went forth with them, resolute to make a
+merry day of it. He seemed to regain all his care-free temper, but
+Bertha remained uneasy and at times abnormally distraught. She spoke
+with effort and listened badly, so busily was she wrought upon by
+unbidden thoughts. The question of her lover's disloyalty to Alice
+Heath, strange to say, had not hitherto troubled her--so selfishly, so
+childishly had her own relationship to him filled her mind. She now saw
+that Alice Heath was as deeply concerned in Ben's relationship to her as
+Haney, and the picture of the poor, pale, despairing lady, worn with
+weeping, persistently came between her and the scenes Mart pointed out
+on their trips about the city. Did Alice know--did she suspect? Was that
+why she was sinking lower and lower into the shadow?
+
+With these questions to be answered, as well as those she had already
+put to herself concerning Mart, she could not enjoy the day's outing.
+She rode through the parks with cold hands and white lips, and sat amid
+the color and bustle and light of the dining-room with only spasmodic
+return of her humorous, girlish self. The love which shone from Ben's
+admiring eyes only added to her uneasiness.
+
+She was very lovely in a new gown that disclosed her firm, rounded young
+bosom, like a rosebud within its calyx--the distraction upon her brow
+somehow adding to the charm of her face--and Ben thought her the most
+wonderful girl he had ever known, so outwardly at ease and in command
+was she. "Could any one," he thought, "be more swiftly adaptable?"
+
+They went to the theatre, and her beauty and her curiously unsmiling
+face aroused the admiration and curiosity of many others of those who
+saw her. At last, under the influence of the music, her eyes lost their
+shadow and grew tender and wistful. She ceased to question herself and
+gave herself up to the joy of the moment. The play and the
+melody--hackneyed to many of those present--appealed to her imagination,
+liberating her from the earth and all its concerns. She turned to Ben
+with eyes of rapture, saying, "Isn't it lovely!"
+
+And he, to whom the music was outworn and a little shoddy, instantly
+agreed. "Yes, it is very beautiful," and he meant it, for her pleasure
+in it brought back a knowledge of the charm it had once possessed.
+
+They dined together at the hotel, but the thought of Ben's departure
+brought a pang into Bertha's heart, and she fell back into her uneasy,
+distracted musing. She was being tempted, through her husband, who
+repeated with the half-forgetfulness of age and weakness, "You'd better
+go back with Mr. Fordyce, Bertie," but there was something stronger than
+her individual will in her reply--some racial resolution which came down
+the line of her good ancestry, and with almost angry outcry she
+answered:
+
+"There's no use talking that! I'm going with you," and with this she
+ended the outward siege, but the inward battle was not closed till she
+had taken and dropped the hand her lover held out in parting next
+morning, and even then she turned away, with his eyes and the tender
+cadences of his voice imprinted so vividly on her memory that she could
+not banish them, and she set face towards the farther East with the
+contest of duty and desire still going forward in her blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
+
+
+It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting
+forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving
+floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented
+pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled
+farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of
+trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such
+weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did
+they all live?
+
+At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode
+the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I
+slept all night on a bench in the depot.... I know every tie from here
+to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me
+heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the
+great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and
+I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was
+Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the
+plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me--poor girl! I'd
+like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her
+up, too."
+
+Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was
+obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before
+her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat
+beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its
+magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the
+thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor
+to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal
+splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some
+thirty years ago--rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a
+broken steak or a half-eaten roll--and she could imaginatively enter
+into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.
+
+"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle--"'sure the
+mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told
+him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to
+drop in on him and surprise him with a check"--at the moment he forgot
+that he was old and a cripple--"just to let him know the divil hadn't
+claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her
+arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he
+see you; he might say the divil had got _you_--but he couldn't pity
+me."
+
+She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great
+deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem
+like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just
+naturally locoes me to think of it."
+
+"'Tis the only place to spend money--so the boys tell me. I've never
+been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a
+man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful
+fine swamp to lose a thief in."
+
+"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.
+
+"I did so--and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a
+desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck
+chances."
+
+Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they
+were but empty boasting--so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters
+that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The
+potency of gold!--could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a
+flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables),
+eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and
+as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave
+streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young
+wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with
+splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to
+her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting
+from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God--one derived
+from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.
+
+They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to
+spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows
+where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to
+do it to-night."
+
+Bertha was tired, too--mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be
+alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy
+with the Troy directory.
+
+Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He
+took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through
+Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago,
+and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak,
+brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed,
+of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same,
+after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss
+pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him.
+"Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here--and I've earned many a dime
+sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely
+said; "I don't know why--I had all the chance there was. I've been
+moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that--I'll say I tuck it
+as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it
+alone--it spiled me nerve--I let the other felly do the drinkin'."
+
+Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the
+proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a
+plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he
+shouted, "'Tis old Otto--just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"
+
+Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege
+off me alretty."
+
+"I'm Mart Haney--you remember Mart Haney."
+
+Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh!
+Vell, vell--you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter--yes?"
+
+"My wife," said Haney.
+
+Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly
+draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart,
+you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"
+
+"That's what."
+
+"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce--aind dot
+right?"
+
+Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew
+up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But
+what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"
+
+"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn--so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll
+be clad to see you--"
+
+"You don't know his address?"
+
+"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."
+
+"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."
+
+"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the
+directory--Chon Donahue, barkeep."
+
+"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of
+the boys are livin' here now?"
+
+"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te
+vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some
+are teadt--many are teadt," he added, on second thought.
+
+"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the
+machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"
+
+For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he
+talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a
+lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but
+I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and
+these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You
+can't cheat a boy--he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains
+of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all
+right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I
+broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a
+whole long day--not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow
+up with the Injuns."
+
+Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life.
+She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while
+studying the scenes of his boyhood--her own childhood had been almost as
+humble, almost as cheerless--and yet she could not prevent a sinking at
+the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming
+commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.
+
+Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very
+much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little
+opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a
+very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City,
+with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back
+with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest
+importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.
+
+It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of
+Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther
+he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to
+her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind
+call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed
+under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet
+it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the
+relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed
+young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not
+easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not
+readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully
+reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in
+which she received what was said to her--something indefinably alert and
+self-masterful without being self-conscious--gave her a mysterious
+charm.
+
+She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right,
+and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done.
+She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points
+of interest--even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and
+Kate--more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of
+her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must
+buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as
+if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.
+
+Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul
+with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as
+London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London
+and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many
+folk live in one place?
+
+Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that
+they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble
+herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed
+for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and
+when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the
+Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to
+alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden
+her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was
+the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a
+foreign capital.
+
+It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp--a
+palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the
+glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to
+Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius
+conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship,
+and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was
+masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to
+say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that
+while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things
+comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word
+"comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places
+were put at his command.
+
+Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little
+higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago;
+and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle"
+when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted
+looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their
+windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive
+the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility
+can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these
+notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue,
+which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of
+carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.
+
+Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll
+get a car."
+
+"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.
+
+"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples
+like me."
+
+Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it
+again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she
+was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points,
+angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's
+bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who
+timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the
+race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad
+with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans--and all others
+who have them not--struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of
+distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely
+display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is
+not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these
+people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely
+diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom
+from the scramble on the pave.
+
+Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and
+heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its
+grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which
+had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the
+auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its
+handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in
+and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage;
+therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared
+little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's
+door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his
+old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he
+broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden,
+me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a
+'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a
+cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a
+play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves,
+was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue
+in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."
+
+Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her
+wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so
+packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her
+room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to
+free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like
+this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless
+indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the
+keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.
+
+In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to
+ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"
+
+"Oh no, I'll go down."
+
+"They dress for dinner, ma'am."
+
+"Do they? What'll I wear?"
+
+He considered a moment. "Any light silk--semi-dress will do. I'll send a
+maid in to help you."
+
+"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.
+
+Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful--it was paternal;
+for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the
+colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising,
+cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers
+of adaptability--was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them
+both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin
+in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made
+him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of
+prejudice against both black and red men.
+
+The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables
+exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and
+deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was
+a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as
+the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a
+zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from
+Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"
+
+"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple
+eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.
+
+Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while
+bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters,
+tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago
+appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so
+lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the
+women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly
+they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous
+beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and
+very shy.
+
+"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre
+to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but--to
+miss me sleep--"
+
+"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm
+just about all in, myself."
+
+"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good
+time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me
+heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so.
+Lucius will take ye."
+
+"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night.
+We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could
+kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."
+
+This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than
+by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the
+endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of
+'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's
+receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and
+complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea
+that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she
+thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to
+live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the
+great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her.
+This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.
+
+"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they
+turned off Broadway.
+
+"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a
+special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"
+
+"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be
+quieter now till November."
+
+They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate
+in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met
+most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the
+nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious,
+of a rank with Paris and London--the gateway city of the nation, where
+the Old World meets and mingles with the New.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+As for Marshall Haney, as he went about New York and Brooklyn in search
+of his relations, he was astounded at the translation of the Irish
+laborer into something else. "In my time, when I left Troy, all the work
+in the streets was done by 'micks,' as they called 'em. Now they're
+gone--whisked away as ye'd sweep away a swarm of red ants, and here's
+these black Dagos in their places. Where's the Irishman gone--up or
+down? That's what's eatin' me. Is he dead or translated to a higher
+speer? 'Tis a mysterious dispensation, and troubles me much."
+
+He found a good many Donahues in Brooklyn, and plenty of them
+barkeepers; and after he'd pulled up half a dozen times at these
+"joints" Bertha began to pout. She didn't like such places; and as they
+were riding in a showy auto-car (the grandest Lucius could secure), they
+were pretty middling noticeable. At last she said, more sharply than she
+had ever spoken to him before: "Mart, I don't want any more of this. If
+you want to visit all the saloons in Brooklyn, I don't. Here's where I
+get out."
+
+He was instantly remorseful. "I was thinkin' of that myself, Bertie.
+Lucius and I will go on alone. We'll send you back to the hotel in the
+'mobile whilst we take a hack."
+
+Half doubting, half glad, she consented to this arrangement, and was
+soon whirling back towards the ferry, her guilty feeling giving place to
+a sense of relief, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her
+shoulders--for a moment. She began to understand that half the pleasure
+she had taken in her hours with Moss and Humiston lay in the freedom
+from her husband's over-shadowing presence. He was not a man to be
+ignored, as she had seen wives ignore and put aside their meek partners.
+Marshall Haney even yet was a dominating personality, even though his
+family affairs were so insistent and so difficult to manage or explain.
+If the father came her joy in her home would be gone, and yet she had no
+right to refuse him shelter.
+
+At the same time she was less sure of her place in the world, now that
+she was alone. She had the feeling that if anything were to happen--if
+the motorman should demand his pay at the door, or the hotel-keeper
+refuse to go her bond, she would be helpless. The Captain, for all his
+shortcomings and physical disability, was master of every situation. He
+had been schooled by stern powers, and his capabilities of defence were
+still equal to almost any need.
+
+On the ferry-boat she found herself surrounded by the swarms of people
+who are forever calculating expenditures, who never desert a garment,
+and who finger a nickel lovingly; and she caught them looking at her as
+upon one of those who enjoy without earning it the product of their
+toil. They made way for her, as she got down and walked to the railing,
+as they would have done for a millionaire's daughter, a little surlily,
+and she divined without understanding this enmity, but was too exalted
+by the glittering bay, with its romance of ship and sea and shore and
+town, to very much mind what her threadbare fellow-passengers thought of
+her. These dark-hulled, ocean-going vessels, these alien flags, widened
+her horizon--deepened her sense of the earth's wonder and the wide-flung
+nerves of national interest. From this sea-level she looked up in fancy
+to her brother's ranch near Sibley as at a cabin on a mountain-side. How
+still and faint and far it seemed at the moment!
+
+At the word of the chauffeur she climbed back into her car, returning to
+the isolation which money now provided for her. And so, girt about with
+velvet and costly wood and gilding, she rode up through the tearing
+throngs of the wharf, whirling past cars and trucks, outspeeding cabs
+and carriages, protected by a gambler's name, royally isolated and
+defensible by his money. As she spun through Fifth Avenue, so smooth of
+pave, so crowded, so sparkling, so far-reaching in its suggestions of
+security and power, the girl's soul entered upon a new and fierce phase
+of its struggle.
+
+It was a larger and more absorbing fairy story than any in the _Arabian
+Nights_. Without Marshall Haney, without the gold he brought, she could
+never have even looked upon this scene. She would at this moment have
+been standing inside her little counter at the Golden Eagle, selling
+cigars to some brakeman or cowboy. Ed Winchell would be coming to ask
+her, as usual, to marry him, and her mother would still be toiling in
+the hot kitchen or be at rest in her grave. Did ever Aladdin's lamp
+translate its owner farther or lift him higher? Was not her refusal to
+be Marshall Haney's wife the basest ingratitude?
+
+Not merely so, but the girl felt in herself potentialities not yet drawn
+upon, unlimited capabilities leading towards the accomplishment of good.
+Money had not merely the magic of exalting, educating, refining, and
+ennobling the individual (herself); it had radiating, transforming power
+for others. It could diffuse warmth like a flame, and send forth joy
+like a bell. "With it I am safe, strong: I can help the poor. Without it
+I am only a struggling girl, like millions of others, with no chance and
+no power to aid those who suffer." But at this point her love re-entered
+and her sense of right was confused. After all the heart ruled.
+
+At the hotel entrance the head porter was waiting to help her out, and
+the chauffeur, without a word or look of reminder, puffed away, secure
+in the reputation Lucius had given to Haney. As she went to her room the
+maid met her with gentle solicitude, and, after attending to her needs,
+considerately withdrew, leaving her deep-sunk in troubled musing.
+
+Up to the coming of Ben Fordyce she had accepted all that Haney gave her
+as from one good friend to another. Once having satisfied herself that
+the money was clean of any taint from gambling-hall and saloon, she had
+not hesitated to use it. But now something was rising within her which
+changed the current of her purpose. Haney was no longer before the bar
+of her conscience; the soul under question was her own. Dimly, yet with
+ever-growing definiteness, she saw the moment of decision approach. She
+must soon decide whether to continue on the smooth, broad highway with
+Haney, or to return to the mountain-trail from which he had taken her.
+
+While still she sat sombrely looking out over the city's roofs,
+Humiston's card was brought to her, and at the moment, in her loneliness
+and doubt, he seemed like an old friend. "Tell him to come up," she
+said, with instant cordiality, and her face shone with innocent pleasure
+when she met him. "I'm mighty glad to see you," she frankly said, in
+greeting.
+
+He misconceived her feeling, and took advantage of it to retain her
+hand. "I assure you I am delighted to find _you_ again."
+
+"I thought you'd forgot us."
+
+His eyes expressed a bold admiration as he answered: "I have done
+nothing but remember you. I've been in Pittsburg (only got back to town
+yesterday), and here I am." He looked about. "Where is the Captain?"
+
+She withdrew her hand. "He's out looking for his father. He'll return
+soon. He's liable to look in any minute now."
+
+"You are lovelier than ever. How is the Captain?"
+
+"Pretty well. He gets tired fairly easy, but he feels better than he
+did."
+
+His look of eager intensity embarrassed her. After a little pause, he
+remarked: "I am holding you to your promise. Can't you come over to my
+studio this afternoon?"
+
+"No, not to-day. I must be here when the Captain comes. He may bring the
+old father along, and he'd feel lost if I should be gone. Maybe I could
+come to-morrow."
+
+"Don't bring the Captain unless you have to--he'll be bored," he said,
+in the hope that she would get his full meaning. "I want to introduce
+you to some friends of mine."
+
+"Oh, don't do that!" she protested. "I'm afraid of your friends--they're
+all so way-wised while I am hardly bridle-broke."
+
+"You need not fear," he replied; "you are most to be envied. No one can
+have more than health, wealth, and youth and beauty. I would not
+hesitate to introduce you anywhere." His admiration was so outspoken, so
+choicely worded, that she could not distrust him, though Mrs. Moss had
+more than once hinted to her that he was not to be entirely honored. "He
+isn't a man to be careless with," she had once said, and yet he seemed
+so high-minded, so profoundly concerned with the beautiful world of art.
+How could a single-hearted Western girl believe ill of him? He could
+not be evil in the ways in which men were wicked in Sibley. His
+sensitive face was too weary and his eyes too sad.
+
+He was adroit enough to make his call short, and withdrew, leaving a
+very pleasant impression in her mind. She felt distinctly less lonely,
+now that she knew he was in the city, and she was still at the window
+musing about him when Haney returned, bringing his father with him.
+
+The elder Haney interested and amused her in spite of her
+perplexities--he was so quaintly of the old type of Irishman and so
+absurdly small to be the father of a giant. He carried a shrewd and
+kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
+line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
+calmer.
+
+With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
+dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
+awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
+self-possession.
+
+"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
+retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me--after the day he first
+thrun me down, the big gawk."
+
+Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
+'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"
+
+Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
+warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."
+
+It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
+"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
+is green--the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
+to the tooth-factory."
+
+"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."
+
+"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
+baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
+and be gay."
+
+Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
+may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
+man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."
+
+"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
+prospect in--so don't fuss."
+
+Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"
+
+"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
+'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
+at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
+take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
+recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
+telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
+said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
+'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
+every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
+So here he is--scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
+gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
+left the old sod." Here his face became sadly tender. "I wish the mother
+was alive, too; I'd make her rustle in silks, so I would. Heaven rest
+her!"
+
+The father's face grew suddenly accusing in line. "Ye waited too long,
+ye vagabond. Yer change of heart comes too late."
+
+"I know it--I know it! But I could never find time till a man with a
+shotgun pointed the way to it. Now I have all the time there is, and
+she's gone."
+
+In this moment of passing shadow Bertha caught a glimpse of the
+significance of the scene--of the wonder, almost alarm, which filled the
+old man's heart as he stood there scared of the flaming splendor of the
+room into which the sunlight fell, exaggerating its gold and pink and
+green, but bringing out the excellence of the furnishing, the richness
+of the silk tapestry.
+
+The old man touched a gilded chair tenderly, and Mart cried out: "Lay
+hold, man, 'twill not rub off! Sit down and look about ye! Out with your
+new pipe and smoke up!"
+
+He took a seat with forced confidence, and looked about him. "I wish
+Donahue and Kate could see this."
+
+Mart turned a quietly humorous eye on Bertha. "Not this trip. I couldn't
+manage Kate," he explained. "She looks like Fan--only more so; and she
+has a litter o' young Donahues would make ye wonder could the world have
+room for them all."
+
+Haney the elder had something more than the bog-trotter in him, for as
+he grew towards a little more assurance that Mart would not be thrown
+out of his hotel for non-payment of bills, he settled down to enjoy his
+glass of rare whiskey and a costly cigar with an assumption of ease that
+almost deceived the maid, though Lucius, being in the secret, watched
+him anxiously for fear he might expectorate on the rug.
+
+Mart had some "p'otographs" of his house in the Springs, and showed them
+to Patrick. "Do ye see yerself smokin' a pipe on that porch?"
+
+"I do not," the father energetically replied. "I see meself goin' the
+rounds of that garden with a waterin'-pot and a pair of shears."
+
+"I thought ye was a bricklayer, or is it a billiard-marker?" asked Mart,
+with quizzical look.
+
+"I can turn me hand to anny honest work," he replied, with dignity. "An'
+can ye say as much?"
+
+"I cannot," confessed Mart. "Had ye put a club to me back and foorced me
+to a trade, sure I'd be layin' brick in Troy this day."
+
+This retort fairly blinded the sturdy little father. The charge was
+false, and yet here sat Mart--a gentleman. While still he puzzled over
+the dangerous acknowledgment involved in his son's accusation, Mart
+turned to Bertha. "Do ye mind the old man's spendin' the rest of his
+days with us, darlin'?"
+
+"You're the doctor, Mart. It's your house, not mine."
