supper was over when jeff arrived. he came straight into the room where the colored girl had just finished clearing the table. nan was returning a few odds and ends to their places. bud had already lit his evening pipe preparatory to settling down for the brief interim before turning in for the night.
there was no preamble. there was no sign of emotion, even at the moment of his arrival. jeff launched his request at father and daughter in a voice such as he might have used in the most commonplace of affairs.
it was a request to be put up for the night.
but both bud and nan were startled. nan's cheeks paled, and imagination gripped her. she said nothing. with bud to be startled was to instantly resort to verbal expression.
"wot's wrong?" he demanded.
then the storm broke. it broke almost immoderately before these two who were the intimates of jeff's life. all that had been withheld before dug mcfarlane, all which he had refused to display before the wife he had set up for his worship, jeff had no scruples in laying before these two. it was the sure token of the relations between them, relations of perfect trust and sympathy.
bud sat gazing at the outward sign of the passionate fires he had always known to lie smouldering in the depths of this man's soul. nan stood paralyzed before such violence. both knew that hell was raging under the storm of emotion. both knew that the wounds inflicted upon this man's strong heart were well-nigh mortal.
the whole story was told, broken, disjointed. for the first time nan learned the result of the search for an erring twin brother, and her horror was unbounded. a heart full of tenderness bled for the man whose sufferings she was witnessing. the story of elvine's own actions filled her with revolting, yet with pity. it was not in her to condemn easily. she felt that such acts were beyond her powers of judgment.
the man's grief, his bitter, passionate resentment smote her beyond any sufferings she had ever known herself. elvine absorbed all the anger she could bestow, but even so it was infinitesimal beside the harvest of grief which the sight of this man's suffering yielded her. that was the paramount emotion of the moment with her. that, and the injustice she deemed to have been meted out to him.
it was not until the great crescendo of the man's storm of grief had passed that nan bethought herself of the need in which he stood. nor was that need apparent until his whole note had changed to a moody bitterness with which he regarded the future. then she understood the demon that was knocking at the door of his soul.
immediately her decision was taken. she left the two men together and went to make the necessary preparations for this refugee's accommodation. curiously enough, these preparations were not complete for nearly an hour, at the time, in fact, that it was her father's habit to seek his bed.
when she returned to the parlor the place was full of the reek of bud's tobacco, but it was only from the one pipe. neither of the men were talking when she entered the room, and her glance passed swiftly from one to the other.
she moved over to where jeff was sitting with his back turned to her, and stood behind his chair.
"everything's fixed for you, jeff," she said. "but--but maybe you don't feel like turning in yet. my daddy usually goes at this time, and--he's had a hard day."
bud looked across at her. his pipe was removed from his mouth for the purpose of protest. but the protest remained unspoken in face of the meaning he beheld in the girl's brown eyes. instead he rose heavily from his rocker.
"say, jest take your time, jeff, boy," he said. "guess you'll need to think hard before mornin'. i don't guess it's your way to jump at things. i ain't never see you jump yet. anyway, when you're thinkin', boy, it'll be best to remember that a woman's jest a woman, an' her notions ain't allus our notions."
nan came over to him, and he rested one great arm about her shoulders, and stooped and kissed her.
"good-night, little gal," he said. "maybe jeff'll excuse me. an' maybe you ken tell him some o' them things that don't come easy to me. so long, jeff. i'll sure see you in the mornin' before you quit."
he stood uncertainly for a moment with his arm upon nan's shoulders. he seemed to want to say more, and was at a loss how to say it. finally he stuck his pipe back into his mouth with a savage thrust and lumbered heavily from the room.
nan understood. she knew he was laboring under profound emotion, and a feeling of self-disgust at his own inability to help his partner and friend.
as the door closed she moved over to the table and leaned against it. jeff's back was toward her, and his face was turned in the direction of the window, across which the curtains had not yet been drawn.
he was leaning forward, his gaze intent and straight ahead out into the black night beyond. his elbows were on his knees, and his hands were clasped, and hanging between them. to the sympathetic heart of nan there was despair in every line of his attitude. she nerved herself to carry out her decisions.
"jeff!"
there was no movement in response. but a reply came. it was in the tone of a man indifferent to everything but the thought teeming through his brain.
"well?"
"why did you come around here--to-night?"
the question achieved its purpose. the man abandoned his attitude in a movement of fierce resentment. he swung round on the questioner, his eyes hot with feeling.
"because i guess i need to sleep somewhere. because nothing on earth could make me share roof with the woman who's my wife. gee, my wife! say, nan, the thought of it nearly sets me crazy."
"does it? you didn't feel that way--two nights ago."
the man's eyes met the girl's incredulously.
