by Zane Grey
CHAPTER IX
The latter part of September Carley returned to New York.
Soon after her arrival she received by letter a formal proposal ofmarriage from Elbert Harrington, who had been quietly attentive toher during her sojourn at Lake Placid. He was a lawyer of distinction,somewhat older than most of her friends, and a man of means and finefamily. Carley was quite surprised. Harrington was really one of the fewof her acquaintances whom she regarded as somewhat behind the times, andliked him the better for that. But she could not marry him, andreplied to his letter in as kindly a manner as possible. Then he calledpersonally.
"Carley, I've come to ask you to reconsider," he said, with a smile inhis gray eyes. He was not a tall or handsome man, but he had what womencalled a nice strong face.
"Elbert, you embarrass me," she replied, trying to laugh it out. "IndeedI feel honored, and I thank you. But I can't marry you."
"Why not?" he asked, quietly.
"Because I don't love you," she replied.
"I did not expect you to," he said. "I hoped in time you might come tocare. I've known you a good many years, Carley. Forgive me if I tell youI see you are breaking--wearing yourself down. Maybe it is not a husbandyou need so much now, but you do need a home and children. You arewasting your life."
"All you say may be true, my friend," replied Carley, with a helplesslittle upflinging of hands. "Yet it does not alter my feelings."
"But you will marry sooner or later?" he queried, persistently.
This straightforward question struck Carley as singularly as if it wasone she might never have encountered. It forced her to think of thingsshe had buried.
"I don't believe I ever will," she answered, thoughtfully.
"That is nonsense, Carley," he went on. "You'll have to marry. Whatelse can you do? With all due respect to your feelings--that affair withKilbourne is ended--and you're not the wishy-washy heartbreak kind of agirl."
"You can never tell what a woman will do," she said, somewhat coldly.
"Certainly not. That's why I refuse to take no. Carley, be reasonable.You like me--respect me, do you not?"
"Why, of course I do!"
"I'm only thirty-five, and I could give you all any sensible womanwants," he said. "Let's make a real American home. Have you thought atall about that, Carley? Something is wrong today. Men are not marrying.Wives are not having children. Of all the friends I have, not one has areal American home. Why, it is a terrible fact! But, Carley, you are nota sentimentalist, or a melancholiac. Nor are you a waster. You have finequalities. You need something to do, some one to care for."
"Pray do not think me ungrateful, Elbert," she replied, "nor insensibleto the truth of what you say. But my answer is no!"
When Harrington had gone Carley went to her room, and precisely asupon her return from Arizona she faced her mirror skeptically andrelentlessly. "I am such a liar that I'll do well to look at myself,"she meditated. "Here I am again. Now! The world expects me to marry. Butwhat do I expect?"
There was a raw unheated wound in Carley's heart. Seldom had shepermitted herself to think about it, let alone to probe it with hardmaterialistic queries. But custom to her was as inexorable as life. Ifshe chose to live in the world she must conform to its customs. Fora woman marriage was the aim and the end and the all of existence.Nevertheless, for Carley it could not be without love. Before she hadgone West she might have had many of the conventional modern ideas aboutwomen and marriage. But because out there in the wilds her love andperception had broadened, now her arraignment of herself and her sexwas bigger, sterner, more exacting. The months she had been home seemedfuller than all the months of her life. She had tried to forget andenjoy; she had not succeeded; but she had looked with far-seeing eyes ather world. Glenn Kilbourne's tragic fate had opened her eyes.