+
+He felt the change in her. "Oh no, it isn't; it's _our_ house. I never
+would have had it only for you." He paused a moment. "The dad is a
+well-meaning old rascal, and I'll go bail he don't do mischief."
+
+Patrick took this up. "He is so, and he means to kape to his own way of
+life. If I go West, me b'y, 'tis on wages as a gardener--and, bedad,
+I'll draw 'em reg'ler, too. I'd like well to go West ('twould rejice me
+to see Fan and McArdle), and I don't object to spendin' a year with you
+in Coloraydo, but don't think Patrick Haney is to be pinsioner on anny
+one, not even his son."
+
+Bertha's heart vibrated in sympathy with this note of independence, and
+she heartily said: "I hope you will come, Mr. Haney. The Captain is
+alone a good deal, and you'd be a comfort to him."
+
+"I'll consider," the old man said. "I must have time to rea-lize it," he
+quaintly added. "I must smoke me pipe in me own garret once more, and
+talk it all over with Kate and the Donahues." He refused to stay to
+dinner with them (which was a relief to Lucius), and went away jaunty as
+a bucko from County Clare.
+
+He was no sooner gone from the room than Bertha turned to her husband,
+and said: "Mart, I want to talk things over with you."
+
+Something in her voice, as well as in the words, made him turn quickly
+and regard her anxiously.
+
+"What about? What is it, darlin'?"
+
+"I have something on my mind, and I've got to spit it out before I can
+rest to-night. I've just about decided to leave you. I don't feel right
+livin' with you."
+
+He looked at her steadily, but a gray pallor began to show on his face.
+He asked, quietly: "Do ye mean to go fer good?"
+
+Her heart was beating fast, but she bravely faced him. "Yes, Mart, I
+don't feel right living with you, and spending your money the way I've
+been doing."
+
+"Why not? It isn't mine--it's yours. Ye airn every cent ye spend."
+
+"No, I don't!" she cried, passionately. "Now that you're getting better
+and Lucius has come, I'm not even a nurse."
+
+"I'll send him away."
+
+"No, no; he's worth more than I am."
+
+"I'll not listen to such talk, Bertie. Ye well know you're the thing
+most precious to me. I can't live without ye." His voice thickened. "For
+God A'mighty's sake, don't say such things; they make me heart shake! Me
+teeth are chatterin' this minute! Ye're jokin'; say you don't mean it."
+
+"But I do. Don't you see that I can't stay and let you do things for me
+like this"--she indicated their apartment--"when I do so little to earn
+it all? Mart, I've got to be honest about it. I can't let you spend any
+more money on me. Help your own people, and let me go. I do nothing to
+pay for what you do for me. It's better for me to go."
+
+She could not bring herself to be as explicit as she should have been,
+but he was not far from understanding her real meaning, as he brokenly
+replied: "I've been afraid of this, my girl. I've thought of it all. The
+money I spend fer ye is but a small part of my debt. You say you do
+nothing for me. Why, darlin', every time you come into the room or smile
+at me you do much for me! I'm a selfish old wolf, but I'm not so bad as
+you think I am. If anny nice young felly comes along--a good square
+man--I'll get off the track; but I want you to let me stay near you as
+long as I live." His voice was hoarse with pleading. "Ye're all I have
+in the world; all I live for now is to make you happy. Don't pull away
+now, when me old heart has grown all round ye. I can't live and I
+daren't die without ye--now that's the eternal truth. Darlin', promise
+ye won't go--yet awhile."
+
+Wordless, as full of pain as he, she sat silently weeping, unable to
+carry out her resolution--unable to express the change which had come
+into her life.
+
+He went on. "I mark the difference between us. I see ye goin' up while I
+am goin' down. My heart is big with pride in ye. You belong with people
+like the Congdons and the Mosses--whilst I am only an old broken-down
+skate. I'm worse than you know. I went down to Sibley first with hell in
+me heart towards you, but that soon passed away--I loved ye as a man
+should love the girl he marries--and I love ye now as I love the saints.
+I wouldn't mar your young life fer anything in this world--'tis me wish
+to lave you as beautiful and fresh as I found you, and to give you all I
+have besides--so stay with me, if you can, till the other man comes."
+Here a new thought intruded. "Has he come now? Tell me if he has. Did ye
+find him in Chicago? Be honest, darlin'."
+
+"No, no!" she answered. "It isn't that. It's just because--because it
+don't seem right."
+
+"Then ye must stay with me," he said, "and don't worry about not doing
+things for me. You do things for me every minute--just by being in the
+world. If I can see ye or hear ye I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
+from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
+ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
+left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
+ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"
+
+She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.
+
+His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
+say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do--"
+
+"Oh no; I like him."
+
+"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
+that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
+don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
+out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
+voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
+me--now--I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
+name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
+is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
+die--I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
+Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SERPENT'S COIL
+
+
+Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
+Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
+ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
+alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
+the libertine demands novelty--where struggle is essential, and to
+conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.
+
+He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
+and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
+won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him--pleased him. "She is no silly
+kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
+a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
+far, and I will be her guide--unless I have lost my cunning. She will
+share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."
+
+He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
+smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
+have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
+gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
+place. But sit down while I boil some tea. My friends who own this
+work-shop are out; they'll be in soon."
+
+"I don't believe I can stay to-day. The Captain is below."
+
+"Please do sit down for a moment. I'll be hurt if you don't."
+
+The studio was a big bare barn of a place with a few broad canvases upon
+the walls--not a bit like Humiston; and he explained that his stay in
+America being short, he could not afford to have a studio of his own.
+"I'm glad you came. You must let me take you to see my 'show' next week.
+Your fresh, young, Western eyes are just what I need." This was false,
+for he was impatient of all criticism. "I need comfort," he added,
+wearily smiling. "I didn't sell enough in the West to pay my railway
+fare."
+
+He seemed ill as well as sad, and Bertha felt sorry for him. "Won't you
+come with us for a ride?"
+
+"I'd rather have you stay and talk with me."
+
+"Oh, I can't do that! The Captain is waiting for me. He said to bring
+you."
+
+"But I don't want to go. I hate automobiles. I hate seeing sights. I
+despise this town. I've a grouch against everything in America--except
+you. Let me go down and tell the Captain to take his spin alone."
+
+"No, no," she sharply said. "I keep my word. I said I'd be back in a few
+minutes, and I'm going."
+
+He sighed resignedly. "Very well; but you'll let me come to see you?"
+
+"Why, cert! Come to dinner any day. We don't browse around much outside
+the hotel. We're mostly always feeding at six."
+
+"I'll come, and you must not fail to let me show you my pictures."
+
+"Sure thing! I want to buy one to take home with me."
+
+He assumed great candor. "I won't say that your ability to buy one of my
+pictures is not of interest to me, for it is; but quite aside from that,
+there is something in you that appeals to me. You make me think better
+of the West--of America. I feel that you will find something in my
+pictures which the critics miss." Then, with mournful abruptness, he
+added: "No doubt Joe told you of my unhappy marriage--"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"My wife cares nothing for my work. She takes no interest in anything
+but the frippery side of life. That's what appeals to me in you--you are
+so aspiring. I feel that you have such wonderful possibilities. You
+would spur a man to big things."
+
+They were both standing as if he had forgotten where he was, and she,
+embarrassed but fascinated by his words, and especially held by his
+voice, dared not make a motion till he released her. He looked round
+him. "I don't wonder you dislike this room; it's horribly cold and
+depressing to me. I can't work here. I wish you could see my den in
+Paris. Perhaps you will let me show it to you some day. All my happiest
+days have been spent in France. I am more French than American now."
+
+He took her hand again, and with a return to his studiedly cheerful
+manner called her to witness that she had promised to come to see his
+paintings. "And please remember that I am going to take you at your word
+and dine with you--perhaps this very night."
+
+"All right, come along," she replied, and went away filled with wonder
+at the familiar, almost humble attitude he had assumed towards her.
+
+He did indeed dine with them that night, and quite won the Captain to a
+belief in him. "Come again," he heartily said. And the great artist
+feelingly answered: "I mean to, for, strange to say, I am almost as
+lonesome in this big town as anybody could be." This was a lie, but
+Haney's sympathy was roused. "There'll always be an empty chair for
+you," he repeated, with a feeling that he, too, was encouraging art.
+
+Humiston pursued this game with singular and joyous skill. He talked of
+the West and of politics with the Captain, and of love and art and his
+essentially lonely life to Bertha. He returned often to the wish that
+they might meet in Paris. "A trip abroad would do you infinite good," he
+insisted. "What you need is three years of life in Paris. With your
+beauty and money, and, above all, with your personal magnetism, you
+could reign like a queen. I wonder that you don't go. It would be worth
+more to you than any other possible schooling. I don't know of anything
+in this world that would give me greater pleasure than to show you
+Paris."
+
+Bertha's silence in face of these approaches deceived him. The throbbing
+of her bosom, the fall of her eyelashes, were due to instinctive
+distrust of him. That he was more dangerous than the rough miners and
+cowboys of the West she could not believe, and yet she drew back in
+growing fear of one who openly claimed the right to plow athwart all the
+barriers of law and custom. His mind's flight was like that of the
+eagle--now rising to the sun in exultation, now falling to the gray sea
+to slay. At times she felt a kind of gratitude that he should be willing
+to sit beside her and talk--he, so skilled, so learned, so famous.
+
+The Chicago papers were still filled with criticism of his work and his
+theories, and this discussion, as well as the appearance of his portrait
+in the magazines, had made of him a very exalted person in little Mrs.
+Haney's eyes, and the interest he took in her was too subtly flattering
+not to affect her. He seemed fond of the Captain, too, and often joined
+them in their trips about the city, and the fellows who had known
+Humiston in Paris and who did not know Bertha nodded knowingly. "Jerry's
+amusing himself, as usual. I wonder who she is?"
+
+He explained his poverty one day as he sat with her in the little
+gallery where his paintings were hung. "The fact is, while other men
+have been painting to order and doing 'stunts' for the Salon, I've gone
+on refining, seeking new shades, new allurements, subordinating line to
+color, story to harmony, till my work is sublimated beyond my public.
+The people that bought my things once can't follow me; it is only now
+and then that a man, or a woman _feels_ what I'm after--and so I live. I
+hold all things beautiful to paint, America does not."
+
+He liked her all the better because she did not try to say what she
+thought of his pictures, and when she insisted on taking one of them
+home he quickly stopped her. "I'm not asking you to take pity on me," he
+sharply said. And in this lay the subtlest touch of flattery he had yet
+used: the idea that she, an ignorant mountain girl, could be accused of
+patronizing a man so distinguished, so gifted as he, moved her in spite
+of all warnings. Why should she not use her money to help this wonderful
+artist?
+
+She insisted on a picture, and asked him to select one for her. "I've
+got a big house out in the Springs, and I'd like something of yours."
+
+"Not out of this collection," he declared. "These are not the ones on
+which my fame rests. The ones that represent me are in the cellar."
+
+Her eyes were wide in question. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"American dealers won't include my best things in the exhibit--they are
+too 'direct.' They are stored over here in a warehouse. I'd like to show
+them to you. Will you come?" he asked, with eager eyes.
+
+And she, with a sense of being distinguished above the great public,
+consented. Humiston rose animatedly. "Let's go over and see them now."
+
+His gentle _camaraderie_, his eagerness, touched Bertha, and when he
+took her arm to help her into the elevator or to make sure she did not
+stumble at the crossing she was stirred--not as Ben's hand had moved
+her, but her blood nevertheless palpably quickened. Was it not wonderful
+that she, so lately from the mountains, should be walking here in the
+midst of the thronging multitudes of a great city street in the company
+of one of the chief artists of the world?
+
+Humiston, crafty, cruel, unscrupulous, returned to his abuse of the
+city, and explained to her that American dealers had no real
+appreciation of art. "They sell anything that will sell, any cheap daub,
+and yet they dared to refuse to exhibit my best things! It was the same
+in Pittsburg and Buffalo; they're all alike. But what can you expect of
+these densely material towns? Beauty means only prettiness to them."
+
+The salesman of the shop, accustomed to seeing Humiston pass in and out
+with friends, paid no special heed to the painter as he led Bertha into
+the farther room, where a few of his pictures hung among a dozen others.
+No one was in the gallery, and just as she was wondering where the other
+paintings could be, he opened a door (which was cut out of the wall and
+partly concealed by paintings), and smilingly said: "Here is the inner
+temple. Enter."
+
+She obeyed with a little hesitation, for the storeroom was not well
+lighted, and she had a wild bird's distrust of dark, enclosing walls.
+
+Humiston shut the door behind him and followed her, plaintively saying:
+"Isn't it hard lines to have to bring my friends into this hole to show
+my masterpieces?" And by this she inferred that there was nothing
+unusual in the experience.
+
+It was a long, bare hall, filled with boxes and littered with bits of
+excelsior, and Bertha looked about her uneasily while Humiston bent over
+some canvases stacked on the floor. He seemed to be selecting one with
+care. An electric lamp was swinging from the ceiling, and under it stood
+a large easel, and on this he placed a canvas, and, stepping back with
+eyes fixed on her, said with spirit: "This is one of my best. It was in
+the new Salon--here is the number. And yet it may not be exhibited in
+this rotten town."
+
+Bertha inwardly recoiled from the canvas, for it was a painting of a
+nude figure of a girl at the bath. The critics had said, "It is naked,
+rather than nude," and the dealers objected to it on this ground, and to
+the Western girl it was both shocking and ugly. Before she had caught
+her breath he continued, in a tone that was at once a seduction and a
+defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female
+form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And
+then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of
+beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher,
+he placed another canvas before her--something so unrefined, so animal,
+so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one
+looking upon it would instantly know that the man who had painted it was
+a degenerate demon--an associate of dissolute models, an anarchist in
+the world of women. It was fit only for the banquet-halls of the damned.
+
+Bertha stared at it--fascinated by the sense of the tempter's nearness.
+It was as if a satyr had suddenly revealed his lawless soul to her. Her
+thinking for an instant chained her feet, and her silence emboldened
+him.
+
+Even as she turned to flee she felt his arm about her waist, his breath
+upon her cheek. "Don't go!" he pleaded, and in his eyes was the same
+look she had seen in the face of Charles Haney. At last he stood
+revealed. His artist soul could stoop as low in purpose as a drunken
+tramp. Beating him off with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and
+burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of
+affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in
+wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing
+herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked
+slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger and shame.
+
+It seemed at the moment as if every man she had ever known was a
+brute-demon seeking to destroy her. She understood now the reason for
+the great painter's flattering deference to her opinion. From the first
+he had sought to blind her. His ways were subtler than those of Charles
+Haney and his like, but his soul was no higher; it was indeed more
+ignoble, for he was of those who claim to dispense learning and light.
+Pretending to add beauty to the world, he was ready to feed himself at
+the cost of a woman's soul. She recalled Mrs. Moss' hints about his life
+in Paris, and understood at last that he had wilfully misread her homage
+and trust. A realization of this perfidy filled her with a fury of hate
+and disgust. Was Ben Fordyce like all the rest? Did his candor, his
+sweetness of smile, but veil another mode of approach? Was his kiss as
+vile in its disloyalty, his embrace as remorseless in its design?
+
+She walked back along the shining avenue to her hotel with drooping
+head. She knew the worst of Humiston now. She burned with helpless wrath
+as she dwelt upon his assumptions of superiority. She hated the whole
+glittering, unresting, lavish city at the moment, and her soul longed
+for the silence of the peaks to the west. She turned to her husband as
+one who seeks a tower of refuge in time of war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BERTHA'S FLIGHT
+
+
+Before she had fairly recovered her poise next day Lucius brought to her
+a letter from Humiston--a suave, impudent note wherein he expressed the
+hope that she was well, and went on to plead in veiled phrase: "I'm
+sorry you did not stay to see the rest of my pictures. I meant it all as
+a compliment to your innate good taste and purity of thought. I expected
+you to see them as I painted them--in pure artistic delight. You
+misunderstood me. I hope you will let me see you again. You must
+remember you promised to let me make a portrait sketch of you."
+
+Although not skilled in polite duplicity, Bertha was able to read
+beneath the serene insolence of these lines something so diabolically
+relentless that she turned cold with fear and repulsion. She had no
+experience which fitted her to deal with such a pursuer, and she
+shuddered at the rustling of the paper in her hand as she had once
+quivered in breathless terror of a rattlesnake stirring in the leaves
+near the door of her tent. Her first impulse was to lay the whole affair
+before the Captain, but the knowledge of his deadly temper when roused
+decided her to slip out at the other side of this fearsome thicket and
+leave the serpent in possession. She longed to return to the West. The
+little group of people in the Springs allured her; they were to be
+trusted. Congdon and Crego and Ben--these men she knew and respected.
+Her joy of the big outside Eastern world had begun to pass, and she
+dreaded to encounter again the bold eyes and coarse compliments of the
+men who loaf about the hotels and clubs.
+
+She turned to Haney as he came into her room, and said: "Mart, I want to
+go home--to-day."
+
+"All right, Bertie, I'm ready--or will be, as soon as I pick up the old
+father. But don't you want to see that show we've got tickets for?"
+
+"No, I've had enough of this old town. I'm crazy to go home."
+
+"Home it is, then." He called sharply; "Lucius!" The man appeared,
+impassive, noiseless, unhurried. The Captain issued his orders: "Thrun
+me garbage into a thrunk, and call some one to help the missus; we're
+goin' to hit the sunset trail to-night. 'Phone me old dad besides, and
+have him come over at wanst. Here we emigrate westward by the next
+express."
+
+The man quietly took control of the situation, and in a few moments the
+Captain's commands were being carried out with the precision of a
+military camp.
+
+Bertha, alarmed by Humiston's letter, refused to go down to the public
+dining-room. A fear that she might encounter the painter possessed her,
+and the thought of him was at once a shame and torment; therefore, she
+had her luncheon sent up, and Lucius himself found time to wait upon
+them.
+
+As they were in the midst of their meal, Haney remarked rather than
+asked: "Of course, you're going back with us, Lucius."
+
+"I have thought of it, sir, but it isn't in our contract."
+
+"We can put it in," said Bertha.
+
+"We can't do without you now," added Mart.
+
+Lucius seemed pleased. "Thank you for that, Captain. I don't
+particularly care for the West, but I find service with you agreeable."
+
+Haney chuckled. "Service, do ye call it? Sure, man, 'tis you are in
+command. I'm but a high private in the rear rank."
+
+Lucius's yellow face flushed and his eyes wavered. "I hope I haven't
+assumed--"
+
+"Assumed! No, 'tis we who are obligated. We need you as bad as a
+plainsman needs a guide in the green timber; and if you don't mind a
+steady job of looking after us social tenderfeet, I'm willing to make it
+right with you--and Mrs. Haney feels just the way I do."
+
+"Sure, Mart--only trouble with Lucius is, he leaves so little for me to
+do. He's _too_ handy--if anything."
+
+"That'll wear off," replied Haney. "Well, then, it's all settled but the
+price, and I reckon we can fix that. If I can't pay cash, I'll let you
+in on the mine."
+
+Lucius smiled. "Thank you, Captain; it's not entirely a question of pay
+with me; my wants are few."
+
+Bertha seized the moment to put a question she had been minded many
+times to ask. "Lucius, what's your plan? You can't intend to do this all
+your life? Tell us your ambition--maybe we can help you."
+
+He looked away, and a deeper shadow fell over his face. "I had ambitions
+once, Mrs. Haney, but my color was against me. Yes, I think I'll stay as
+I am. There is a certain security in being valet. You white people know
+exactly where to find me, and I know just how to meet you. In my
+profession it was different--I was always being cursed for presumption."
+
+"What was your profession?" asked Haney.
+
+"I studied law--and practised for a year or two in Washington; but I
+didn't like my position; I was neither white nor colored, so when I got
+a good chance I went out to service with a senator as body-servant." He
+stopped abruptly as though that were all of his tale.