"how can you talk that way?" he demanded roughly. "i didn't know a thing then. i thought she was all she seemed. maybe i was just a blind fool, crazy with love. anyway--i hadn't learned the hell lying around her heart."
"i s'pose there is hell lying around her heart?"
nan's words were provocative. yet they were spoke in such a tone of simplicity as to rob them of all apparent intent.
jeff was in no mood for patience. swift resentment followed upon his incredulous stare.
"do you need me to give it you all again?" he cried fiercely. "it don't need savvee to grip things." then his voice rose. "and to think those dollars have fed her, and clothed her, a body as fair as an angel's, and a heart as foul as hell." then his tone dropped as if he were afraid of the sound of his own voice. "say, thank god i kept my hands off her. if she'd been a man----"
he left his sentence unfinished. in her mind nan completed it. but aloud she gave it another ending.
"if she'd been a man i don't guess she'd have been there to have you lay hands on her."
there was a new note in the girl's tones. but it passed jeff by.
"no," he said with almost foolish seriousness.
"say, jeff," the girl went on gently, a moment later, "aren't you acting a teeny bit crazy over this? i mean talking of souls foul as hell. and--an' not sharing the same roof with the woman you've sworn to love, and--and cherish as long as you both live. she hasn't done a thing wrong by you since you said--an' meant that. she hasn't done a thing wrong anyway."
the denial was so gentle yet so decided. had there been heat in it it must have been ineffective. as it was jeff stared incredulously and speechless, and the girl went on:
"you think i'm wrong," she said. "maybe you think i'm crazy, same as i guess this thing's made you feel." she shook her head. "i'm not--sure. take us here. maybe i'm chasing around through the hills. chance runs me plumb into the camp of these rustlers who're cutting into your profits on the obar. i come right in and hand you the story. you and bud round up a bunch of boys and i take you to where the camp's hidden. you hold 'em up, and you hang them. well, i guess the pleasantest moment of that racket for you would be to get back to home and hand me a bunch of dollars. say, i can see you doing it. i can see your smile. i can hear you sayin': 'take 'em, little nan, an' buy yourself some swell fixing.' and say, jeff, i wouldn't have done a thing less than your evie's done. that's how i'd say now, acting as you are, you aren't the 'honest jeff' i've always known. you're not fair to evie, you aren't just--before god."
the man made a gesture of fierce impatience. he seemed on the verge of a furious outburst. but the steady light of nan's eyes was upon him. for some moments he gazed into their sweet depths, and their courage, their steadfastness, seemed to abash him. he flung out his arms in a helpless gesture of appeal.
"nan, nan!" he cried, in a voice of hopelessness. "i can't argue it. i just can't. i can't see things right. i sure nearly am crazed. the only thing i can see is the blood of poor ronny on her--her hands. the hands i've held in mine. the hands i've kissed. oh, was there ever so foul----"
"yes, jeff, there was. there is."
nan's voice was low but thrilling with deep feeling. she moved forward from her place at the table with a little rush. the rustle of her skirts only ceased as she fell upon her knees at the man's side, and her warm brown hands clasped themselves upon the strong arm propped upon his knee.
"it's a far, far fouler thing, this thing you've got fixed in your mind to do. oh, jeff, dear, if i could speak the things as i feel them. but i can't. it's all inside me mussed up and maybe foolish. but, oh, i know i'm right i want to tell you something, and i don't just know how."
her eyes were gazing up into his, the soft brown eyes of the beautiful soul within. she strove to compel his gaze, but it moodily withheld its regard.
"jeff, you'll kill poor evie. you'll break her heart by robbing her of all you've brought into her life through your love. say, can't you see it all? and you'll do it for a shadow. yes, it's a shadow, an ugly shadow, this crazy thought of yours for a brother who was just a low-down cattle rustler, same as these toughs you're making a bid of ten thousand dollars to see hanged the same as he was. think of it, jeff. she's just a woman, weak and helpless, and you're going to rob her of all that makes her life worth while. would you act that way by a mother, or--or a sister? and she's your wife, jeff, who's given you all a loving woman has to give. i could tell you of the things this means to you, and the schemes and plans you've sort of set your heart on, but i don't need to. i just want you to see what you're doing by her, and all the time she's done you no wrong. do you get that, dear? evie's never done you a wrong, and in return you're going to do all you know to kill her heart dead."
"done me no wrong?" there was a desperate sort of sneer in the words. they were the words of a man who is robbed of denial but still protests.
but nan rejected even that. she swiftly flung it back in her sense of the injustice of it.
