powerful brute? A broken whisper, strange as death:
“I killed him,” cried Venters, in remembering shock. “But it wasn’t
Herein lay the secret that had clamored to him through all the tumult and stress of his emotions. What a look in the eyes of a man shot through the heart! It had been neither hate nor ferocity nor fear of men nor fear of death. It had been no passionate glinting spirit of a fearless foe, willing shot for shot, life for life, but lacking physical power. Distinctly recalled now, never to be forgotten, Venters saw in Oldring’s magnificent eyes the rolling of great, glad surprise – softness – love! Then came a shadow and the terrible superhuman striving of his spirit to speak. Oldring shot through the heart, had fought and forced back death, not for a moment in which to shoot or curse, but to whisper strange words.
What words for a dying man to whisper! Why had not Venters waited? For what? That was no plea for life. It was regret that there was not a moment of life left in which to speak. Bess was – Herein lay renewed torture for Venters. What had Bess been to Oldring? The old question, like a specter, stalked from its grave to haunt him. He had overlooked, he had forgiven, he had loved and he had forgotten; and now, out of the mystery of a dying man’s whisper rose again that perverse, unsatisfied, jealous uncertainty. Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned giant – by her own confession she had loved him; and in Venters’s soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring hell burst the shot that had killed Oldring, and it rang in a wild fiendish gladness, a hateful, vengeful joy. That passed to the memory of the love and light in Oldring’s eyes and the mystery in his whisper. So the changing, swaying emotions fluctuated in Venters’s heart.
This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial struggle of his life. And when the gray dawn came he rose, a gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he knew – he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches, and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond, climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell asleep.
In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening its walled faces.
While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands outstretched.
“Bern! You’re back! You’re back!” she cried, in joy that rang of her loneliness.
“Yes, I’m back,” he said, as she rushed to meet him.
She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled, and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.
“Oh! What’s happened?”
“A good deal has happened, Bess. I don’t need to tell you what. And I’m played out. Worn out in mind more than body.”
“Dear – you look strange to me!” faltered Bess.
“Never mind that. I’m all right. There’s nothing for you to be scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have planned. As soon as I’m rested we’ll make a break to get out of the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about you.”
“Truth about me?” echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself, as he saw her, received a pang.
“Yes – the truth. Bess, don’t misunderstand. I haven’t changed that way. I love you still. I’ll love you more afterward. Life will be just as sweet – sweeter to us. We’ll be – be married as soon as ever we can. We’ll be happy – but there’s a devil in me. A perverse, jealous devil! Then I’ve queer fancies. I forgot for a long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I’ve got to kill them with the truth.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” she replied, frankly.
“Then by Heaven! we’ll have it over and done with! … Bess – did Oldring love you?”
“Certainly he did.”
“Did – did you love him?”
“Of course. I told you so.”
“How can you tell it so lightly?” cried Venters, passionately. “Haven’t you any sense of – of – ” He choked back speech. He felt the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes. They were shadowing with the old wistful light, hut they were as clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest, solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the truth, looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in purity.
“What are – what were you to – to Oldring?” he panted, fiercely.
“I am his daughter,” she replied, instantly.
Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the force of his feeling – then creeping blankness.
“What – was it – you said?” he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.
“I am his daughter.”
“Oldring’s daughter?” queried Venters, with life gathering in his voice.
“Yes.”
With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew her close.
“All the time – you’ve been Oldring’s daughter?”
“Yes, of course all the time – always.”
“But Bess, you told me – you let me think – I made out you were – a – so – so ashamed.”
“It is my shame,” she said, with voice deep and full, and now the scarlet fired her cheek. “I told you – I’m nothing – nameless – just Bess, Oldring’s girl!”
“I know – I remember. But I never thought – ” he went on, hurriedly, huskily. “That time – when you lay dying – you prayed – you – somehow I got the idea you were bad.”
“Bad?” she asked, with a little laugh.
She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.
“Bess! Bess!” He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw Oldring. She was the rustler’s nameless daughter. Oldring had loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child’s. That was part of the secret – part of the mystery. That was the wonderful truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above all innocence in the world – the innocence of lonely girlhood.
He saw Oldring’s magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million bellowing, thundering voices – gunshots of conscience, thunderbolts of remorse – dinned horribly in his ears. He had killed Bess’s father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed – Oldring’s knell.
He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and grasped her with the hands of a drowning