+
+Haney said: "Well, if you can put up with an ignorant old hill-climber
+like meself, I'll be grateful, and I'll try not rub your fur the wrong
+way."
+
+Lucius became very earnest for the first time. "There, sir, is one point
+upon which I must insist. If I go with you, you are to treat me just as
+you have been doing--as a trusted servant. I'm sorry I told you anything
+about myself. My service thus far has been very pleasant, very
+satisfactory, and unless we can go on in the same way, I must leave."
+
+"Very well," replied Haney. "It's all settled--you're adjutant-general
+of the Haneys' forces."
+
+After Lucius went away Bertha said, thoughtfully: "I wish he hadn't told
+us that; I can't order him around the way I've been doing."
+
+Haney smiled. "Did ye order him around? I niver chanced to hear ye do
+anything but ask him questions. 'Lucius, will ye do this?' 'Lucius,
+won't ye do that?'"
+
+Bertha was troubled, and found herself embarrassed by the mulatto's
+services. She now perceived sadness beneath the quiet lines of his face
+and hard-won culture in the tones of his voice. The essential tragedy of
+his defeat grew more poignant to her as she watched him getting the
+trunks strapped, surrounded by maids and porters. How could she have
+misread his manner? He was performing his duties, not with quiet gusto,
+but in the spirit of the trained nurse.
+
+This mountain girl had always regarded Illinois as "the East," but after
+a few weeks in New York City she now looked away to Chicago as a Western
+town. She was glad to face the sunset sky again, and yet as she wheeled
+away to the train she acknowledged a regret. Under the skilful guidance
+of Lucius she had seen a great deal of the splendid and furious
+Manhattan. She had gazed with unenvious admiration on the palaces of
+upper Fifth Avenue and the Park. Together with Haney she had spun up
+Riverside Drive, past Grant's Tomb, and on through Washington Heights,
+with joy of the far-spreading panorama. She had visited the Battery and
+sailed the shining way to Staten Island in silent awe of the ship-filled
+bay. She had heard the sunset-guns thunder at Fort Hamilton, and had
+threaded the mazes of the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and each day the
+mast-hemmed island widened in grandeur and thickened with threads of
+human purpose, making the America she knew very simple, very quiet, and
+very remote.
+
+Night by night she had gone to the music-halls and theatres, and her
+mind had been powerfully wrought upon by what she had seen and heard. In
+all these trips Haney had heroically accompanied his wife, though he
+frequently dropped asleep in his seat; and he, too, left the city with
+regret, though he said, "Thank God, I'm out of it," as they settled into
+their seats in the ferry. "'Tis not the night traffic that wears me
+down--I'm used to being on the night shift; 'tis the wild pace Lucius
+sets by day. Faith, 'twas the aquarium in the morning and the circus in
+the afternoon. Me dreams have been wan long procession of misbegotten
+fish, ballet-dancers, dirty monkeys, and big elephants the nights. 'Tis
+a great city, but I am ready to return to me peaceful perch above the
+faro-board; I think 'twould rest me soul to see a game of craps."
+
+"Why didn't you order Lucius to let up on the sight-seeing business?"
+Bertha said.
+
+"And expose me weak knees to me nigger? No, no, Mike."
+
+"I wanted you to let me rummage about alone."
+
+"You did. But I could not allow that, neyther. So long as I can sit the
+road-cart or run me arms into a biled shirt I'll stay by, darlin'. 'Tis
+not safe for you to go about alone in the hell-broth of these Eastern
+streets. Besides, while I'm losin' weight I'm lighter on me feet than
+when I came. I've enjoyed me trip, but it does seem sinful to think of
+our big house standing empty and the horses 'stockin'' in their stalls,
+and I'm glad we're edgin' along homeward."
+
+"So am I," Bertha heartily agreed, even as she looked lovingly back upon
+the mighty walls and towers which filled the sky behind her. It was a
+gloriously exciting place to live in, after all. "Some day I may come
+back," she promised herself, but the thought of Humiston lurking like a
+wolf in the shadow came to make her going more and more like an escape.
+
+The elder Haney amused her by his frank comment on everything that was
+strange to him. His new teeth, which did not fit him very securely,
+troubled him greatly, and he spoke with one hand held alertly, ready to
+catch them if they fell, but his smile was a radiant grin, and his
+shrewd old face was good to look at as he faced the splendors of the
+limited express.
+
+"'Tis foine as a bar-room," said he. "To be whisked about over the world
+like this is no hairdship. Bedad, if I'd known how aisy it was I'd a
+visited McArdle befoore." He pretended to believe that everybody
+travelled this way, and that Mart was merely doing the ordinary in the
+matter of meals and state-room; and as he wandered from end to end of
+the train and found only luxurious coaches, and people taking their
+ease, he had all the best of the argument. Lucius he regarded as a man
+of his own level, and they held long confabulations together--the
+colored man accepting this comradeship in the spirit of democracy in
+which it was given. Mart, for his part, sat looking out of the window,
+dreaming of the past.
+
+As she neared Chicago next day Bertha thought with pleasure of seeing
+the Mosses again. Now that Humiston was eliminated, she had only the
+pleasantest memories of the people she had met in the smoky city. It was
+as if in a dark forest of lofty trees she had found a pleasant mead on
+which the warm sunlight fell. The mellow charm of the studios was made
+all the more appealing by reason of the drab and desolate waste through
+which she was forced to pass to attain the light and laughter of those
+high places.
+
+Chicago had grown more gloomily impressive, and at the same time--by
+reason of her knowledge of the larger plans and mightier enterprises of
+New York--it seemed simpler, and Bertha re-entered the hotel which had
+once dazzled her in confidence, finding it cheerful and familiar. She
+liked it all the better because it was less pretentious. It gave her a
+pleasant sense of getting back home to have the men in buttons smile and
+say, "Glad to see you, Mrs. Haney." The head clerk was very cordial; he
+even found time to come out and shake hands. "I can't give you precisely
+your old quarters," he said, "but I can fix you out on the next floor.
+I'm sure you'll be very comfortable." Thereupon she took up her quietly
+luxurious life at the point where she had dropped it some weeks before.
+
+There lay in this Western girl a strongly marked tendency towards the
+culture and refinement of the East; and, though she had grown up far
+from anything aesthetic in home-life, she instinctively knew and loved
+the beautiful in nature, the right thing in art; and now that she was
+about to leave the East for the West--perhaps to abandon the town for
+the village--she found herself aching with a hunger which had hitherto
+been unconscious. She was torn with desire to go and a longing to stay.
+New York, Paris, the world, was open before her if only she were content
+to take Marshall Haney's money and use it to these ends.
+
+That night as she lay in her bed hearing the rumble and jar of the
+city's traffic, her mind recalled and dwelt upon the wonderful scenes,
+especially the beautiful pictures which her eyes had gleaned from the
+East. The magical, glittering spread of Manhattan harbor, the silver
+sweep of the Hudson at West Point, the mighty panorama from Grant's
+Tomb, the silken sheen of Fifth Avenue on a rainy night, the crash and
+glitter of upper Broadway, the splendid halls of art, literature, and
+especially of music and the drama--all these came back one by one to
+claim a place beside her peaks and canons, sharing the glory of the
+purple deeps and the snowy heights of the mountains she had hitherto
+loved so single-heartedly and so well.
+
+She saw Sibley now for what it was--a village almost barren of beauty--a
+good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there
+to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to
+do here--in the East. I can't stand Sibley."
+
+She longed for the Springs because of her home there and because of
+Ben--but she realized that it possessed, after all, but very limited
+opportunities for the purchase of culture. The great centres had begun
+to exercise dominion over her. She had ever been a lonely little soul,
+with no confidante of her own sex. Speech had never been fluent with
+her, and she was still elliptical, curt, and in a sense inexpressive.
+She had no chatter, and the ways of women were in many directions alien
+to her. Miss Franklin had been her teacher, and yet, while respecting
+her, she had never learned to love her. Next to Ben Fordyce she leaned
+upon the judgment and sympathy of the sculptor, whose fine eyes were
+aglow with a high purpose. She was certain that he was both good and
+wise.
+
+Mart was much amused at his father, who refused to sleep a second night
+at the hotel. "It's too far from the street," said he. "I think I'll go
+stay with Fan if ye'll lay out the course that leads to her dure." So
+Lucius went with him, bearing a message from Haney: "Tell Fan I'll be
+over to see her to-morrow. I'm too tired to go to-day," and the father
+hurried away in joyous relief.
+
+"'Tis unnatural to see a son of mine in such Babylonish splendor," he
+confided to Lucius. "Faith, it gives me a turn every time I see him
+unwind a bill from that big wad he carries in his pocket. 'Tis like
+palin' a red onion to him--nothing more."
+
+The Captain was up early next day, and eager to see how his sister was
+getting along in her new house, and to please him Bertha went with him.
+The transposition of the McArdles, like most charitable enterprises, had
+not been entirely a success. The children had blubbered at being torn
+away from their playmates and the alleys and runways which they
+infested. They were like lusty rats suddenly let loose in a fine new
+barn with no dark corners, no burrows, no rotten planks, chips, or
+coal-heaps to dig into or hide beneath. The alleys in Glenwood were
+leafy lanes, the streets parked and concreted, and the school-yard
+unnaturally clean and shaded by fine young trees--which no one was
+allowed to climb.
+
+Furthermore, there was work to do in the garden--and this was onerous to
+the boys. Then, too, they had to fight their battles all over again.
+However, they did this with pleasure, establishing dreadful reputations
+among the neat, knickerbocker "sissies" who were foolish enough to cross
+them. Dress, Mrs. McArdle declared, was now a real trial. The girls had
+to be "in trim all the time," and the boys were as violently in contrast
+to their fellows as a litter of brindle barn-kits beside a well-groomed
+tabby-cat's family. "I'm clean worn out with it, Mart," she confessed.
+"We've been here two weeks the day, and the children howlin' the whole
+time to go back and McArdle workin' himself to the figger of a spoon
+with a mind to polish the lawn and get the garden into seed."
+
+But Mart only smiled. "'Tis good discipline, Fan."
+
+Haney senior was delighted with his daughter's household. "Faith, the
+roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer.
+Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and
+p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it--snappin'
+and snarlin', but happy as a box of pups."
+
+His son and daughter looked at each other and laughed; then Mart said:
+"'Tis a sad memory the father has, a most inconvenient and embarrassing
+mind."
+
+They all stayed to dinner, and Bertha rolled up her sleeves and helped
+in the kitchen while the Captain went to market with Lucius. McArdle
+having got a half-day off, came home highly wrought up again at thought
+of meeting Captain Haney and his handsome wife. He looked distinctly
+less care-worn, though he confessed that it was hard to rise at the hour
+necessary to reach his work at seven. Bertha's heart warmed to him. In a
+certain dreamy, speculative turn of eye he was like her father--a man
+inventing new forms as naturally as other minds copy worn models. He was
+gaining in conversational powers, as he came to know Mart better, and
+took occasion to lay before him the plans for several inventions, small
+in themselves, but of possible value, so Lucius said.
+
+There was something hearty, wholesome, and satisfying in this visit, and
+Bertha went away with increased liking for the McArdles. "I'm glad you
+gave them a boost, Mart," she said, as they left the house, "and you
+fixed it fine. Mac talked to me a half-hour explaining that you hadn't
+put it on a charity basis--just sold the house on long time."
+
+"That was Lucius's idea. Wasn't it, Lucius?"
+
+Lucius did not appear to hear.
+
+They were whirring down an avenue bordered by elms in expanding leaf,
+the sky was filled with big white clouds like those which come and go
+over the great domes of the Rockies, and the air was warm and sweet, not
+yet dusked by the city's chimneys. Bertha's heart rose on joyous wing.
+"Let's call and take the Mosses for a ride," she suggested.
+
+"With all the pleasure in the world," he replied; and when they drew up
+before the side door of the huge block, Bertha sprang out and hurried in
+without waiting for Lucius to accompany her.
+
+Mrs. Moss came to the studio door, and Bertha's shining face so wrought
+upon her that she seized her and kissed her with sincere pleasure. "Joe,
+here's Mrs. Haney."
+
+Moss was modelling a small figure on a stand near one of the windows,
+but left his work and came towards her with beaming smile. "What a
+coincidence! We were just discussing you. How do you do? Shake my
+arm--my hands are muddy." She took his outbent wrist and shook it with
+frank heartiness. He explained: "I said you'd come back; Julia declared,
+'No. Once she tastes the glories of New York, good-bye to Chicago and
+the West.'"
+
+Bertha interrupted: "I want you to lay off and go out for a whirl in our
+machine."
+
+"How gay!" cried Moss. "I ought to be working, for my rent is coming
+due; but what's the diff? Here goes! Come on, Julia, we'll shut up shop
+and let art wag."
+
+Julia was doubtful. "You know you promised--"
+
+"Of course I did--that's the prerogative of the artist. Come on, now;
+I'll work to-night."
+
+"To-night is the Hall's circus party."
+
+"So it is! Well, no matter. I'm hungry for some whizzing, lashing, cool,
+clear air."
+
+Dodging behind a screen in the corner, like an actor "doing a stunt," he
+reappeared a few moments later with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
+and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
+fishing or swimming.
+
+"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained--"took a
+contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
+to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
+money--now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
+can't breathe country air--had to work all day Sunday."
+
+"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
+children's summer suits."
+
+"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
+when I was a child--and that was a buff."
+
+All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
+how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"
+
+"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
+'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"
+
+"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
+"I'll secure one this week."
+
+Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
+hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
+school-children--even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
+turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
+pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
+powers of money--it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
+wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
+could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.
+
+Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
+Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
+deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
+crystalline.
+
+On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
+green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
+water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
+of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
+far away.
+
+Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
+a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
+boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
+type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
+look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book."
+
+His talk took hold of Bertha's imagination--not because she cared to see
+Chicago adorned, but because he was so singularly altruistic in his
+concernments. That a man should live to make the world more beautiful
+was a wondrous discovery for her. He was not specially troubled about
+the physical welfare or the morals of the average citizen, but the
+city's grossness, its willingness to perpetuate ugly forms, rasped him,
+angered him.
+
+She was eager to tell him of her own change of view, but waited till
+their ride was over and they were seated in the studio and a moment's
+private conversation was possible. Tingling with the stimulus of his
+fragmentary exclamations, she impulsively began: "If I were a poor girl
+who wanted to earn a living in the world, what would you advise me to
+do?"
+
+"Get married!" His answer was jocular, but, observing her displeasure,
+he added: "I'm sorry I said that in just that tone, but at the same time
+I really mean it. A woman can do other things, but marry she must if she
+is to fulfil her place in the world--and be happy."
+
+She was balked and disappointed, he perceived, and he was forced to go
+further: "I certainly wouldn't advise any girl to study painting or
+sculpture in the hope of making a living by it. The only side of art
+that isn't hopelessly out of the running is the decorative--home
+decoration is a sure and worthy profession. People don't feel keen need
+of sculpture, but they do like pretty walls and nice furniture. I know
+several highly successful women decorators--but I wouldn't advise that
+work for any one as an easy way to make a living, for the decorative
+sense is either a gift at birth or acquired after hard study."
+
+"Do they teach it over there?" She nodded towards the lake. "I liked it
+over there," she said, wistfully. "You see I didn't get much of a show
+at school. I began to stay out to help mother when I was fourteen. I
+missed a whole lot. I'd kind o' like to make it up now if I could."
+
+Moss was eager to probe a little deeper. "Your life is thrillingly
+romantic to us--the kind of thing we read of. Congdon writes that you
+have a superb home. I should think you'd hate to leave it, even for a
+visit."
+
+Her hands strained together as if in resistance to an impulse of
+pleading; then she answered: "Yes--but then, you see, it isn't really
+mine--it's the Captain's."
+
+"Yours by marriage."
+
+"That's what people say--but I don't know. Sometimes I think I have no
+right to any part of it. You have to earn what you own, don't you?"
+
+What was this doubt at her heart? The unexplained emotion in her voice
+moved him profoundly. He cautiously approached. "Of course, we know
+Frank Congdon--he likes to 'string' us Easterners and we take his yarns
+with due discount. I suppose Captain Haney, like many other Western men,
+is ready to try his luck now and again, and in that sense really is a
+gambler."
+
+She faced him squarely. "No, he has been the real thing. He kept a
+saloon--when I first knew him, but he gave it all up for me. I wouldn't
+promise to marry him till he did. Everybody out there knows his career,
+and most people think he got his money underhand, but he tells me he
+didn't, and I take his word. Every dollar he spends on me or on our home
+comes out of some mines he owns. I told him I wouldn't touch a dollar of
+the saloon money--and I won't. Some folks think I don't care, but I do.
+I don't like the saloon business, and he got out and he's livin'
+straight now, as straight as any man. It's pretty hard on him, too,
+though he won't admit it. He must get awful sick of sittin' round the
+way he does. I tell him he needn't cut out all his old cronies on my
+account. He says he ain't sufferin', but it's like shuttin' a bronco up
+in the corral and lettin' the herd go back into the hills."
+
+"Perhaps he thinks you're better fun than any of his cronies."
+
+She ignored the implied compliment and went on:
+
+"All the same, it's drawin' mighty close lines on him. You can't take a
+man living a free-and-easy life the way he was and wing him all at once
+and tie him down to a chair without seein' some suffering. Don't you
+know it?"
+
+"Does he complain?"
+
+"Not a whimper. Sometimes I wish he would. No, he just waits--but I'm
+afraid he'll get lonesome some day and break loose and go back to the
+game."
+
+In this way the sculptor had come very close to her secret, and she was
+trembling to deeper confidence, when he said, very gently: "Of course,
+it does seem a little strange to me that one so young and charming as
+you are should be married to a man of his type, but I suppose he was a
+handsome figure before his--accident."
+
+Her eyes glowed. "He was one of the grandest-looking men! I never liked
+his trade--and I mistrusted him, at first; but when he cut himself out
+of the whole business--for me--I couldn't help likin' him; he was so
+big-hearted and free-handed. We needed his help, all right. Mother was
+sick, and my brother's ranch was playing to hard luck. But don't think I
+married him for his money--I liked him then, and, besides--well, I
+_thought_ I was doing the right thing--but now--well, I'm guessing." She
+ended abruptly, and in the tremor of that final word Moss read her
+secret. She had never loved her husband. Pity and a kind of loyalty to
+her word had carried her to his side, and now a sense of duty bound her
+there.
+
+With sincere sympathy, he said: "We all do wrong at times that good may
+come out of it. You could not foresee the future--the best of us can
+_only guess_ at the effect of any action. You did the best you knew at
+the moment. The question you have to face now has only slight relation
+to the past. No one can enter wholly into another's perplexity--I'm not
+even sure of a single one of my inferences--but if you are thinking
+of--separation, I would say, meet this crisis as bravely as you met the
+other. But I don't believe we should decide any such question selfishly.
+I am not of those who always seek the side on which lies personal
+happiness, because a happiness that is essentially selfish won't last.
+The Captain lives only for you--any one can see that. What he does for
+you springs from deep affection. What would happen to him--if you left
+him?"
+
+He paused a moment and watched her subduing her tears; then added: "I
+won't say I was unprepared for what you've said, for the entire
+relationship, from our first meeting, seemed too abnormal to be
+altogether happy. Money will buy a great many desirable things, but it
+has its limits. At the same time, it is too much to expect of you--If
+your feeling for him has changed--"
+
+His delicacy, his sympathy for her, was made apparent by the unusual
+hesitation of his speech, and she would have broken down completely had
+not Julia Moss called out: "Joe, turn on the lights--it's getting dark."
+
+Conscious of Bertha's emotion, he did not immediately do as he was
+bidden. "I wish you'd talk this over with Julia," he ended gently;
+"she's a very wise little woman."
+
+Bertha shook her head. "I didn't intend to talk it over with you. I
+don't know what possessed me. I had no business to say what I did."
+
+He reassured her. "All you've told me and the part I've guessed is quite
+safe. I will not even permit Julia to share your confidence till you are
+willing to speak to her yourself."
