Read Ebook: The Loom of the Desert by Strobridge Idah Meacham Dixon Maynard Illustrator

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Ebook has 522 lines and 37653 words, and 11 pages

Yet, in spite of his manifest indifference to the charm of her large, splendid beauty--dazzling as the sun at noon-day--and that marked personality which all others who ever came within the circle of her presence seemed to feel, Keith knew he could have this woman's love for the asking--the love of a woman who, 'twas said, won love from all, yet giving love to none. Nay, but he knew it was already his. His very indifference had fanned a flame in her breast; a flame which had been lit as her eyes were first lifted to his own and she beheld her master, and burning steadily it had become the consuming passion of this strange creature's existence. Hopeless, she knew it was; yet it was stronger than her love of life. Even stronger than her inordinate love of money was this passion for the man whose heart she had utterly failed to touch.

That he must know it to be so, was but an added pain for her fierce nature to bear. Keith wondered if Williston had ever suspected, as she played her part, the woman's passionate and genuine attachment to himself. He hoped not, for the two men had been good comrades, though without the closer bond of a fine sympathy; and Keith's wish was that their comradeship should continue, while he hoped the woman's love, in time, would wear itself out. To Williston he had once tried to give a word of advice.

"Drop it, Keith," came the quick answer to his warning, "I love her."

"Granted that you do, why should you so completely enslave yourself to a woman of that type?"

"What do you mean by 'that type?' Take care! take care, Keith! I tell you I love her! Were I not already a married man I would make Mrs. Howard my wife."

"Oh, no, you wouldn't," Keith answered quietly. "Howard refuses to get a divorce, and you know very well she cannot. Besides, Sid, it would be sheer madness for you to do such a thing, even were she free."

"It makes no difference; I love her," was again the reply, and said with the childish persistence of those with whom reiteration takes the place of argument.

Keith said no more, though he felt the shame of it that Sidney Williston's fortune should be squandered on another woman, while--somewhere off there in the East--his wife waited for him to send for her. Keith's shoulders shrugged with impatience over the whole pitiful affair. He was disgusted at Williston's lack of principle and angered by his disregard of public censure. However, he reflected, trying to banish all thoughts of it, it was none of his business; he was not elected to be his brother's keeper in this affair surely.

As for himself, he believed the only love worth having was that upon which the foundation of the hearthstone was laid. He believed, too, that to no man do the gods bring this priceless treasure more than once. When a man like Keith believes this, it becomes his religion.

Through the gateway to his big, honest heart, one summer in the years gone by, love had entered, and--finding it the dwelling of honor and truth--it abided there still.

Thinking of Williston's infatuation for Gloria Howard, he could but compare it to his own entire, endless love for Kathryn Verrill. He recalled a day that would always stand out in bold relief from all others in memory's gallery.

In fancy now he could see the wide veranda built around one of the loveliest summer homes of the beautiful Thousand Islands. Cushions--soft and silken--lay tossed about on easy chairs and divans that were scattered about here and there among tubs of palms and potted plants. On little tables up and down the veranda's length were summer novels open and face downward as their readers had left them, or dainty and neglected bits of fancy-work. Cooling drinks and dishes of luscious fruits had been placed there within their reach. Keith closed his eyes with a sigh, as the memory of it all came back to him. Here, amid the sage and desert sands, it was like a dream of lost Paradise.

It had been a day of opalescent lights, and through its translucence they could see the rest of the party on the sparkling waters, among the pleasure craft from other wooded islands, full of charm, near by. Only these two--he and she--were here on the broad veranda. The echo of distant laughter came to them, but here was a languorous silence. Even the yellow-feathered warblers in the gilded cages above them had, for the time, hushed their songs.

Ah, well! He had asked her to marry him, and the pained look that came into her face was his answer even before he heard her say that for two years she had been another's--a secretly-wedded wife. Why she should now tell her carefully guarded secret to him she herself could hardly have told. No one else knew. Her husband had asked that it should be their dear secret until he could send for her to come to him out in the land of the setting sun, where he had gone alone in the hope that he would find enough of the yellow metal grains so that he could provide her with a fitting home. Her guardian had not liked the man of her choice--had made objections to his attentions. Then there was the clandestine marriage. And then he had gone away to make a home for her. But she loved him; oh, yes! he was her choice of all the world, her hero always--her husband now. She was glad to have done as she did--there was nothing to regret, except the enforced separation. So she was keeping their secret while feeding her soul with the hope of reunion that his rare letters brought. But she had faith. Some day--some day he would win the fortune that would pave the way to him; then he would send for her. Some day. And she was waiting. And she loved him; loved him. That was all.

