Chapter 31

Sylvia had spent the entire day by her window, looking down the road. She had refused the food that old Antonia had brought, and the comforting words that came with it. Something that was not a part of herself argued with her that Harboro would come back, though all that she was by training and experiences warned her that she must not look for him.

At nightfall she turned wearily when Antonia tapped at her door.

"_Nina!_" The troubled old woman held out a beseeching hand. "You must have food. I have prepared it for you, again. There are very good eggs, and a glass of milk, and coffee--coffee with a flavor! Come, there will be another day, and another. Sorrows pass in the good God's time; and even a blind sheep will find its blade of grass." Her hand was still extended.

Sylvia went to her and kissed her withered cheek. "I will try," she said with docility.

And they went down the stairs as if they were four; the young woman walking with Despair, the old woman moving side by side with Knowledge.

It was then that the telephone rang and Sylvia went to the instrument and took down the receiver with trembling fingers. If it were only Harboro!... But it was a woman's voice, and the hope within her died. She could scarcely attend, after she realized that it was a woman who spoke to her. The name "Mrs. Mendoza" meant nothing to her for an instant. And then she aroused herself. She must not be ungracious. "Oh, Mendoza," she said; "I didn't hear at first." She felt as if a breath of cold air had enveloped her, but she shook off the conviction. From habit she spoke cordially; with gratitude to the one woman in Eagle Pass who had befriended her she spoke with tenderness. The wife of Jesus Mendoza wanted to call on her.

But Sylvia had planned the one great event of her life, and it occurred to her that she ought not to permit this unfortunate woman to come to the house on the morrow. It would be an unforgivable cruelty. And then she thought of her father's house, and suggested that her visitor come to see her there.

She hung up the receiver listlessly and went into the kitchen, where Antonia was eagerly getting a meal ready for her. She looked at these affectionate preparations indulgently, as she might have looked at a child who assured her that a wholly imaginary thing was a real thing.

She ate dutifully, and then she took a bit of husk from Antonia's store and made a cigarette. It was the first time she had smoked since her marriage. "He's not coming back," she said in a voice like that of a helpless old woman. She leaned her elbows on the table and smoked. Her attitude did not suggest grief, but rather a leave-taking.

Then with returning briskness she got up and found street apparel and left the house.

She went down into the town almost gayly--like the Sylvia of old. In the drug-store she told an exciting little story to the clerk. There had been a nest of scorpions ... would he believe it? In the kitchen! She had been given such a start when the servant had found them. The servant had screamed; quite naturally, too. She had been told that a weak solution, sprinkled on the floor, would drive them away. What was it?... Yes, that was it. She had forgotten.

She received the small phial and paid the price with fingers which were perfectly firm. And then she started back up the hill.

Under a street light she became aware that she was being followed. She turned with a start. It was only a dog--a forlorn little beast which stopped when she stopped, and regarded her with soft, troubled eyes.

She stooped and smoothed the creature's head. "You mustn't follow," she said in a voice like hidden water. "I haven't any place to take you--nowhere at all!" She went on up the hill. Once she turned and observed that the lost dog stood where she had left him, still imploring her for friendship.

At her door she paused and turned. She leaned against the door-post in a wistful attitude. A hundred lonely, isolated lights were burning across the desert, as far as the eye could reach. They were little lights which might have meant nothing at all to a happier observer; but to Sylvia they told the story of men and women who had joined hands to fight the battle of life; of the sweet, humble activities which keep the home intact--the sweeping of the hearth, the mending of the fire, the expectant glance at the clock, the sound of a foot-fall drawing near. There lay the desert, stretching away to the Sierra Madre, a lonely waste; but it was a paradise to those who tended their lights faithfully and waited with assurance for those who were away.

... She turned and entered her house stealthily.

At the top of the stairs she paused in indecision. Antonia had not heard her enter. (She did not know that the old woman was standing in the kitchen under the picture of the Virgin, with her hands across her eyes like a bandage.) The lovely boudoir called to her, but she would not enter it.

"I will go into the guest-chamber," she said; "that is the room set apart for strangers. I think I must always have been a stranger here."

She opened the door quietly.

A pungent odor of smoke filled her nostrils. She groped for the light and turned it on.

Through little horizontal wisps of smoke she saw Harboro lying across the bed, his great chest standing high, his muscular throat exposed to the light, a glint of teeth showing under the sweeping black mustache. His eyes, nearly closed, seemed to harbor an eager light--as if he had travelled along a dark path and saw at last a beacon on a distant hilltop. A pistol was still clasped in his dead hand.

The unopened phial Sylvia carried slipped to the floor. She clutched at her lips with both hands, to suppress the scream that arose within her.

He had no right to lie so, in this room. That was her thought. He had taken the place she had chosen for her own.

And then she thought of Harboro as a stranger, too. Had she ever known him, really?

Her first thought recurred. It should have been her right to lie here in the guest-chamber, not Harboro's.

And yet, and yet....

The End