+
+As he slowly lighted the studio Bertha was surprised and a little
+troubled to find that two or three other visitors had slipped in through
+the dusk, and were grouped about the tea-table, and that the Captain was
+again the centre of an eager-eyed group. "They treat him as if he were
+an Eskimo," she thought bitterly, and rose to join the circle and
+protect him from their inquisition.
+
+Haney was feeling extremely well, and talked with so much of his old
+time vigor and slash of epithet that his little audience was quite
+entranced. He enlarged upon the experiences of a year he had spent in
+Alaska. "Mining up there in them days made gambling slow business," he
+said. (He had told Bertha that he had made an attempt to get out of "the
+trade," but she was content to have him put it on less self-righteous
+grounds.) He contrived to make his hearers feel very keenly the
+pitiless, long-drawn ferocity of that sunless winter. He made it plain
+why men in that far land came together in vile dens to drink and gamble,
+and Moss glowed with the wonder and delight of those great boys who
+could rush away to the arctic edge of the world and die with laughing
+curses on their lips.
+
+"What did you all do it for?" he asked, bluntly. "For money?"
+
+"Partly--but more for the love of doing something hard. No man but a
+miser punishes himself for love of gold--it's for love of what the stuff
+will buy, that men fight the snows."
+
+While Haney talked of these things Bertha's eyes were musingly turned on
+the face of the sculptor, and her mind was far from the scenes which
+Mart so vividly described. This side of his life no longer amused
+her--on the contrary she shrank from any disclosure of his savage
+career. She was now as unjust in her criticism as she had been fond in
+her admiration, and when with darkening brow she cut short his garrulous
+flow of narrative Julia perceived her displeasure.
+
+Haney apologized, handsomely. "It's natural for the ould bedraggled
+eagle in the cage with a club on his wrist to dream of the circles he
+used to cut and the fish he set claw to. In them days I feared no man's
+weight, and no night or stream. 'Twas all joyous battle to me, and now,
+as I sit here on velvet with only to snap me fingers for anything I
+want, I look back at thim fierce old times with a sneaking kind o' wish
+to live 'em all over again. Bertie knows me weakness. I would talk
+forever did she lave me go on; but 'tis no blame to her--it was a cruel,
+bad, careless life."
+
+"When I come West," said Moss, sincerely, "we'll go camping together,
+and every night by the fire we'll smoke and you can tell me all about
+your journeys. I assure you they are epic to me."
+
+Dr. Brent, a little later, put in a private word to Bertie. "Now you're
+going back into the high country and you'll find it necessary to watch
+the Captain pretty closely. I suspect he'll find his heart thumping
+briskly when he reaches the Springs. He may stand that altitude all
+right, but don't let him go higher. He will be taking chances if he goes
+above six thousand feet. You'd better have Steel of Denver come down and
+examine him to see how he stands the first few days. I mention Steel
+because I know him--I've no doubt there are plenty of good men in the
+Springs."
+
+"What'll I do if he's worse?"
+
+"Bring him back here or go to sea level--only beware of high passes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
+
+
+The forces that really move most men are the small, concrete, individual
+experiences of life. The death of a child is of more account to its
+parents than the fall of a republic. Napoleon did not forget Josephine
+in his Italian campaigns, and Grant, inflexible commander of a
+half-million men, never failed, even in the Wilderness, to remember the
+plain little woman whose fireside fortunes were so closely interwoven
+with his epoch-making wars.
+
+As Ben Fordyce lost interest in the question of labor and capital and
+the political struggles of the state (because they were of less account
+than his own combat with the powers of darkness), so Bertha had little
+thought of the abstract, the sociologic, in her uneasiness--the strife
+was individual, the problems personal--and at last, weary of question,
+of doubt, she yielded once more to the protecting power which lay in
+Haney's gold and permitted herself to enjoy its use, its command of men.
+There was something like intoxication in this sense of supremacy, this
+freedom from ceaseless calculation, and to rise above the doubt in which
+she had been plunged was like suddenly acquiring wings.
+
+She accepted any chance to penetrate the city's life, determined to
+secure all that she could of its light and luxury, and in return
+intrusted Lucius with plans for luncheons and dinners, which he carried
+out with lavish hand.
+
+Mart seconded all her resolutions with hearty voice. "There's nothing
+too good for the Haneys!" he repeatedly chuckled.
+
+In the midst of other gayeties she had the McArdles over to mid-day
+dinner one Saturday, and afterwards took them all, a noisy gang, to the
+theatre--Patrick Haney as much of a boy as his grandsons, McArdle alone
+being unhappy as well as uneasy.
+
+She went about the shops, buying with reckless hand treasures for the
+house in the Springs, and this gave her husband more satisfaction than
+any other extravagance, for each article seemed a gage of the permanency
+of his home. In support of her mood he urged her to even larger
+expenditures. "Buy, buy like a queen," he often commanded, as she mused
+upon some choice. "Take the best!"
+
+There was instruction as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring
+with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her
+role as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses,
+her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To
+them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways
+as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well
+as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She
+was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured
+Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with
+almost equal gusto--and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the
+outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate women in the world.
+
+And yet every day made her less tolerant of the crippled old man at her
+side. She did not pout or sulk or answer him shortly, but she often
+forgot him--failed to answer him--not out of petulance or disgust, but
+because her mind was busy with other people. Gradually, without
+realizing it, she got into the habit of leaving him to amuse himself, as
+he best could, for she knew he did not specially care for the pursuits
+which gave her the keenest joy. In consequence of this unintentional
+neglect he very naturally fell more and more into the hands of the
+bar-room spongers who loitered about the hotel corridors. He dreaded
+loneliness, and it was to keep his companions about him that he became a
+spendthrift in liquors. Sternly and deliberately temperate during his
+long career as a gambler, he fell at last into drinking to excess, and
+on one unhappy afternoon returned to Bertha quite plainly drunk.
+
+She was both startled and disgusted by this sign of weakness, and he was
+not so blinded by the mist of his potations but that he perceived the
+shrinking reluctance of her touch as she aided Lucius in lifting him
+into the bed. His inert, lumpish form was at the moment hideously
+repulsive to her, and physical contact with him a dreaded thing. What
+was left if he lost that self-control which had made him admirable? She
+had always been able to qualify his other shortcomings by saying, "Well,
+anyhow, he don't drink." She could boast of this no longer.
+
+It was a most miserable night for her. At dinner she was forced to lie
+about him (for the first time), and she did it so badly that Joe Moss
+divined her trouble and came generously to her aid with a long and
+amusing story about Whistler.
+
+The play to which she took her guests did not help her to laughter, for
+it set forth with diabolic skill the life of a woman who loathed her
+husband, dreaded maternity, and hated herself--a baffling, marvellously
+intricate and searching play--meat for well people, not for those
+mentally ill at ease or morally unstable. Of a truth, Bertha saw but
+half of it and comprehended less, for she could not forget the leaden
+hands and flushed face of the man she called husband--and whom she had
+left in his bed to sleep away his hours of intoxication. She pitied him
+now--but in a new fashion. Her compassion was mixed with contempt, and
+that showed more clearly than any other feeling could the depth to which
+Marshall Haney had sunk.
+
+When she came home at midnight she listened at his door, but did not
+enter, for Lucius--skilled in all such matters--reported the Captain to
+be "all right."
+
+She went to her own room in a more darkly tragic mood than she had ever
+known before. Her punishment, her time for trouble, had begun. "I reckon
+I'm due to pay for my fun," she said to herself, "but not in the way
+I've been figuring on." Haney seemed at the moment a complete physical
+ruin, and the change which his helplessness wrought in her was most
+radical.
+
+His deeply penitent mood next morning hurt and repelled her almost as
+much as his maudlin jocularity of the night before. She would have
+preferred a brazen levity to this humble confession. "'Twas me boast,"
+he sadly asserted, "that no man ever caught me with me eyes full of sand
+and me tongue twisted--and now look at me! 'Tis what comes of having
+nothing to do but trade lies with a lot of flat-bottomed loafers in a
+gaudy bar-room. But don't worry, darlin', right here old Mart pulls up.
+You'll not see anny more of this. Forget it, dear-heart--won't you now?"
+
+She promised, of course, but the chasm between them was widened, and a
+fear of his again yielding to temptation cut short her stay in the city,
+for Lucius warningly explained: "The Captain is settling into a corner
+of the bar-room with a gang of sponging blackguards around him, and
+every day makes it less easy for him to break away. I'd advise going
+home," he ended, quietly. "The Springs is a safer place for him now."
+
+The hyenas were beginning to prowl around the disabled lion, and this
+the faithful servant knew even better than the wife.
+
+"All right, home we go," she replied, and the thought of "home" was both
+sweet and perilous.
+
+Haney met her decision with pathetic, instant joy. "I'm ready, I was
+only waitin'," he said. "After all, your own shack is better than a
+pearl palace in anny town, and it's gettin' hot besides."
+
+Bertha parted from the Mosses with keen sorrow. Joe had come to be like
+an elder brother to her--a brother and a teacher, and, next to Ben
+Fordyce, was more often in her thought than any other human being. She
+had lost part of her awe of him, but her affection had deepened as she
+came to understand the essential manliness and simplicity of his
+character. He redeemed the artist-world from the shame men like Humiston
+had put upon it.
+
+As she entered for the last time the studio in which she had spent so
+many happy hours and from whose atmosphere of work and high endeavor she
+had derived so much mental and moral development she was sad, and this
+sadness lent a beauty to her face that it had never before attained. She
+looked older, too; and contrasting her with the girl who had first
+looked in at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a
+year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to
+know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns,
+but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the
+expression of security and power.
+
+He greeted her as usual with a frank nod and (his hands being free from
+clay) advanced to shake hands. "Don't tell me you've come to say
+good-bye."
+
+"That's what," she curtly said. "It's up to me to take the Captain home.
+He's getting into bad habits lying around this hotel."
+
+His face clouded. "I've been afraid of that," he answered, gently. "Yes,
+you'd better go home. It's harder for a man to have a good, easy time
+than it is for a woman. But sit down, Julia will be in soon; you mustn't
+go without seeing her."
+
+After some further talk on trains and other common-places she became
+abruptly personal. "I've been having a whole lot of fun buying things
+and planting dollars, but I'm beginning to see an end to that kind of
+business. After you've got your house filled up with furniture and
+jimcracks, what you going to do then?"
+
+"Burn 'em."
+
+"And begin all over again? You can't buy out the town. It's a real
+circus for a while, but I can see there's a limit to it. Once you find
+out you can just go down here to one of these jewelry-stores and order
+anything you want--you don't want anything. Here I am with a lot of
+money that ain't mine, having a gay whirl spending it, but I can see my
+finish right now. To go on in this line would take all the fun out of
+life. What am I to do?"
+
+Moss took a seat and looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know. I used
+to think if I had money I'd start out and 'do good to people,' but I'm
+not at all sure that charity isn't all a damned impertinence. A couple
+of years ago I would have said go in for 'Neighborhood Settlements,'
+free libraries, 'Noonday Rests,' 'Open-air Funds,' and all the rest of
+it, but now I ask, 'Why?' We've had our wave of altruism, and I'm
+inclined to think a wave of selfishness would do us all good--but you're
+too young to be bothered with these problems. Go home and be happy while
+you can. Enjoy your gold while it glitters. Work is my only fun--real,
+enduring fun--and I'm not a bit sure _that_ will last. Whatever you do,
+be yourself. Don't try to be what you think I or some one else would
+like to have you. I like you because you are so straight-forwardly
+yourself; I shall be heart-broken if you take on the disease of the age
+and begin to prate of your duty."
+
+She listened to him with only partial comprehension of his meaning, but
+she answered: "I was brought up to think duty was the whole works."
+
+"Yes, and your teacher meant duty to God, duty to others. Well, there's
+duty to one's self. The war of money and duty is the biggest mix of our
+day. It's simpler to be poor; then all you've got to worry about is
+bread and shoes and shingles."
+
+"That's just it. Sometimes I wish I was back in the Golden Eagle, where
+I--" she ended in mid-sentence.
+
+He laughed. "You sound like a middle-aged financier who mourns (tattooed
+with dollar-marks) for the days when he used to husk corn at seventy
+cents a day." She saw the humor of this, but was aware that without a
+knowledge of Ben Fordyce Joe could not understand her problem, therefore
+she abandoned her search for light and leading. "Well, anyhow, right
+here I quit what you fellows call civilization. I hate to lose you and
+Julia and the rest of the folks, but it's me to the high hills. You'll
+never know how much you've helped me."
+
+"I hope you'll never know how thoroughly we've _done_ you. An
+evil-minded person would say we'd worked you for dinners and drives most
+shameful. However, if you have enjoyed our company as thoroughly as
+we've delighted in your champagne and birds, we'll cry quits. All my
+theories of art and life I advance _gratis_. I ought to do something
+handsome for you--you've listened so divinely."
+
+Underneath his banter Moss was sincerely moved. It was hard to say
+good-bye to this curious, earnest, seeking mind, this unspoiled child in
+whose face the world was being reflected as in a magical mirror. He
+loved her with frank affection--a pure passion that was more intimate
+than fraternal love and more exalted, in a sense, than the selfish,
+devouring passion of the suitor. It would have been difficult for him to
+say what his relationship to her at the moment was. It was more than
+friendship, more than brotherly care, and yet it was definably less than
+that of the lover.
+
+Julia came in and was quite as outspoken in her regret, and both refused
+to say good-bye at the moment. "We'll see you at the station," they
+said, and Bertha went away, feeling the pain of parting less keen by
+reason of this promise.
+
+Afterwards, as the hour for departure came near, she hoped they would
+not come. It was less difficult to say "I'll see you again" than to
+utter the curt "good-bye" which means so much in Anglo-Saxon life.
+
+They came, however, together with several others of her friends, but in
+the bustle and confusion of the depot not much of sentiment could be
+uttered, and, though she felt that she was going for a long stay, she
+was prodigal of promises to return soon.
+
+Patrick Haney was there, but refused to go with them. "Sure I'm at the
+jumpin'-off place now, and to immigrate furder would be to put meself in
+the hands of the murtherin' redskins." His talk was the touch of comedy
+which the situation needed. "Av ye don't mind I'll stay wid Fan," he
+said, a little more seriously, to Haney, who replied:
+
+"All right, 'tis as Fan says," and so they entered the train for the
+upward climb.
+
+Haney himself had only joy of the return. He sat at one of the windows
+of the library car and studied the prairie swells with a faint, musing
+smile, till the darkness fell, and was up early next morning, eager and
+curious, to see how the increasing altitude would affect him. Only
+towards the end of the second day after eating his dinner did he begin
+to feel oppressed.
+
+"I smell the altitude," he confessed--"me breath is shortenin' a bit,
+but 'tis good to see the peaks again."
+
+In this long ride the girl-wife dwelt dangerously on the bright face of
+Ben Fordyce. It was the thought of seeing him again that came at last to
+steal away her regret at parting from her Eastern friends. The splendor
+of the Eastern world faded at last, and she, too, soared gladly towards
+the mountains. Every doubt was swallowed up in a pleasure which was at
+once pure and beyond her control.
+
+Ben would be at the station, she was certain, for Lucius had wired to
+him the time of their arrival, and he had instantly replied. "I'll be
+there, and very glad to see you"--these words, few and simple, were
+addressed to Marshall Haney, but they thrilled her almost as if Ben had
+spoken them to her. Was he as glad to have her return as she was to meet
+him again?
+
+"A fine lad," remarked Haney, as he pocketed the envelope. "I wonder
+does he marry soon? He'd better decide now. I reckon Alice is not long
+for this climate--poor girl!"
+
+His remark, so simple in itself, pierced to the centre of Bertha's
+momentary self-deception. "I have no right to think of him. He belongs
+to Alice Heath!" But the feeling that she herself belonged to Marshall
+Haney was gone. That she owed him service was true, but since the night
+of his drunkenness she had definitely and finally abandoned all thought
+of being his wife, soul to soul, in the rite that sanctifies law. True,
+he had kept his word, he had not offended again, but the mischief was
+done. To return to the plane on which they had stood when she gave her
+promise was impossible.
+
+The day and the hour were such as make the plain lover content with his
+world. The earth, a mighty robe of closely woven velvet, mottled softly
+in variant greens, swept away to the west, under a soaring convexity of
+saffron sky, towards a cloudy altar whereon small wisps of vapor were
+burning down to golden embers, while beneath lay the dark-blue Rampart
+range. It was a world for horsemen, for free rovers, and for swift and
+tireless desert-kine. The course of winds, it lay, a play-ground for
+tempests that formed along the great divide and swept down over the
+antlike homes of men, acknowledging no barrier, exultant of their
+strength of wing and the weight of their horizon-touching armament.
+
+Bertha loved this land, but only because it was an approach to the
+hills. She would have shuddered at its desolate, limitless sweep,
+treeless, shelterless, had not the dim forms of the distant peaks she
+loved so well rose just beyond. She lost her doubt as they approached,
+welcoming them as the gates of home. She forgot all save the swelling
+tide of longing in her heart.
+
+As the train drew slowly in she caught sight of Ben's intent face among
+the throng, and was moved to the point of beating upon the window. He
+seemed care-worn and older in this glimpse, but at sight of her his
+sunny smile came back radiantly to his lips and glinted like sunshine
+from his eyes. In tremulous voice she called: "_There he is!_"
+
+Self-revelation lay in this ecstatic cry and in the glad haste which
+kept her on her feet; but Haney, unsuspicious, content, found no cause
+for jealousy in her innocent and unrestrained delight at getting home.
+
+Progress down the aisle seemed intolerably slow, for the passengers
+ahead of her, stubbornly sluggish, barred her way, but at last she stood
+looking into her lover's face, her eager hand pressed between his palms.
+
+"Welcome home!" he called, and drew her to him as if moved almost beyond
+his control with desire to clasp her to his bosom. In that instant they
+forgot all their doubts and scruples--overpowered by the sense of each
+other's nearness.
+
+She was the first to recover her self-command, and, pushing him away
+with a quick, decisive gesture, turned to aid Mart, whom Lucius was
+bringing slowly down the step.
+
+Her heart was still laboring painfully as she faced Congdon, but she
+contrived to return his greeting as he remarked with quizzical glance,
+"I hope you'll not find our little town dull, Mrs. Haney."
+
+Dull! She wanted to scream out her joy. She felt like racing to the big
+black team to throw her arms about their necks. Dull! There was no other
+spot in all the world so exalting as this small town and its
+over-peering peaks.
+
+"Where is Mrs. Congdon?" she succeeded in asking at last.
+
+"She has visitors and couldn't come," he answered. "But where's that
+'mobile we've heard so much about?"
+
+"Coming by fast freight."
+
+"Freight! From all I've heard of your doings in Chicago I expected it to
+come as excess baggage."
+
+It was cool, delicious green dusk--not dark--with a small sickle of moon
+in the west, and as they drove up the broad avenue towards home the
+town, the universe, was strangely sweet and satisfying. It seemed as
+though she had been gone an age--so much had come to her--so thick was
+the crowd of new experiences standing between her going and her
+return--so swiftly had her mind expanded in these months of vivid city
+life. "I'll never go away again," she said to Ben. "This country suits
+me."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered, softly. In the most
+natural way he had put Congdon with Haney in the rear seat and had taken
+the place beside Bertha, and this nearness filled her with pleasure and
+an unwonted confusion. How big he was! and how splendid his clear,
+youthful profile seemed as it gleamed silver-white in the light of the
+big street-lamps. Never had his magnetic young body acted upon her so
+powerfully, so dangerously. His firm arm touching her own was at once a
+delight and a dread. She was all woman at last, awake, palpitant with
+love's full-flooding tide--bewildered, dizzy with rapture. Speech was
+difficult and her thought had neither sequence nor design.
+
+Fordyce was under restraint also, and the burden of the talk fell upon
+Congdon, who proceeded in his amusingly hit-or-miss way to detail the
+important or humorous happenings, of the town, and so they rolled along
+up the wide avenue to the big stone steps before the looming, lamp-lit
+palace which they called home.
