C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
a grudge. She'd taken him from me. For the first time a power stronger than mine was at work; and yet, things being as they were, my hope of getting him back lay in her."
"What do you mean?" The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, though the shut-up room had but lately seemed hot as a furnace.
"I mean, if the girl behaved as I thought she would behave—as I think you have behaved—he might grow tired of her and the cast-iron coat of virtue he'd put on to please her. He might grow tired of life on a ranch if his wife made him eat ashes and wear sack-cloth. That was my hope. Well, I sent a messenger to find out how the land lay a few weeks ago."
"The Countess de Santiago!" Annesley exclaimed.
"He told you?"
"No, I saw her. I—by accident—(it really was by accident!) I heard things. He doesn't know—I believe he doesn't know—I was there."
"Perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps not. But if I were you I'd tell him when the right time comes. The Countess wrote me she'd had her journey in vain, and why. She said—spitefully it struck me—that Don was bewitched by his wife, a cold, cruel creature with ice in her veins, who treated him like a dog."
"She said that to you, too?"
"Yes, she said that. She seemed to gather the impression. But the dog stuck to his kennel. Nothing she could do would tempt him to budge. So I decided to call here myself, on the way back from Mexico. I couldn't delay the trip. A man was waiting for me. And waiting quietly is difficult in Mexico just now. I got what I wanted, and crammed the lot into this bag, which cost me at the outside, if I remember, five dollars. A good idea of mine for putting thieves off the track. They expect sane men to carry nightgowns and newspapers in such bags. I thought I'd managed so well that I'd put the gang who follow me about, generally on 'spec,' off the track.
"I speak Spanish well. I've been passing for a Mexican lawyer from Chihuahua. But to-day I caught a look from a pair of eyes in a train. I fancied I'd seen those eyes before—and the rest of the features. Perhaps I imagined it. But I don't think so. I trust my instinct. I advise you to! It's a tip.
"At El Paso I bought a ticket for Albuquerque. The eyes were behind me. I got into the train. So did Eyes, and a friend with a long nose. Not into my car, however, so I was able to skip out again as the train was starting. Not a bad feat for a man of my age! I hope Eyes and Nose, and any other features that may have been with them, travelled on unsuspectingly. But I can't be sure. Instinct says they saw my trick and trumped it.
"I oughtn't to have come here, bringing danger to your house, Mrs. Donaldson. But I want to see Don, and I know he is afraid neither of man nor devil—afraid of nothing in the world except one woman.
"As for her—well, what I'd heard hadn't prepossessed me in her favour. I sacrificed her for the safety of my golden images and my talk with Don. But the sound of your voice behind the shut door broke the picture I'd made of that young woman. And when I saw you—well, Mrs. Donaldson, I've already told you I don't intend to exert my influence over your husband, though to do so was my principal object in coming. Even if I did, I believe yours would prove stronger. But if I could count on all my old power over him, I wouldn't use it now I have seen you.
"I adore myself, and—my specialties. But there must be an unselfish streak in me which shows in moments like this. I respect and admire it. You may treat Don like a dog, but he'd never be happy away from you. And I am fool enough to want him to be happy. This kicked dog of yours, madame, happens to be the finest fellow I ever knew or expect to know."
"You say I treat him like a dog!" cried Annesley, roused to anger. "But how ought I to treat him? He came into my life in a way I thought romantic as a fairy tale. It was a trick—a play got up to deceive me! I knew nothing of his life; but because of the faith he inspired, I believed in him. No one except himself could have broken that belief. I would not have listened to a word against him. But when he thought I'd discovered something, the whole story came out. If I hadn't loved him so much to begin with, and put him on such a high pedestal, the fall wouldn't have been so great—wouldn't have broken my heart in pieces."
"But Don gave up everything pleasant in his life, and came down here to this God-forsaken ranch—a man like Michael Donaldson, with a few hundred dollars where he'd had thousands—all for you," said Van Vreck, "and he's had no thought except for you and the ranch for more than a year. Yet apparently you haven't changed your opinion. By Jove, madame, you must somehow, through your personality and God knows what besides, have got a mighty hold on his heart, in the days when you loved him, or he wouldn't have stood this dog's life, this punishment too harsh for human nature to bear. Good Lord, how were you brought up? Evidently not as a Christian."
"My father was a clergyman," said Annesley.
"There are many clergymen who have got as far from the light as the moon from the earth. I know more about Christianity myself than some of those narrow men with their 'cold Christs and tangled Trinities'! That is, I know all this on principle. I don't practise what I know, but that's my affair. Did Don ever excuse himself by mentioning the influence I brought to bear on him when he was almost a boy?"
"No," breathed Annesley. "He didn't excuse himself at all except to tell me about his father and mother, and a vow he'd made to revenge them on society."
"It was like him not to whine for your forgiveness."
"He would never whine," the girl agreed. But she remembered that night of confession when on his knees he had begged her to forgive, to grant him another chance, and she had refused. He had never asked again. And he had struggled alone for redemption.
"I haven't forgotten some early teachings which impressed me," said Paul Van Vreck. "Christ made a remark about forgiving till seventy times seven. Did you forgive Donaldson four hundred and eighty-nine times, and draw the line at the four hundred and ninetieth?"
"No, I never had anything to forgive him—till that one thing came out. But it was a very big thing. Too big!"
"Too big, eh? There was another saying of Christ's about those without sin throwing the first stone. Of course I'm sure you were without sin. But you look as if you might have had a heart—once."
"Oh, I had, I had!" Tears streamed down Annesley's pale face, and she did not wipe them away. "It's dead now I think."
"Think again. Think of what the man is—what he's proved himself to be. He's twice as good now as one of your best saints of the Church. He's purified by fire. You've got the face of an angel, Mrs. Donaldson, but in my opinion you're a wicked woman unworthy of the love you've inspired."
"You speak to me cruelly," the girl said through her tears. "I've been very unhappy!"
"Not as unhappy as you've made Don by your cruelty. Good heavens, these tender girls can be more cruel when they set about punishing us, than the hardest man! And to punish a fellow like that by making him live in an ice-house, when you could have done anything with him by a little kindness! Don't I know that?
"I'm the sponsor for such sins as Don's committed. He was meant to be straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain. I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I know most things. You feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there letting me tear your heart to pieces—what's left of your heart. And I have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the sense to patch the bits together.
"I have fascination, and I've cultivated it. Napoleon himself didn't study more ardently than I the art of winning men. I won Don. I appealed to the romance in him. I became his hero and—slowly—I was able to make him my servant. Not much of my money or anything else has ever stuck to his hands. He's too generous—too impulsive; though I taught him it was necessary to control his impulses.
"What he did, he did for love of me, till you came along and lit another sort of fire in his blood. I saw in one minute, when he called on me, what had happened