All, except that she was sorry for Keith, as all good women are sorry to hurt any human creature. No loyal, earnest, loving man ever offers his whole heart to any true and womanly woman that she does not feel touched and honored by the proffered gift. Womanly sympathy looked out of her gentle eyes, but she had for him no slightest feeling of other attraction. Keith gravely accepted his fate; but he knew that Love would live forever in the inner chamber of his heart. To him, Kathryn Verrill would always be the one woman in all the world.

He went out of her life and back to the business routine of his own. In work he would try to forget his wounds. Later there were investments that turned out badly, and he lost heavily--lost all.

Then he came West. Here, in the Nevada mountains, he had found companionship in Sidney Williston who, like himself, was a seeker for gold. A general similarity of tastes brought about by their former ways of living had been the one reason for each choosing the companionship of the other. So, here in the paintless pine cabin in Porcupine Gulch, each working his separate claim, they had been living under the same roof for nearly two years; but Fate, that sees fit to play us strange tricks sometimes, had laid a fortune in Williston's hands, while Keith's were yet empty.

Sidney Williston's silence, when asked what he would do with his wealth, was answer enough. It would be for Gloria Howard. There he sat now, thinking of her--planning for her.

Millers, red-winged moths and flying ants fluttered around the candle, blindly batting at the burning wick and falling with singed wings on the table. The wind was rising again, and the blaze at times was nearly snuffed out, moth-beaten and blown by the strong breeze.

All the morning the sun had laid its hot hand heavily on the earth between the places where dense white clouds hung without a motion in the breathless sky. The clouds had spread great dark shadows on the cliffs below, where they clung to the rocks like time-blackened and century-old lichens. But in the shadowless spots the sun's rays were intensely hot, as they so often are before a coming storm; while the fierce heat for the time prostrated plant-life, and sent the many tiny animals of the hills to those places where the darkest shadows lay. Flowers were wilting where they grew. White primroses growing in the sandy soil near the cabin had but the night before lifted their pale, sweet faces to the moon's soft light--lovely evening primroses growing straight and strong. Noonday saw them drooping weakly on their stalks, blushing a rosy, shamed pink; kissed into color by the amorous caresses of that rough lover, the Sun. Night would find them faded and unlovely, their purity and sweetness ruthlessly wrested from them forever.

As the sun climbed to the zenith, there was not the slightest wind stirring; the terrible heat lay, fold on fold, upon the palpitating earth. But noon came and brought a breeze from out of the south. Stronger and stronger it swept toward the blue mountains lying away to the northward. It gathered up sand particles and dust, and shook them out into the air till the sunlight was dulled, and the great valley below showed through a mist of gold. All the afternoon the atmosphere was oppressively hot, while the wind hurried over valley and upland and mountain. All the afternoon the dust storm in billowy clouds hurried on, blowing--blowing--blowing. A whistling wind it was, keeping up its mournful song in the cracks of the unpainted cabin, and whipping the burlap awning over the door into ragged shreds at the edges. The dark green window shades flapped and rattled their length, carried out level from their fastenings by the force of the hot in-blowing wind.

Then with the down-going of the sun the wind died down also. When twilight came, the heavens were overcast with rain-clouds that told of a hastening storm which would leave the world fresh and cool when it had passed. The horizon line was brightened now and again by zigzags of lightning. Inside the cabin the close air was full of dust particles.

Sidney Williston tossed a photograph across the table, as he gathered his papers together preparatory to putting them away.

"There's my wife's picture, Keith," he said; "I don't think I ever showed it to you, did I?"

Keith got up--six feet, and more, of magnificent manhood; tall, he was, and straight as a pine, and holding his head in kingly wise. Leisurely he walked across the bare floor, which echoed loudly to his tread; leisurely he picked it up.

It was the pictured face of Kathryn Verrill!

He did not say anything; neither did he move.... If you come to think of it, those who sustain great shocks seldom do anything unusual except in novels. In real life people cry out and exclaim over trifles; but let a really stupendous thing happen, and you may be very sure that they will be proportionately silent. The mind, incapable of instantly grasping the magnitude of what has happened, makes one to stand immovable and in silence.

Keith said nothing. His breathing was quite as regular as usual, and his grasp on the picture was firm--untrembling. Yet in that instant of time he had received the greatest shock of his life, and myriad thoughts were running through his brain with the swiftness of the waters in the mining sluice. He held the bit of pasteboard so long that Williston at last looked up at him inquiringly.

When he handed it back his mind was made up. He knew what must be done. He knew what he must do--at once--for her sake.

