Chapter 17

On the following day Dave's duties called him to Brownsville, where court was in session. He had planned to leave by the morning train; but as he continued to meditate over Strange's words he decided that, before going, he ought to advise Alaire of the fellow's suspicions in order that she might discharge Jose Sanchez and in other ways protect herself against his possible spite. Since the matter was one that could not well be talked over by telephone, Dave determined to go in person to Las Palmas that evening. Truth to say, he was hungry to see Alaire. By this time he had almost ceased to combat the feeling she aroused in him, and it was in obedience to an impulse far stronger than friendly anxiety that he hired a machine and, shortly after dark, took the river road.

The Fates are malicious jades. They delight in playing ill-natured pranks upon us. Not content with spinning and measuring and cutting the threads of our lives to suit themselves, they must also tangle the skein, causing us to cut capers to satisfy their whims.

At no time since meeting Alaire had Dave Law been more certain of his moral strength than on this evening; at no time had his grip upon himself seemed firmer. Nor had Alaire the least reason to doubt her self-control. Dave, to be sure, had appealed to her fancy and her interest; in fact, he so dominated her thoughts that the imaginary creature whom she called her dream-husband had gradually taken on his physical likeness. But the idea that she was in any way enamoured of him had never entered her mind; that she could ever be tempted to yield to him, to be false to her ideals of wifehood, was inconceivable. In such wise do the Fates amuse themselves.

Alaire had gone to her favorite after-dinner refuge, a nook on one of the side-galleries, where there was a wide, swinging wicker couch; and there in a restful obscurity fragrant with unseen flowers she had prepared to spend the evening with her dreams.

She did not hear Dave's automobile arrive. Her first intimation of his presence came with the sound of his heel upon the porch. When he appeared it was almost like the materialization of her uppermost thought--quite as if a figure from her fancy had stepped forth full clad.

She rose and met him, smiling. "How did you know I wanted to see you?" she inquired.

Dave took her hand and looked down at her, framing a commonplace reply. But for some reason the words lay unspoken upon his tongue. Alaire's informal greeting, her parted lips, the welcoming light in her eyes, had sent them flying. It seemed to him that the dim half-light which illumined this nook emanated from her face and her person, that the fragrance which came to his nostrils was the perfume of her breath, and at the prompting of these thoughts all his smothered longings rose as if at a signal. As mutinous prisoners in a jail delivery overpower their guards, so did Dave's long-repressed emotions gain the upper hand of him now, and so swift was their uprising that he could not summon more than a feeble, panicky resistance.

The awkwardness of the pause which followed Alaire's inquiry strengthened the rebellious impulses within him, and quite unconsciously his friendly grasp upon her fingers tightened. For her part, as she saw this sudden change sweep over him, her own face altered and she felt something within her breast leap into life. No woman could have failed to read the meaning of his sudden agitation, and, strange to say, it worked a similar state of feeling in Alaire. She strove to control herself and to draw away, but instead found that her hand had answered his, and that her eyes were flashing recognition of his look. All in an instant she realized how deathly tired of her own struggle she had become, and experienced a reckless impulse to cast away all restraint and blindly meet his first advance. She had no time to question her yearnings; she seemed to understand only that this man offered her rest and security; that in his arms lay sanctuary.

To both it seemed that they stood there silently, hand in hand, for a very long time, though in reality there was scarcely a moment of hesitation on the part of either. A drunken, breathless instant of uncertainty, then Alaire was on Dave's breast, and his strength, his ardor, his desire, was throbbing through her. Her bare arms were about his neck; a sigh, the token of utter surrender, fluttered from her throat. She raised her face to his and their lips melted together.

For a time they were all alone in the universe, the center of all ecstasy. Dave was whispering wild incoherencies as Alaire lay in his embrace, her limbs relaxed, her flesh touching his, her body clinging to his.

"Dream-man!" she murmured.

As consciousness returns after a swoon, so did realization return to Alaire Austin. Faintly, uncertainly at first, then with a swift, strong effort she pushed herself out of Dave's reluctant arms. They stood apart, frightened. Dave's gaze was questioning. Alaire began to tremble and to struggle with her breath.

