Children of the Desert Part 9

She got quite to the end of the main street, and then she halted in painful uncertainty. If she turned back now she would have to go on steadily back to her home, save for a brief stop at one of the stores, or else betray the fact to any who might be curiously observing her that she was on the street on some secret mission.

She stood for a s.p.a.ce, trying to decide what to do. Often before she had stood on that very spot to view the picture which men and the desert had painted on a vast canvas down toward the river. She occupied a point of vantage at the top of a long flight of stone steps, broken and ancient, leading down to the Rio Grande and its basin. Along the water's edge in the distance, down in the depths below her, ancient Mexican women were washing garments by a process which must have been old in Pharaoh's time: by spreading them on clean rocks and kneading them or applying brushes.

The river flowed placidly; the sunlight enveloped water and rock and sh.o.r.e and the patient women bending over their tasks. Nineveh or Tyre might have presented just such a picture of burdened women, concealing no one might say what pa.s.sions and fires under an exterior which suggested docility or the unkind pressure of tradition's hand or even hopelessness.

But Sylvia scarcely saw the picture now. She was recalling the words she had written in that message to her father. If only she had not defied Fectnor; if only she had made a plea for pity, or suggested a fear of her husband--or if she hadn't sent any answer at all!

It occurred to her that the exposure which menaced her was as nothing to the perils to which she had subjected Harboro. She knew instinctively that Harboro was not a man to submit to deliberate injury from any source. He would defend himself in the face of any danger; he would defend that which belonged to him. And Fectnor was cruel and unscrupulous and cunning. He knew how to provoke quarrels and to gain advantages.

She grew cold at the thought of losing Harboro. The inevitable consequences of such a loss occurred to her. She would have to submit always to Fectnor as long as he willed it. And afterward.... Ah, she must find Fectnor!

She retraced her steps. At a shop where silks were sold she entered. She asked for a piece of ribbon. A particular shade of blue; she could not describe it. She sat on a stool at the counter and kept an eye on the street.... No, something darker than that, something less l.u.s.trous. She examined bolt after bolt, and when at length it appeared that she was quite unwilling to be pleased she made a choice. And always she watched the street, hoping that Fectnor would pa.s.s.

At last she went up the Quemado Road, walking disconsolately. The withered immensity of the world broke her spirit. The vast stricken s.p.a.ces were but a material manifestation of those cruelties of nature which had broken her long ago, and which could not be expected to withdraw their spell now that the time had come for her destruction.

She looked far before her and saw where the Quemado Road attained its highest point and disappeared on the other side of a ridge. A house stood there, lonely and serene. She had known it was a convent; but now she observed it with eyes which really saw it for the first time. It had looked cool even during the period of midsummer. There was shade--a friendly garden. She had seen the Mother Superior once or twice: a large, elderly woman who wore but lightly the sedate mien which concealed a gentle humanity.

What if she, Sylvia, were to go on past her own house, on up to the ridge, and appeal to that unworldly woman for succor? Was there a refuge there for such as she?

But this was the merest pa.s.sing fancy. Where the tides of life ran high she had been moulded; here in the open she would meet her end, whatever the end might be.

She sat inside her house throughout that long day. Beside an open window she kept her place, staring toward Eagle Pa.s.s, her eyes widening whenever a figure appeared on the highway.

But the individual she feared--Fectnor, her father, a furtive messenger--did not appear.

Harboro came at last: Harboro, bringing power and placidity.

She ran out to the gate to meet him. Inside the house she flung herself into his arms.

He marvelled at her intensity. He held her a long moment in his embrace.

Then he gazed into her eyes searchingly. "Everything is all right," he said--the words being an affirmation rather than a question. He had read an expression of dread in her eyes.

"Yes, everything is all right," she echoed. Everything _was_ right now.

She seemed to awaken from a horrible nightmare. Harboro's presence put to flight an army of fears. She could scarcely understand why she had been so greatly disturbed. No harm could come to him, or to her. He was too strong, too self-contained, to be menaced by little creatures. The bigness of him, the penetrating, kindly candor of his eyes, would paralyze base minds and violent hands seeking to do him an injury. The law had sanctioned their union, too--and the law was powerful.

She held to that supporting thought, and during the rest of the evening she was untroubled by the instinctive knowledge that even the law cannot make right what the individual has made wrong.

She was as light-hearted as a child that night, and Harboro, after the irksome restraints of the day, rejoiced in her. They played at the game of love again; and old Antonia, in her place down-stairs, thought of that exchange of letters and darkly pondered.

CHAPTER XII.

The election came and went; the voice of the people had been heard, and Maverick County had a new sheriff. In the house on the Quemado Road Fectnor's name was heard no more.

On the Sat.u.r.day night following the election Harboro came home and found a letter waiting for him on the table in the hall. He found also a disquieted Sylvia, who looked at him with brooding and a question in her eyes.

He stopped where he stood and read the letter, and Sylvia watched with parted lips--for she had recognized the handwriting on the envelope.

