Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation

  CHAPTER XXXI

  CONFESSIONS

  A groping hand touched her arm; bandaged fingers sought to feel whoshe was. Behind her sounded a drowsy incoherent murmur. The snarl ofthe wolf had roused the sleeper from his torpor.

  "Hush--hush!" she whispered. "It is all well. I am here by you. Liestill."

  "Isobel!" he murmured. "Isobel!"

  "Yes, dear!" she soothed. "I am here. Rest--go to sleep again. All iswell."

  "All is--?" He roused a little more. "You say--Then he is safe! Theyhave brought him up--out of that hell!"

  She could not lie outright. "He will soon be safe. By morning helpwill have come to us. As soon as the men can see to go down, they willdescend for him. They will bring him up the way that you have shownus!"

  Her voice quivered with pride of what he had done. She drew up hishand and pressed her lips tenderly upon the bandages.

  Had the caress been a burn, he could not have more quickly snatchedthe hand away. He sought to rise, and struck his head against theoverhanging rock.

  "Where am I? Let me out!" he said.

  "No, you must not! Lie still! You must not!" she remonstrated.

  "Lie still?" he repeated. "Lie still! with him down there--alone!"

  "But it is night--midnight. It will be hours before even the moonrises."

  "And he down there--alone! Help me make ready. I am going down tohim."

  "Going down? But you cannot! It is midnight!"

  "There is a lantern. I shall take that. It will be easier than in thedaytime, for I shall not see those sickening precipices below."

  He sought to creep out past her. She clutched his arm.

  "No, no! do not go! There is no need! Wait until they come. You havedone your share--far more than your share! Wait!"

  "I cannot," he replied. "I must go down to him. I have no right to beup here, and he still down there."

  "You must!" she urged, clinging tighter to his arm. "You may fall. Iam afraid! I cannot bear it! Do not go! Stay with me--say that youwill stay with me--dearest!"

  "Good God!" he cried, tearing himself away from her, "To let you sayit--say it to me!"

  "Dearest!" she repeated. "Dearest, do not go! There is no need! Icannot bear it! Do not go!"

  "No need? My God! When I could fling myself over, if it were not forhim! To have let you say it--to me--to a liar! thief! murderer!"

  "Dearest!" she whispered. "Hush! You are delirious--you do notknow--"

  "It is you who do not know!" he cried. "But you shall--everything--allmy cowardly baseness!" The confession burst from him in a torrent ofself-denunciation--"That trip to town, when we went to fetch them, Ilied to you about those bridge plans. It was not true that I foundthem. He handed them to me. He took no receipt. I looked at them andsaw how wonderful they were. I stole them. My father had threatened tocast me off if I did not do something worth while. I was desperate. SoI stole your brother's plans. I copied them--"

  "You know about Tom!" she interrupted. "But of course. You saw me tellhim, there at the ravine."

  "I saw you put your arms about his neck and kiss him; but I did nothear--I did not see the truth. I believed--that is the worst of itall--I believed it possible that you--_you_--!... That devil Gowan....But that is no excuse. Had I not already doubted you.... And I wentdown--down into hell, with only one purpose--to make certain that henever should come up again!"

  "Dear Christ!" whispered the girl--"Dear Christ! He has gone mad!"

  "No, Isobel," he said, his voice slow and dead with the calm of utterdespair, "I am not mad. I have never been mad except for a littlewhile after you put your arms about his neck. No--For years I was afool, a profligate fool, wasting my life as I wasted all thosethousands of dollars that I had not earned. I turned thief--adespicable sneak thief. At last the dirty crime found me out. Ireceived a small share of the punishment that I deserved. Then youtook me in--without question--treated me as a man. God knows I triedto be one!"

  "You were!--you are!" she broke in. "This is all a mistake--a cruel,hideous mistake!"

  "I tried to go," he went on unflinchingly. "You urged me to stay. Iwas weak. I could not force myself to leave you."

  "Because--because!" she murmured.

  "All the more reason why I should have gone," he replied. "But I wasweak, unfit. I lied to you and won your pity. You gave me the chanceto stay and prove myself what I am. Down there, when he told me what Ishould have guessed--what I must have guessed had not my own basenessblinded me to the truth--when he told me he was your brother, I sawmyself, my real self,--my shriveled, black, hellish soul. Now you seewhy I must go down again. I can never make reparation for what I havedone. But I can at least go down to him."

  "You take all the blame on yourself!" she protested. "What if I hadconfessed my secret, there at the first, when Tom sprang down from thecar and I knew him."

  "If you had told, then I should not have been tempted to doubt you,and I should have gone on, it might have been forever, with that lieand that theft between us--and I should not have been forced to see,as I now see, my absolute unworthiness of you."

