it seemed like the hand of destiny that elvine van blooren should wander across the path of jeffrey masters at a moment when all the fruits of his ambition seemed to be falling into his outspread-hands. it was surely the work of fate that instant recognition of her desirability leaped in his heart, so that some six weeks later they should set out on their life's journey together on the eastward bound mail train, which bore, in its foremost van, the mails for the world outside, gathered in from every district in the region of calthorpe.
their happiness was perfect. in six weeks' time the metamorphosis in the woman had been as complete as it was in the case of the man.
for the man it seemed that life had opened out an entirely new vista. he had warmed under the influence of his new passion. the angles in his character seemed to have softened. achievement had receded into its due proportion in his focus. the world had become peopled with warm living creatures whose strivings were now a source of sympathy to him. life no longer moved about him detached, unappealing.
so with the woman. elvine van blooren's past was her own. whatever it was she hugged it to herself, and the very process of doing so had helped to harden her.
but she possessed fires she had wilfully hidden, even from herself. for four years she had lived a life of desperate calculation against all those things she most dreaded, till she felt she had converted herself into a machine free from all trammeling emotions, equipped solely to execute the purpose she had set her mind on.
these fires were awakened early. their awakening had been all unknown to her. yet she had admitted them when she had warned her mother that she intended to "like" the man she ultimately married. all subconsciously she had "liked" jeffrey masters from their first formal meeting. further acquaintance had deepened her liking. the keen eyes possessed strong qualities of appeal. the decision of his clean-cut face suggested all that strength which appealed to her.
the culmination was reached long before the appointed day of their wedding. it came at the moment he definitely asked her to become his wife. it had been a moment to her than which she had dreamed of nothing more sublime. the flood-gates had been literally forced open before a tide of sudden passion, which left her gasping, and something incredulous. where was all the result of her years of hard calculation? where was that machine upon which she had gazed with so much confident pride? it had only served her just so long as was required to realize that jeffrey masters was sufficiently desirable to fulfil the purposes of the life she had marked out for herself. then, the primitive woman in her had abandoned herself to the glowing fires burning deep within her young heart.
thus the bond held them both through delicious days, which so little time before had seemed impossible to either. thus the time drew on toward the golden day of consummation. and with each passing day firmer and firmer, more and more irresistible, grew the ties under which they were held.
as the local press had foreshadowed, the event of their marriage proved of primary social importance. all calthorpe speeded them upon their life's journey, and the east-bound mail bore them away with the echo of cheery farewells, and every other form of speeding, dying pleasantly away behind them. so, too, the snake-like string of coaches bore the burden of destiny in the great uninteresting, padlocked baskets and bags which contained the mail.
the days of the honeymoon had been carefully thought out by elvine. her wishes had been supreme. toronto was their first destination. a city whose bright, pleasant life appealed to her more, perhaps, even than any of the great cities of the greater world.
perfect happiness was theirs from the moment of their departure eastward. no cloud drifted in sight during their first day in the great hotel from which they intended to view the life of toronto. then came the second morning, and the--mail.
they occupied a suite of rooms upon the first floor of the hotel. it overlooked the wide portico which supported a deep balcony devoted to their sole use. jeff was alone in the luxurious sitting-room when the mail was brought in by a waiter. he was glancing down the morning paper while he waited for elvine, who was preparing for a morning round of the stores.
his attention for the news he read was less than scant. it is doubtful if he read more than the head-lines, and these only with partial understanding. his mind was upon the beautiful woman in the adjacent apartment arraying herself with all the arts of a woman in love for the benefit of the man whose regard is alone worth while.
his eyes were smiling unconsciously; something of the keenness of his whole expression had become lost under their new expression. dressed in the simple garb of civilization he had little about him, beyond the intense sunburn of his face, to remind one of the urgent young ranchman who had first planned the combination which was to develop into the famous obar ranch.
at the arrival of the mail he flung his paper aside. then he picked up each letter in turn, examined the address, and set aside, in a separate pile, those addressed to his wife. of his own there were only four, and, of these, only the one addressed in bud's cumbersome handwriting interested him seriously.
before opening it he pierced and lit a cigar. he felt that from its bulk the letter must contain important reports from the ranch, and, coming at such a time, would need the steadying influence of a cigar to enable him to give them the consideration necessary.
he lounged back in the big chair and leisurely tore open the envelope.
