The Valley of Silent Men (Western Classic). James Oliver Curwood
she assured him. "There have been a number, and I've never cried very much. I'd rather see a man die than some animals. But I shouldn't like to see YOU do it. Does that comfort you—like the woman you prayed the Lord for?"
"It does," gasped Kent. "But why the devil, Miss Marette—"
"Marette," she corrected again.
"Yes, Marette—why the devil have you come to see me at just the moment I'm due to explode? And what's your other name, and how old are you, and what do you want of me?"
"I haven't any other name, I'm twenty, and I came to get acquainted with you and see what you are like."
"Bully!" exclaimed Kent. "We're getting there fast! And now, why?"
The girl drew her chair a few inches nearer, and for a moment Kent thought that her lovely mouth was trembling on the edge of a smile.
"Because you have lied so splendidly to save another man who was about to die."
"Et tu, Brute!" sighed Kent, leaning back against his pillows. "Isn't it possible for a decent man to kill another man and not be called a liar when he tells about it? Why do so many believe that I lie?"
"They don't," said the girl. "They believe you—now. You have gone so completely into the details of the murder in your confession that they are quite convinced. It would be too bad if you lived, for you surely would be hanged. Your lie sounds and reads like the truth. But I know it is a lie. You did not kill John Barkley."
"And the reason for your suspicion?"
For fully half a minute the girl's eyes rested on, his own. Again they seemed to be looking through him and into him. "Because I know the man who DID kill him," she said quietly, "and it was not you."
Kent made a mighty effort to appear calm. He reached for a cigar from the box that Cardigan had placed on his bed, and nibbled the end of it. "Has some one else been confessing?" he asked.
She shook her head the slightest bit.
"Did you—er—see this other gentleman kill John Barkley?" he insisted.
"No."
"Then I must answer you as I have answered at least one other. I killed John Barkley. If you suspect some other person, your suspicion is wrong."
"What a splendid liar!" she breathed softly. "Don't you believe in God?"
Kent winced. "In a large, embracing sense, yes," he said. "I believe in Him, for instance, as revealed to our senses in all that living, growing glory you see out there through the window Nature and I have become pretty good pals, and you see I've sort of built up a mother goddess to worship instead of a he-god. Sacrilege, maybe, but it's a great comfort at times. But you didn't come to talk religion?"
The lovely head bent still nearer him. He felt an impelling desire to put up his hand and touch her shining hair, as she laid her hand on his forehead.
"I know who killed John Barkley," she insisted. "I know how and when and why he was killed. Please tell me the truth. I want to know. Why did you confess to a crime which you did not commit?"
Kent took time to light his cigar. The girl watched him closely, almost eagerly.
"I may be mad," he said. "It is possible for any human being to be mad and not know it. That's the funny part about insanity. But if I'm not insane, I killed Barkley; if I didn't kill him, I must be insane, for I'm very well convinced that I did. Either that, or you are insane. I have my suspicions that you are. Would a sane person wear pumps with heels like those up here?" He pointed accusingly to the floor.
For the first time the girl smiled, openly, frankly, gloriously. It was as if her heart had leaped forth for an instant and had greeted him. And then, like sunlight shadowed by cloud, the smile was gone. "You are a brave man," she said. "You are splendid. I hate men. But I think if you lived very long, I should love you. I will believe that you killed Barkley. You compel me to believe it. You confessed, when you found you were going to die, that an innocent man might be saved. Wasn't that it?"
Kent nodded weakly. "That's it. I hate to think of it that way, but I guess it's true. I confessed because I knew I was going to die. Otherwise I am quite sure that I should have let the other fellow take my medicine for me. You must think I am a beast."
"All men are beasts," she agreed quickly. "But you are—a different kind of beast. I like you. If there were a chance, I might fight for you. I can fight." She held up her two small hands, half smiling at him again.
"But not with those," he exclaimed. "I think you would fight with your eyes. O'Connor told me they half killed Kedsty when you met them in the poplar grove yesterday."
He had expected that the mention of Inspector Kedsty's name would disturb her. It had no effect that he could perceive.
"O'Connor was the big, red-faced man with Mr. Kedsty?"
"Yes, my trail partner. He came to me yesterday and raved about your eyes. They ARE beautiful; I've never seen eyes half so lovely. But that wasn't what struck Bucky so hard. It was the effect they had on Kedsty. He said they shattered every nerve in Kedsty's body, and Kedsty isn't the sort to get easily frightened. And the queer part of it was that the instant you had gone, he gave O'Connor an order to free McTrigger—and then turned and followed you. All the rest of that day O'Connor tried to discover something about you at the Landing. He couldn't find hide nor hair—I beg pardon!—I mean he couldn't find out anything about you at all. We made up our minds that for some reason or other you were hiding up at Kedsty's bungalow. You don't mind a fellow saying all this—when he is going to pop off soon—do you?"
He was half frightened at the directness with which he had expressed the thing. He would gladly have buried his own curiosity and all of O'Connor's suspicions for another moment of her hand on his forehead. But it was out, and he waited.
She was looking down, her fingers twisting some sort of tasseled dress ornament in her lap, and Kent mentally measured the length of her lashes with a foot rule in mind. They were superb, and in the thrill of his admiration he would have sworn they were an inch long. She looked up suddenly and caught the glow in his eyes and the flush that lay under the tan of his cheeks. Her own color had deepened a little.
"What if you shouldn't die?" she asked him bluntly, as if she had not heard a word of all he had said about Kedsty. "What would you do?"
"I'm going to."
"But if you shouldn't?"
Kent shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose I'd have to take my medicine. You're not going?"
She had straightened up and was sitting on the edge of her chair. "Yes, I'm going. I'm afraid of my eyes. I may look at you as I looked at Mr. Kedsty, and then—pop you'd go, quick! And I don't want to be here when you die!"
He heard a soft little note of laughter in her throat. It sent a chill through him. What an adorable, blood-thirsty little wretch she was! He stared at her bent head, at the shining coils of her wonderful hair. Undone, he could see it completely hiding her. And it was so soft and warm that again he was tempted to reach out and touch it. She was wonderful, and yet it was not possible that she had a heart. Her apparent disregard of the fact that he was a dying man was almost diabolic. There was no sympathy in the expression of her violet eyes as she looked at him. She was even making fun of the fact that he was about to die!
She stood up, surveying for the first time the room in which she had been sitting. Then she turned to the window and looked out. She reminded Kent of a beautiful young willow that had grown at the edge of a stream, exquisite, slender, strong. He could have picked her up in his arms as easily as a child, yet he sensed in the lithe beauty of her body forces that could endure magnificently. The careless poise of her head fascinated him. For that head and the hair that crowned it he knew that half the women of the earth would have traded precious years of their lives.
And then, without turning toward him, she said, "Some day, when I die, I wish I might have as pleasant a room as this."
"I hope you never die," he replied devoutly.
She