Lethe felt that there was a pa.s.sion that night riding her; a pa.s.sion that far surpa.s.sed her own. Womanlike, she decided to arbitrate. She would wait until this all-powerful pa.s.sion burned itself out; then she could afford to safely agitate her own. It would not have grown less in the necessary interim. So, much to Sue"s surprise, the filly was as gentle as the proverbial lamb.
As she turned for home, Waterbury rode out of the deepening shadows behind her. He had left the colonel at his breeding-farm. Waterbury and Sue rode in silence. The girl was giving all her attention to her thoughts. What was left over was devoted to the insistent mouth of Lethe, who ever and anon tested the grip on her bridle-rein; ascertaining whether or not there were any symptoms of relaxation or abstraction.
It is human nature to grow tired of being good. Waterbury"s better nature had been in the ascendancy for over a week. He thought he could afford to draw on this surplus balance to his credit. He was riding very close to Sue. He had encroached, inch by inch, but her oblivion had not been inclination, as Waterbury fancied. He edged nearer. As she did not heed the steal, he took it for a grant. We fit facts to our inclination.
The animal arose mightily in him. In stooping to avoid an overhanging branch he brushed against her. The contact set him aflame. He was hungrily eyeing her profile. Then in a second, he had crushed her head to his shoulder, and was fiercely kissing her again and again--lips, hair, eyes; eyes, hair, lips.
"There!" he panted, releasing her. He laughed foolishly, biting his nails. His mouth felt as if roofed with sand-paper. His face was white, but not as white as hers.
She was silent. Then she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and very carefully wiped her lips. She was absolutely silent, but a pulse was beating--beating in her slim throat. The action, her silence, inflamed Waterbury. He made to crush her waist with his ravenous arm. Then, for the first time, she turned slowly, and her narrowed eyes met his.
He saw, even in the gloom. Again he laughed, but the onrushing blood purpled his neck.
Desperation came to help him brave those eyes--came and failed. He talked, declaimed, avowed--grew brutally frank. Finally he spoke of the mortgage he held, and waited, breathing heavily, for the answer. There was none.
"I suppose it"s some one else, eh?" he rapped out, red showing in the brown of his eyes.
Silence. He savagely cut the gelding across the ears, and then checked its answering, maddened leap. The red deepened in Sue"s cheek--two red spots, the flag of courage.
"It"s this nephew of Major Calvert"s," added Waterbury. He lost the last shred of common decency he could lay claim to; it was caught up and whirled away in the tempest of his pa.s.sion. "I saw him to-day, on my way to the track. He didn"t see me. When I knew him his name was Garrison--Billy Garrison. I discharged him for dishonesty. I suppose he sneaked home to a confiding uncle when the world had kicked him out. I suppose they think he"s all right, same as you do. But he"s a thief. A common, low-down--"
The girl turned swiftly, and her little gauntlet caught Waterbury full across the mouth.
"You lie!" she whispered, very softly, her face white and quivering, her eyes black with pa.s.sion.
And then Lethe saw her opportunity. Sensed it in the momentary relaxing of the bridle-rein. She whipped the bit into her fierce, even, white teeth, and with a snort shot down the pike.
And then Waterbury"s better self gained supremacy; contrition, self-hatred rushing in like a fierce tidal wave and swamping the last vestige of animalism. He spurred blindly after the fast-disappearing filly.
Garrison rode one of the best races of his life that night. It was a trial of stamina and nerve. Lethe was primarily a sprinter, and the gelding, raised to his greatest effort by the genius of his rider, outfought her, outstayed her. As he flew down the moon-swept road, bright as at any noontime, Garrison knew success would be his, providing Sue kept her seat, her nerve, and the saddle from twisting.
Inch by inch the white, shadow-flecked s.p.a.ce between the gelding and the filly was eaten up. On, on, with only the tempest of their speed and the flying hoofs for audience. On, on, until now the gelding had poked his nose past the filly"s flying hocks.
Garrison knew horses. He called on the gelding for a supreme effort, and the gelding answered impressively. He hunched himself, shot past the filly. Twenty yards" gain, twenty yards to the fore, and then Garrison turned easily in the saddle. "All right, Miss Desha, let her come," he sang out cheerfully.
