"An unprejudiced onlooker might say that you have made me very welcome."
"Mr. Winton! Is that generous?"
"No; perhaps it is hardly just. Because I counted the cost and have paid the price open-eyed. You may remember that I told you that first evening I should come as often as I dared. I knew then, what I have known all along: that it was a part of your uncle"s plan to delay my work."
"His and mine, you mean; only you are too kind--or not quite brave enough--to say so."
"Yours? Never! If I could believe you capable of such a thing--"
"You may believe it," she broke in. "It was I who suggested it."
He drew a deep breath, and she heard his teeth come together with a click. It was enough to try the faith of the loyalest lover: it tried his sorely. Yet he scarcely needed her low-voiced, "Don"t you despise me as I deserve, now?" to make him love her all the more.
"Indeed, I don"t. Resentment and love can hardly find room in the same heart at the same time, and I have said that I love you," he rejoined quickly.
She went silent at that, and when she spoke again the listening Jastrow tuned his ear afresh to lose no word.
"As I have confessed, I suggested it: it was just after I had seen your men and the sheriff"s ready to fly at one another"s throats. I was miserably afraid, and I asked Uncle Somerville if he could not make terms with you in some other way. I didn"t mean--"
He made haste to help her.
"Please don"t try to defend your motive to me; it is wholly unnecessary. It is more than enough for me to know that you were anxious about my safety."
But she would not let him have the crumb of comfort undisputed.
"There were other lives involved besides yours. I didn"t say I was specially afraid for you, did I?"
"No, but you meant it. And I thought afterward that I should have given you a hint in some way, though the way didn"t offer at the time.
There was no danger of bloodshed. I knew--we all knew--that Deckert wouldn"t go to extremities with the small force he had."
"Then it was only a--a--"
"A bluff," he said, supplying the word. "If I had believed there was the slightest possibility of a fight, I should have made my men take to the woods rather than let you witness it."
"You shouldn"t have let me waste my sympathy," she protested reproachfully.
"I"m sorry; truly, I am. And you have been wasting it in another direction as well. To-night will see the shale-slide conquered definitely, I hope, and three more days of good weather will send us into the Carbonate yards."
She broke in upon him with a little cry of impatient despair.
"That shows how unwary you have been! Tell me: is there not a little valley just above here--an open place where your railroad and Uncle Somerville"s run side by side?"
"Yes, it is a mile this side of the canyon head. What about it?"
"How long is it since you have been up there?" she queried.
Winton stopped to think. "I don"t know--a week, possibly."
"Yet if you had not been coming here every evening, you or Mr. Adams would have found time to go--to watch every possible chance of interference, wouldn"t you?"
"Perhaps. That was one of the risks I took, a part of the price-paying I spoke of. If anything had happened, I should still be unrepentant."
"Something _has_ happened. While you have been taking things for granted, Uncle Somerville has been at work day and night. He has built a track right across yours in that little valley, and he keeps a train of cars or something, filled with armed men, standing there all the time!"
Winton gave a low whistle. Then he laughed mirthlessly.
"You are quite sure of this?" he asked. "There is no possibility of your being mistaken?"
"None at all," she replied. "And I can only defend myself by saying that I didn"t know about it until a few minutes ago. What is to be done? But stop; you needn"t tell me. I am not worthy of your confidence."
"You are; you have just proved it. But there isn"t anything to be done. The next thing in order is the exit of one John Winton in disgrace. That spur track and engine means a crossing fight which can be prolonged indefinitely, with due vigilance on the part of Mr.
Darrah"s mercenaries. I"m smashed, Miss Carteret, thoroughly and permanently. Ah, well, it"s only one more fool for love. Hadn"t we better go in? You"ll take cold standing out here."
She drew herself up and put her hands behind her.
"Is that the way you take it, Mr. Winton?"
The acrid laugh came again.
"Would you have me tear a pa.s.sion to tatters? My ancestors were not French."
Trying as the moment was, she could not miss her opportunity.
"How can you tell when you don"t know your grandfather"s middle name?"
she said, half crying.
His laugh at this was less acrid. "Adams again? My grandfather had no middle name. But I mustn"t keep you out here in the cold talking genealogies."
His hand was on the door to open it for her. Like a flash she came between, and her fingers closed over his on the door-k.n.o.b.
"Wait," she said. "Have I done all this--humbled myself into the very dust--to no purpose?"
"Not if you will give me the one priceless word I am thirsting for."
"Oh, how shameless you are!" she cried. "Will nothing serve to arouse the better part of you?"
"There is no better part of any man than his love for a woman. You have aroused that."
"_Then prove it by going and building your railroad_, Mr. Winton. When you have done that--"
He caught at the word as a drowning man catches at a straw.
"When I have won the fight--Virginia, let me see your eyes--when I have won, I may come back to you?"
"I didn"t say anything of the kind! But I will say what I said to Mr.
Adams. I like men who _do_ things. Good night." And before he could reply she had made him open the door for her, and he was left alone on the square-railed platform.
In the gathering-room of the private car Virginia found an atmosphere surcharged with electrical possibilities, felt it and inhaled it, though there was nothing visible to indicate it. The Rajah was buried in the depths of his particular easy-chair, puffing his cigar; Bessie had the Reverend Billy in the tete-a-tete contrivance; and Mrs.