+
+Ben sprang out first, glad of another opportunity to take Bertha's hand,
+a clasp that put the throbbing pain back in her bosom--filling her with
+a kind of fear of him as well as of herself--and without waiting for the
+Captain she ran up the walk towards the wide doorway where Miss Franklin
+stood in smiling welcome.
+
+Her greeting over, the young wife danced about the hall, crying: "Oh,
+isn't it big and fine! And aren't you glad it's our own!" She appeared
+overborne by a returning sense of security and ownership, and ran from
+room to room with all the ecstasy and abandon of a child--but she
+stopped suddenly in the middle of her own chamber as if a remorseless
+hand were clutching at her heart. "But it is _not_ mine!--I must give it
+all up!"
+
+Thrusting this intruding thought away, she hurried back to the library,
+where the men were seated at ease, sipping some iced liquor in gross
+content.
+
+Haney was beaming. "It makes me over new to sniff this air again," he
+was saying. "'Tis a bad plan to let go your hold on mountain air. Me
+lungs have contracted a trifle, but they'll expand again. I'll be riding
+a horse in a month."
+
+Ben was sympathetic, but had eyes only for Bertha, whose improvement (in
+mind as in bearing) astonished and delighted him. Her trip, coming just
+at the period when her observation was keenest and her memory most
+tenacious, had subtly, swiftly ripened her. Wrought upon by a thousand
+pictures, moved by strange words and faces, unconsciously changing to
+the color of each new conception, deriving sweetness and charm from
+every chance-heard strain of music and poetry, she had opened like a
+rose.
+
+The middle-aged are prone to go about the world carrying their habits,
+their prejudices, and their ailments with them to return as they went
+forth; but youth like Bertha's adventures out into the world eager to be
+built upon, ready to be transformed from child to adult, as it would
+seem, in a day.
+
+"She has achieved new distinction!" Ben exulted as he watched her moving
+about the room, so supple, so powerful, and so graceful, but, though he
+was careful not to utter one word of praise, he could not keep the glow
+of admiration from his eyes.
+
+An hour later as he said good-night and went away with Congdon, his
+heart burned with secret, rebellious fire. "Was it not hateful that this
+glorious girl should be doomed to live out the sweetest, most alluring
+of her years with a gross and crippled old man?" To leave her under the
+same roof with Mart Haney seemed like exposing her to profanation and
+despair.
+
+They were hardly out of the gate before Congdon broke forth in open
+praise of her. "When Mart dies, what a witching morsel for some man!"
+
+Fordyce did not answer on the instant, and when he did his voice was
+constrained. "You don't think he's in immediate danger of it--do you?"
+
+"Quite the contrary. He looks to be on the upgrade; but it's a safe bet
+she outlives him, and then think of her with a hundred thousand dollars
+a year to spend! Talk about honey-pots!--and flies!" After a moment's
+silence he added, musingly: "Funny how one's ideas change. A year ago I
+thought she was deeply indebted to him; now I feel that with all his
+money he can't possibly repay her for what she's giving up on his
+account. And yet his chink has made her what she is. Money is a weird
+power when applied to a woman. Tiled bath-rooms, silk stockings and
+bonnets work wonders with the sex. She's improved mightily on this
+trip."
+
+After leaving Congdon, Ben went to his apartment and telephoned Alice to
+say that the Haneys had arrived and that he had left them under their
+own roof in good repair.
+
+"How is the Captain's health?" she asked, with the morbid interest of
+the invalid gossip.
+
+"He feels the altitude a little, but that is probably only temporary.
+They both seem very glad to get home."
+
+"He's made a mistake. He can't live here--I am perfectly sure of it. How
+is she?"
+
+"Very well--and beautifully dressed, which is the main thing," he added,
+with a slight return of his humor. "They asked after you very
+particularly."
+
+Unable to sleep, he went out to walk the night, blind envy in his brain
+and a hot hunger in his heart, moved as he had never been moved before
+at thought of Haney's nearness to that glowing girl. Their union was
+monstrous, incredible.
+
+He no longer attempted to deceive himself. He loved this young wife
+whose expanding personality had enthralled him from their first meeting.
+It was not alone that she was possessed of bodily charm--she called to
+him through the mysterious ways which lead the one man to the
+predestined woman. The affection he had borne towards Alice Heath was
+but the violet ray of friendship compared to the lambent, leaping, red
+flame of his passion for Bertha Haney. She represented to him the
+mysterious potency and romance of the West--typifying its amazing
+resiliency, its limitless capability of adaptation. In a way that seemed
+roundabout and strange, but which was, after all, very simple and very
+direct, she had lifted her family as well as herself out of poverty back
+into the comfort which was their right. Odd, masculine, unexpected of
+phrase, she had never been awkward or cheap. Congdon was right, she was
+capable of high things. She made mistakes, of course, but they were not
+those which a shallow personality would make--they sprang rather from
+the overflow of a vigorous and abounding imagination.
+
+"All she needs is contact with people of the right sort. She is capable
+of the highest culture," he concluded.
+
+That she was more vital to him than any other woman in the world he now
+knew, but he acknowledged nothing base in this confession. He was not
+seeking ways to possess her of his love--on the contrary, he was
+resolved to conduct himself so nobly that she would again trust and
+respect him. "My love is honorable," he said. "I will go forward as in
+the beginning--why should I not?--enjoying her companionship as any
+honest man may do."
+
+The question of his relation to Alice was not so easily settled. She had
+come to irritate him now. Her changeable, swift-witted, moody,
+hysterical invalidism had begun to wear upon him intolerably. Everything
+she did was wrong. It was brutal even to admit this, but he could no
+longer conceal it either from himself or from her. It was deeply, sadly
+painful to recall the promise, the complete confidence and happiness
+with which they had both started towards the West. How sure of her
+recovery they had been, how gay and confident of purpose! Now she not
+only refused to listen to his demand for an early marriage, but hampered
+and annoyed him in a hundred ways. As he walked the silent night he was
+forced to acknowledge that she had been right in delaying their union.
+And yet how dependent upon him she was. Her life was so tragically
+inwound with his that to think of shaking away her hand seemed the act
+of a sordid egoist.
+
+"And even were I free, nothing is solved."
+
+The situation took on the insoluble and the tragic. In the fashion of
+well-bred, soundly nurtured American youth he had thought of such
+complications only as subjects for novelists. "There must be
+concealment, but not duplicity, in my attitude," he decided. He longed
+for the constant light of Bertha's face, the frequent touch of her hand.
+Her laughter was so endlessly charming, her step so firm, so light, so
+graceful. The grace of her bosom--the sweeping line of her side--
+
+He stopped there. In that direction lay danger. "She trusts me, and I
+will repay her trust. She has chosen me to be her adviser, putting her
+wealth in my hands!--Well, why not? We will see whether an honorable man
+cannot carry forward even so difficult a relationship as this. I will
+visit her every day, I will enjoy her hospitality as freely as Congdon,
+and I will fulfil my promise to Alice--if she asks it of me."
+
+But deep under the sombre resolution lay an unuttered belief in his
+future, in his happiness--for this is the prerogative of youth. The dim
+mountains, the sinking crescent moon, and the silence of the plain all
+seemed somehow to prophesy both happiness and peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BERTHA'S DECISION
+
+
+It was good to wake in her old room and see the morning light breaking
+in golden waves against the peaks, to hear her dogs bay and to listen to
+the murmuring voice of the fountains on the lawn. It was deliciously
+luxurious to sit at breakfast on the vine-clad porch with the shining
+new coffee-boiler before her, while Miss Franklin expressed her
+admiration of the napery and china which the Mosses had helped her to
+select.
+
+It was glorious to go romping with the dogs about the garden, and most
+intoxicating to mount her horse and ride away upon the mesa, mad with
+speed and ecstatic of the wind. No one could have kept pace with her
+that first day at home. She ran from one thing to the other. She
+unpacked and spread out all her treasures. She telegraphed her mother
+and 'phoned her friends. She gave direction to the servants and examined
+every thing from the horses' hoofs to the sewing-machine. She went over
+the house from top to bottom to see that it was in order. She was crazy
+with desire of doing. Her mid-day meal was a mere touch-and-go lunch,
+but when at last she was seated in her carriage with Haney and Miss
+Franklin she fell back in her seat, saying, "I feel kind o' sleepy and
+tired."
+
+"I should think you would!" exclaimed her teacher.
+
+"Of all the galloping creatures you are the most wonderful. I hope
+you're not to keep this up."
+
+Haney put in a quiet word. "She will _not_. Sure, she cannot. There'll
+be nothin' left for to-morrow."
+
+Their ride was in the nature of a triumphal progress. Many people who
+had hesitated about bowing to them hitherto took this morning to unbend,
+and Mart observed, with a good deal of satisfaction: "The town seems
+powerful cordial. I think I'll launch me boom for the Senate."
+
+At the bank-door, where the carriage waited while Bertha transacted some
+business within, he held a veritable reception, and the swarming
+tourists, looking upon the sleek and shining team and the gray
+mustached, dignified old man leaning from his seat to shake hands,
+wondered who the local magnate was, and those who chanced to look in at
+the window were still more interested in the handsome girl in whose
+honor the president of the bank left his mahogany den.
+
+In truth, Bertha had won, almost without striving for it, the
+recognition of the town. Those who had never really established anything
+against her seized upon this return as the moment of capitulation. There
+was no mystery about her life. She was known now, and no one really knew
+anything evil of her--why should she be condemned?
+
+In such wise the current of comment now set, and Mrs. Haney found
+herself approached by ladies who had hitherto passed her without so much
+as a nod. She took it all composedly, and in answer to their invitations
+bluntly answered: "The Captain ain't up to going out much, and I don't
+like to leave him alone. Come and see us."
+
+She was composed with all save Fordyce, who now produced in her a kind
+of breathlessness which frightened her. She longed for, yet dreaded, his
+coming, and for several days avoided direct conversation with him. He
+respected this reserve in her, but was eager to get her comment on the
+East.
+
+"How did you like New York," he asked one night as they were all in the
+garden awaiting dinner.
+
+"It scared me," she answered. "Made me feel like a lady-bug in a
+clover-huller; but it never phased the Captain," she added, with a
+smile. "'There's nothin' too good for the Haneys,' says he, and we sure
+went the pace. We turned Lucius loose. We spent money wicked--enough to
+buy out a full-sized hotel."
+
+Her quaint, shrewd comment on her extravagances amused Ben exceedingly,
+and by keeping to a line of questioning he drew from her nearly all her
+salient experiences--excepting, of course, her grapple with the
+degenerate artist.
+
+"Lucius turned out the jewel they said he was?"
+
+She responded with enthusiasm. "I should say he did! He knew everything
+we wanted to know and more too. We'd have wandered around like a couple
+of Utes if it hadn't been for him. _When in doubt ask Lucius_, was our
+motto."
+
+She told stories of the elder Haney and the McArdles, and described the
+trials of the children in their new home till Ben laughingly said: "It's
+hard to run somebody else's life--I've found that out."
+
+And Haney admitted with a chuckle that Mac was "a little bewildered,
+like a hen with a red rag on her tail--divided in his mind like. As for
+Dad, he still thinks me a burglar on an improved plan."
+
+They also talked of Bertha's studies, for Miss Franklin began at once to
+give her daily instruction in certain arts which she considered
+necessary to women of Mrs. Haney's position, and always at the moment of
+meeting they spoke of Alice--that is to say, Haney with invariable
+politeness asked after her health, and quite as regularly Ben replied:
+"Not very well." Once he added: "I can hardly get her out any more. She
+seems more and more despondent."
+
+This report profoundly troubled Bertha, and the sight of Alice's drawn
+and tragic face made her miserable. There was something in the sick
+woman's gaze which awed her, and she was careful not to be left alone
+with her. The thought of her suffering and its effect on Ben threw a
+dark shadow over the brightness of her world. She was filled, also, with
+a growing uneasiness by reason of Mart's change of attitude towards
+herself. In the excitement of his home-coming he seemed about to regain
+a large part of his former health and spirits. His eyes brightened, his
+smile became more frequent, the appealing lines of his brow smoothed
+out, and save for an occasional shortening of the breath his condition
+appeared to be improving.
+
+This access of vitality was apparent to Bertha, and should have brought
+joy to her as to him; but it did not, for with returning vitality his
+attitude towards her became less of the invalid and more of the lover.
+He said nothing directly--at first--but she was able to interpret all
+too well the meaning of his jocular remarks and his wistful glances.
+Once he called her attention to the returning strength in his arm. "The
+ould man is not dead yet," he exulted, lifting his disabled arm and
+clinching his fist. "I feel younger than at any time since me accident,"
+and as he spoke she perceived something of the lion in the light of his
+eyes.
+
+One night as she was passing his chair he reached for her and caught her
+and drew her down upon his knee. "Sit ye down a wink. Ye're always on
+the move like a flibberty-bidget."
+
+She struggled free of his embrace, her face clouded with alarm and
+anger. "Don't be a fool," she said, harshly.
+
+He released her, saying, humbly: "Don't be angry, darlin', 'tis foolish
+of me, an ould crippled wolf, to be thinking of matin' with a fawn like
+y'rself. I don't blame ye. Go your ways."
+
+She went to her room, with his voice--so humbly penitent and
+resigned--lingering in her ears, trembling with the weight of the burden
+which his amorous mood had laid upon her.
+
+She resented his action the more because life at the moment was so full
+of joy. Each morning was filled with pleasant duties, and each afternoon
+they drove to the office to discuss the mines with Ben, and in the
+evening he called to sit for an hour or two on the porch, smoking,
+talking, till Mart grew sleepy and yawned. These meetings were
+deliciously, calmly delightful, for Mrs. Gilman or Miss Franklin was
+always present, and, though the talk was general, Ben talked for her
+ears at times, but always impersonally, and she honored him for his
+delicacy, his reserve, his respect for her position as a married woman,
+recognizing the care with which he avoided everything which might
+embarrass her.
+
+And now, by force of Mart's humble suing, her half-forgotten scruples
+were revived. Her uneasiness began again. A decision was finally and
+definitely thrust upon her. Instantly she was beset by all her doubts
+and desires, and the sky darkened with clouds of trouble.
+
+To make Mart happy was still her wish, but the way was not so easy of
+choice, nor so simple to follow as it had once seemed. The briers were
+thick before her feet. There was so much of personal gratification, so
+much of selfish pleasure, in remaining his companion, warmed and
+defended by all the comfort and dignity which his wealth had brought to
+her, that it seemed a kind of treachery to halt with her duty half done.
+To be his spouse, to become the mother of his children, this alone would
+entitle her to his bounty. "I can't do it!" she cried out--"I can't, I
+can't!" And yet not to do his will was to remain a pensioner and to be
+under indictment as an adventuress.
+
+She had read somewhere these words from a great philosopher: "The woman
+who bears a child to any man should instantly be lawfully seized of
+one-half his goods, for by that sublime act she takes her life in her
+hand as truly as the soldier who charges upon an invading host. The
+anguish of maternity should sanctify every woman."
+
+On the other side of her hedge lay enticing freedom. It seemed at times
+as though to be again in the little office of the Golden Eagle Hotel
+would be a more perfect happiness than this she now enjoyed--but that,
+too, was illusory. How could she repay the money she had used? The
+moment she left Marshall Haney she would not only be poor, she would be
+profoundly in his debt. Where could she find the money to repay him and
+to make her schooling possible?
+
+Perplexity was in her darkened eyes. Happiness and sorrow, doubt and
+delight grew along each path--thickly interwoven--and decision became
+each day more difficult. It was hateful to lie under the charge of
+having married merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her
+mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one
+insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her
+girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed a brooding,
+troubled woman.
+
+She could have gone on indefinitely with the half-filial, half-fraternal
+relationship into which she and Mart had fallen, but the thought of that
+other most intimate, most elemental union which his touch had made more
+definite than ever before produced in her a shudder of repulsion, of
+positive loathing. She could no longer endure the clasp of his hand, and
+in spite of herself she was forced, by contrasting experience, to
+acknowledge the allurement which lay in Ben Fordyce's handsome face and
+strong and graceful body.
+
+"I must go away--for a while at least. I'll go back to the ranch and
+think it over."
+
+And yet even the ranch was partly Haney's! How could she escape from her
+indebtedness to him? To what could she turn to make a living? To leave
+this big house and her horses, her garden, her dresses and jewels,
+required heroic resolution, but what of the long days of toil and
+dulness to which she must return?
+
+Worn with the ceaseless alternations of these thoughts, she fell into a
+dream that was half a waking vision. She thought she had just packed a
+bag with the gown she wore the night she came to Haney's rescue, when he
+came shuffling into her room and said: "Where are you goin', darlin'?"
+
+She replied: "To the ranch--to think things over."
+
+The tears came to his eyes, and he said: "'Tis the sun out of me sky
+when ye go, Bertie. Do not stay long."
+
+She promised to be back soon, but rode away with settled intent never to
+return.
+
+No one knew her on the train, for she had drawn her veil close and sat
+very still. It seemed that she went near the mine in some strange way,
+and at the switch Williams got on the train to stop her and persuade her
+to return. He was terribly agitated. "Didn't you know Mart is sick?" he
+said, in a tone of reproach. It seemed as if a broad river of years
+flowed between herself and the girl who used to see this queer little
+man enter her hotel door--but he was unchanged. "You can't do this
+thing!" he went on, his lips trembling with emotion.
+
+"What thing?" she asked.
+
+"Fordyce tells me you're going to throw poor old Mart overboard."
+
+"That's my notion--I can't be his wife, and so I'm getting out," she
+answered.
+
+"But, girl, you can't do that!" and he swore in his excitement. "Mart
+needs you--we all need you. It'll kill him."
+
+"I can't help it!" she answered, with infinite weariness in throat and
+brain. "I pass it up, and go back to my brother."
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+"Because I've no right to Mart's money."
+
+"You're crazy to think of such a thing. You a queen! Who's goin' to
+catch the money when you drop it?" he asked, and helplessly added: "I
+don't believe you. You're kiddin', you're tryin' us out."
+
+"I'm doing nothing to earn this luxury."
+
+"Doing nothing! My God, you've made Mart Haney over new. You've
+converted him--as they say, you've redeemed him. Let me tell you
+something, little sister, Mart worships you. It does him good just to
+_see_ you. You don't expect the moon to fry bacon, do you? Stars don't
+run pumps! Mart is satisfied. Every time you speak to him or pass by him
+he gets happy all the way through--I know, for I feel just the same."
+
+There was something in his eloquence that went to the heart of the
+dreaming girl. If any one in her world was to be trusted it was this
+ugly little man, who never presumed to ask even a smile for himself, and
+whose unswerving loyalty to Mart made her own flight a base and cruel
+act; and yet even as he pleaded his face faded and she fancied herself
+stepping from the train in Sibley, unnoticed by even the hackmen, who
+used to bring the humbler passengers of each train to the door of the
+Golden Eagle Hotel.
+
+She walked up the sidewalk, surprised to find it changed to brick. The
+hotel was gone, and in its place stood a saloon marked, "Haney's Place."
+This hardened her heart again. "That settles it!" she said, bitterly.
+"He's gone back to his old business."
+
+The road out to the ranch seemed very long and hot, but she had no
+money, not a cent left with which to hire a carriage, and she kept
+saying to herself: "If Mart knew this, he'd send Lucius and the machine.
+I reckon he'd be sorry to see me walking in this dust. It's a good thing
+I have my old brown dress on." She passed lovingly, regretfully over the
+splendid gowns which hung in her wardrobe. "What will become of them?"
+she asked. "Fan can't wear them." This called up a vision of Fan and her
+eldest daughter, sweeping about in her splendor, her opera-cloak only
+half encompassing the mother, while the girl swished over the floor in
+the gown she had worn at her last dinner in the East. She laughed and
+cried at the same time--it was painful to see them thus abused.