"Are we--mad?" she gasped. "What have we done?"

"There's no use fighting. It was here--it was bound to come out. Oh, Alaire--!"

"Don't!" She shook her head, and, avoiding his outstretched hands, went to the edge of the veranda and leaned weakly against a pillar, with her head in the crook of her arm. Dave followed her, but the words he spoke were scarcely intelligible.

Finally she raised her face to his: "No! It is useless to deny it--now that we know. But I didn't know, until a moment ago."

"I've known, all the time--ever since the first moment I saw you," he told her, hoarsely. "To me you're all there is; nothing else matters. And you love me! God! I wonder if I'm awake."

"Dream-man," she repeated, more slowly. "Oh, why did you come so late?"

"So late?"

"Yes. We must think it out, the best way we can, I--wonder what you think of me?"

"You must know. There's no need for excuses; there's nothing to explain, except the miracle that such great happiness could come to a fellow like me."

"Happiness? It means anything but that. I was miserable enough before, what shall I do now?"

"Why, readjust your life," he cried, roughly. "Surely you won't hesitate after this?"

But Alaire did not seem to hear him. She was staring out into the night again. "What a failure I must be!" she murmured, finally. "I suppose I should have seen this coming, but--I didn't. And in his house, too! This dress is his, and these jewels--everything!" She held up her hands and stared curiously at the few rings she wore, as if seeing them for the first time. "How does that make you feel?"

Dave stirred; there was resentment in his voice when he answered: "Your husband has sacrificed his claim to you, as everybody knows. To my mind he has lost his rights. You're mine, mine! By God!" He waved a vigorous gesture of defiance. "I'll take you away from him at any cost. I'll see that he gives you up, somehow. You're all I have."

"Of course the law provides a way, but you wouldn't, couldn't, understand how I feel about divorce." The mere mention of the word was difficult and caused Alaire to clench her hands. "We're both too shaken to talk sanely now, so let's wait--"

"There's something you must understand before we go any further," Dave insisted. "I'm poor; I haven't a thing I can call my own, so I'm not sure I have any right to take you away from all this." He turned a hostile eye upon their surroundings. "Most people would say that I've simply wasted my life. Perhaps I have--that depends upon the way you look at it and upon what you consider worth while--anyhow, all I can offer you is love--" He broke off momentarily as if his breath had suddenly failed him. "Greater love, it seems to me, than any woman ever had."

"Money means so little, and it's so easy to be happy without it," Alaire told him. "But I'm not altogether poor. Of course, everything here is Ed's, but I have enough. All my life I've had everything except the very thing you offer--and how I've longed for that! How I've envied other people! Do you think I'll be allowed, somehow, to have it?"

"Yes! I've something to say about that. You gave me the right when you gave me that kiss."

Alaire shook her head. "I'm not sure. It seems easy now, while you are here, but how will it seem later? I'm in no condition at this minute to reason. Perhaps, as you say, it is all a dream; perhaps this feeling I have is just a passing frenzy."

Dave laughed softly, confidently. "It's too new yet for you to understand, but wait. It is frenzy, witchery--yes, and more. To-morrow, and every day after, it will grow and grow and grow! Trust me, I've watched it in myself."

"So you cared for me from the very first?" Alaire questioned. It was the woman's curiosity, the woman's hunger to hear over and over again that truth which never fails to thrill and yet never fully satisfies.

"Oh, even before that, I think! When you came to my fire that evening in the chaparral I knew every line of your face, every movement of your body, every tone of your voice, as a man knows and recognizes his ideal. But it took time for me to realize all you meant to me."

Alaire nodded. "Yes, and it must have been the same with me." She met his eyes frankly, but when he reached toward her she held him away. "No, dear. Not yet, not again, not until we have the right. It would be better for us both if you went away now."

"No, no! Oh, I have so much to say! I've been dumb all my life, and you've just opened my lips."

"Please! After I've decided what to do--once I feel that I can control myself better--I'll send for you. But you must promise not to come until then, for you would only make it harder."