  "Of me!" she cried shrilly, and she burst into wild hystericallaughter. It broke off as abruptly as it began. "Unworthy of me--ofme? the daughter of a drunken mother, the sister of a girl who--" Asob choked her. She went on desperately: "You have told me all. ButI--do you not wonder why I kept silent--why I denied Mary by mysilence? You say you sought to harm Tom--down there. You did not knowhe was my brother. You thought he would harm me. Is it not so?"

  "I doubted you!"

  "Why? Because I failed to tell the truth. I feared to hurt him--tomake trouble between him and his rich, high-bred wife. As if I shouldnot have known better the moment I saw Genevieve! Dear sister! sheknows all. But you--Either I should have spoken, or I should havehidden all my fondness for him. But I could not hide my love forhim--and I was ashamed to tell."

  "Ashamed--you?"

  "We lived in the slums. They told me my father was a big man, a mansuch as Tom is now. He was a railroad engineer. He was killed when Iwas a baby. Then we sank into the slums. My mother--she died when Iwas twelve. There was then only Mary and I and Tom. He could make onlya little, working at odd jobs. Mary and I worked in a factory. Evenshe was under age. When I was going on fourteen there came a terriblewinter when thousands were out of work. We almost starved."

  "You--starved!" murmured Ashton. "Starved! And I was starting in atcollege, flinging away money!"

  "Tom tried to force people to let him work," the girl went ondrearily. "He was violent. They put him in jail. Soon Mary and I hadnothing left. There was no work for us. We had sold everything thatanyone would buy. The rent was overdue. They turned us out--on thestreets.... I was too young; but Mary.... She found a place where Icould stay. They were decent people, but hard....

  "The weather was bitterly cold. She was taken sick. When the peoplewith whom I was staying heard what she had done, they refused to help.I begged in the street. I was very small and thin. The--the beasts didnot trouble me. Then, when Mary was very sick, I met Daddy. I beggedfrom him. He did not give me a nickel and pass on. He stopped and mademe talk--he made me take him to Mary.

  "He had her moved to the best hospital.... It was too late.... I alsohad pneumonia. They said I would die. But Daddy brought me home justas soon as I could be moved. The railroad was then a hundred milesfrom Dry Mesa. But he kept me wrapped in furs, and all the way hecarried me in his arms. Do you wonder why I love him so?... That isall. You see now why I shrank from telling--why I denied Mary."

  "She is in Heaven," said Ashton--"in Heaven, where some day you willgo. But I--I--" She could see no more than the vague blotch of hiswhite face in the darkness, but his voice told her the anguish of hislook. "He was right--your brother. He told me that we always take withus the heaven or the hell that we each have made for ourselves.... Ihave lost you.... You know now why I am going down to do the littlethat I can do."

  "You are going down?" she asked wonderingly. "You s
till say that youare going down? Yet I have told you about--Mary!"

  "If you were she, I still would be utterly unfit to look you in theface. I shall go to the camp for the lantern. There were other glovesand some of my clothing."

  "They are all here."

  "Show me where they are, and get ready the lantern and bandages and asack of food."

  "You are going down," she acquiesced. "You are going to Tom. And youare coming up with him--to me!"

  "That is too much. I doubted you. Where are those things? He iswaiting down there alone."

  "Here is his child, my nephew," she said. "Hold him while I go forwhat you need. Here is my pistol. The man who shot you, who twicetried to murder you--he is somewhere up here. He will not harm me. Butyou--If he comes creeping in on you here, shoot him as you would shoota coyote."

  "The man who shot me? He is up here?"

  "You have seen him every day since that first day I met you," repliedthe girl. "His name is Gowan."

  "_Gowan?_"

  "Kid Gowan, murderer! I saw his eyes as he looked at you, lying downthere on the brink. Then I knew."

  "But--if he--Where is Genevieve? I cannot go and leave you alone."

  "You can--you must! He is a coward. He dare not follow you down thatterrible place. No harm will come to me if you are gone. But if hecomes back and finds you--do you not see that if he kills you, he mustalso kill me? But in the morning, when the others come--Oh, whyhasn't Daddy come? All this long time since you went down into thedepths, and he not with us! If only he were here!"

  "Genevieve?" again inquired Ashton.

  "She has gone. She started down the mountain for help when Kid wentaway. I'm so afraid for you, dear! He may be creeping back now--he maybe waiting already, close by here, in the darkness. But if he has notheard our voices, he will go first to where you came up, and then tothe tent. Keep quiet until I return. Wait; here is cream and egg.Drink it all."

  When he had drained the bowl that she held to his lips, she creptaway. Ashton sat still, the warm, soft little body of the sleepingbaby in his arms, the pistol in his bandaged right hand. In herexcitement Isobel had forgotten his bound fingers. If Gowan had comeon him then, he would have put the baby back in under the rock, andfaced the puncher's revolver with a smile. What had he now to livefor? He had lost her. She had not yet grasped the baseness of what hehad thought and done. As soon as she realized ... And he could neverforgive himself.