C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
in her hero of romance was stripped of all belief in him now, as a young tree in blossom is stripped of its delicate bloom by an icy wind. Not believing in him, neither did she believe in his love.
She thought that he was sorry for her, that he was grateful for what she had done to help him; that perhaps for the time being he intended to "turn over a new leaf," not really for her sake, but because he had been in danger of being found out.
Scornfully she told herself that this pretence at ranching was one of the many adventures dotted along his career; one act in the melodrama of which he delighted to be the leading actor. His own love of luxury and charming surroundings was enough to account for the improvements he hastened to make at the ranchhouse.
Anxiously she put away the thought that all he did was for her. She did not wish to accept it. She did not want the obligation of gratitude. It even seemed puerile that he should attempt to make up for spoiling her life by supplying a few easy chairs and pictures and a Chinese cook.
"He likes the things himself and can't live without them," she insisted. And it was to show him that he could not atone in such childish ways that she lived out of doors or hid in her own room.
At first she locked the door of that room when she entered, thinking of it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance relaxed. She forgot to lock the door.
Summer passed. Autumn and then winter came. Knight was a good deal away, for he had bought an interest in a newly opened copper mine in the Organ Mountains, and was interested in the development which might mean fortune. At night, however, he came back in the second-hand motor-car which he had got at a bargain price in El Paso, and drove himself.
Annesley never failed to hear him return, though she gave no sign. And sometimes she would peep through the slats of her green shutters on one side of the patio at the windows of his bedroom and "office," which were opposite. It was seldom that his light did not burn late, and Annesley went to bed thinking hard thoughts, asking herself what schemes of new adventure he might be plotting for the day when he should tire of the ranch.
Often she wondered that her life was not more hateful than it was; for somehow it was not hateful. Texas, with its vast spaces and blowing gusts of ozone, had begun to mean more for her than her cold reserve let Knight guess, more than she herself could understand.
On Christmas morning, when she opened her bedroom door, she almost stumbled over a covered Mexican basket of woven coloured straws. Something inside it moved and sighed.
She stooped, lifted the cover, and saw, curled up on a bit of red blanketing, a miniature Chihuahua dog. It had a body as slight and shivering as a tendril of grapevine; a tiny pointed face, with a high forehead and immense, almost human eyes.
At sight of her a thread of tail wagged, and Annesley felt a warm impulse of affection toward the little creature. Of course it was a present from Knight, though there was no word to tell her so; and if the dog had not looked at her with an offer of all its love and self she would perhaps have refused to accept it rather than encourage the giving of gifts.
But after that look she could not let the animal go. Its possession made life warmer; and it was good to see it lying in front of her open fire of mesquite roots.
She had no Christmas gift for Knight.
He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down.
"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It depends on your own feelings."
Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" they represented, constantly recurred to her mind.
One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of rushing sap.
A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been killed.
Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he might not be back until late.
"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all other days.
"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off from everyone—and from him."
As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big.
Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, and there was no pleasure in travelling with him.
Besides, there was trouble across the border, and fierce fighting now and then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as far as the river bank.
"It isn't likely that anything would happen by day," he said, "but you might be shot at from the other side." Annesley was not afraid, and there was a faint stirring of pleasure in the thought that she was doing something against his wish on this anniversary. Deliberately, she sat alone by the river, waiting for the pageant of sunset to pass; and when she reached home the moon was up, a great white moon that turned the waving waste of pale, sparse grasses to a silver sea.
She had taken sandwiches and fruit with her, telling the cook that she would want no dinner when she came back. Away in the cow-punchers' quarters there was music, and she flung herself into a hammock on the veranda, to rest and listen.
There was a soft yet cool wind from the south, bringing the fragrance of creosote blossoms, and it seemed to the girl that never had she seen such white floods of moonlight, not even that night a year ago at Valley House.
Even the sky was milk-white. There were no black shadows anywhere, only dove-gray ones, except under the veranda roof. Her hammock was screened from the light by one dark shadow, like a straight-hung curtain. Save for the music of a fiddle and men's voices, the silver-white world lay silent in enchanted sleep.
Then suddenly something moved. A tall, dark figure was coming to the veranda. It paused at the cactus fence.
Could it be Knight, home already and on foot? No, it was a woman.
She walked straight and fast and unhesitating to the veranda, where she sat down on the steps.
Annesley raised herself on her elbow, and peered out of the concealing shadow. Who could the woman be? It was on the tip of her tongue to call, "Who are you?" when a sudden lifting of the bent face under a drooping hat brought it beneath the searchlight of the moon.
The woman was the Countess de Santiago, and the moon's radiance so lit her dark eyes that she seemed to look straight at Annesley in her hammock. The girl's heart gave a leap of some emotion like fear, yet not fear. She did not stop to analyze it, but she knew that she wished to escape from the woman; and an instant's reflection told her that she could not be seen if she kept still.
She began to think