It required all Dave's determination to force himself to obey her wish, and the struggle nearly kept him from recalling the original object of his visit. Remembering, he tried to tell Alaire what he had learned from Phil Strange; but so broken and so unconvincing was his recital that he doubted if she understood in the least what he was talking about.

At last he took her hand and kissed her wrist, just over her pulse, as if to speed a message to her heart, then into her rosy palm he whispered a tender something that thrilled her.

She stood white, motionless, against the dim illumination of the porch until he had gone, and not until the last sound of his motor had died away did she stir. Then she pressed her own lips to the palm he had caressed and walked slowly to her room.

XXII

WHAT ELLSWORTH HAD TO SAY

On his way to Brownsville the next morning Dave found himself still somewhat dazed by his sudden happiness; the more he thought of it the more wonderful it seemed. During the day he went through his court duties like a man in a trance. Such joy as this was unbelievable; he felt as if he must tell the world about it. He well understood Alaire's repugnance to divorce, but he was sure that he could overcome it, if indeed her own truer understanding of herself did not relieve him of that necessity; for at this moment his desires were of a heat sufficient to burn away all obstacles, no matter how solid. It seemed, therefore, that the future was all sunshine.

He had no opportunity of speaking with Judge Ellsworth until court adjourned. Then the judge took him by the arm, with that peculiarly flattering assumption of intimacy of which he was master, and led the way toward his office, inquiring meanwhile for news of Jonesville. Dave's high spirits surprised him and finally impelled him to ask the cause. When Dave hinted unmistakably at the truth, Ellsworth exclaimed, with a sharp stare of curiosity:

"See here! You haven't forgotten what I told you that night on the train?"

"What? Yes, I had forgotten."

"You promised to tell me if you thought seriously about marriage."

"Very well, then; I'm telling you now."

"Do you mean that, Dave?"

"Of course I do. But don't look at me as if I'd confessed to arson or burglary. Listen, Judge! If you have good taste in jewelry, I'll let you help me select the ring."

But Judge Ellsworth continued to stare, and then muttered uncertainly: "You're such a joker--"

Dave assumed a show of irony. "Your congratulations overwhelm me. You look as if you were about to begin the reading of the will."

"I want to hear about this right away." Ellsworth smiled faintly. "Can you come to my office tonight, where we can be alone?"

Dave agreed to the appointment and went his way with a feeling of amusement. Old folks are usually curious, he reflected; and they are prone to presume upon the privileges that go with age. In this instance, however, it might be well to make a clean breast of the affair, since Ellsworth was Alaire's attorney, and would doubtless be selected to secure her divorce.

The judge was waiting when Dave called after supper, but for some time he maintained a flow of conversation relating to other things than the one they had met to discuss. At last, however, he appeared to summon his determination; he cleared his throat and settled himself in his chair--premonitory signs unusual in a man of Ellsworth's poise and self-assurance.

"I reckon you think I'm trying to mix up in something that doesn't concern me," he began; "and perhaps I am. Maybe you'll make me wish I'd minded my own business--that's what usually happens. I remember once, out of pure chivalry, trying to stop a fellow from beating his wife. Of course they both turned on me--as they always do. I went to the hospital for a week, and lost a profitable divorce case. However, we try to do our duty as we see it."

This was anything but a promising preamble; Dave wondered, too, at his friend's obvious nervousness.

"So you've found the girl, eh?" the judge went on.

"Yes."

"Are you accepted? I mean, have you asked her to marry you?"

"Of course I have. That's about the first thing a fellow does."

Ellsworth shuffled the papers on his desk with an abstracted gaze, then said, slowly, "Dave--I don't think you ought to marry."

"So you told me once before. I suppose you mean I'm poor and a failure."

"Oh no! All men are failures until they marry. I'm thinking of what marriage means; of the new duties it brings, of the man's duty to himself, to the woman, and to society; I'm thinking of what lies inside of the man himself."

"Um-m! That's pretty vague."

"I've studied you a long time, Dave, and with a reason. I've studied heredity, too, and--you mustn't marry."