When two or three hours later he heard Williston's regular breathing coming from the bed across the room, he stole out in the darkness to the shed where the horses and buckboard were. It was their one vehicle of any sort, and the only means they had of reaching the valley. With the team gone, Williston would practically be a prisoner for several days. Keith had no hesitation in deciding which way his duty lay. It was thirty miles to the nearest town; to the telegraph; to Gloria Howard; to the railroad!

As he pulled the buckboard out of the shed and put the horses before it, the first raindrops began to fall. Big splashing drops they were, puncturing the parched dust as they beat down upon it. Flashes of lightning split the heavens, and each flash made the earth--for the instant--noon-bright. When he had buckled the last strap his hands tightened on the reins, and he swung himself up to the seat as the thunder's batteries were turned loose on the earth in a tremendous volley that set the very ground trembling. The frightened horses, crouching, swerved aside an instant, and then leaped forward into the darkness. Along the winding road they swept, like part of the wild storm, toward the town that lay off in the darkness of the valley below.

It was past midnight, and thirty miles lay between him and the railroad. There was no time to spare. He drove the horses at a pace which kept time with his whirlwind thoughts and his pulses.

He had been cool and his thoughts had been collected when under another's possible scrutiny. Now, alone, with the midnight storm about him, his brain was whirling, and a like storm was coursing through his veins.

Fifteen miles--ten--five miles yet to go. Not once had Keith slackened speed.

When at length he found himself on the low levels bordering the river, the storm had passed over, and ere he reached the town the rain had ceased falling. A dim light was breaking through the darkness in places, and scudding clouds left rifts between which brilliant stars were beginning to shine.

As he drove across the bridge and into the lower town, he woke the echoes of a watch-dog's barking; otherwise, the town was still. At the livery stable he roused the sleeping boy, who took his team; and flinging aside the water-soaked great-coat he wore, he walked rapidly toward the railroad station at the upper end of the town. The message he wrote was given to the telegraph operator with orders to "rush." It read:

"I have found the fortune. Now I want my wife. Come."

He signed it with Sidney Williston's name.

"Is Number Two on time?" he asked.

"An hour late. It'll be here about 4:10," was the reply.

Leaving the office, he went back to the lower town. Down the hill and past the pleasant cottages half hidden under their thick poplar shade, and surrounded by neat, close-trimmed lawns. Leaf and grass-blade had been freshened by the summer storm; and the odor of sweet garden flowers--verbenas, mignonette and pinks--was wafted strongly to his nostrils on the night air. They were homes. He turned away from all the fragrance and sighed--the sigh of renunciation. Crickets were beginning to trill their night songs. Past the court-house he went, where it stood ghostly and still in the darkness; past the business buildings farther down, glistening with wet. He turned into a side street to the house where he had been told Gloria Howard lived. At the gate he hesitated a moment, then opening it, went inside. Stepping off the graveled walk, his feet pressed noiselessly into the rain-soaked turf as he turned a corner of the cottage, and--going to a side window--rapped on the casing.

There was silence, absolute and deep. Again he rapped. Sharply this time; and he softly called her name twice. He heard a startled movement in the room, then a pause, as though she were listening. A moment later her white gown gleamed against the darkness of the bedchamber, and she stood at the open window under its thick awning of green hop vines. Her face was on a level with his own. Her hair exhaled the odor of violets. He could hear her breathing.

She caught it quickly between both her own, and laid a hot cheek against it for an instant; then she pressed it tightly against her heart.

The night watchman patrolling the streets was passing; and they stood--he and she together--without movement, in the moist, dusky warmth of the rain-washed summer night, until the footsteps echoed faintly on the wet boards half a block away; the sound mingling with the croaking of the river frogs. Keith could feel the fast beating of her heart. The wet hop leaves shook down a shower of drops as they were touched by a passing breeze.

She did not reply, but laying a hand on his still damp coat-sleeve, tried to draw him closer, leaning her face towards his, and striving to read in his own face the truth of his words.

Had there been light enough for him to see, he would have marvelled at the varying expressions that followed in quick succession across her face. Surprise, incredulity, wonderment, a dawning of the real meaning of his words, triumph as she heard, and then--finally--a look of fierce, absorbing, tigerish love. For whatever else there might be to her discredit, her love for him was no lie in her life. She had for this man a passion as strong as her nature was intense.

"Gloria, Gloria, tell me! Will you leave all--everything and everybody--and go away with me?" he demanded impatiently. "Number Two is late--an hour late tonight, and you will have time to make yourself ready if you hasten. Come, Gloria, come!"

"I mean it. Yes."

She knew his yea was yea; still she missed a certain quality in what he said--a certain something in his tone.

She inhaled a long breath as she drew away from him.

"You are a strange man--a very, very strange man. Do you know it? All these many months you have shunned me; yet now you ask me to cast my lot with yours. Why?"

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