Either the world was all wrong or the people in it were. But if thatwere an extravagant and erroneous supposition, there certainly was proofpositive that her own small individual world was wrong. The womendid not do any real work; they did not bear children; they lived onexcitement and luxury. They had no ideals. How greatly were men toblame? Carley doubted her judgment here. But as men could not livewithout the smiles and comradeship and love of women, it was onlynatural that they should give the women what they wanted. Indeed, theyhad no choice. It was give or go without. How much of real love enteredinto the marriages among her acquaintances? Before marriage Carleywanted a girl to be sweet, proud, aloof, with a heart of golden fire.Not attainable except through love! It would be better that no childrenbe born at all unless born of such beautiful love. Perhaps that waswhy so few children were born. Nature's balance and revenge! In ArizonaCarley had learned something of the ruthlessness and inevitablenessof nature. She was finding out she had learned this with many otherstaggering facts.
"I love Glenn still," she whispered, passionately, with trembling lips,as she faced the tragic-eyed image of herself in the mirror. "I love himmore--more. Oh, my God! If I were honest I'd cry out the truth! It isterrible. ... I will always love him. How then could I marry any otherman? I would be a lie, a cheat. If I could only forget him--only killthat love. Then I might love another man--and if I did love him--nomatter what I had felt or done before, I would be worthy. I could feelworthy. I could give him just as much. But without such love I'd giveonly a husk--a body without soul."
Love, then, was the sacred and holy flame of life that sanctioned thebegetting of children. Marriage might be a necessity of modern time, butit was not the vital issue. Carley's anguish revealed strange andhidden truths. In some inexplicable way Nature struck a terriblebalance--revenged herself upon a people who had no children, or whobrought into the world children not created by the divinity of love,unyearned for, and therefore somehow doomed to carry on the blunders andburdens of life.
Carley realized how right and true it might be for her to throw herselfaway upon an inferior man, even a fool or a knave, if she loved him withthat great and natural love of woman; likewise it dawned upon her howfalse and wrong and sinful it would be to marry the greatest or therichest or the noblest man unless she had that supreme love to give him,and knew it was reciprocated.
"What am I going to do with my life?" she asked, bitterly and aghast."I have been--I am a waster. I've lived for nothing but pleasurablesensation. I'm utterly useless. I do absolutely no good on earth."
Thus she saw how Harrington's words rang true--how they had precipitateda crisis for which her unconscious brooding had long made preparation.
"Why not give up ideals and be like the rest of my kind?" shesoliloquized.
That was one of the things which seemed wrong with modern life. Shethrust the thought from her with passionate scorn. If poor, broken,ruined Glenn Kilbourne could cling to an ideal and fight for it, couldnot she, who had all the world esteemed worth while, be woman enough todo the same? The direction of her thought seemed to have changed. Shehad been ready for rebellion. Three months of the old life had shownher that for her it was empty, vain, farcical, without one redeemingfeature. The naked truth was brutal, but it cut clean to wholesomeconsciousness. Such so-called social life as she had plunged intodeliberately to forget her unhappiness had failed her utterly. If shehad been shallow and frivolous it might have done otherwise. Strippedof all guise, her actions must have been construed by a penetratingand impartial judge as a mere parading of her decorated person before anumber of males with the purpose of ultimate selection.
"I've got to find some work," she muttered, soberly.
At the moment she heard the postman's whistle outside; and a littlelater the servant brought up her mail. The first letter, large, soiled,thick, bore the postmark Flagstaff, and her address in Glenn Kilbourne'swriting.
Carley stared at it. Her heart gave a great leap. Her hand shook. Shesat down suddenly as if the strength of her legs was inadequate touphold her.
"Glenn has--written me!" she whispered, in slow, halting realization."For what? Oh, why?"
The other letters f
ell off her lap, to lie unnoticed. This big thickenvelope fascinated her. It was one of the stamped envelopes she hadseen in his cabin. It contained a letter that had been written on hisrude table, before the open fire, in the light of the doorway, in thatlittle log-cabin under the spreading pines of West Ford Canyon. Daredshe read it? The shock to her heart passed; and with mounting swell,seemingly too full for her breast, it began to beat and throb a wildgladness through all her being. She tore the envelope apart and read:
DEAR CARLEY:
I'm surely glad for a good excuse to write you.
