The Second Latchkey Part 37

The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her little panelled room.

"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself.

But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept.

In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at a famous Chinese restaurant.

At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside.

"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?"

Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face betrayed her state of mind.

"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket at Albuquerque."

"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then.

Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better than they might be.

At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their luggage.

The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know.

"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?"

Knight came to ask.

"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said.

Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the other travellers--strangers whom they would not meet again--were not of much importance. Yet she let her words pa.s.s. And at dinner that evening she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?"

"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed them again.

Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced, half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed, with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough gra.s.s, or cleft with river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into little waves.

Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom.

"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made up your mind what you want to do?"

Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her!

Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure.

Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape flying past the windows.

"What I _want_ to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that I want to do."

"Then"--and Knight did not take his eyes from the window--"why not drift?"

"Drift?"

"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as if they were separated by a continent.

"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't _I_ who tell you so.

It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or--will you try the thin wall?"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE ANNIVERSARY

The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then--if he had said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen desolation.

Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert.

"You--swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered.

"I swear I will let you live your own life."

He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who had, according to the law of G.o.d, given "this woman to this man."

The train was stopping.

Annesley knew that she could not go on alone.

"I will try--Texas," she said in final decision.

Las Cruces Ranch was named, not after the New Mexico town thirty or forty miles away, but in honour of the Holy Crosses which had rested there one night, centuries ago, while on a sacred pilgrimage.

It was a lonely ranch, as far from El Paso in Texas as it was from the namesake town in New Mexico. Even the nearest village, a huddled collection of low adobe houses and wooden shacks on the Rio Grande ("Furious River," as the Indians called it), was ten miles distant. Only the river was near, as the word "near" is used in that land of vast s.p.a.ces. At night, if a great wind blew, Annesley fancied she could hear the voice of the rushing water.

When she first saw the place where she had bound herself to live, her heart sank. It seemed that she would not be able to support the loneliness; for it would be desperately lonely to live there, lacking the companionship of someone dearly loved. But afterward--afterward she could no more a.n.a.lyze her feeling for the country than for the man who had brought her to it.

Lonely as she was, she was never homesick. Indeed, she had no home to long for, no one whose love called her back to the old world. And she was glad that there were no neighbours to come, to call her "Mrs. Donaldson"

and ask questions about England.

She had n.o.body except the Mexican servant woman and the cowboys who stayed with the new rancher when the old one went away.

Knight had suggested that she should wait in El Paso until he had seen whether the house was habitable for her, and had made it so, if it were not already. But Annesley had chosen to begin her new life without delay, for she was in a mood where hardships seemed of no importance. It was only when she had to face them in their sordid nakedness that she shrank.

Yet, after all, what did it matter? If she had stepped into the most luxurious surroundings she would have been no less unhappy.

The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book--the veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the long windows with green shutters--she would have imagined it to be picturesque.

But it was not picturesque. It was only shabby and uninviting; at least that was her impression when she arrived, toward evening, after a long, jolting drive in a hired motor-car.