+
+Then she seemed suddenly to enter the grove of twisted, hag-like cedars
+which stood upon the mesa back of the ranch-house. "By-and-by I will
+look like this," she dreamed, and laid her hand on one that was ragged
+and gnarled and gray with a thousand years of sun and wind, and even as
+she stood there, with the old crones moaning round her, Ben suddenly
+confronted her.
+
+Her first impulse was for flight, so sad and bitter was his face. She
+began to pity him. His boyhood seemed to have slipped from him like a
+gay cloak, revealing the stern man beneath.
+
+He met her gravely, self-containedly, yet with restrained passion, and
+his voice was sternly calm as he began: "I have come to ask you what you
+wish to do with Marshall Haney's inheritance? I will not be a party to
+your action. I helped him plan out his will, and he said he could trust
+you to do the right thing, and I have come to tell you that his will
+must be yours."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"He is dead!" he replied.
+
+Her heart turned to ice at the sound of his words, so clear, succinct,
+and piercing; then the cedars began to wail and wail, and sway in
+eldrich grief, but she who felt most remorse could not utter a sound to
+prove her own despair; and in the tumult her dream ended abruptly, and
+she woke to hear the night wind whistling weirdly through the screen of
+her open window.
+
+She lay in silence, shuddering with the subsiding terror of her vision,
+till she came to a full realization of the fact that it was all but a
+night terror and that Mart was still alive and her decision not yet
+irrevocably made.
+
+She shuddered again--not in grief, but in terror--as she relived the
+vivid hour of self-chosen poverty which her dream had brought her. Yes,
+the magic of wealth had spoiled her for Sibley and the ranch. To go back
+there was impossible. "I will try the East," she said. "The Mosses will
+help me." And yet to return to Chicago--after having played the grand
+lady--would be bitterly hard. Suppose her friends should meet her with
+cold eyes and hesitating words? Suppose they, too, had loved her money
+and not herself? Suppose even Joe, who seemed as true as Williams,
+should prove to be a selfish sycophant. Ah yes, it would be a different
+city with the magic of Haney's money no longer hers to command.
+
+In this hour of deepest misery and despair the sheen of his gold
+returned like sunlight after a storm; and yet, even as she permitted
+herself to imagine how sweetly the new day would dawn with her
+determination to remain the mistress of this great house, the old fear,
+the new disgust, returned to plague her. Her love for Ben Fordyce came
+also--and the knowledge that Alice was dying of a broken heart because
+of Ben's growing indifference--all these perplexities made the coming of
+sunlight a mockery.
+
+She rose to the new day quite as undecided as before and more deeply
+saddened. One thing was plain--Ben should come no more to visit her--for
+Alice's sake he must keep the impersonal attitude of the legal adviser.
+In that way alone could even the semblance of peace be won.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+ALICE VISITS HANEY
+
+
+Alice Heath was dying of something far subtler than "the White Death,"
+to which Haney so often referred. Tortured by Ben's studied tenderness
+when at her side, she suffered doubly when he was away, knowing all too
+well that his keenest pleasure now lay in Bertha's companionship. Her
+doubt darkened into despair. In certain moments of exaltation she rose
+to such heights of impersonal passion as to acknowledge fully,
+generously, the claims of youth and health--admitting that she and
+Marshall Haney were the offenders and not the young lovers, whose desire
+for happiness was but an irresistible manifestation of the mystic force
+which binds the generations together.
+
+"Why do we not quietly take ourselves off and make them happy?" she
+asked herself. "Of what selfish quality is our love? Here am I only a
+spiteful, hopeless invalid--I hate myself, I despise my body and
+everything I am. I loathe my wrinkled face, my shrivelled hands, my flat
+chest. I am fit only to be bride to death. I'm tired of the world--tired
+of everything--and yet I do not die. Why can't I die?"
+
+These moods never soared high enough (or sank quite low enough) to
+permit the final severing stroke, and she ended each of them in a flood
+of tears, filled with ever-greater longing for the beautiful young lover
+whose heart had wandered away from her. It was hard not to welcome him
+when he came, but infinitely harder to send him away, for life held no
+other solace, the day no other aim.
+
+In her saner moments she was aware of her own misdemeanor. She knew that
+her morbid questioning, her ceaseless grievings were wearing away her
+vital force, and that no doctor could ever again medicine her to sweet
+sleep, that no wind or cloud would bring coolness to her burning brain.
+"I am no longer worthy of any man's love," she admitted to her higher
+self.
+
+She did not question Ben's honor--he was of those who keep faith. "He
+has no hope of ever being other than the distant lover of Bertha Haney,
+and he is ready to fulfil his word to me, but I will not permit him to
+bind himself to me. It would be a crime to lay upon him the burden of a
+wife old before her time, sterile and doomed to a slow decline." She
+revolted, too, at the thought of having a husband, whose heart was
+elsewhere, whose restless desire could not be held within the circuit of
+his wife's arms--and yet she could not give him up.
+
+As her flesh lost its weight and her blood its warmth, her mind burned
+with even more mysterious brightness, sending out rays of such perilous
+sublimation that she was able to perceive, as no earthly inhabitant
+should do, the jealously guarded secrets of those surrounding her, and
+on the night of Bertha's struggle against her fate she divined in some
+supersensuous way the tumult in the young wife's mind.
+
+She laughed at first with a cruel, bitter delight, but at last her
+nobler self conquered and she resolved to have private speech with
+Haney. She perceived a danger in the ever-deepening passion of the young
+lovers. She began to fear that their love might soon break over all
+barriers, and this she was still sane enough of thought and generous
+enough of soul to wish to prevent.
+
+Her decision to act was hastened by a slurring paragraph in the morning
+paper wherein veiled allusion was made to "a developing scandal." She
+lay abed all the forenoon brooding over it, and when she rose it was to
+dress for her visit to Haney. Sick as she was and almost hysterical with
+her mood, she ordered a carriage and drove to the gambler's house,
+hoping to find him alone, determined upon an interview.
+
+It chanced that he was sitting in his place upon the porch watching the
+gardener spraying a tree. He greeted his visitor most cordially,
+inviting her to a seat. "Bertie is down town, but she'll be back soon."
+
+"I'm glad she is away, Captain Haney, for I have something to say to you
+alone."
+
+"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen--'tis not
+for me to boss the gardener."
+
+She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin
+her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked,
+irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.
+
+He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day,
+miss?"
+
+"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath--I walked too fast, I
+think."
+
+"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.
+
+"No, my trouble is all in my mind--I mean my lungs," she answered. Then,
+with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a
+nice long talk about symptoms--it's so comforting. How are _you_ feeling
+these days?"
+
+Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse
+luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree
+that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to
+Bertha's moody silence.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at
+sea-level?"
+
+"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis
+age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff
+of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."
+
+She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I
+should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people--shutting
+them off from happiness?"
+
+He turned a glance upon her quite too penetrating to be borne. "You
+mane--what?--who?"
+
+"I mean Bertha."
+
+"Do I stand in the way of her happiness?"
+
+She met the question squarely, speaking with tense, drawn lips. "Yes,
+just as I do in Ben's way. We're neither of us fit to be married, and
+they are."
+
+His eyes wavered. "That's true. I'm no mate for her--and yet I think
+I've made her happy." He was silent a moment, then faltered: "Ye lay
+your hand on a sore spot--ye do, surely. 'Tis true I've tried to have
+the money make up for me other shortcomings." He ended almost humbly.
+
+"Money can do much, but it can't buy happiness."
+
+"That's true, too--but 'tis able to buy comfort, and that's next door to
+happiness in the long-run, I'm thinkin'. But I'm watchin' her, and I
+don't intend to stand in her way, miss. I've told her so, and when the
+conquering lad comes along I mane to get out of the road."
+
+"Have you said that?" Her face reached towards his with sudden
+intensity, and a snakelike brilliancy glittered in her eyes. "You've
+gone as far as that?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Then act, for the time has come to make your promise good. Bertha
+already loves a man as every girl should love who marries happily, and
+the gossips are even now busy with her name."
+
+He was hard hit, and slowly said: "I don't believe it! Who is the
+man?--tell me!" He demanded this in a tone that was not to be denied.
+
+She delivered her sentence quickly. "She loves Ben. Haven't you seen it?
+She has loved him from their first meeting. I have known it for a long
+time, almost from the first; now everybody knows it, and the society
+reporters are beginning their innuendoes. The next thing will be her
+picture in the sensational press, and a scandal. Don't you know this? It
+must not happen! We must make way for them--you and I. We cumber the
+path."
+
+He sank back into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging
+eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when
+watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was
+something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet
+even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to
+him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the
+arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more
+gently. "You've got to be sure," he ended, almost in menace.
+
+"You may trust a jealous woman," she answered. "I don't blame
+them--observe that. We are the ones to blame--we who are crippled and in
+the way, and it is our duty to take ourselves off. What is the use of
+spoiling their lives just for a few years of selfish gratification of
+our own miserable selves?"
+
+He felt about for comfort. "They are young; they can wait," he
+stammered, huskily.
+
+"But they _won't_ wait!" she replied. "Love like theirs can't wait.
+Don't you understand? They are in danger of forgetting themselves? Can't
+you see it? Ben talks of nothing else, dreams of nothing else but her,
+and she is fighting temptation every day, and shows it. It's all so
+plain to me that I can't bear to see them together. They have loved each
+other from the very first night they met--I felt it that day we first
+rode together. I've watched her grow into Ben's life till she absorbs
+his every thought. He's a good boy, and I want to keep him so. He
+respects your claim, and he is trying to be loyal to me, but he can't
+hold out. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but that would not save him.
+He loves your wife, and until you free her he is in danger of wronging
+her and himself and you. I've given up. There is nothing more on this
+earth for me! What do _you_ expect to gain by holding to a wife's
+garment when she--the woman--is gone?"
+
+The wildness in her eyes and voice profoundly affected Haney, who was
+without subtlety in affairs of the heart. The women he had known had
+been mainly coarse-fibred or of brutish directness of passion and
+purpose, and this woman's words and tone at once confused and appalled
+him. All she said of his unworthiness as a husband was true. He had gone
+to Sibley at first to win Bertha at less cost than making her his
+wife--but of that he had repented, and on his death-bed (as he thought)
+he had sought to endow her with his gold. Since then he had lived, but
+only as half a man. Up to this moment he had hoped to regain his health,
+but now every hope died within him.
+
+Part of this he admitted at once, but he ended brokenly: "'Tis a hard
+task you set for me. She's the vein of me bosom. 'Tis easy talkin', but
+the doin' is like takin' y'r heart in your two hands and throwin' it
+away. I knew she liked the lad--I had no doubt the lad liked her--but I
+did not believe she'd go to him so. I can't believe it yet--but I will
+not stand in her way. As I told her, I did not expect to tie her to an
+old hulk; I thought I was dying when I married her, and I only had the
+ceremony then to make sure that me money should feed her and protect her
+from the storms of the world. I wanted to take her out of a hole where
+she was sore pressed, and I wanted to make her people comfortable. I've
+brought her to this house. Me money has always been to her hand. It
+rejoices me to see her spend it, and I've been hoping that these
+things--me money--would make up for me poor, old, crippled body. I've
+been a rough man. I lived as men who have no ties have always
+lived--till I met her, then I quit the game. I put aside everything that
+could make her ashamed. I'm no toad, miss--I know she has that in her
+soul that can take her out of my level. Were I twenty years younger and
+a well man I could folly her--but 'tis no use debating now. I'll talk
+with her this night--" He paused abruptly and turned upon her with
+piercing inquiry: "Have you discussed this with Ben?"
+
+She was beginning to tremble in face of the storm which she foresaw
+looming before her. "No--I lacked the courage."
+
+A faintly bitter smile stirred his upper lip. "Shall I tell him what you
+have said to me?"
+
+"No, no!" she exclaimed, in sudden affright, "I will tell him."
+
+"Be sure ye do. As for these editors, I have me own way of dealing with
+them. I will soon know whether you are right or wrong. Ye're a sick
+woman, and such, they say, have queer fancies. You admit you're jealous,
+and I've heard that jealous women are built of hell-fire and vitriol.
+Anyhow, you've not shaken me faith in me girl--but ye have in Ben, for I
+know the heart of man. We're all alike when it comes to the question of
+women."
+
+"Please don't misunderstand me--it is to keep them both what they are,
+good and true, that I come to you--we must not tempt them to evil."
+
+"I understand what you say, miss, and I think you're honest, but you may
+be mistaken. I saw her meet-up with fine young fellies in the East; I
+could see they admired her--but she turned them down easily. She's no
+weak-minded chippy, as I know on me own account--the more shame to me."
+
+"Of course she turns others down, for the reason that Ben fills her
+heart." She began to weary of her self-imposed task.
+
+He, too, was tired. "We'll see, we'll see," he repeated musingly, and
+gazed away towards the cloud-enshrouded peaks in sombre silence--the
+lines of his lips as sorrowful as those of an old lion dying in the
+desert, arrow-smitten and alone. He had forgotten the hand that pierced
+his heart.
+
+Thus dismissed, she rose, her eyes burning like deep opals in the
+parchment setting of her skin.
+
+"Life is so cruel!" she said. "I have wished a thousand times that love
+had never come to me. Love means only sorrow at the end. Ben has been my
+life, my only interest--and now--as he begins to forget--Oh, I can't
+bear it! It will kill me!" She sank back into her chair, and, burying
+her face, sobbed with such passion that her slight frame shook in the
+tempest of it.
+
+Haney turned and looked at her in silence--profoundly stirred to pity by
+her sobs, no longer doubting the reality of her despair. When he spoke
+his voice was brokenly sweet and very tender.
+
+"'Tis a bitter world, miss, and me heart bleeds for such as you. 'Tis
+well ye have a hope of paradise, for, if all you say is true, ye must go
+from this world cheated and hungry like meself. Ye have one comfort that
+I have not--'tis not your own doing. Ye've not misspent your life as I
+have done. What does it all show but that life is a game where each man,
+good or bad, takes his chance. The cards fall against you and against me
+without care of what we are. I can only say I take me chances as I take
+the rain and the sun."
+
+Her paroxysm passed and she rose again, drawing her veil closely over
+her face. "Good-bye. We will never meet again."
+
+"Don't say that," he said, struggling painfully to his feet. "Never is a
+long time, and good-bye a cruel, sad word to say. Let's call it 'so
+long' and better luck."
+
+"You are not angry with me?" she turned to ask.
+
+"Not at all, miss--I thank ye fer opening me eyes to me selfishness."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"So long! And may ye have better luck in the new deal, miss."
+
+As she turned at the gate she saw him standing as she had left him, his
+brow white and sad and stern, his shoulders drooping as if his strength
+and love of life had suddenly been withdrawn.
+
+While still in this mood she sent word to Ben that she wished to see him
+at once, and he responded without delay.
+
+He was appalled by the change in her. Her interview with Haney had
+profoundly weakened her, chilled her. She was like some exquisite lamp
+whose golden flame had grown suddenly dim, and Fordyce was filled with
+instant, remorseful tenderness. His sense of duty sprang to arms, and
+without waiting for her to begin he said: "I hate to think of you as a
+pensioner in this house. You should be in your own home--our home--where
+I could take care of you. Come, let me take you out of this private
+hospital--that's what it is."
+
+She struggled piteously to assure him that she would be back to par in a
+few days, but he was thoroughly alarmed and refused to listen to further
+delay.
+
+"Your surroundings are bad, you need a change."
+
+She read him to the soul, knew that this argument sprang not from love,
+but from pity and self-accusation; therefore, forcing a light tone, she
+answered: "I don't feel able to take command of a cook and second girl
+just yet, Bennie dear; besides, you're all wrong about this being a bad
+atmosphere for me. I'm horribly comfortable here, my own sister couldn't
+be kinder than Julia is. No, no, wait a few months longer till you get
+settled a little more securely in business; I may pick up a volt or two
+more of electricity by that time." Then as she saw his face darken and a
+tremor run over his flesh, she lost her self-control and broke forth
+with sudden, bitter intensity: "Why don't you throw me over and marry
+some nice girl with a healthy body and sane mind? Why cheat yourself and
+me?"
+
+He recoiled before her question, too amazed to do more than exclaim
+against her going on.
+
+She was not to be checked. "Let us be honest with ourselves. You know
+perfectly well I'm never going to get better--I do, if you don't. I may
+linger on in this way for years, but I will never be anything but a
+querulous invalid. Now that's the bitter truth. You mustn't marry me--I
+won't let you!" Then her mood changed. "And yet it's so hard to go on
+alone--even for a little way."
+
+Her eyes closed on her hot tears, her head drooped, and Ben, putting his
+arm about her neck and pressing her quivering face against his breast,
+reproached her very tenderly: "I won't let you say such things,
+dearest--you must not! You're not yourself to-day."
+
+"Oh yes, I am! My mind is very clear, too horribly clear. Ben dear, I
+mean all I say--you shall not link yourself to me. I have no delusions
+now. I'll never be well again--and you must know it."
+
+"Oh yes, you will! Don't give up! You're only tired to-day. You're
+really much better than you were last week."
+
+"No, I'm not! Let us not deceive ourselves any longer. The change of
+climate has not done me good. We waited too long. It has all been a
+mistake. Let me go back to Chester--I'm afraid to die out here. I can't
+bear the thought of being buried in this soil. It's so bleak and lonely
+and alien. I want to go back to the sweet, kindly hills--perhaps I can
+reconcile myself to death there--to sink into the earth on this plain is
+too dreadful."
+
+He struggled against the weight of her sorrowful pleadings. "This is
+only a mood, dearest; you are over-tired and things look black to you--I
+have such days--everybody has these hours of depression, but we must
+fight them. It would be so much better for us both if I were your
+husband, then I could be with you and watch over you every hour. I could
+help you fight these dismal moods. It would be my hourly care. Come,
+let's go out and seriously set to work to find a cottage."
+
+She was silenced for the moment, but when he had finished his
+counter-plea she looked up at him with deep-set glance and quietly said:
+"Ben, it's all wrong. It was wrong from the very beginning. You are
+lashing yourself into uttering these beautiful words, and you do not
+realize what you are saying. I am too old for you--Now listen--it's
+true! I'm twenty years older in spirit. I haven't been really well for
+ten years. You talk of fighting this. Haven't I fought? I've danced when
+I should have been in bed. I've had a premonition of early decay for
+years--that's why I've been so reckless of my strength. I couldn't bear
+to let my youth pass dully--and now it's gone! Wait!--I've deceived you
+in other ways. I've been full of black thoughts, I've been jealous and
+selfish all along. You deserve the loveliest girl in the world, and it
+is a cruel shame for me to stand in the way of your happiness just to
+have you light my darkness for a few hours. I know what you want to
+say--you think you can be happy with me. Ben, it's only your foolish
+sense of honor that keeps you loyal to me--I don't want that--I won't
+have it! Take back your pledge." She pushed away from him and twisted a
+ring from her finger. "Take this, dear boy, you are absolutely free. Go
+and be happy."
+
+He drew back from her hand in pain and bewilderment. "Alice, you are
+crazy to say such things to me." He studied her with suffering in his
+eyes. "You are delirious. I am going to send the doctor to you at once."
+
+"No, I'm not delirious. I know only too well what I'm saying--I have
+made my decision. I will never wear this ring again." She turned his
+words against himself. "You must not marry a crazy woman."
+
+"I didn't mean that--you know what I meant. All you say is morbid and
+unreasonable, and I will not listen to it. You are clouded by some sick
+fancy to-day, and I will go away and send a physician to cure you of
+your madness."
+
+She thrust the ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes
+wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her
+health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she
+exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again--and when
+you do, I will say _no_."
+
+He sat looking up at her, too bewildered, too much alarmed to find words
+for reply. He really thought that she had gone suddenly mad--and yet all
+that she said was frightfully reasonable. In his heart he knew that she
+was uttering the truth. Their marriage was now impossible--a bridal veil
+over that face was horrifying to think upon.
