Chapter 11

Antonia went marketing the next morning, and when she came back Sylvia met her with fearful, inquiring eyes. She was terribly uneasy, and she was one of those creatures who must go more than half-way to meet impending danger. She was not at all surprised when Antonia handed her a sealed envelope.

The old servant did not linger to witness the reading of that written message. She possessed the discretion of her race, of her age. The senora had been married quite a time now. Doubtless there were old friends....

And Sylvia stood alone, reading the sprawling lines which her father had written:

"_Fectnor's here. He wants to see you. Better come down to the house. You know he's likely to make trouble if he doesn't have his way._"

She spelled out the words with contracted brows; and then for the moment she became still another Sylvia. She tore the missive into bits. She was pale with rage--rage which was none the less obsessing because it had in it the element of terror. Her father dared to suggest such a thing! It would have been bad enough if Fectnor had sent the summons himself; but for her father to unite with him against her in such an affair!

She tried to calm herself, succeeding but illy. "Antonia!" she called. "Antonia!" For once her voice was unlovely, her expression was harsh.

The startled old woman came with quite unprecedented alacrity.

"Antonia, where did you see my father?"

"On the street. He seemed to have waited for me."

"Very well. You must find him again. It doesn't matter how long you search. I want you to find him."

She hurriedly framed a response to that note of her father's:

"_I will not come. Tell Fectnor I never will see him again. He will not dare to harm me._"

As she placed this cry of defiance into an envelope and sealed and addressed it certain words of Harboro's came back to her. That night of their wedding he had lifted her in his powerful arms and had given her a man's assurance: "I mean that you're to have all the help you want--that you're to look to me for your strength."

She reasoned shrewdly: Harboro wasn't the sort of man people would tell things to--about her. They would know what to expect: intense passion, swift punishment.

And yet as she watched Antonia go away down the road, suggesting supine submission rather than a friend in need, her heart failed her. Had she done wisely? Fectnor had never stepped aside for any man. He seemed actually to believe that none must deny him the things he wanted. He seemed an insane creature when you thwarted him. There was something terrible about his rages.

She imagined seemingly impossible things: that Fectnor would come to the house--perhaps while Harboro was there. He might kill Harboro.

Alas, the evil she had done in those other days loomed before her now in its true light: not merely as evil deeds, definitely ended with their commission, but as fearful forces that went on existing, to visit her again and destroy her.

She began to hope that Fectnor would actually come to her--now, before Harboro came home. At the worst she might save Harboro, and there was even a chance that she could make Fectnor see her position as she saw it--that she could persuade him to be merciful to her. Surely for the sake of security and peace in all the years that lay before her.... A definite purpose dawned in her eyes. She went to her room and began deliberately to choose her most becoming street costume.

She was ready to go out when Antonia returned.

"Did you find him?" she asked.

Yes, the old woman had found him and delivered the message. He had sent no word in return; he had only glared at the bearer of the message and had cursed her.

"Well, never mind," said Sylvia soothingly. It occurred to her that it must be a sad thing to be an old woman, and a Mexican, and to have to serve as the wire over which the electric current flowed--and to feel only the violence of the current without comprehending the words it carried.

And now to find Fectnor--for this was what she meant to do.

She would see him on the street, where publicity would protect her, even if there were no friends to take her part. She would see him on the street and explain why she could not meet him any more, why he must not ask it. Certainly it would not look very well for her to be seen talking to him; but she could not help that. She would be going out to do a little shopping, ostensibly, and she would hope to encounter him on the street, either coming or going.

However, her earnest planning proved to be of no avail. Fectnor was nowhere to be seen.

She walked rather leisurely through the town--moving barely fast enough to avoid the appearance of loitering. She walked circumspectly enough, seemingly taking little interest in events or individuals. That she was keenly on the alert for one familiar face no one would have guessed.

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 space, 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 shore 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 passions 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 lustrous. 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 pass.

At last she went up the Quemado Road, walking disconsolately. The withered immensity of the world broke her spirit. The vast stricken spaces 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 passing 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 Pass, 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.