* * * * * *
the door communicating with the principal bedroom opened noiselessly. elvine entered the sitting-room, accompanied by that delightful rustle of silk which is quite irresistible to male ears. at all times a beautiful woman, just now she was incomparable.
a joy of life lit every feature, endowing her with an animation of expression unrecognizable in her a few short weeks ago. there was a melting lustre in her dark eyes, a gentleness in the smiling corners of her irresistible mouth. her cheeks, even, seemed to have gained an added softness of contour. while the masses of dark hair revealed beneath her hat shone with the burnish of the raven's wing.
her husband had turned on the instant. his cigar was flung aside. a moment later he was on his feet, and his arms, full of vital impulse, came near to destroying the perfection of her toilet.
the woman made no protest under the embrace. it told her so many things she wanted to know. it told her of the love she now so frankly desired. it told her, too, that the efforts on her toilet had not been ill-spent.
presently jeff stood back, holding her at arm's length, while his hungry eyes devoured every feature of the face that had taught him so much of the real meaning of life.
"splendid--just splendid!" he exclaimed.
"my--gown?"
the smile was enticing. the man laughed out of the buoyancy of his heart.
"no--you!" he cried, leaning forward for the embrace she had invited.
a moment later he stood back again, and elvine's eyes fell upon the mail lying upon the table.
"some for me?" she inquired, moving toward it.
jeff nodded. then his smile died out. his gaze had fallen upon his own open letter. it was lying upon the table near the pile set aside for his wife, just where he had flung it down at the moment of her entrance.
"quite a few," he said.
the unsmiling nature of his response had caught elvine's attention. but she picked up her letters and glanced hastily through them.
a moment later her eyes came back to his face.
"aren't you going to finish yours?" she inquired.
she was seeking the meaning of that suddenly banished smile.
it was almost with eagerness that the man caught at the opportunity.
"it's from bud, and--i guess it's important. i've only two or three pages more."
he picked the letter up and sorted the sheets into order. elvine watched him. she wanted to ask a dozen questions. but she put none of them.
"he's your partner," was all she said.
"yep," he nodded, with his eyes on the pages.
then elvine voiced something of her real feelings of the moment.
"i just hate mail," she said, with what seemed unnecessary force, as she began to draw on her gloves. "it always worries me to death. i think it scares me. makes me think of death, or disaster, or--or bills and things." she laughed. "maybe it's my pessimistic nature makes me feel that way. when things are all sunshiny and fine, why, it kind of feels to me there are clouds around. nasty, mean, hateful shadows lurking, full of----"
"hell for some one, eh?"
there was a wry twist to the man's lips as he smiled his reply.
"guess that's how it is with mine," he went on. "i'll just read these pages, and then we'll get going. eh?"
the woman's watchful eye smiled assent and she continued to draw her gloves on. but her observation of him seemed to gather intensity the moment he became absorbed in the clumsy, unskilled handwriting.
the last vestige of his smile had gone. his fair brows had knitted in a troubled frown. he seemed to read eagerly but intently, absorbed to an unusual degree.
she realized the seriousness of that letter. and for some curious reason alarm supervened. he had spoken of it easily, but his manner of reading denied his spoken word.
the silent moments irked her. the rustle of the paper in his hands. a feeling of foreboding grew, a feeling she knew was foolish, but which at the same time was irresistible. she found herself speculating as to the contents of the letter. she strove to review all the possibilities which the great obar ranch could offer for disaster. and her mind drifted back over years to a memory that gave her not a shadow of comfort.
the last button of her gloves had been secured when the refolding of the letter came. jeff deliberately, but abstractedly, returned it to its cover. his smile was scarcely a happy one when he finally looked up.
"i'm through, sweetheart," he said. "shall we----?"
but elvine's feelings would no longer be denied.
"serious as all that?" she demanded. the next moment she would have given worlds to have been able to recall the words.
"i'm afraid it is--in a way."
elvine had no option but to continue the subject. she spoke with real feeling.
"may i know, dear?" she appealed. "you see, jeff, things often read worse than they are. maybe i can help. i've a clearer head than you'd guess."
the man's cheeks flushed. he had distressed her, frightened her, and the thought of it annoyed him. he stepped toward her, his hands outheld. she responded, and her hands were caught in his firm warm clasp.