+
+She went on: "Now run away--I'm going to cry in a moment and I don't
+want you to see me do it. Please go!"
+
+He rose stiffly, and when he spoke his voice was quivering with anxiety.
+"I am going to send Julia to you instantly."
+
+"No, you're not. I won't see her if you do. She can't help me--nobody
+can, but you--and I won't let you even see me any more. I'm going home
+to Chester to-morrow; so kiss me good-bye--and go."
+
+He kissed her and went blindly out, their engagement ring tightly
+clinched in his hand. It seemed as if a wide, cold, gray cloud had (for
+the first time) entirely covered his sunny, youthful world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
+
+
+After Alice Heath's carriage had driven away, Haney returned to his
+chair, and with eyes fixed upon the distant peaks gave himself up to a
+review of all that the sick woman had said, and entered also upon a
+forecast of the game.
+
+He was not entirely unprepared for her revelation. He was, indeed, too
+wise not to know that Bertha must sometime surely find in another and
+younger man her heart's hunger, but his wish had set that dark day far
+away in the future. Moreover, he had relied on her promise to confide in
+him, and it hurt him to think that she had not fulfilled her pledge; yet
+even in this he sought excuses for her.
+
+"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far
+better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense
+of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His
+wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening
+between them.
+
+This day had shown a black sky to him, even before Alice Heath's
+disturbing call, for Bertha had been darkly brooding at breakfast, and
+silent at lunch, and immediately after rising from the table had gone
+away alone, without a word of explanation to any member of her
+household. She had not even taken her dogs with her, and her face was
+set and almost sullen as she passed out of the door and down the walk.
+All this was so unlike her that Mart was greatly troubled. It gave
+weight and significance to every word of Alice Heath's warning.
+
+Bertha was gone till nearly six o'clock, and her mood seemed no whit
+lightened as she entered the gate and came slowly up the walk. To Mart's
+humbly spoken query, "What troubles ye, darlin'?" she made no reply, but
+went at once to her room.
+
+The old gambler seemed pitiably helpless and forlorn as he sat there in
+his accustomed chair waiting her return. The bees and birds were busy
+among the vines, and all the well-oiled machinery of his splendid home
+was going forward to the end that his sweet girl-wife should be served.
+If she were unhappy, of what value were these soft rugs, these savory
+dishes, this shining silver? There was, in truth, something mocking and
+terrifying in the swift, well-trained action of the servants, who went
+about their tasks unmoved and apparently unacquainted with any change in
+the mind of their young mistress.
+
+In the kitchen the cook was carefully compounding the soup while
+watching the roast. Lucius, deft and absorbed, was preparing the table,
+arranging the coffee service and deciding upon the china. On the seat
+under the pear-trees Miss Franklin was chatting with Mrs. Gilman, and in
+the barn the coachman could be heard giving the horses their evening
+taste of green grass--"and yet how empty, aimless, and foolish it all is
+if Bertha is unhappy," thought the master.
+
+He grew alarmed for fear she would not come down; but at last he heard
+her light step on the stairs, and when she came in view his dim eyes
+were startled by the transformation in her. She had put on the plainest
+of her gowns, and she wore no jewels. By other ways which he felt but
+could not analyze she expressed some portentous shift of mood. He could
+not define why, but her step scared him, so measured and resolute it
+seemed.
+
+She called to her mother and Miss Franklin and then asked, "Has dinner
+been announced?"
+
+Her tone was quiet and natural, and Mart was relieved. He answered with
+attempt at jocularity, "Lucius is this minute winkin' at me over the
+soup-tureen."
+
+As they took seats at the table Mrs. Gilman exclaimed, "Why, dearie,
+where did you dig up that old waist?"
+
+"Will it do to visit Sibley in?"
+
+"No indeed! I should say not. When you go back there I want you to wear
+the best you've got. They'll consider it an insult if you don't."
+
+A faint smile lighted Bertha's pale face. "I don't think they'll take it
+so hard as all that."
+
+"Are you goin' to Sibley?" asked Mart, an anxious tone in his voice.
+
+"I thought of it. Mother is going over to-night, and I rather guess I'll
+run over with her. I've never been back, you see, since that night."
+
+There was something ominous in her restraint, in her abstraction of
+glance, and especially in her lack of appetite. She took little account
+of her guests and seemed profoundly engaged upon some inward
+calculation. The beautifully spread table, which would have thrilled her
+a few short weeks ago, was powerless to even hold her gaze, and it was
+Lucius (deft and watchful) who brought the meal to a successful
+conclusion--for the mother was awed and helpless in the presence of the
+queenly daughter whom wealth had translated into something almost too
+high and shining for her to lay hand upon.
+
+Miss Franklin did her best, but she was not a person of light and
+dancing intellectual feet, and she had never understood Haney, anyhow.
+Altogether it was a dismal and difficult half-hour.
+
+When the coffee came on Bertha rose abruptly, saying, "Come out into the
+garden, Mart, I've got something to say to you."
+
+He obeyed with a sense of being called to account, and as they walked
+slowly across the grass, which the light of a vivid orange sunset had
+made transcendently green, he glanced to the west with foreboding that
+this was the last time he should look upon the kingly peak at sunset
+time. A flaming helmet of cloud shone upon the chief, and all the lesser
+heights were a deep, purple bank out of which each serrate summit rose
+without perspective, sharply set against the other like a monstrous
+silhouette of cardboard.
+
+It should have been indeed a very sweet and odorous and peaceful hour.
+The murmur of the water from the fountain had the lulling sound of a
+hive of bees as they settle to rest, and to the suffering man it seemed
+impossible that this, his cherished world, could change to the black
+chaos which the loss of his adorable wife would bring upon it.
+
+The settee was of wire, and curved so that when they had taken seats
+they faced each other, and the sight of her, so slender, so graceful, so
+womanly, filled him with a fury of hate against the assassin who had
+torn him to pieces, making him old before his time, a cripple, impotent,
+inert, and scarred.
+
+Bertha did not wait for him to begin, and her first words smote like
+bullets. "Mart, I'm going back to Sibley."
+
+He looked at her with startled eyes--his brow wrinkling into sorrowful
+lines. "For how long?"
+
+"I don't know--it may be a good while. I'm going away to think things
+over." Then she added, firmly, "I may not come back at all, Mart."
+
+"For God's sake, don't say that, girlie! You don't mean that!" His voice
+was husky with the agony that filled his throat. "I can't live without
+ye now. Don't go--that way."
+
+"I've _got_ to go, Mart. My mind ain't made up to this proposition. I
+don't know about living with you any more."
+
+"Why not? What's the matter, darlin'? Can't ye put up with me a little
+longer? I know I'm only a piece of a man--but tell me the truth. Can't
+you stay with me--as we are?"
+
+She met him with the truth, but not the whole truth. "Everybody thinks I
+married you for your money, Mart--it ain't true--but the evidence is all
+against me. The only way to prove it a lie is to just naturally pull out
+and go back to work. I hate to leave, so long as you--feel about me as
+you do--but, Mart, I'm 'bleeged' to do it. My mind is so stirred up--I
+don't enjoy anything any more. I used to like everything in the
+house--all my nice things--the dresses and trinkets you gave me. It was
+fun to run the kitchen--now it all goes against the grain some way. Fact
+is, none of it seems mine."
+
+His eyes were wet with tears as he said: "It's all my fault. It's all
+because of what I said last night--"
+
+She stopped him. "No, it ain't that--it ain't your fault, it's mine.
+Something's gone wrong with _me_. I love this home, and my dogs and
+horses and all--and yet I can't enjoy 'em any more. They don't belong to
+me--now that's the fact, Mart."
+
+"I'll make 'em yours, darlin', I'll deed 'em all over to you."
+
+"No, no, that won't do it. My mind has got to change. It's all in my
+mind. Don't you see? I've got to get away from the whole outfit and
+think it all out. If I can come back I will, but you mustn't bank on my
+return, Mart. You mustn't be surprised if I settle on the other side of
+the range."
+
+"I know," he said, sadly. "I know your reason and I don't blame you.
+'Tis not for an old derelict like me to hold you--but you must let me
+give you some of me money--'tis of no value to me now. If ye do not let
+me share it with you me heart will break entirely."
+
+"I haven't a right to a cent of it, Mart--I owe you more than I can ever
+pay. No, I can't afford to take another cent."
+
+In the pause which followed his face took on a look of new resolution.
+"Bertie, I've had something happen to me to-day. I've learned something
+I should have known long since."
+
+Her look of surprise deepened into dismay as he went on: "I know what's
+the matter with you, girlie. 'Tis after seeing Ben your face always
+shines. You love him, Bertie--and I don't blame you--"
+
+A carriage driving up to the gate brought diversion, and she sprang up,
+her face flushed, her eyes big and scared. "There comes Dr. Steele! I'd
+plumb forgot about his call."
+
+"So had I," he answered, as he rose to meet his visitor.
+
+Dr. Steele, a gray-haired, vigorous man, entered the gate and came
+hurriedly up the path, something fateful in his stride. He greeted them
+both casually, smilelessly. "I've got to get that next train," he
+announced, mechanically looking at his watch, "and that leaves me just
+twenty minutes in which to thump you."
+
+Bertha was in awe of this blunt, tactless man of science, and as they
+moved towards the house listened in chilled silence while he continued:
+"Brent writes me that you were doing pretty well down by the lake. Why
+didn't you stay? He says he advised you not to come back."
+
+"This is me home," answered Haney, simply.
+
+Lucius took Bertha's place at Mart's shoulder and the three men went
+into the library, leaving her to wait outside in anxious solitude. There
+was something in the doctor's manner which awed her, filled her with new
+conceptions, new duties.
+
+Steele was one of these cold-blooded practitioners who do not believe in
+the old-fashioned manner. "Cheery suggestion" was nonsense to him. His
+examination was to Bertha, as to Haney, a dreaded ordeal. However, Brent
+had advised it, and they had agreed to submit to it, and now here he
+was, and upon his judgment she must rest.
+
+For half an hour she waited in the hall, almost without moving, so
+far-reaching did this verdict promise to be. Her anxiety deepened into
+fear as Steele came out of the room and walked rapidly towards her.
+"He's a very sick man," he burst forth, irritably. "Get him away from
+here as quickly as you can--but don't excite him. Don't let him exert
+himself at all till you reach a lower altitude. Keep him quiet and
+peaceful, and don't let him clog himself up with starchy food--and above
+all, keep liquors away from him. He shouldn't have come back here at
+all. Brent warned him that he couldn't live up here. Slide him down to
+sea-level--if he'll go--and take care of him. His heart will run along
+all right if he don't overtax it. He'll last for years at sea-level."
+
+"He hates to leave--he says he won't leave," she explained.
+
+The man of science shrugged his shoulders. "All right! He can take his
+choice of roads"--he used an expressive gesture--"up or down. One leads
+to the New Jerusalem and is short--as he'll find out if he stays here.
+Good-night! I must get that train."
+
+"Wait a minute!" she called after him. "Is there anything I can do? Did
+you leave any medicine?"
+
+He turned and came back. "Yes, a temporary stimulant, but medicine is of
+little use. If you can get away to-morrow, you do it."
+
+She stood a few minutes at the library door listening, waiting, and at
+last (hearing no sound), opened the door decisively and went in.
+
+Haney, ghastly pale, in limp dejection, almost in collapse, was seated
+in an easy-chair, with Lucius holding a glass to his lips. He was
+stripped to his undershirt and looked like a defeated, gray old
+gladiator, fallen helpless in the arena, deserted by all the world save
+his one faithful servant--and Bertha's heart was wrenched with a deep
+pang of pity and remorse as she gazed at him. The doctor's warning
+became a command. To desert him in returning health was bad enough, to
+desert him now was impossible.
+
+Running to him, all her repugnance gone, all her tenderness awake, she
+put her arm about his shoulders. "Oh, Mart, did he hurt you? Are you
+worse?"
+
+He raised dim eyes to her, eyes that seemed already filmed with death's
+opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out,
+darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the
+count--but I'm--still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that
+sawbones the power of mind over matter--the ould croaker!"
+
+He recovered rapidly and was soon able to stagger to his feet. Then,
+with a return of his wonted humor, he stretched out his big right arm.
+"I'm not to be put out of business by wan punch from an old puddin' like
+Steele. I am not the 'stiff' he thinks. He had me agin the ropes, 'tis
+true, but I'll surprise him yet."
+
+"What did he say?" she persisted in demanding.
+
+He shook his head. "That's bechune the two of us," he nodded warningly
+at Lucius. "For one thing, he says me heart can't stand the high
+country. 'It's you to the deep valley,' says he."
+
+Her decision was ready. "All right, then _we go_!"
+
+He faced her quickly. "Did ye say WE, Bertie? Did ye say it,
+sweetheart?"
+
+"I did, Mart--I've changed my mind once more. I'm goin' to stick by
+you--till you're settled somewhere. I won't leave till you're better."
+
+The tears blinded his eyes again, and his lips twitched. "You're God's
+own angel, Bertie, but I don't deserve it. No, stay you here--I'm not
+worth your sacrifice. No, no, I can't have it! Stay here with Ben and
+look after the mines."
+
+Her face settled in lines that were not girlish as she repeated: "It's
+up to me to go, and I'm going, Mart! I didn't realize how bad it was for
+you here--I didn't, really!"
+
+"It's all wrong, I'm afraid--all wrong," he answered, "but the Lord
+knows I need you worse than ever."
+
+"Shut off on all that!" she commanded. "Lucius, help me take him outside
+where the air is better."
+
+Mart put the man away. "One is enough," he said, brusquely; and so,
+leaning on his strong, young wife, he went slowly out into the dusk
+where the mother and Miss Franklin were sitting, quite unconscious of
+the deep significance of the doctor's visit. "Not a word to them,"
+warned Haney--"at any rate, not to-night."
+
+They were now both facing the pain of instantly abandoning all these
+beautiful and ministering material conditions which money had called
+round them. It seemed so foolish, so incredibly silly--this mandate of
+the physician. Could any place on the earth be more healthful, more
+helpful to human life than this wide-porched, cool-halled house, this
+garden, this air? What difference could a few thousand feet make on the
+heart's action?
+
+The thought of putting away all hope of seeing Ben Fordyce came at last
+to overtop all Bertha's other regrets as the lordly peak overrode the
+clouds--and yet she was determined to go. Very quietly she told her
+mother that she had decided to put off her visit to Sibley, and at 10:30
+she drove down to the station and sent her away composedly. At the
+moment she was glad to get her out of the town, so that she should not
+share in the grief of next day's departure. To Miss Franklin she then
+confided the doctor's warning, and together they began to pack.
+
+Haney, with lowering brow and bleeding heart, went to his bed denouncing
+himself. "I have no right to her. 'Tis the time for me to step out. If
+the doctor knows his business, 'tis only a matter of a few weeks,
+anyhow, when my seat in the game will be empty. Why not stay here in me
+own home and so end it all comfortably?"
+
+This was so simple--and yet he spent most of the night fighting the
+desire to live out those years the doctor had promised him. It was so
+sweet to sit opposite that dear girl-face of a morning, to feel her hand
+on his hair--now and again. "She's only a child--she can wait ten years
+and still be young." But then came the thought: "'Tis harder for her to
+wait than it is for me to go. 'Tis mere selfishness. What can I do in
+the world? I have no interest in the game outside of her. No, Mart, the
+consumptive is right, 'tis up to you to slip away, genteel and quiet, so
+that your widow will not be troubled by anny gossip."
+
+To use the pistol was easy, the handle fitted his hand, but to die so
+that no shock or shame would come to her, that was his problem. "I will
+not leave her the widow of a suicide," he resolved. "I must go so sly,
+so casual-like, that no one will be able to point the finger at her or
+Ben."
+
+"Can I visit the mine once more?" he had asked Steele. "No," the doctor
+had replied. "To go a thousand feet higher than this would be fatal."
+
+As he mused on this he began to feel the wonder of the body in which he
+dwelt. That a machine so bulky and so gross could be so delicate that a
+change in the pressure of the atmosphere might be fatal astonished him.
+"I'll soon know," he said, "for I cross the range to-morrow."
+
+The dark shadow of the unseen world, once so dim and far, now rose
+formidable as a mountain on the horizon of his thought. It was so
+difficult to leave the house in which he had found peace and a strange
+kind of happiness (the happiness of a soldier home on parole,
+convalescent and content under the apple-trees)--it was very hard--and
+the tenderness, the care, to which his little wife had returned and
+which filled his heart with sweetness, added to his irresolution.
+
+He fell into deep sleep at last, still in debate with himself.
+
+He woke quietly next morning, like a child, and as his eyes took in the
+big room in which he had slept for a year, surrounded by such luxury as
+he had never dreamed of having (even for a day), life seemed very easy
+of continuance, and Steele a mistaken egotist, a foul destroyer of men's
+peace; but as he rose to dress and saw himself in the glass, the figure
+he presented decided his hand. Was this Mart Haney--this unshaven,
+haggard, and wrinkled old man?
+
+Leaning close to the mirror, he studied his face as if it were a mask.
+Deep creases ran down on either side of the nose, giving to his gaze the
+morose expression of an aged, slavering mastiff. His nerveless cheeks
+depended. His neck was stringy. Puffy sacs lay under the eyes, and the
+ashen pallor of his skin told how the heart was laboring to maintain
+life's red current in its round.
+
+As he looked his decision was taken. "Mart, the game has run mostly in
+your favor for twenty-five years--but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old
+gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards
+and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a
+year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her."
+
+And yet, though crippled and gray, death was somehow more dreadful to
+him at this moment than when in his remorseless and powerful young
+manhood he had looked again and again into the murderous eyes of those
+who were eager to shed his blood. He shivered at the thought of the dark
+river, as those whose limbs having grown pale and thin dread the cold
+wind of the night.
+
+"I wonder is the mother over there waitin' fer me?" he half whispered.
+"If ye are, your soul will be floating far above me in the light, while
+I--burdened by me sins--must wallow below in purgatory. But I go, and
+the divil take his toll."
+
+There was not much preparation to be made. His will was written, fully
+attested, and filed in a safe place. His small personal belongings he
+was willing to leave in Bertha's hands. It was hardest of all to vanish
+without a word of good-bye to any soul, but this was essential to his
+plan. "No one must suspect design in me departure," he muttered. "I must
+drop out--_by accident_. I must cut loose during the day, too--no night
+trips for me--in a way that will look natural. If Steele knows his
+business, Mart Haney will go out of the game on the summit, if not, 'tis
+easy for a cripple to stagger and fall from a rock. Thank God, I leave
+her as I found her--small credit to me in that."
+
+Lucius, coming in soon after, found his master unexpectedly cheerful and
+vigorous.
+
+In answer to his query, the gambler said: "I take me medicine, Lucius,
+like a Cheyenne. 'Tis all in the game. Some man must lose in order that
+another may win. The wheel rolls and the board is charged in favor of
+the bank. Damn the man that squeals when the cards fall fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
+
+
+Mart maintained his deceptive cheer at the breakfast-table, and the
+haggard look of the earlier hour passed away as he resolutely attacked
+his chop. He spoke of his exile in a tone of resignation--mixed with
+humor. "Sure, the old dad will have the laugh on us. He told us this was
+the jumpin'-off place."
+
+"What will we do about the house?" asked Bertha. "Will we sell or rent?"
+
+"Nayther. Lave it as it is," replied he quickly. "So long as I live I
+want to feel 'tis here ready for ye whinever ye wish to use it. 'Tis not
+mine. Without you I never would have had it, and I want no other
+mistress in it. Sure, every chair, every picture on the walls is there
+because of ye. 'Tis all you, and no one else shall mar it while I live."
+
+This was the note which was most piercing in her ears, and she hastened
+to stop it by remarking the expense of maintaining the place--its
+possible decay and the like; but to all this he doggedly replied: "I
+care not. I'd rather burn it and all there is in it than turn it over to
+some other woman. Go you to Ben and tell him my will concerning it."
