With his eyes on his valise, and quietly ignoring the wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly-darkening brow of his host, he continued,--
"Many little things sorter tended to make our home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposition to smash furniture, and heave knives around; an inclination to howl when drunk, and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar language, and a tendency to cuss the casooal visitor,--seemed to pint," added Mr. McClosky with submissive hesitation "that--she--was--so to speak--quite onsuited to the marriage relation in its holiest aspeck."
"d.a.m.nation! Why didn"t"--burst out John Ashe, erect and furious.
"At the end of two year," continued Mr. McClosky, still intent on the valise, "I allowed I"d get a diworce. Et about thet time, however, Providence sends a circus into thet town, and a feller ez rode three horses to onct. Hevin" allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town with this feller, leavin" me and Jinny behind. I sent word to her, thet, if she would give Jinny to me, we"d call it quits. And she did."
"Tell me," gasped Ashe, "did you ask your daughter to keep this from me?
or did she do it of her own accord?"
"She doesn"t know it," said Mr. McClosky. "She thinks I"m her father, and that her mother"s dead."
"Then, sir, this is your"--
"I don"t know," said Mr. McClosky slowly, "ez I"ve asked any one to marry my Jinny. I don"t know ez I"ve persood that ez a biziness, or even taken it up as a healthful recreation."
John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. McClosky"s eyes left the valise, and followed him curiously. "Where is this woman?" demanded Ashe suddenly. McClosky"s eyes sought the valise again.
"She went to Kansas; from Kansas she went into Texas; from Texas she eventooally came to Californy. Being here, I"ve purvided her with money, when her business was slack, through a friend."
John Ashe groaned. "She"s gettin" rather old and shaky for hosses, and now does the tight-rope business and flying trapeze. Never hevin" seen her perform," continued Mr. McClosky with conscientious caution, "I can"t say how she gets on. On the bills she looks well. Thar is a poster," said Mr. McClosky glancing at Ashe, and opening his valise,--"thar is a poster givin" her performance at Marysville next month." Mr. McClosky slowly unfolded a large yellow-and-blue printed poster, profusely ill.u.s.trated. "She calls herself "Mams"elle J.
Miglawski, the great Russian Trapeziste.""
John Ashe tore it from his hand. "Of course," he said, suddenly facing Mr. McClosky, "you don"t expect me to go on with this?"
Mr. McClosky took up the poster, carefully refolded it, and returned it to his valise. "When you break off with Jinny," he said quietly, "I don"t want any thing said "bout this. She doesn"t know it. She"s a woman, and I reckon you"re a white man."
"But what am I to say? How am I to go back of my word?"
"Write her a note. Say something hez come to your knowledge (don"t say what) that makes you break it off. You needn"t be afeard Jinny"ll ever ask you what."
John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been cruelly wronged. No gentleman, no Ashe, could go on further in this affair. It was preposterous to think of it. But somehow he felt at the moment very unlike a gentleman, or an Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down under Jenny"s steady eyes. But then--he could write to her.
"So ores is about as light here as on the Ridge. Well, I reckon they"ll come up before the rains. Good-night." Mr. McClosky took the hand that his host mechanically extended, shook it gravely, and was gone.
When Mr. McClosky, a week later, stepped again upon his own veranda, he saw through the French window the figure of a man in his parlor. Under his hospitable roof, the sight was not unusual; but, for an instant, a subtle sense of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw it was not the face of Ashe turned toward him, he was relieved; but when he saw the tawny beard, and quick, pa.s.sionate eyes of Henry Rance, he felt a new sense of apprehension, so that he fell to rubbing his beard almost upon his very threshold.
Jenny ran into the hall, and seized her father with a little cry of joy.
"Father," said Jenny in a hurried whisper, "don"t mind HIM," indicating Rance with a toss of her yellow braids: "he"s going soon. And I think, father, I"ve done him wrong. But it"s all over with John and me now.
Read that note, and see how he"s insulted me." Her lip quivered; but she went on, "It"s Ridgeway that he means, father; and I believe it was HIS hand struck Ridgeway down, or that he knows who did. But hush now! not a word."
She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back into the parlor, leaving Mr. McClosky, perplexed and irresolute, with the note in his hand. He glanced at it hurriedly, and saw that it was couched in almost the very words he had suggested. But a sudden, apprehensive recollection came over him. He listened; and, with an exclamation of dismay, he seized his hat, and ran out of the house, but too late. At the same moment a quick, nervous footstep was heard upon the veranda; the French window flew open, and, with a light laugh of greeting, Ridgeway stepped into the room.
Jenny"s finer ear first caught the step. Jenny"s swifter feelings had sounded the depths of hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the room. Jenny"s pale face was the only one that met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when he stood before them. An angry flush suffused even the pink roots of Rance"s beard as he rose to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridgeway"s eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn pa.s.sed over the lower part of his face, and left the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid.
Yet he was the first to speak. "I owe you an apology," he said to Jenny, with a suave scorn that brought the indignant blood back to her cheek, "for this intrusion; but I ask no pardon for withdrawing from the only spot where that man dare confront me with safety."