"say, i'm just sorry. i surely am. guess i've no sort of right scaring you. anyway, there's nothing to be scared about. just a bunch of rustlers----"
"cattle thieves?"
the woman's whole expression had become transformed. the announcement had shocked her out of her self-possession. her smile had fled. her eyes were wide, and their dark depths were full of a horror that seemed quite uncalled for. even her cheeks had lost their delicate bloom. her gaze was held fast by the man's steady regard. it was almost a fascinated stare held under some powerful hypnotic influence.
the man was at a loss. but he promptly claimed the fault to himself.
"don't just worry a thing, evie," he cried, in real distress. "it don't amount to anything. and anyway you don't need to worry. we can deal with it. i best tell you right away. you see, it's their second play since i've been from home. bud's feeling sore. first it was a great imported bull they shot up while they ran off his cows, and a dandy bunch of yearling prize stock. now--now it's a swell bunch of fifty beeves that had been fattening for the buyers. the loss don't hurt. oh, no, it's not that."
he paused. somehow their hands fell apart, and, to the woman, now recovering herself, it was as though some shadow had thrust itself between them. she waited, vaguely troubled. somehow speech for the moment had become impossible to her. she was thinking, thinking far back amidst scenes she had no desire to recall.
her husband went on. his manner had lost all the contrition he had displayed at alarming her. it was abstracted. he too seemed to be thinking deeply, far away amidst scenes which afforded him only the deepest pain.
"i've just thought," he said. then he raised one strong hand and passed it across his broad forehead. he drew a profound sigh. "say, i wonder," he went on reflectively. "it's things bud's said in his yarn. suspicions. they brought up all sorts of queer things to my mind."
the smile he essayed was a hopeless failure. then, in a moment, all doubt seemed to pass away and he spoke with quick, keen decision.
"i'll have to tell you, evie. you'd sort of made me forget. these days have been the happiest i've ever known, and you've made 'em so. that's how i forgot to tell you of things i guess you ought to know."
but the woman before him had no desire for his present mood. she smilingly shook her head in a decided negative. the last thing she desired was anything in the nature of a confidence.
"is there any need--now?" she asked. then she smiled. "the stores are waiting."
but she had yet to learn the real character of the man whom she had married. she had yet to understand the meaning of the simple sobriquet "honest jeff," which nan tristram had long since bestowed upon him. he was not the man to be turned from a decision once taken. the decision on this occasion was arrived at through the depth of the passionate devotion which controlled his every thought. his love for elvine made his purpose only the more irrevocable.
"i think they had best wait a shade longer," he said with a shadowy smile. "you see, evie, i kind of figure there's things that matter more than just gathering in the fancy goods money'll buy--even for you. guess i owe you most everything a man can give, the same as you feel toward me. that's how marriage--marriage like ours--seems to me. as far as i can make it there's not going to be a thing on my conscience toward you. i'd have told you this before, only--only you just drove it right out of my head with the sight of your beautiful face, the sound of your voice, which i just love, and the thought that you--you were to be my wife. you see," he went on simply, "i hadn't room in my head for anything else."
his manner was so firmly gentle that elvine's protest melted before it. after all it was very sweet, and--and---- she drew a chair forward and sat down. but her smile hid her real feelings. confidences, confessions, even from a husband, were repugnant to her.
jeff remained standing. he gazed for a few silent moments in the direction of the open window. the expression of his blue eyes suggested a deep, searching introspection. he might have been searching for an opening. again, he might simply have been reviewing scenes which stirred his innermost soul with their horror and pain.
at last, however, elvine made a half impatient movement. instantly the blue eyes turned in her direction, and their expression startled her. they were full of a stony, passionless regard. not for her, but inspired by the thought behind them. she shivered under their gaze and their impression upon her was never afterward obliterated.
