"Of course, I did. Am I not telling you? And you, Derry, did _you_ write to _me_?"
His tongue almost cleaved to the roof of his mouth; for he knew, in that instant, that they were not seated in the comfortable veranda of the Ocean House, but standing side by side on the lip of an abyss.
He must not, he dared not, answer truly. He had no right to make wreck and ruin of this bright young life, and none knew so well as he how proudly she would denounce the thievish wiles which had separated them if once she grasped their full import.
"It is so long ago," he muttered brokenly. "So many things have occurred since. I have forgotten. I--I can only be sure that I received no letters from you."
"You have forgotten!" she repeated slowly.
"Yes--that is, I suffered a good deal from a broken leg--it was badly set--that is why I have such a noticeable hobble. Events round about that period are all jumbled up in my mind."
The explanation was lame as his leg. It would never have deceived even the Nancy Willard of bygone years, and was utterly thrown away on this wide-eyed woman. She was conscious of a fierce pain somewhere in the region of her heart, and wanted to cry aloud in her distress; but she crushed the impulse with a self-restraint that had become second nature, and bent nearer, smiling wanly.
"Why did you throw away your cigar, Derry?" she said. "Please smoke.
Like every other man, you will talk more easily then. And do tell me what has been going on at Bison. I have often asked Hugh for news; but he says he never hears a word about the place since he sold his interests there."
Power hardly realized how swiftly and certainly she had made smooth the way. He was conscious only of a vast relief that the subject of the missing correspondence was dropped. Only in later hours of quiet reflection did he grasp the reason--that she was bitterly aware of the truth, and the whole truth. He began at once to describe developments on the ranch, and was too wishful to hide his own confusion behind the smoke of a cigar to notice how a white-gloved hand clenched the arm of a chair when he spoke of his mother and the place she filled in public esteem. Unconsciously he was telling Nancy just what she wanted to know.
He was not married. There was no other woman! She uttered no sound; but her lower lip bore a series of white marks for a little while.
"You see," he explained glibly, "I acquired the habit of letting other people work when I was laid by for repairs. Please excuse these frequent references to a broken limb, which seems to figure in my talk much as King Charles"s head in Mr. d.i.c.k"s disjointed ma.n.u.scripts. Anyhow, I had plenty of time for reading, as the mine paid from the very beginning, and a rock spring which nearly scared Mac stiff came in handy to irrigate the upper part of the ranch--that long slope just below the Gulch, you remember."
"Yes, I remember," she said.
"Well, what between fruit-growing and horse-breeding, I hardly ever have time to go near Bison. My mother drives in every day over the new trail----"
"What new trail?"
"We had to cut a road across the divide. The Gulch is blocked by rails."
"Why?"
"That is where the mine is, you know."
"I don"t know. Whereabouts exactly is the mine?"
"It starts in the west side of the canyon, about a hundred yards from the ranch end."
"Near a narrow cleft, topped by a sloping ledge?"
"Yes. How well you recollect every yard of the ground!"
"How did you come to locate the lost seam there?"
"By sheer chance. Some pieces of the granite wall fell away, and any miner who had been a week at his trade would have recognized the vein then."
"When did they fall away--the bits of rock, I mean?"
"It must have been about the time you--you were married, Mrs. Marten."
She tapped a satin-shod foot emphatically on the boarded floor. "Why are you calling me "Mrs. Marten"?" she demanded.
"Well----"
"Don"t do it again. I am "Nancy" to you, Derry. I refuse to part with the privileges of friendship in that casual way. But I want to understand things more closely. What caused the stones to fall?"
"I don"t mind telling," he said, "though a good many people have asked me the history of El Preco, and I have refused hitherto to gratify their curiosity----"
"El Preco--doesn"t that mean "the price"?"
"Yes."
"What an extraordinary name! The price of what?"
"Of my broken leg. There, you see! King Charles"s head once more."
She paused, ever so briefly, before resuming her questioning. "Now, why did the stones fall?"
"Because an excited cowboy fired his revolver in the air, and the bullets struck a section of rock which required some such shock to dislodge it."
"But how did that affect you?"
"I happened to be lying on the very ledge you spoke of, and--oh, dash it all! I secured my limp then and there."
"Did the fall disturb a rattlesnake?"
"It may have disturbed a dozen rattlesnakes, for all that I can tell.
But what an extraordinary thing to say! Did you know that a rattler lived in that cleft?"
"No. I was just thinking of the Gulch and its inhabitants. Perhaps my wits were wandering.... Come, Derry. Our half-hour is not gone, but we can talk on the way. Send a boy for my carriage. Do you want your hat and coat?"
She rose suddenly, and drew a light wrap of silvery tissue around her shoulders. Power stood up, and faced her. He had never seen her looking so ethereally beautiful, not even on the night, now so long ago, when he parted from her before taking that disastrous journey to Sacramento.
"Do you really think I ought to come with you to Mrs. Van Ralten"s?" he said.
"Of course. Why not? You are invited."
"But----"
"You are my big brother from Bison, Derry, and I"m not going to forgo the pleasure of your company if all Newport lined the road and bawled, "Send him away!" But do hurry. Mary Van Ralten will forgive everything except unpunctuality."
The nebulous protest on Power"s lips faded into silence. "On such a night I can dispense with hat and overcoat," he said. "Your carriage is a closed landau, I suppose?"
"Yes. After the play you can escort me to the Breakers--that is the name of the house we have rented--and Sam, our coachman, will take you home.... Oh, there he is, waiting. Mrs. Van Ralten"s, Sam."
"Yes, Ma"am," said the negro, who had brought a carriage and pair to the doorway when he caught sight of his mistress. A negro footman opened the door, and Nancy entered, the brilliant moonlight gleaming for an instant on the sheen of a white silk stocking. Power seated himself by her side, and the horses dashed off. He felt the soft folds of her dress touching him. When she turned slightly to say something about the marvelous nights which tempered the heat-wave at Newport, her right shoulder and elbow pressed him closely. Some subtle fragrance came from her that stirred him almost to a frenzy of longing; yet he dared not flinch away into a corner of the carriage. Perforce, he schooled his voice to utter the plat.i.tudes of the moment. Yes, he had been in Newport three whole days, and had not the remotest notion that she was there. He had come to buy horses, and might remain another week. Well, he _would_ remain, now that they had met; for he was sure he would find a good deal to tell her of Bison and its folk once he had got over the novelty and unexpectedness of this meeting.
And all the time his heart was pounding madly, throbbing so furiously that he feared lest she should become aware of its lack of restraint, and he stooped forward in a make-believe glance at some building they were pa.s.sing.