+
+This gave a new turn to her thought. "I don't want to do that. Why don't
+you go and tell him yourself?"
+
+"Didn't the doctor say I must save meself worry? I hate to ask ye to
+shoulder the heavy end of this proposition." His face lost its forced
+smile. "I'm a sick man, darlin'; I know it now, and I must save meself
+all I can. Ye may send Lucius down and bring him up, or we'll drive down
+and see him; maybe the ride would do me good, but I can't climb them
+stairs ag'in."
+
+The temptation to see Ben once more, alone in the bright office, proved
+too great for Bertha's resolution, and she answered: "All right, I'll
+go, but only to bring him down to you. You must give the orders about
+the house."
+
+In spite of his iron determination to be of good cheer in her presence,
+Mart's lips quivered with pain of parting as he looked round the
+splendid dining-room, into which the sunlight was pouring. Suddenly he
+broke forth: "Ye _must_ stay here, darlin'--never mind me. 'Tis a sin
+and a shame to ask ye to lave all this to go with a poor old--"
+
+"Stop that!" she called, sharply. "I won't listen to any such talk," and
+he said no more.
+
+They decided to go down about ten o'clock, when the daily tide of his
+life rode highest. This hour suited his own plan, for a train left for
+the mountains not long after, and he had resolved to make his escape
+while Bertha was with Ben in the office. "There will be no need of any
+change in the house," he thought, "but 'twill do no hurt for them to
+talk it all over."
+
+For an hour or two he hobbled about the yard and garden, taking a final
+look at the horses and dogs, and his face was very lax and gray and his
+voice broken as he talked with his men, who had learned of the doctor's
+orders, and were awkwardly silent with sympathy. He soon grew tired and
+came back to the porch to rest and wait for the hour of his departure.
+Settling into his accustomed chair, which faced directly upon the
+mountains over which the sun, wearing to the south, was beginning to
+hang its vivid shadows, he sat like a man of bronze. The clouds which
+each day clothed the scarred and naked peaks with a mantle of ermine and
+purple, were already assembling. The range assumed a new and
+overpowering grandeur in his eyes, for it typified the Big Divide, which
+lay between him and the country of the soundless, dawnless night.
+
+Up that deep fold which lay between the chieftain and his consort to the
+north ran the western way--a trail with no returning footprints; and the
+thought made his heart beat painfully, while a sense of the wonder and
+the terror of death came to him. He was going away as the wounded
+grizzly crawls to the thicket to die, unseen of his kind, even of his
+mate.
+
+To never return! To mount and mount, each league separating him forever
+from the mansion he had come to enjoy, the wife he loved better than his
+own life. "I cannot believe it," he whispered, "and yet I must make it
+so."
+
+Then he began to wonder, grimly, just when his heart would fail, just
+where it would burst like a rotten cinch. "Will it be on the train?
+Suppose I last to the coal-switch, then I must climb to the mine.
+Suppose I live to reach the mine, then what? Oh, well, 'tis easy to slip
+from the cliff."
+
+Meanwhile, out under the trees, the gardener was spading turf, the
+lawn-mower was purring briskly and as though no sentence of death had
+been passed upon the master of the place. In this Haney saw the world's
+action typified. The individual is of little value--the race alone
+counts.
+
+He shuffled down to meet the carriage at the gate, and Lucius helped him
+in before Bertha could reach him, and they drove off down the street so
+exactly in their usual way that Bertha was moved to say: "I don't
+believe it! I can't realize we're quitting this town to-morrow."
+
+"No more can I, but I reckon it's good-bye all the same--for me, anyhow.
+I despise meself for asking ye to go, darlin'--I _don't_ ask it. Stay
+you! I'm not demanding anything at all. 'Tis fitter for me to go alone.
+Stay on, darlin'--'twill comfort me to lave ye safe and happy here."
+
+She shook her head with quite as much determination as he. "No, Mart, my
+mind is made up--I know my job, and I'm going to muckle to it like a
+little lady, so don't fuss."
+
+The air was beautifully clear and bracing, and a minute later Haney
+remarked, sadly: "I reckon the doctor knows his trade, but 'tis bitter
+nonsense to me when a man says the murky wind of the low country is
+better for a sick man than this."
+
+She was very tender at heart as she replied: "I'm afraid he's right,
+Mart. I could see you weren't so well here; but I was selfish--I tried
+to argue different. You'll be better down below, that's dead certain."
+
+"Well, the bets are all laid and the wheel spinning. I'm ready to take
+me exile--but I hate to drag ye down with me."
+
+"Don't worry about me," she answered, with intent to reassure him. "To
+be honest, I kind o' like the East."
+
+At the door of Ben's office building she got out, leaving him in the
+carriage. As she looked back at him from the doorway something which
+seemed like anguish in his face moved her, and she returned to the wheel
+to say, "Never mind, Mart, we'll buy a new home down there."
+
+He was struggling as if with the pangs of death, but he said, "'Tis
+childish, I know, but I hate to say good-bye to it all."
+
+She patted his hand as if soothing a child, and, turning, mounted the
+stairway. How weak and old he seemed at the moment!
+
+Fordyce was at work. She could hear his typewriter click laboriously (he
+was his own typist as yet), and she stood for a moment in the hall with
+hand pressed hard upon her bosom, the full significance of this last
+visit overwhelming her. Here was the end of her own happiness--the
+beginning of long-drawn misery and heart-hunger. Her blood beat
+tumultuously in her throat, and each throb was a physical, smothering
+pain.
+
+At last she grew calmer and knocked. Ben opened the door, and his face
+shone with joy. "You're late!" he reproachfully exclaimed; then, as he
+peered into the hall, he asked, "Where's the Captain?"
+
+She was very white as she answered: "He can't come up this morning. He
+ain't able."
+
+"Is he worse?" His face expressed swift concern.
+
+"Yes--Dr. Steele came last night and examined him--"
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He told us to 'get out' of here--quick."
+
+He drew her in and shut the door. "Tell me all about it. What is the
+matter?"
+
+"It's his heart. He can't stand it here. We've got to get away--down the
+slope--to-morrow."
+
+"Not to stay?"
+
+"That's what Steele says. Mart's in bad shape."
+
+He searched her face with earnest gaze. "I can't understand that. He
+seemed so happy and so much better, too."
+
+"He's been a good deal worse than he let on, or else he fooled himself.
+The doctor found his heart jumping cogs right along."
+
+"And he positively ordered you to go below?"
+
+"Yes--he scared me. He said Mart might die any minute--if he stayed."
+
+In the silence that followed his face became almost as white as her own,
+for he understood and shared her temptation. At last he said, slowly,
+"And you are going with him?"
+
+"Yes, I must. Don't you see I must?"
+
+He understood, too. Haney had refused to go without her, and to stay
+would be to shorten his life.
+
+"How did the Captain take it?" he asked with effort.
+
+"Mighty hard at first, but he's fairly cheerful to-day. He wants to
+leave me here--but I'm going with him. It's my business to be where he
+is," she added. "He sure needs me now."
+
+"What are you going to do with the house?"
+
+"Leave it just as it is. He won't sell it or rent it. He wants you to
+look after all his business just the same--"
+
+"I can't do that."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't intend to stay here." As he spoke his excitement
+mounted. "My little world was all askew before you came. You've put the
+finishing-touch to it. I'm ready to make my own will at this moment."
+
+"You mustn't talk that way," she admonished. "I don't like to see you
+lose your grip." Her words were commonplace, but her hesitating,
+tremulous voice betrayed her and exalted him. "I'm--we are depending on
+you."
+
+His face, his eyes, filled her with light. She forgot all the rest of
+the world for the moment, and he, looking upon her with a knowledge that
+she loved him and was about to leave him, spoke fatefully--as if the
+words came forth in spite of his will. "You don't seem to realize how
+deeply I'm going to miss you. You cannot know how much your presence
+means to me here in this small town. I will not stay on without the hope
+of seeing you. If you go, I will not remain here another day."
+
+She fought against the feeling of pride, of joy, which these words gave
+her. "You mustn't say that--you've got to stay with Alice."
+
+"Alice!" his voice rose. "Alice has given me back my ring and is going
+home. When you are gone, what is left in this town for me?" He rose and
+walked up and down, a choking sob in his throat. "My God! It's horrible
+to feel our good days ending in a crash like this. What does it all
+mean? I refuse to admit that our shining little world is only a house of
+cards. Are we never to see each other again? I refuse to say good-bye. I
+won't have it so!" He faced her again with curt inquiry. "Where are you
+going to live?"
+
+"I don't know--maybe in Chicago--maybe in New York."
+
+"No matter where it is, I will come to you. I cannot lose you out of my
+life--I will not!"
+
+"No, you mustn't do that. It ain't square to Mart--I can't see you any
+more--now."
+
+He seized upon the significance of that little final word. "What do you
+mean by _now_? Do you mean because Mart is worse? Or do you mean that I
+have forfeited your good-will by my own action?" He came closer to her
+and his voice was low and insistent as he continued: "Or do you
+mean--something very sweet and comforting to me? Do you love me, Bertie?
+Do you? Is that your meaning?"
+
+She struggled against him as she answered: "I don't know--Yes, I do
+know--it ain't right for me--for you to say these things to me while I
+am Mart Haney's wife."
+
+He caught at her hands and looked upon her with face grown older and
+graver as he bitterly wailed: "Why couldn't we have met before you went
+to him? You must not go with him now, for you are mine at heart, you
+belong to me."
+
+She rose with instinctive desire to flee, but he held her hands in both
+of his and hurried on: "You do love me! I am sure of it! Why try to
+conceal it? You would marry me if you were free?" His eyes pierced her
+as he proceeded, transformed by the power of his own plea. "We belong to
+each other--don't you know we do? I am sorry for Alice, but I do not
+love her--I never loved her as I love you. She understands this. That is
+why she has returned my ring--there is nothing further for me to say to
+her. As for Marshall Haney I pity him, as you do, but he has no right to
+claim you."
+
+"He don't claim me. He wants me to stay here."
+
+"Then why don't you?"
+
+"Because he needs me."
+
+"So do I need you."
+
+"But not the way--I mean he is sick and helpless."
+
+He drew her closer. "You must not go. I will not let you go. You're a
+part of my life now." His words ceased, but his eyes called with burning
+intensity.
+
+She struggled, not against him, but in opposition to something within
+herself which seemed about to overwhelm her will. It was so easy to
+listen, to yield--and so hard to free her hands and turn away, but the
+thought of Haney waiting, and a knowledge of his confident trust in her,
+brought back her sterner self.
+
+"No!" she cried out sharply, imperiously. "I won't have it! You mustn't
+touch me again, not while he lives! You mustn't even see me again!"
+
+He understood and respected her resolution, but could not release her at
+the moment. "Won't you kiss me good-bye?"
+
+She drew her hands away. "No, it's all wrong, and you know it! I'll
+despise you if you touch me again! Good-bye!"
+
+Thereupon his clean, bright, honorable soul responded to her reproof,
+rose to dominion over the flesh, and he said: "Forgive me. I didn't mean
+to tempt you to anything wrong. Good-bye!" and so they parted in such
+anguish as only lovers know when farewells seem final, and their empty
+hearts, calling for a word of promise, are denied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
+
+
+Marshall Haney was a brave man, and his resolution was fully taken, but
+that final touch of Bertha's hand upon his arm very nearly unnerved him.
+His courage abruptly fell away, and, leaning back against the cushions
+of his carriage, with closed eyelids (from which the hot tears dripped),
+he gave himself up to the temptation of a renewal of his life. It was
+harder to go, infinitely harder, because of that impulsive, sweet
+caress. Her face was so beautiful, too, with that upward, tender,
+pitying look upon it!
+
+While still he sat weak and hesitant, a roughly dressed man of large and
+decisive movement stopped and greeted him. "Hello, Mart, how are you
+this fine day?"
+
+Haney put his tragic mask away with a stroke of his hand, and hastily
+replied: "Comin' along, Dan, comin' along. How are things up on the
+peak?"
+
+"Still pretty mixed," replied the miner, lightly; then, with a further
+look around, he stepped a little nearer the wheel. "Hell's about to
+break loose again, Mart."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I can't go into details, and I mustn't be seen talking with you, but
+Williams is in for trouble. Tell him to reverse engine for a few weeks.
+Good-day," and he walked off, leaving the impression of having been sent
+to convey a friendly warning.
+
+Haney seized upon this message. His resolution returned. His voice took
+on edge and decision. "Oscar," he called quickly, "drive me down to the
+station, I want to get that ten-thirty-seven train."
+
+As the driver chirruped to his horses and swung out into the street,
+Marshall Haney, with full understanding that this was to be his eternal
+farewell, turned and looked up, hoping to catch a last glimpse of his
+wife's sweet face at the window. A sign, a smile, a beckoning, and his
+purpose might still have faltered, but the recall did not take place,
+and facing the west he became again the man of will. When the carriage
+drew up to the platform he gave orders to his coachman as quietly as
+though this were his usual morning ride. "Now, Oscar, you heard what
+that friend of mine said?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, forget it."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+"But tell Mrs. Haney I've gone up to the mine. You can say to her that
+Williams sent for me. You can tell her, but to no one else, what you
+heard Dan say. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"All right, that stands. Now you go home and wait till about
+twelve-thirty. Then go down for Mrs. Haney."
+
+The coachman, a stolid, reliable man, well trained to his duties, did
+not offer to assist his master, but sat in most approved alertness upon
+his box while Haney painfully descended to the walk.
+
+The train was about to move, and the conductor had already signalled the
+engineer to "go ahead," but at sight of the gambler, whom he knew,
+stopped the train and helped Haney aboard. "A minute more and you would
+have been left. Going up to the mine, I reckon?"
+
+They were still on the platform as Mart answered, "Yes, I'm due to take
+a hand in the game up there." He said this with intent to cover his
+trail.
+
+He was all but breathless as he dropped into a seat near the door. The
+sense of leaden weakness with which he had come to struggle daily had
+deepened at the moment into a smothering pain which threatened to blind
+him.
+
+"I must be quiet," he thought--"I will not die in the car." There seemed
+something disgraceful, something ignominious in such a death.
+
+Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter
+where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all
+concerned."
+
+Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had
+given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful
+stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only
+suspected from Steele's word of caution.
+
+They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse
+grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him
+passed away.
+
+The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window,
+very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along
+whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of
+Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney
+heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the
+sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the
+pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but
+through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay
+Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason
+out.
+
+One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring
+as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain
+and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself.
+They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not
+succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance
+he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys.
+I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear
+the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."
+
+Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His
+mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She
+will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no
+matter--before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."
+
+He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his
+thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to
+those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her
+seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the
+exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and
+his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and
+graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the
+first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how
+basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he
+said, fervently.
+
+Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in
+his--and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order
+that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His
+throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was
+inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake,
+darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."
+
+Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp
+turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer
+camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where
+the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of
+exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to
+die--up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the
+sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled
+like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.
+
+At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the
+conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling
+hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him
+to let the mine go and to return by the next train.
+
+He was too nerveless of fingers to put the sheet back within its
+envelope, and so thrust it, a crumpled mass, into his pocket. It was as
+if her hand was at his shoulder, her voice in his ear, but he did not
+falter. To go back now would be but a renewal of his torture. There
+could not come a better time to go--to go and leave no suspicion of his
+purpose behind him.
+
+Just over the summit, at a bare little station, the train was held for
+orders, and Haney, who was again suffocating and almost blind, took
+another dose of the mysterious drug, and with its effect returned to a
+dim perception of his surroundings. He was able vaguely to recall that a
+trail which began just back of the depot mounted the hill towards his
+largest mine. A desire to see Williams, his faithful partner, his most
+loyal friend, came over him, and, rising to his feet, he painfully crept
+down the aisle to the rear of the car and dropped off unnoticed, just as
+the conductor's warning cry started a rush for the train.
+
+As the last coach disappeared round the turn the essential bleak
+loneliness of the place returned. The station seemed deserted by every
+human being, even the operator was lost to sight, and the gambler,
+utterly solitary, with clouded brain and laboring breath, turned towards
+the height, his left leg dragging like a shackle.
+
+For the first half-mile the way was easy, and by moving slowly he
+suffered less pain than he had expected. Around him the frost-smitten
+aspens were shivering in the wind, their sparse leaves dangling like
+coins of red-and-yellow gold, and all the billowing land below, to the
+west, was iridescent with green and flame-color and crimson. A voiceless
+regret, a dim, wide-reaching, wistful sadness came over him, but did not
+shake his resolution. He had but to look down at his crippled body to
+know that the beauty of the world was no longer his to enjoy. His days
+were now but days of pain.
+
+He had always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this
+range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he
+mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he
+had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high
+above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air
+came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the
+solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced his
+challenging march towards death.
+
+At the first sharp up-raise in the way his heart began to pound and he
+swayed blindly to and fro, unable to proceed. For an instant he looked
+down in dismay at the rocky, waiting earth, a most inhospitable grave. A
+few minutes' rest against a tree, and his brain cleared. "Higher--I must
+go higher," he said to himself; "they'll find me here."
+
+As he rose he could see the town spread wide on the hill-tops beneath
+him--the cabins mere cubes, the mill a child's toy. He could discern men
+like ants moving to and fro as if in some special excitement--but he did
+not concern himself with the cause. His one thought was to mount--to
+blend with the firs and the rocks. He drew the phial from his pocket and
+held it in his hand in readiness, with a dull fear that the chemical
+would prove too small, too weak, to end his pain.
+
+It was utterly silent and appallingly lonely on this side of the great
+peak. Hunters were few and prospectors were seldom seen. These
+upward-looping trails led to no mine--only to abandoned prospect
+holes--for no mineral had ever been found on the western slope. The
+copses held no life other than a few minute squirrels, and no sound
+broke the silence save the insolent cry of an occasional jay or
+camp-bird. To die here was surely to die alone and to lie alone, as the
+fallen cedar lies, wrought upon by the wind and the snows and the rain.
+
+Nevertheless, his suicidal idea persisted. It had become the one final,
+overpowering, directing resolution. There is no passion more persistent
+than that which leads to self-destruction. In the midst of the blinding
+swirl of his thought he maintained his purpose to put himself above the
+world of human effort and to become a brother of the clod, to mix
+forever with the mould.
+
+Slowly he dragged himself upward, foot by foot, seeking the friendly
+shelter and obscurity of a grove of firs just above him. Twice he sank
+to his knees, a numbing pain at the base of his brain, his breath
+roaring, his lips dry, but each time he rose and struggled on, eager to
+reach the green and grateful shelter of the forest, filled with desire
+to thrust himself into its solitude; and when at last he felt the chill
+of the shadow and realized that he was surely hidden from all the world,
+he turned, poised for an instant on a mound where the trail doubled
+sharply, gave one long, slow glance around, then hurled himself down the
+rocky slope. Even as he leaped his heart seemed to burst and he fell
+like a clod and lay without further motion. It was as if he had been
+smitten in flight by a rifle-ball.
+
+Around him the small animals of the wood frolicked, and the jay called
+inquiringly, but he neither saw nor heard. He was himself but a gasping
+creature, with reason entirely engaged in the blind struggle which the
+physical organism was instinctively making to continue in its wonted
+ways. All the world and all his desires, save a longing for his fair
+young wife, were lost out of his mind, and he thought of Bertha only in
+a dim and formless way--feeling his need of her and dumbly wondering why
+she did not come. In final, desperate agony, he lifted the phial of
+strychnine to his lips, hoping that it might put an end to his
+suffering; but before this act was completed a sweet, devouring flood of
+forgetfulness swept over him, his hand dropped, and the unopened bottle
+rolled away out of his reach. Then the golden sunlight darkened out of
+his sky, and he died--as the desert lion dies--alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon
+his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves--palm upward
+as if to show its emptiness. A bird--the roguish gray magpie--had stolen
+away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no
+sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his
+face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite
+the name of Marshall Haney.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Money Magic, by Hamlin Garland
+
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