Once in a blue moon I get a letter, and today Hutter brought me onefrom a soldier pard of mine who was with me in the Argonne. His name isVirgil Rust--queer name, don't you think?--and he's from Wisconsin. Justa rough-diamond sort of chap, but fairly well educated. He and I werein some pretty hot places, and it was he who pulled me out of a shellcrater. I'd "gone west" sure then if it hadn't been for Rust.
Well, he did all sorts of big things during the war. Was down severaltimes with wounds. He liked to fight and he was a holy terror. We allthought he'd get medals and promotion. But he didn't get either. Thesemuch-desired things did not always go where they were best deserved.
Rust is now lying in a hospital in Bedford Park. His letter is prettyblue. All he says about why he's there is that he's knocked out. But hewrote a heap about his girl. It seems he was in love with a girl in hishome town--a pretty, big-eyed lass whose picture I've seen--and whilehe was overseas she married one of the chaps who got out of fighting.Evidently Rust is deeply hurt. He wrote: "I'd not care so... if she'dthrown me down to marry an old man or a boy who couldn't have gone towar." You see, Carley, service men feel queer about that sort of thing.It's something we got over there, and none of us will ever outlive it.Now, the point of this is that I am asking you to go see Rust, and cheerhim up, and do what you can for the poor devil. It's a good deal toask of you, I know, especially as Rust saw your picture many a time andknows you were my girl. But you needn't tell him that you--we couldn'tmake a go of it.
And, as I am writing this to you, I see no reason why I shouldn't go onin behalf of myself.
The fact is, Carley, I miss writing to you more than I miss anythingof my old life. I'll bet you have a trunkful of letters from me--unlessyou've destroyed them. I'm not going to say how I miss your letters. ButI will say you wrote the most charming and fascinating letters of anyoneI ever knew, quite aside from any sentiment. You knew, of course, thatI had no other girl correspondent. Well, I got along fairly well beforeyou came West, but I'd be an awful liar if I denied I didn't get lonelyfor you and your letters. It's different now that you've been to OakCreek. I'm alone most of the time and I dream a lot, and I'm afraid Isee you here in my cabin, and along the brook, and under the pines, andriding Calico--which you came to do well--and on my hogpen fence--and,oh, everywhere! I don't want you to think I'm down in the mouth, forI'm not. I'll take my medicine. But, Carley, you spoiled me, and I misshearing from you, and I don't see why it wouldn't be all right for youto send me a friendly letter occasionally.
It is autumn now. I wish you could see Arizona canyons in their gorgeouscolors. We have had frost right along and the mornings are great.There's a broad zigzag belt of gold halfway up the San Francisco peaks,and that is the aspen thickets taking on their fall coat. Here in thecanyon you'd think there was blazing fire everywhere. The vines andthe maples are red, scarlet, carmine, cerise, magenta, all the hues offlame. The oak leaves are turning russet gold, and the sycamores areyellow green. Up on the desert the other day I rode across a patch ofasters, lilac and lavender, almost purple. I had to get off and pluck ahandful. And then what do you think? I dug up the whole bunch, roots andall, and planted them on the sunny side of my cabin. I rather guess yourlove of flowers engendered this remarkable susceptibility in me.
I'm home early most every afternoon now, and I like the couple of hoursloafing around. Guess it's bad for me, though. You know I seldom hunt,and the trout in the pool here are so tame now they'll almost eat out ofmy hand. I haven't the heart to fish for them. The squirrels, too, havegrown tame and friendly. There's a red squirrel that climbs up on mytable. And there's a chipmunk who lives in my cabin and runs over mybed. I've a new pet--the little pig you christened Pinky. After he hadthe wonderful good fortune to be caressed and named by you I couldn'tthink of letting him grow up in an ordinary piglike manner. So I fetchedhim home. My dog, Moze, was jealous at first and did not like thisintrusion, but now they are good friends and sleep together. Flo has akitten she's going to give me, and then, as Hutter says, I'll be "Jake."