Law stirred in his chair and smiled whimsically. "I've done some studying along those lines, too, and I reckon I know myself pretty well. I've the usual faults, but--"

Ellsworth interrupted. "You don't know yourself at all, my boy. There's just the trouble. I'm the only man--living man, that is--who knows you." For the first time he looked directly at his caller, and now his lids were lifted until the eyes peered out bright, hard, and piercing; something in his face startled Dave. "I was your father's attorney and his friend. I know how he lived and how he died. I know--what killed him?"

"You mean, don't you, that you know who killed him?"

"I mean just what I say."

Dave leaned forward, studying the speaker curiously. "Well, come through. What's on your mind?" he demanded, finally.

"The Guadalupes had to kill him, Dave."

"Had to? HAD to? Why?"

"Don't you know? Don't you know anything about your family history?" Dave shook his head. "Well, then--he was insane."

"Insane?"

"Yes; violently."

"Really, I--Why--I suppose you know what you're talking about, but it sounds incredible."

"Yes, it must to you--especially since you never knew the facts. Very few people did know then, even at the time, for there were no newspapers in that part of Mexico; you, of course, were a boy at school in the United States. Nevertheless, it's true. That part of the story which I didn't know at the time I learned by talking with General Guadalupe and others. It was very shocking."

Dave's face was a study; his color had lessened slightly; he wet his lips. "This is news, of course," said he, "but it doesn't explain my mother's death. Who killed her, if not the Guadalupes?"

"Can't you guess? That's what I meant when I said they had to kill Frank Law." Ellsworth maintained his fixity of gaze, and when Dave started he nodded his head. "It's God's truth. The details were too--dreadful. Your father turned his hand against the woman he loved and--died a wife-killer. The Guadalupes had to destroy him like a mad dog. I'm sorry you had to learn the truth from me, my boy, but it seems necessary that I tell you. When I knew Frank Law he was like any other man, quick-tempered, a little too violent, perhaps, but apparently as sane as you or I, and yet the thing was there."

Dave rose from his chair and bent over the desk. "So THAT'S what you've been driving at," he gasped. "That's what you meant when you said I shouldn't marry." He began to tremble now; his voice became hoarse with fury. "Now I understand. You're trying to tell me that--maybe I've got it in me, eh? Hell! YOU'RE crazy, not I. I'm all right. I reckon I know."

"HE didn't know," Ellsworth said, quietly. "I doubt if he even suspected."

Dave struck the desk violently with his clenched fist. "Bosh! You're hipped on this heredity subject. Crazy! Why, you doddering old fool--" With an effort he calmed himself, realizing that he had shouted his last words. He turned away and made a circuit of the room before returning to face his friend. "I didn't mean to speak to you like that, Judge. You pulled this on me too suddenly, and I'm--upset. But it merely proves my own contention that I'm not Frank Law's son at all. I've always known it."

"How do you know it?"

"Don't you suppose I can tell?" In spite of himself Dave's voice rose again, but it was plain from the lawyer's expression that to a man of his training no mere conviction unsupported by proof had weight. This skepticism merely kept Dave's impatience at a white heat. "Very well, then," he argued, angrily, "let's say that I'm wrong and you're right. Let's agree that I am his son. What of it? What makes you think I've inherited--the damned thing? It isn't a disease. Me, insane? Rot!" He laughed harshly, took another uncertain turn around the room, then sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands.

Ellsworth was more keenly distressed than his hearer imagined; when next he spoke his voice was unusually gentle. "It IS a disease, Dave, or worse, and there's no way of proving that you haven't inherited it. If there is the remotest possibility that you have--if you have the least cause to suspect--why, you couldn't marry and--bring children into the world, now could you? Ask yourself if you've shown any signs--?"

"Oh, I know what you mean. You've always said I go crazy when I'm--angry. Well, that's true. But it's nothing more than a villainous temper. I'm all right again afterward."

"I wasn't thinking so much of that. But are you sure it's altogether temper?" the judge insisted. "You don't merely lose control of yourself; you've told me more than once that you go completely out of your mind; that you see red and want to kill and--"

"Don't you?"