"it's as i said, jeff. just as i said," she declared solemnly. she drew a deep breath. she was about to take a plunge which might bear her she knew not whither. "oh, i could get mad with you for that. i could so, jeff. i know the story of it. you've told it yourself, and i don't guess you've spared her any. but you're blinding yourself because you're crazy to do so. you're blinding yourself to all sense of justice to defend a wretched scallawag who happened to be your brother. say, you're trying to fix on your wife, the woman who loves you, and who you guess you love, all the dirt you should heap on the worthless man who lived by theft, and maybe, even, was a murderer. say, don't speak. not just a single word. guess you can say all you need when i'm through," she cried, as the man, with eyes ablaze, sought to break in. "when i'm through i'll listen. say, bring this right home here. we're being robbed by cattle thieves. i don't guess they're better or worse than your brother. what if he'd been one of this gang? if you'd got this gang, with him in it? would you've let him go and hanged the others? tell me. tell me right here and now."
the man sprang from his seat. he moved away to the window.
"you're talking foolish," he flung over his shoulder. "it's not the position. my brother's deserts aren't in question. it's evie's act. my wife's act. you're a woman and defend her. how could you be expected to see a man's point of view?"
"there can be no man's point of view in it," nan cried warmly. "i guess there's just one point. the point of right and justice. in justice she's not done a thing to make you act this way. for your sake, for hers, for the sake of justice you'll have to go back to her."
the man swung round.
"you'd have me go back to her?" he cried in fierce derision. "say, you're crazy! go back to her feeling as i do?"
"feeling as you've no right to feel," nan retorted swiftly. then in a flash her voice changed, dropping to a note of deep tenderness and sympathy. "say, jeff, won't you go back? won't you?" she pleaded. "think of all it means to her, to you. think of a poor woman driven to the depths of despair for a shadow you've nursed in your brain these years. that's what it comes to. i know. oh, jeff, as sure as ther's just a great big god above us you'll pay for it if you don't. you surely will."
the man shifted his gaze. the lids of his eyes drooped and hid from the waiting girl all that passionate feeling he had not hesitated to display. she wondered as she waited. she was fearful, too.
in the man every sort of emotion was surging through him in a chaotic tangle. nothing seemed clear; anger, revolting, even hatred, all fought for place. and through it all the pleading tones of the girl would not be denied.
after a moment he suddenly flung out his arms.
"i--i just can't, nan!" he cried desperately.
a wave of relief swept through nan's heart. he was yielding, and she knew it. his manner had completely and abruptly changed. she drew nearer to him. every honest art of persuasion was in her tender manner. all self was forgotten in that moment of spiritual purpose.
"but you can--if you will," she said, her brown eyes uplifted to his. "there isn't a thing you can't do--and you will. and this is so small, jeff. so small. just think of that great big god somewhere up above waiting, waiting to help you. he's always waiting to help us--any of us. ask him. ask his help. he'll give it you. he surely will. and he can clear away all this dreadful feeling. it'll pass right away easy. i know. he's done things for me. you just can't guess how much. say, jeff, and when he's fixed you right, feeling that way, he'll show you, and tell you more. he'll show you that evie's act was not hers, but--his. it was just his way of bringing ronny's punishment back to you. you see, jeff, ronny was part of you. you said so. and oh, he's wiser than you an' me. and he figures this thing is best so. it's a little cross, such a teeny one, he's set you to bear, and if you're the man i know and believe in, why, you'll just carry it without a squeal. then later you'll understand, and--you'll be real glad for it. will you--will you go back to her--to-morrow, jeff?"
nan waited almost breathlessly. she was watching him with a gaze that searched every detail of his face. she saw the strong veins at his temples standing out, the usually clear eyes stained and bloodshot. she saw him raise one hand wearily to his forehead, and pass it back over his hair. she knew the movement so well. the sight of it thrilled her. there was little about him she did not know and understand.
"you've made it seem i'll have to, nan," he said with desperate reluctance.
for a moment a strange feeling of weakness came over the girl. but she resolutely thrust it aside.
"it's not me, jeff," she disclaimed. "you know it's not me. and you'll--promise?"
he nodded.
"i'll go back to her, because--of you."
a curious look of fear crept into the girl's eyes.
"you'll go back, because--of her," she persisted.
the man shook his head.
"anyway--i'll go back."
the words were roughly spoken. but nan accepted them. it was all she could hope for. and--well, she had done her best.
she sighed deeply. she glanced about her. for a moment they dwelt upon the man who was denied her. the man in whom she saw all that could ever make life worth while.
"good-night, jeff."
her voice was very low and soft.
"good-night, nan." then with a sudden outburst, as forceful as it was spontaneous: "god, if the world were only made up of women like you!"
but the door had closed. and as nan crept to her bedroom, unrestrained tears coursed down her soft cheeks. the full force of the irony of it all was too great for her. he was going back to elvine, and--she had sent him.