My occupation during these leisure hours perhaps would strike my oldfriends East as idle, silly, mawkish. But I believe you will understandme.
I have the pleasure of doing nothing, and of catching now and thena glimpse of supreme joy in the strange state of thinking nothing.Tennyson came close to this in his "Lotus Eaters." Only to see--only tofeel is enough!
Sprawled on the warm sweet pine needles, I breathe through them thebreath of the earth and am somehow no longer lonely. I cannot, ofcourse, see the sunset, but I watch for its coming on the eastern wallof the canyon. I see the shadow slowly creep up, driving the gold beforeit, until at last the canyon rim and pines are turned to golden fire.I watch the sailing eagles as they streak across the gold, and swoop upinto the blue, and pass out of sight. I watch the golden flush fade togray, and then, the canyon slowly fills with purple shadows. This hourof twilight is the silent and melancholy one. Seldom is there any soundsave the soft rush of the water over the stones, and that seems to dieaway. For a moment, perhaps, I am Hiawatha alone in his forest home,or a more primitive savage, feeling the great, silent pulse of nature,happy in unconsciousness, like a beast of the wild. But only for aninstant do I ever catch this fleeting state. Next I am Glenn Kilbourneof West Fork, doomed and haunted by memories of the past. The greatlooming walls then become no longer blank. They are vast pages of thehistory of my life, with its past and present, and, alas! its future.Everything time does is written on the stones. And my stream seems tomurmur the sad and ceaseless flow of human life, with its music and itsmisery.
Then, descending from the sublime to the humdrum and necessary, I heavea sigh, and pull myself together, and go in to make biscuits and fryham. But I should not forget to tell you that before I do go in, veryoften my looming, wonderful walls and crags weave in strange shadowycharacters the beautiful and unforgettable face of Carley Burch!
I append what little news Oak Creek affords.
That blamed old bald eagle stole another of my pigs.
I am doing so well with my hog-raising that Hutter wants to come in withme, giving me an interest in his sheep.
It is rumored some one has bought the Deep Lake section I wanted for aranch. I don't know who. Hutter was rather noncommittal.
Charley, the herder, had one of his queer spells the other day, andswore to me he had a letter from you. He told the blamed lie with asincere and placid eye, and even a smile of pride. Queer guy, thatCharley!
Flo and Lee Stanton had another quarrel--the worst yet, Lee tells me.Flo asked a girl friend out from Flag and threw her in Lee's way, so tospeak, and when Lee retaliated by making love to the girl Flo got mad.Funny creatures, you girls! Flo rode with me from High Falls to WestFork, and never showed the slightest sign of trouble. In fact she wasdelightfully gay. She rode Calico, and beat me bad in a race.
Adios, Carley. Won't you write me?
GLENN.
No sooner had Carley read the letter through to the end than shebegan it all over again, and on this second perusal she lingered overpassages--only to reread them. That suggestion of her face sculptured byshadows on the canyon walls seemed to thrill her very soul.
She leaped up from the reading to cry out something that wasunutterable. All the intervening weeks of shame and anguish and fury andstrife and pathos, and the endless striving to forget, were as if by themagic of a letter made nothing but vain oblations.
"He loves
me still!" she whispered, and pressed her breast withclenching hands, and laughed in wild exultance, and paced her room likea caged lioness. It was as if she had just awakened to the assurance shewas beloved. That was the shibboleth--the cry by which she sounded theclosed depths of her love and called to the stricken life of a woman'sinsatiate vanity.
Then she snatched up the letter, to scan it again, and, suddenlygrasping the import of Glenn's request, she hurried to the telephone tofind the number of the hospital in Bedford Park. A nurse informed herthat visitors were received at certain hours and that any attention todisabled soldiers was most welcome.
