Westerfelt Part 18

Without speaking, and full of wonder, he followed her into the dark building. She led him past piles of old iron, wagon-tires, ploughshares, tubs of black water, anvils, and sledges to the forge and bellows at the back of the shop. She waited for a moment for him to speak, but he only looked at her questioningly, having almost steeled his heart against her.

"I come to warn you," she began, awkwardly, her eyes raised to his.

"Toot Wambush has prejudiced the Whitecaps against you. He has convinced them that you reported the moonshiners. They are coming to-night to take you out. The others don't mean to kill you; they say it's just to whip you, and tar and feather you, and drive you out of the place, but he--Toot Wambush--will kill you if he can. He would not let you get away alive. He has promised the others not to use violence, but he will; he hates you, and he wants revenge. He'll do it and make the others share the responsibility with him--that's his plan."

He put his hand on the bellows-pole; the great leather bag rattled and gasped, and a puff of ashes rose from the forge.

"How do you happen to know this?" he asked, coldly. She shrank from him, and stared at him in silence.

"How do you know it?" he repeated, his tone growing fierce.

She drew the shawl with which she had covered her head more closely about her shoulders.

"Toot hinted at it himself," she said, slowly.

"When?"

"About an hour ago."

"You met him?"

"Yes."

"Are you a member of his gang?"

"Mr. Westerfelt," shrinking from him, "do--do you mean to insult me?"

"Would he have told you if he had thought you would give him away?"

"I reckon not--why, no."

"Then he considers you in sympathy with his murderous plans."

"I don't know, but I want you to keep out of his way. You must--oh, Mr. Westerfelt, you must go! Don't stand here; they are coming down the Hawkbill road directly. You could ride off towards Dartsmouth and easily get away, if you will hurry."

"I see," he answered, with a steady stare of condemnation; "you want to keep him from committing another crime--a more serious one."

She looked at him an instant as if puzzled, and then said:

"I want to keep him from killing you."

"Do you think he would take advantage of a helpless man?"

"I know it, Mr. Westerfelt; oh, I know he would!"

"Then you acknowledge he is a coward, and yet you--my G.o.d, what sort of a creature _are_ you?"

She continued to stare at him wonderingly, as if half afraid. She moved suddenly into a moonbeam that streamed through a broken shingle in the roof. Her face was like white marble. In its terrified lines and angles he read nothing but the imprint of past weakness where he should have seen only pleading purity--the purity of a child cowed and awed by the object of a love so powerful, so self-sacrificing that she made no attempt to understand it. She had always felt her inferiority to others, and now that she loved her ideal of superiority she seemed to expect ill-treatment--even contempt--at his hands.

He looked away from her. The begrimed handle of the bellows creaked and swung as he leaned on it. He turned suddenly and impulsively grasped her hands.

"You are a good girl," he cried; "you have been the best friend I ever had. If I don't treat you better, it is on account of my awful nature.

I can't control it when I think of that villain."

"He _has_ treated you very badly," she said, slowly, in a voice that faltered.

"Where did you meet him and when?" he asked, under his breath. "G.o.d knows I thought you were done with him."

"He came right to the house just after dark," returned Harriet.

"Mother let him come in; she wanted to talk to him."

"Did he come to get you to go away with him, Harriet?"

"Yes, Mr. Westerfelt."

"And why didn't you go?"

"Oh, how _can_ you ask such a question," she asked, "when you _know_--"

She broke off suddenly, and then, seeing that he was silent, she added: "Mr. Westerfelt, sometimes I am afraid, really afraid, your sickness has affected your mind, you speak so strange and harsh to me. Surely I do not deserve such cruelty. I am just a woman, and a weak one at that; a woman driven nearly crazy through troubling about you." She raised a corner of her shawl to her eyes.

He saw her shoulders rise with a sob, then he caught her hands.

"Don't--don't cry, little girl. I'd give my life to help you. Oh yes, _do_ let me hold your hands, just this once; it won't make any difference."

She did not attempt to withdraw her hands from his pa.s.sionate, reckless clasp, and, now more trustingly, raised her eyes to his.

"Sometimes I think you really love me," she faltered. "You have made me think so several times."

"I'm not ashamed of it," he said. "I've had fancies for women, but I have never felt this way before. It seems to me if I was to live a thousand years I'd never, never feel that you was like other women.

Maybe you love me real deep, and maybe you just fancy me, but I'll never want any other human being like I want you. I have been a bad man--a careless, thoughtless man. Ever since I was a boy I have played with love. I was playing with fire--the fire of h.e.l.l, Harriet--and I got burnt. In consequence of what I've done I suffer as no mortal ever suffered. Repentance brings contentment to some men, but they are not built like me. I don't do anything from morning to night but brood and brood over my past life."

"I thought you had had some trouble," she returned, sympathetically.

"Why did you think so?" he asked.

"You talked when you were out of your head. That's why I first took pity on you. I never saw a man suffer in mind as you did. You rolled and tumbled the first two or three nights and begged for forgiveness; often you spoke so loud I was afraid others in the house would hear."

He opened his palms before her. "These hands are soaked in human blood--innocent human blood," he said, tragically. "I don't deny it; if it would do a particle of good I'd tell every soul on earth. I won a good girl's love, and when I got tired of her and left her she killed herself to escape the misery I put her in. I was unworthy of her, but she didn't know it, or want to know it. n.o.body knows she took her own life except me and her mother, and it has ruined her life--taken away her only comfort in old age and made her my mortal enemy. She never gives me a minute's rest--she reminds me constantly that I'll never get forgiveness and never be happily married, and she is right--I never shall. My wicked nature demands too much of a woman. I can love, and do love, with all my soul, but my pride cannot be subdued. I--"

"I understand, Mr. Westerfelt" she broke in, quickly. "Don't bring up that subject again. What you said when I last saw you was enough. It almost kept me from coming to-night, but it was my duty; but you do not have to say any more about that." She took a step backward and stood staring at him in mute misery. She had never felt that she was worthy of him, in a way, but his cold reference--as she understood it--to her misfortune released a spring of resentment she hardly knew was wound in her breast.

"Forgive me," he pleaded, trying to regain her hands. "I'll never mention it again. I promise you that--never again."

"It's all right," she answered, softening under his pa.s.sionate gaze.

"But it would be kind of you to avoid mentioning what I cannot help."

He was about to reply, but there was a sound of barking dogs from the mountain. "Go quick!" She caught her breath. "Don't wait! That may be them now. Don't let them kill you."

He did not stir. "You'd better go home," he said, calmly. "I don't care a straw what becomes of me. I've had enough of the whole business. I have got as much right to live as anybody else, and I will not be driven from pillar to post by a gang of outlaws, headed by a coward." He drew a revolver, and, half c.o.c.king it, carelessly twirled the cylinder with his thumb. "I've got five thirty-two-caliber shots here, and I think I can put some of them where they ought to go."

She pushed the revolver down with her hand. "No, no!" she cried, "you must not be reckless."