"it's four years past now," he began, in a voice she scarcely recognized. "these rustlers brought it all back to me. say, evie, i had a twin brother, ronald. maybe that won't convey much. i sort of loved him--better than myself. that's all. he was a bit queer. i mean he just didn't care a heap for running along the main trail of things. he was apt to get all mussed up running around byways. well, when bud and i fixed up the obar partnership, i was just crazy to hunt ronny down, and hand him a share. bud's a great feller, and i told him. i knew whereabouts the boy had staked out, and, figuring we'd earned a vacation, bud and i set out to round him up, and hand him a piece which i guessed would keep him with me the rest of his life."
he paused. he drew a deep breath, and his eyes, hard as marble, had turned again in the direction of the window.
elvine was held even against herself. the expression of his eyes, even more than the curious sharpness of his voice, troubled her, alarmed her.
"i'm not going to yarn more than necessary," he went on after a moment. "there isn't any need. i just want to give you the deadly facts. as i said, i knew his layout, where he was--supposed to be trapping pelts. supposed. bud had been raised in the district, so he acted scout. he made the location and found him. d'you know how?"
there was a restrained fierceness in the sharp demand.
the woman shook her head. any word would have seemed out of place.
"hanging by the neck to the bough of a tree."
"jeff, don't!" the woman gasped.
but now there was a smile in the man's eyes. it was a terrible smile which drove every vestige of color from his wife's cheeks.
"i had to tell you," he cried harshly. "they hanged him for a cattle thief. he was one. oh, yes. he was one. that's why i had to tell you."
the woman's eyes were wide with a sudden terror to which the man remained oblivious.
"but you said----"
"i said he was pelt hunting. so he'd told me. so i believed. but he wasn't. say, he was a cattle rustler running a big gang who'd played hell with the district. he'd been running it for nigh five years. he'd beaten 'em to a mush, all that time, till a reward was offered. a reward of ten thousand dollars. that fixed him. there was some one knew wanted that reward, and--got it."
there was a sudden movement in the room. elvine had abruptly risen from her chair. she moved away. she crossed to the window, and stood with her back turned, and so had thrust herself into her husband's focus.
"it's--it's a terrible--dreadful story," came her faltering comment.
"terrible? dreadful?" the man emitted a sound that might have been a laugh. a shudder passed down the woman's back as it fell upon her ears. "but it's nothing to the reality, evie. oh, i've no sympathy for his crimes. i hate rustlers like the poison they are. but he was twin to me, and i loved him. it made no difference to me. you see, he was part of me. now--now i only hope the good god'll let me come up with the man who took the price of his blood. for four years i've dreamed that way, and i guess it don't matter if it's fifty more. i'll never change. there's some one, somewhere, who's lower down than the worst cattle rustler ever lived."
there was no response as the man ceased speaking. elvine had not stirred from her place at the window. the moments passed. swift, poignant moments, in which two people were enduring an agony of recollection.
the man's relentless expression never changed. his eyes were gazing straight ahead. and though his vision was obstructed by the perfect contours of his wife's figure, he was gazing through her, and beyond her, upon a scene which had for its central interest the suspended figure of a man with his head lolling forward and sideways, and his dead eyes bulging from their sockets.
elvine never stirred. her gaze was upon the crowded thoroughfare beyond. but like her husband, she was gazing through and beyond. she was watching the tongues of flame as they licked up the resinous trunks and foliage of a great pine bluff.
at length it was the woman's voice broke the silence.
"where--where did this all happen?"
the question was the verbal expression of a despairing hope. the voice, however, was steady.
"in the cathills."
"the lightfoot gang?"
"yes. that's what he called it. you knew of them?"
there was a slight movement of the woman's shoulders. it was the faintest possible shrug.
"everybody in calthorpe heard of them."
then she turned and faced him. the mask with which she confronted him was perfect. her dark beauty was unimpaired by a sign of emotion. even her cheeks had returned to their customary delicate bloom. her eyes shone with a world of sympathy as she came toward him.
"jeff, don't think of it all--now, dear. it's too, too dreadful. guess i was wrong to let you tell me. i certainly was. it's past. it's done with. nothing can ever bring him back to you. to dwell upon it, to think and feel that way, will only serve to embitter your life. say, try, jeff. i'll help you, dear. i will. sure. sure. won't you try, for--my sake?"
the man took her hands in his. he drew her toward him. the strained expression of his eyes melted before her perfect beauty.
"i'll try, evie," he said, without conviction. then he kissed her.
after a while she looked up.
"and the stores, jeff?"
the man smiled down in response.
"sure--the stores."