Carley motored out there to find the hospital merely a long one-storyframe structure, a barracks hastily thrown up for the care of invalidedmen of the service. The chauffeur informed her that it had been usedfor that purpose during the training period of the army, and later wheninjured soldiers began to arrive from France.
A nurse admitted Carley into a small bare anteroom. Carley made knownher errand.
"I'm glad it's Rust you want to see," replied the nurse. "Some of theseboys are going to die. And some will be worse off if they live. But Rustmay get well if he'll only behave. You are a relative--or friend?"
"I don't know him," answered Carley. "But I have a friend who was withhim in France."
The nurse led Carley into a long narrow room with a line of single bedsdown each side, a stove at each end, and a few chairs. Each bed appearedto have an occupant and those nearest Carley lay singularly quiet. Atthe far end of the room were soldiers on crutches, wearing bandageson their beads, carrying their arms in slings. Their merry voicescontrasted discordantly with their sad appearance.
Presently Carley stood beside a bed and looked down upon a gaunt,haggard young man who lay propped up on pillows.
"Rust--a lady to see you," announced the nurse.
Carley had difficulty in introducing herself. Had Glenn ever lookedlike this? What a face! It's healed scar only emphasized the pallorand furrows of pain that assuredly came from present wounds. He hadunnaturally bright dark eyes, and a flush of fever in his hollow cheeks.
"How do!" he said, with a wan smile. "Who're you?"
"I'm Glenn Kilbourne's fiancee," she replied, holding out her hand.
"Say, I ought to've known you," he said, eagerly, and a warmth of lightchanged the gray shade of his face. "You're the girl Carley! You'realmost like my--my own girl. By golly! You're some looker! It was goodof you to come. Tell me about Glenn."
Carley took the chair brought by the nurse, and pulling it close to thebed, she smiled down upon him and said: "I'll be glad to tell you all Iknow--presently. But first you tell me about yourself. Are you in pain?What is your trouble? You must let me do everything I can for you, andthese other men."
Carley spent a poignant and depth-stirring hour at the bedside ofGlenn's comrade. At last she learned from loyal lips the nature of GlennKilbourne's service to his country. How Carley clasped to her soreheart the praise of the man she loved--the simple proofs of his nobledisregard of self! Rust said little about his own service to country orto comrade. But Carley saw enough in his face. He had been like Glenn.By these two Carley grasped the compelling truth of the spirit andsacrifice of the legion of boys who had upheld American traditions.Their children and their children's children, as the years rolled byinto the future, would hold their heads higher and prouder. Some thingscould never die in the hearts and the blood of a race. These boys, andthe girls who had the supreme glory of being loved by them, must bethe ones to revive the Americanism of their forefathers. Nature and Godwould take care of the slackers, the cowards who cloaked their shamewith bland excuses of home service, of disability, and of dependence.
Carley saw two forces in life--the destructive and constructive. Onthe one side greed, selfishness, materialism: on the other generosity,sacrifice, and idealism. Which of them builded for the future? She sawmen as wolves, sharks, snakes, vermin, and opposed to them men as lionsand eagles. She saw women who did not inspire men to fare forth to seek,to imagine, to dream, to hope, to work, to fight. She began to have aglimmering of what a woman might be.
That night she wrote swiftly and feverishly, page after page, to Glenn,only to destroy what she had written. She could not keep her heart outof her words, nor a hint of what was becoming a sleepless and eternalregret. She wrote until a late hour, and at last composed a letter sheknew did not ring true, so stilted and restrained was it in all passagessave those concerning news of Glenn's comrade and of her own friends."I'll never--never write him again," she averred with stiff lips, andnext moment could have laughed in mockery at the bitter truth. If shehad ever had any courage, Glenn's letter had destroyed it. But had itnot been a kind of selfish, false courage, roused to hide her hurt, tosave her own future? Courage should have a thought of others. Yet shamedone moment at the consciousness she would write Glenn again and again,and exultant the next with the clamouring love, she seemed to haveclimbed beyond the self that had striven to forget. She would rememberand think though she died of longing.