"I never felt the slightest desire to destroy, no matter how angry I chanced to be. I've always asserted that murderers, homicides, suicides, were irresponsible; that they were sick here." Ellsworth touched his forehead. "I can't see how any sane man can take his own or another's life, no matter what the provocation. But I'm not a doctor, and that's an extreme view, I know. Anyhow, you'll agree that if you have Frank Law's blood in your veins it won't do to marry."

"I haven't got it," the younger man groaned, his gaze turned sullenly downward. "Even granting that I have, that's no sign I'd ever--run amuck the way he did."

"You told me just now that you don't know your family history?"

"Yes. What little I've heard isn't very pretty nor very much to the family's credit. They were a bad lot, I believe."

"Frank Law had two brothers and a sister, had he not?"

"Yes. One of my uncles was a tough hombre. I'm told he notched his gun pretty well."

"He was about the worst man of his day. He was shot in Dodge City on one of his rampages."

Dave raised shocked and curious eyes. "You think he was crazy?"

"Most of those old-time gunmen would be so considered nowadays. Some unbelievable stories are told about that uncle of yours. The other one disappeared mysteriously."

"I believe so. He just walked away from his wife and family and business one day and was never heard of again."

Ellsworth seemed to consider this admission significant. "Now the sister, your aunt?"

"I think she's somewhere in the East; I never saw her."

"She is; she's an inmate of an institution the name and address of which I have here." Ellsworth thrust his finger into the loose pile of documents before him. Avoiding his caller's eyes he continued: "You can't very well ignore such a family history, Dave. I've never traced it back beyond the last generation, but you probably could if you tried."

In a voice hardly his own, Dave articulated: "God! This is--hideous."

"It is. I'd like to believe that you don't belong to the Laws, but I can't put much faith in that childhood fancy of yours. Run it down; convince yourself. But first go to the girl, whoever she is, and tell her the facts. If she's the right sort--"

"No, no!" The words were wrung from Dave's lips. "She knows too well how heredity acts; she's had one experience."

"Eh? You say she knows--Who is she, Dave? Don't tell me you mean--Alaire?"

Dave nodded.

"Damnation!" Ellsworth leaped to his feet and, striding around the desk, seized his caller roughly by the shoulder. "What are you telling me? Good God, Alaire! A married woman! So you--cut under Ed Austin, eh?" Momentarily Ellsworth lost control of himself; his eyes blazed and his fingers tightened painfully. "What damnable trick have you played on that girl? Tell me before I choke you."

For once Dave Law's passion failed to ignite at the heat of another's anger; he only sat limp and helpless in the judge's grasp. Finally he muttered: "I played square enough. It's one of those things that just happen. We couldn't help ourselves. She'll come to you for her divorce."

The lawyer uttered a shocking oath. "Then it's no mere romantic infatuation on her part?"

"Oh no!"

Ellsworth loosed his grip. He turned away and began to pace the office floor, shaking his head. "This is--unfortunate. Alaire, of all people--as if she didn't have enough to bear." He turned fiercely upon the cowering figure in the chair, saying: "I'll tell her the whole truth myself, before she goes any further."

"No! Oh, please! Let me, in my own way." Dave writhed and sank his face in his hands once more. After a while he said, "I'm waiting for you to tell me it's all a nightmare."

"Humph!" The judge continued his restless pacing. "I was sorry for you when you came in here, and it took all my strength to tell you; but now you don't matter at all. I was prepared to have you go ahead against my advice, but--I'll see you damned first."

"You have damned me."

When Ellsworth saw the haggard face turned to his he ceased his walk abruptly. "I'm all broken up, Dave," he confessed in a gentler tone than he had used heretofore. "But you'll thank me some day."

Law was no longer the big, strong, confident fellow who had entered the office such a short time before. He had collapsed; he seemed to have shrunk; he was pitifully appealing. Although there were many things he would have said, many questions upon his tongue, he could not voice them now, and it was with extreme difficulty that he managed to follow the judge's words at all.

After a time he rose and shook Ellsworth's hand limply, mechanically; then he shambled out of the office. Like a sick man, he stumbled down the stairs and into the street. When he entered his hotel the clerk and some of the idlers in the lobby looked at him queerly, but he did not see them.