CHAPTER VI.

THE WELCOME THAT AWAITS RALPH HINCHLEY.

On the appointed day, Yates and his companion returned home. Sybil went down to meet them as calm and smiling as though the season of their absence had been fraught with no incident of interest, or no terrible conflict had shaken her whole soul to its center. True, very little had happened in acts; but the greatest changes of life occur when all is still. Supper was over, and Sybil had gone up to her room, leaving the two men smoking upon the veranda. There was a low, eager conversation between them after her departure. At length Dickinson raised his voice:

"You had better go now and talk to her."

"Oh, these women," muttered Yates; "there's no telling how she may take any thing."

"She'll take it as you would," replied Dickinson. "Be careful how you tell your story--don't frighten her at first. Why, you may bring a woman to any thing if you don't upset her nerves at the start."

"You are wonderfully wise," mused Yates.

Tom did not seem inclined to provoke a discussion, and after a little hesitation Yates went into the house and mounted the stairs.

He entered Sybil's chamber abruptly, and found her, as usual, seated in a low chair by the window.

"I want to talk to you a little," he said, "and I expect you to act like a sensible woman."

"Let me hear," she answered.

"It's a short story," said he, bluntly. "To-morrow night, then, a man will stop here loaded with money and dust enough to make us all rich for the rest of our lives."

"Well?" The red lips lost their color, and shut hard together; that cruel light shot into the blue eyes.

"It isn't well," retorted Yates, angrily. "He won't drink, and he won't gamble; so what's to be done? Tom talks about taking the fellow in hand."

"No, no," interrupted Sybil, putting up her hands as if to shut out some horrible object. "I have not forgotten San Francisco--don't talk of it, Philip."

"I knew that would be the way!" he exclaimed. "I was a fool to tell you of it. No woman can be trusted when it comes to the pinch; but that goose, Tom, said you would take it kindly, and be the first to hit on some plan that would settle every thing."

"I will help you as I always have," she said, trembling violently; "but not that--oh! heavens, no."

"There, there, you foolish child!" he replied, not ill-naturedly. "That wasn't your fault or mine; the men got to quarreling in the house, and we killed the other--"

"But it was so terrible; that dying man's face has haunted me ever since--I can see his eyes glaring, and hear his breath struggling and gurgling yet--see him clutching and tearing at the bed--"

"Don't, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, catching hold of her; "you'll drive a man mad!"

She had risen from her seat, and was pointing wildly at the floor as she spoke, but his voice seemed to recall her to herself. She sunk back into her chair panting for breath, while Yates vainly endeavored to conceal his own discomposure.

"You will go crazy in one of these abominable fits," he said, brushing his hand across his forehead, and sweeping the great drops of perspiration away.

"Then don't bring such memories back," she shuddered.

After all, the woman was the first to regain her usual manner, while Yates walked slowly up and down the room, his mind divided between the recollections her words had aroused and the plans which had been arranged during the past days.

"So we must give it up," he said, at length, "and all for your confounded folly."

"Do you call it folly?" cried Sybil, with a miserable specter of a laugh.

"Yes, I do! There is one thing certain; your obstinacy and cowardice will lengthen your stay here by ten good years."

"I am not a coward--"

"Call yourself what you please! I say, before we can afford to leave this place, the youth will be gone out of your face, the brightning from your eyes--you'll be an old woman, Sybil."

She did not appear moved by his threats, and, as was customary with him when thwarted, he began to pass into a violent rage. She did not answer the harsh words and maledictions which he heaped upon her; but once, when he made a movement as if to give her a blow, as had often happened before, she turned upon him with something in her face from which he shrunk in spite of himself.

"Don't do that!" she exclaimed, in an awful whisper; "I warn you never to attempt that again!"

The victory was more nearly won to her than it had been for many a day. Yates dropped his hand and turned to go out.

"Well, let every thing slide," he said; "this comes of trusting a woman with secrets! I must sit in my chair and see sixty thousand dollars good slip out of my hands, and Ralph Hinchley go by without lifting a finger."

Sybil sprung forward and clutched his arm; the face she bent toward him was like that of a corpse.

"Speak that name again," she whispered; "speak it."

"Ralph Hinchley," he repeated, pushing her aside with a feeling like absolute fear. "Confound you, what do you look like that for?"

Sybil still held him fast, and her voice rung out hollow and unnatural:

"Why, if you murder him, I will avenge it; so God help us both!"

"What is he to you? Do you know him?"

She forced back the whirlwind of passion, and stood up, cold and white.

"I never saw him," she replied; "but if you wish his money, I shall not stand between you and him; his life you shall not take."

"Are you in earnest?"

She answered him with a look.

"But we have not settled on that; I propose to follow him--"

"Fools!" exclaimed Sybil. "To-morrow night the house and the valley will be full of mad and drunken men. There may be half a dozen robberies--will one more make any great difference?"

"What a woman you are!" exclaimed Yates, with that sort of admiring dread with which a bad man watches a superior in coldness and courage. "It will be impossible to say who did it! What a mind you have when it works in earnest."

"There will be a score of people here wanting lodgings to-morrow night; surely, your way is clear."

She waved him impatiently off when he would have pursued the subject.

"Go down stairs," she said; "I am tired of this. I am coming in a moment."

He went out. She stood still in the gloom, while that terrible look of ferocity came back to her face.

"Either of them, or both," she muttered; "I don't care! Hinchley is Margaret's cousin--Sybil Yates will save him; but not till they have gone far enough to prove the attempt. Then let them arrest Philip if they will--oh! I am sick of this life, and do so loathe him."

She swept out of the room, cold and stern as a Nemesis, descending to the presence of those men who sat together whispering of things which they dared not speak aloud. They had excited themselves with drink; but Sybil was not afraid to look the reality in the face--her resolve was taken, she would not falter. If she reasoned with her conscience it was thus: "The plan is not mine--I could not help it. These men are false and desperate; I can guide but not defeat them. When it is done--oh, how my heart beats; its chains are falling off. His petty sins shall bind me here no longer."