Carley, like a drowning woman, caught at straws. What a relief and joyto give up that endless nagging at her mind! For months she had keptceaselessly active, by associations which were of no help to her andwhich did not make her happy, in her determination to forget. Suddenlythen she gave up to remembrance. She would cease trying to get over herlove for Glenn, and think of him and dream about him as much as memorydictated. This must constitute the only happiness she could have.
The change from strife to surrender was so novel and sweet that fordays she felt renewed. It was augmented by her visits to the hospitalin Bedford Park. Through her bountiful presence Virgil Rust and hiscomrades had many dull hours of pain and weariness alleviated andbrightened. Interesting herself in the condition of the seriouslydisabled soldiers and possibility of their future took time and workCarley gave willingly and gladly. At first she endeavored to getacquaintances with means and leisure to help the boys, but theseovertures met with such little success that she quit wasting valuabletime she could herself devote to their interests.
Thus several weeks swiftly passed by. Several soldiers who had beenmore seriously injured than Rust improved to the extent that they weredischarged. But Rust gained little or nothing. The nurse and doctor bothinformed Carley that Rust brightened for her, but when she was gone helapsed into somber indifference. He did not care whether he ate or not,or whether he got well or died.
"If I do pull out, where'll I go and what'll I do?" he once asked thenurse.
Carley knew that Rust's hurt was more than loss of a leg, and shedecided to talk earnestly to him and try to win him to hope and effort.He had come to have a sort of reverence for her. So, biding her time,she at length found opportunity to approach his bed while his comradeswere asleep or out of hearing. He endeavored to laugh her off, and thentried subterfuge, and lastly he cast off his mask and let her see hisnaked soul.
"Carley, I don't want your money or that of your kind friends--whoeverthey are--you say will help me to get into business," he said."God knows I thank you and it warms me inside to find some one whoappreciates what I've given. But I don't want charity.... And I guessI'm pretty sick of the game. I'm sorry the Boches didn't do the jobright."
"Rust, that is morbid talk," replied Carley. "You're ill and you justcan't see any hope. You must cheer up--fight yourself; and look at thebrighter side. It's a horrible pity you must be a cripple, but Rust,indeed life can be worth living if you make it so."
"How could there be a brighter side when a man's only half a man--" hequeried, bitterly.
"You can be just as much a man as ever," persisted Carley, trying tosmile when she wanted to cry.
"Could you care for a man with only one leg?" he asked, deliberately.
"What a question! Why, of course I could!"
"Well, maybe you are different. Glenn always swore even if he was killedno slacker or no rich guy left at home could ever get you. Maybe youhaven't any idea how much it means to us fello
ws to know there aretrue and faithful girls. But I'll tell you, Carley, we fellows who wentacross got to see things strange when we came home. The good old U. S.needs a lot of faithful girls just now, believe me."
"Indeed that's true," replied Carley. "It's a hard time for everybody,and particularly you boys who have lost so--so much."
"I lost all, except my life--and I wish to God I'd lost that," hereplied, gloomily.
"Oh, don't talk so!" implored Carley in distress. "Forgive me, Rust, ifI hurt you. But I must tell you--that--that Glenn wrote me--you'd lostyour girl. Oh, I'm sorry! It is dreadful for you now. But if you gotwell--and went to work--and took up life where you left it--why soonyour pain would grow easier. And you'd find some happiness yet."
"Never for me in this world."
"But why, Rust, why? You're no--no--Oh! I mean you have intelligence andcourage. Why isn't there anything left for you?"
"Because something here's been killed," he replied, and put his hand tohis heart.
"Your faith? Your love of--of everything? Did the war kill it?"
"I'd gotten over that, maybe," he said, drearily, with his somber eyeson space that seemed lettered for him. "But she half murdered it--andthey did the rest."