And the filly came, came hard; came with all the bitterness of being outstripped by a clumsy gelding whom she had beaten time and again. As she caught the latter"s slowed pace, as her wicked nose drew alongside of the other"s withers, Garrison shot out a hand, clamped an iron clutch on the spume-smeared bit, swung the gelding across the filly"s right of way; then, with his right hand, choked the fight from her widespread nostrils.
And then, womanlike, Sue fainted, and Garrison was just in time to ease her through his arms to the ground. The two horses, thoroughly blown, placidly settled down to nibble the gra.s.s by the wayside.
Sue lay there, her wealth of hair clouding Garrison"s shoulder. He watched consciousness return, the flutter of her breath. The perfume of her skin was in his nostrils, his mouth; stealing away his honor. He held her close. She shivered.
He fought to keep from kissing her as she lay there unarmed. Then her throat pulsed; her eyes opened. Garrison kissed her again and again; gripping her as a drowning man grips at a pa.s.sing straw.
With a great heave and a pa.s.sionate cry she flung him from her. She rose unsteadily to her feet. He stood, shame engulfing him. Then she caught her breath hard.
"Oh!" she said softly, "it"s--it"s you!" She laughed tremulously. "I--I thought it was Mr. Waterbury."
Relief, longing was in the voice. She made a pleading motion with her arms--a child longing for its mother"s neck. He did not see, heed. He was nervously running his hand through his hair, face flaming. Silence.
"Mr. Waterbury was thrown. I took his mount," he blurted out, at length.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head without replying; biting her lips. She was devouring him with her eyes; eyes dark with pa.s.sion. The memory of that moment in his arms was seething within her. Why--why had she not known! They looked at each other; eye to eye; soul to soul. Neither spoke.
She shivered, though the night was warm.
"Why did you call me Miss Desha?" she asked, at length.
"Because," he said feebly--his nature was true to his Southern name. He was fighting self like the girl--"I"m going away," he added. It had to come with a rush or not at all. And it must come. He heaved his chest as a swimmer seeks to breast the waves. "I"m not worthy of you. I"m a--a beast," he said. "I lied to you; lied when I said I was not Garrison. I am Billy Garrison. I did not know that I was. I know now. Know----"
"I knew you were," said the girl simply. "Why did you try to hide it?
Shame?"
"No." In sharp staccato sentences he told her of his lapse of memory.
"It was not because I was a thief; because I was kicked from the turf; because I was a horse-poisoner--"
"Then--it"s true?" she asked.
"That I"m a--beast?" he asked grimly. "Yes, it"s true. You doubt me, don"t you? You think I knew my ident.i.ty, my crimes all along, and that I was afraid. Say you doubt me."
"I believe you," she said quietly.
"Thank you," he replied as quietly.
"And--you think it necessary, imperative that you go away?" There was an unuttered sob in her voice, though she sought to choke it back.
"I do." He laughed a little--the laugh that had caused the righteous Dan Crimmins to wince.
She made a pa.s.sionate gesture with her hand. "Billy," she said, and stopped, eyes flaming.
"You were right to break the engagement," he said slowly, eyes on the ground. "I suppose Mr. Waterbury told you who I was, and--and, of course, you could only act as you did."
She was silent, her face quivering.
"And you think that of me? You would think it of me? No, from the first I knew you were Garrison--"
"Forgive me," he inserted.
"I broke the engagement," she added, "because conditions were changed--with me. My condition was no longer what it was when the engagement was made--" She checked herself with an effort.
"I think I understand--now," he said, and admiration was in his eyes; "I know the track. I should." He was speaking lifelessly, eyes on the ground. "And I understand that you do not know--all."
"All?"
"Um-m-m." He looked up and faced her eyes, head held high. "I am an adventurer," he said slowly. "A scoundrel, an impostor. I am not--Major Calvert"s nephew." And he watched her eyes; watched unflinchingly as they changed and changed again. But he would not look away.
"I--I think I will sit down, if you don"t mind," she whispered, hand at throat. She seated herself, as one in a maze, on a log by the wayside.
She looked up, a twisted little smile on her lips, as he stood above her. "Won"t--won"t you sit down and tell--tell me all?"