Harboro's brows lowered into a frown. "It's from your father," he said finally, lifting his eyes from the letter and regarding Sylvia.

She tried to achieve an effect of only mild interest. "What can he have to write to you about?" she asked.

"Poor fellow--it seems he's been ill. Sylvia, how long has it been since you visited your father?"

"Does he want me to come to see him?"

"He hints at that pretty strongly. Yes, that's really the substance of his letter."

"I've never been back since we were married."

She led the way into the dining-room. Her manner was not quite responsive.

She made Harboro feel that this was a matter which did not concern him.

"But isn't that--doesn't that seem rather neglectful?"

She drew a chair away from the table and sat down facing him. "Yes, it does seem so. I think I've hinted that I wasn't happy in my old home life; but I've never talked very much about it. I ought to tell you, I think, that I want to forget all about it. I want the old relationship broken off completely."

Harboro shook his head with decision. "That won't do," he declared.

"Believe me, you're making a mistake. You're a good deal younger than I, Sylvia, and it's the way of the young to believe that for every old tie broken a new one can be formed. At your age life seems to have an abundance of everything. But you'll be dismayed, in a few years, to discover that most things come to us but once, and that nearly all the best things come to us in our youth."

He stood before her with an air of such quiet conviction, of such tranquil certainty of the truth of what he said that she could not meet his glance.

She had placed an elbow on the table, and was supporting her face in her hand. Her expression was strangely inscrutable to the man who looked down at her.

"Your father must be getting old. If you shouldn't see him for a year or so, you'd be fearfully grieved to note the evidences of failure: a slight stoop, perhaps; a slower gait; a more troubled look in his eyes. I want to help you to see this thing clearly. And some day you'll get word that he is dead--and then you'll remember, too late, how you might have carried little joys to him, how you might have been a better daughter...."

She sprang up, shaking the tears from her eyes. "I'll go," she said. She startled Harboro by that note of despair in her voice. "When does he wish me to come?"

"He says he is ill and alone. I think he would be glad if I could persuade you to go this evening. Why not this evening?"

Unfortunately, Harboro concealed a part of the truth in this. Her father had quite definitely asked to have her come this evening. But Harboro wished her to feel that she was acting voluntarily, that she was choosing for herself, both as to the deed and as to the time of its doing.

And Sylvia felt a wave of relief at the a.s.surance that her father had not set a definite time. Oh, surely the letter was just what it purported to be--a cry of loneliness and an honest desire to see her. And Sylvia really loved her father. There was that in her nature which made it impossible for her to judge him.

"I could go with you," ventured Harboro, "though he doesn't say anything about my coming. I've felt we must both go soon. Of course, I need not wait for an invitation."

But Sylvia opposed this. "If he's ill," she said, "I think I ought to go alone this time." She added to herself: "I don't want him ever to go. I must make him believe that enough has been done if I go myself. I must convince him that my father doesn't care to have him come."

Nevertheless, she was quite resigned to the arrangement that had been made for her. She helped Antonia make the final preparations for supper, and she set off down the road quite cheerfully after they arose from the table. Harboro watched her with a new depth of tenderness. This sweet submission, the quick recognition of a filial duty once it was pointed out to her--here were qualities which were of the essence of that childlike beauty which is the highest charm in women.

And Sylvia felt a strange eagerness of body and mind as she went on her way. She had put all thought of the house under the mesquite-tree out of mind, as far as possible. Becoming a closed book to her, the place and certain things which had been dear to her had become indistinct in her memory. Now that she was about to reopen the book various little familiar things came back to her and filled her mind with eagerness. The tiny canary in its cage--it would remember her. It would wish to take a bath, to win her praise. There had been a few potted plants, too; and there would be the familiar pictures--even the furniture she had known from childhood would have eloquent messages for her.

This was the frame of mind she was in as she opened her father's gate, and paused for an instant to recall the fact that here she had stood when Harboro appeared before her for the first time. It was near sundown now, just as it had been then; and--yes, the goatherd was there away out on the trail, driving his flock home.

She turned toward the house; she opened the door eagerly. Her eyes were beaming with happiness.

But she was chilled a little by the sight of her father. Something Harboro had said about her father changing came back to her. He _had_ changed--just in the little while that had elapsed since her marriage. But the realization of what that change was hurt her cruelly. He looked mean and base as he had never looked before. The old amiable submission to adversities had given place to an expression of petulance, of resentment, of cunning, of cowardice. Or was it that Sylvia was looking at him with new eyes?

He sat just inside the door, by a window. He was in a rocking-chair, and his hands lay heavily against the back of it. He had a blanket about him, as if he were cold. He looked at her with a strange lack of responsiveness when she entered the room.

"I got your message," she said affectionately. "I am glad you let me know you weren't feeling very well." She touched his cheeks with her hands and kissed him. "You _are_ cold," she added, as if she were answering the question that had occurred to her at sight of the blanket.