"They? Whom do you mean, Rust?"
"Why, Carley, I mean the people I lost my leg for!" he replied, withterrible softness.
"The British? The French?" she queried, in bewilderment.
"No!" he cried, and turned his face to the wall.
Carley dared not ask him more. She was shocked. How helplessly impotentall her earnest sympathy! No longer could she feel an impersonal,however kindly, interest in this man. His last ringing word had linkedher also to his misfortune and his suffering. Suddenly he turned awayfrom the wall. She saw him swallow laboriously. How tragic that thin,shadowed face of agony! Carley saw it differently. But for the beautifulsoftness of light in his eyes, she would have been unable to enduregazing longer.
"Carley, I'm bitter," he said, "but I'm not rancorous and callous, likesome of the boys. I know if you'd been my girl you'd have stuck to me."
"Yes," Carley whispered.
"That makes a difference," he went on, with a sad smile. "You see, wesoldiers all had feelings. And in one thing we all felt alike. That waswe were going to fight for our homes and our women. I should say womenfirst. No matter what we read or heard about standing by our allies,fighting for liberty or civilization, the truth was we all felt thesame, even if we never breathed it.... Glenn fought for you. I foughtfor Nell.... We were not going to let the Huns treat you as they treatedFrench and Belgian girls.... And think! Nell was engaged to me--sheloved me--and, by God! She married a slacker when I lay half dead on thebattlefield!"
"She was not worth loving or fighting for," said Carley, with agitation.
"Ah! now you've said something," he declared. "If I can only hold tothat truth! What does one girl amount to? I do not count. It is the sumthat counts. We love America--our homes--our women!... Carley, I've hadcomfort and strength come to me through you. Glenn will have his rewardin your love. Somehow I seem to share it, a little. Poor Glenn! He gothis, too. Why, Carley, that guy wouldn't let you do what he could do foryou. He was cut to pieces--"
"Please--Rust--don't say any more. I am unstrung," she pleaded.
"Why not? It's due you to know how splendid Glenn was.... I tell you,Carley, all the boys here love you for the way you've stuck to Glenn.Some of them knew him, and I've told the rest. We thought he'd neverpull through. But he has, and we know how you helped. Going West to seehim! He didn't write it to me, but I know.... I'm wise. I'm happy forhim--the lucky dog. Next time you go West--"
"Hush!" cried Carley. She could endure no more. She could no longer be alie.
"You're white--you're shaking," exclaimed Rust, in concern. "Oh, I--whatdid I say? Forgive me--"
"Rust, I am no more worth loving and fighting for than your Nell."
"What!" he ejaculated.
"I have not told you the truth," she said, swiftly. "I have let youbelieve a lie.... I shall never marry Glenn. I broke my engagement tohim."
Slowly Rust sank back upon the pillow, his large luminous eyespiercingly fixed upon her, as if he would read her soul.
"I went West--yes--" continued Carley. "But it was selfishly. I wantedGlenn to come back here.... He had suffered as you have. He nearly died.But he fought--he fought--Oh! he went through hell! And after a long,slow, horrible struggle he began to mend. He worked. He went to raisinghogs. He lived alone. He worked harder and harder.... The West and hiswork saved him, body and soul.... He had learned to love both the Westand his work. I did not blame him. But I could not live out there. Heneeded me. But I was too little--too selfish. I could not marry him. Igave him up. ... I left--him--alone!"
Carley shrank under the scorn in Rust's eyes.
"And there's another man," he said, "a clean, straight, unscarred fellowwho wouldn't fight!"
"Oh, no--I--I swear there's not," whispered Carley.
"You, too," he replied, thickly. Then slowly he turned that worn darkface to the wall. His frail breast heaved. And his lean hand made her aslight gesture of dismissal, significant and imperious.
Carley fled. She could scarcely see to find the car. All her internalbeing seemed convulsed, and a deadly faintness made her sick and cold.