With an exclamation of rage, Rance sprang toward him. But as quickly Jenny stood between them, erect and menacing. "There must be no quarrel here," she said to Rance. "While I protect your right as my guest, don"t oblige me to remind you of mine as your hostess." She turned with a half-deprecatory air to Ridgeway; but he was gone. So was her father.
Only Rance remained with a look of ill-concealed triumph on his face.
Without looking at him, she pa.s.sed toward the door. When she reached it, she turned. "You asked me a question an hour ago. Come to me in the garden, at nine o"clock tonight, and I will answer you. But promise me, first, to keep away from Mr. Dent. Give me your word not to seek him--to avoid him, if he seeks you. Do you promise? It is well."
He would have taken her hand; but she waved him away. In another moment he heard the swift rustle of her dress in the hall, the sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet.
And even thus quietly the day wore away; and the night rose slowly from the valley, and overshadowed the mountains with purple wings that fanned the still air into a breeze, until the moon followed it, and lulled every thing to rest as with the laying-on of white and benedictory hands. It was a lovely night; but Henry Rance, waiting impatiently beneath a sycamore at the foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth or air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a jealous nature, a vague superst.i.tion of the spot, filled his mind with distrust and doubt.
"If this should be a trick to keep my hands off that insolent pup!" he muttered. But, even as the thought pa.s.sed his tongue, a white figure slid from the shrubbery near the house, glided along the line of picket-fence, and then stopped, midway, motionless in the moonlight.
It was she. But he scarcely recognized her in the white drapery that covered her head and shoulders and breast. He approached her with a hurried whisper. "Let us withdraw from the moonlight. Everybody can see us here."
"We have nothing to say that cannot be said in the moonlight, Henry Rance," she replied, coldly receding from his proffered hand. She trembled for a moment, as if with a chill, and then suddenly turned upon him. "Hold up your head, and let me look at you! I"ve known only what men are: let me see what a traitor looks like!"
He recoiled more from her wild face than her words. He saw from the first that her hollow cheeks and hollow eyes were blazing with fever. He was no coward; but he would have fled.
"You are ill, Jenny," he said: "you had best return to the house.
Another time"--
"Stop!" she cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Move from this spot, and I"ll call for help! Attempt to leave me now, and I"ll proclaim you the a.s.sa.s.sin that you are!"
"It was a fair fight," he said doggedly.
"Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed and unsuspecting man?
Was it a fair fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else? Was it a fair fight to deceive me? Liar and coward that you are!"
He made a stealthy step toward her with evil eyes, and a wickeder hand that crept within his breast. She saw the motion; but it only stung her to newer fury.
"Strike!" she said with blazing eyes, throwing her hands open before him. "Strike! Are you afraid of the woman who dares you? Or do you keep your knife for the backs of unsuspecting men? Strike, I tell you!
No? Look, then!" With a sudden movement, she tore from her head and shoulders the thick lace shawl that had concealed her figure, and stood before him. "Look!" she cried pa.s.sionately, pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains and ominous discoloration,--"look! This is the dress I wore that morning when I found him lying here,--HERE,--bleeding from your cowardly knife.
Look! Do you see? This is his blood,--my darling boy"s blood!--one drop of which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious to me than the whole living pulse of any other man. Look! I come to you to-night, christened with his blood, and dare you to strike,--dare you to strike him again through me, and mingle my blood with his. Strike, I implore you! Strike!
if you have any pity on me, for G.o.d"s sake! Strike! if you are a man!
Look! Here lay his head on my shoulder; here I held him to my breast, where never--so help me my G.o.d!--another man--Ah!"--
She reeled against the fence, and something that had flashed in Rance"s hand dropped at her feet; for another flash and report rolled him over in the dust; and across his writhing body two men strode, and caught her ere she fell.
"She has only fainted," said Mr. McClosky. "Jinny dear, my girl, speak to me!"
"What is this on her dress?" said Ridgeway, kneeling beside her, and lifting his set and colorless face. At the sound of his voice, the color came faintly back to her cheek: she opened her eyes, and smiled.
"It"s only your blood, dear boy," she said; "but look a little deeper, and you"ll find my own."
She put up her two yearning hands, and drew his face and lips down to her own. When Ridgeway raised his head again, her eyes were closed; but her mouth still smiled as with the memory of a kiss.
They bore her to the house, still breathing, but unconscious. That night the road was filled with clattering hors.e.m.e.n; and the summoned skill of the countryside for leagues away gathered at her couch. The wound, they said, was not essentially dangerous; but they had grave fears of the shock to a system that already seemed suffering from some strange and unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The best medical skill of Tuolumne happened to be young and observing, and waited patiently an opportunity to account for it. He was presently rewarded.
For toward morning she rallied, and looked feebly around. Then she beckoned her father toward her, and whispered, "Where is he?"
"They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart. He won"t trouble you agin."
He stopped; for Miss Jenny had raised herself on her elbow, and was levelling her black brows at him. But two kicks from the young surgeon, and a significant motion towards the door, sent Mr. McClosky away muttering. "How should I know that "HE" meant Ridgeway?" he said apologetically, as he went and returned with the young gentleman. The surgeon, who was still holding her pulse, smiled, and thought that--with a little care--and attention--the stimulants--might be--diminished--and---he--might leave--the patient for some hours with perfect safety. He would give further directions to Mr. McClosky--down stairs.