effects upon her personally. Believing that her father and unclefairly represented the fraternal principle, she was quite prepared forthe early defection and distrust of her vagabond and dissipated brotherStephen, and accepted it calmly. True to an odd standard of justice,which she had erected from the crumbling ruins of her own domesticlife, she was tolerant of everything but human perfection. This quality,however fatal to her higher growth, had given her a peculiar capacityfor business which endeared her to her uncle. Familiar with thestrong passions and prejudices of men, she had none of those femininemeannesses, a wholesome distrust of which had kept her uncle a bachelor.It was not strange, therefore, that when he died two years ago it wasfound that he had left her his entire property, real and personal,limited only by a single condition. She was to undertake the vocationof a "sole trader," and carry on the business under the name of "J.Forsyth." If she married, the estate and property was to be helddistinct from her husband's, inalienable under the "Married Woman'sProperty Act," and subject during her life only to her own control andpersonal responsibilities as a trader.
The intense disgust and discomfiture of her parents, who had expected tomore actively participate in their brother's fortune, may be imagined.But it was not equal to their fury when Josephine, instead of providingfor them a separate maintenance out of her abundance, simply offered totransfer them and her brother to her own house on a domestic but nota business equality. There being no alternative but their formerprecarious shiftless life in their "played-out" claim in the valley,they wisely consented, reserving the sacred right of daily protest andobjurgation. In the economy of Burnt Ridge Ranch they alone took it uponthemselves to represent the shattered domestic altar and its outragedLares and Penates. And so conscientiously did they perform their taskas even occasionally to impede the business visitor to the ranch, and tocause some of the more practical neighbors seriously to doubt the younggirl's commercial wisdom. But she was firm. Whether she thought herparents a necessity of respectable domesticity, or whether she regardedtheir presence in the light of a penitential atonement for some previousdisregard of them, no one knew. Public opinion inclined to the latter.
The black line of ridge faded out with her abstraction, and sheturned from the window and lit the lamp on her desk. The yellow lightilluminated her face and figure. In their womanly graces there was notrace of what some people believed to be a masculine character, excepta singularly frank look of critical inquiry and patient attention in herdark eyes. Her long brown hair was somewhat rigidly twisted into a knoton the top of her head, as if more for security than ornament. Brownwas also the prevailing tint of her eyebrows, thickly-set eyelashes, andeyes, and was even suggested in the slight sallowness of her complexion.But her lips were well-cut and fresh-colored and her hands and feetsmall and finely formed. She would have passed for a pretty girl, hadshe not suggested something more.
She sat down, and began to examine a pile of papers before her with thatconcentration and attention to detail which was characteristic of hereyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her penholderbetween her lips, in the semblance of a pout that was pleasant enough tosee. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels struck her with the senseof something forgotten, and she put down her work quickly and stood uplistening. The sound of rough voices and her father's querulous accentswas broken upon by a cultivated and more familiar utterance: "All right;I'll speak to her at once. Wait there," and the door opened to thewell-known physician of Burnt Ridge, Dr. Duchesne.
"Look here," he said, with an abruptness that was only saved from beingbrusque by a softer intonation and a reassuring smile, "I met Miguelhelping an accident into your buggy. Your orders, eh?"
"Oh, yes," said Josephine, quietly. "A man I saw on the road."
"Well, it's a bad case, and wants prompt attention. And as your house isthe nearest I came with him here."
"Certainly," she said gravely. "Take him to the second roombeyond--Steve's room--it's ready," she explained to two dusky shadows inthe hall behind the doctor.
"And look here," said the doctor, partly closing the door behind himand regarding her with critical eyes, "you always said you'd like to seesome of my queer cases. Well, this is one--a serious one, too; in fact,it's just touch and go with him. There's a piece of the bone pressingon the brain no bigger than that, but as much as if all Burnt Ridge wasatop of him! I'm going to lift it. I want somebody here to stand by,some one who can lend a hand with a sponge, eh?--some one who isn'tgoing to faint or scream, or even shake a hair's-breadth, eh?"
The color rose quickly to the girl's cheek, and her eyes kindled. "I'llcome," she said thoughtfully. "Who is he?"
The doctor stared slightly at the unessential query. "Don't know,--oneof the river miners, I reckon. It's an urgent case. I'll go and geteverything ready. You'd better," he added, with an ominous glance ather gray frock, "put something over your dress." The suggestion made hergrave, but did not alter her color.
A moment later she entered the room. It was the one that had always beenset apart for her brother: the very bed on which the unconscious manlay had been arranged that morning with her own hands. Something ofthis passed through her mind as she saw that the doctor had wheeled itbeneath the strong light in the centre of the room, stripped itsouter coverings with professional thoughtfulness, and rearranged themattresses. But it did not seem like the same room. There was a pungentodor in the air from some freshly-opened phial; an almost feminineneatness and luxury in an open morocco case like a jewel box on thetable, shining with spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of herown servants, the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with themingled curiosity and blase experience of one accustomed to smashed andlacerated digits. At first she did not look at the central unconsciousfigure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have beenvicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces thatlooked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled before thebared white neck and shoulders displayed above the quilt, until, forcingherself to look upon the face half-concealed by bandages and the headfrom which the dark tangles of hair had been ruthlessly sheared, shebegan to share the doctor's unconcern in his personality. What matteredwho or what HE was? It was--a case!
The operation began. With the same earnest intelligence that she hadpreviously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the doctor'swhispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was conscious of asingular curiosity that, far from being mean or ignoble, seemed to lifther not only above the ordinary weaknesses of her own sex, but made hersuperior to the men around her. Almost before she knew it, the operationwas over, and she regarded with equal curiosity the ostentatioussolicitude with which the doctor seemed to be wiping his fatefulinstrument that bore an odd resemblance to a silver-handled centre-bit.The stertorous breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainterbut more natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. Thedoctor's hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of thesufferer. A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish facehad cleared; life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dulleyes participated in the glow. Dr. Duchesne with a sudden gesture wavedaside his companions, but not before Josephine had bent her head eagerlyforward.
"He is coming to," she said.
At the sound of that deep clear voice--the first to break the hush ofthe room--the dull eyes leaped up, and the head turned in its direction.The lips moved and uttered a single rapid sentence. The girl recoiled.
"You're all right now," said the doctor, cheerfully, intent only uponthe form before him.
The lips moved again, but this time feebly and vacantly; the eyes werestaring vaguely around.
"What's matter? What's all about?" said the man, thickly.
"You've had a fall. Think a moment. Where do you live?"
Again the lips moved, but this time only to emit a confused, incoherentmurmur. Dr. Duchesne looked grave, but recovered himself quickly.
"That will do. Leave him alone now," he said brusquely to the others.
br /> But Josephine lingered.
"He spoke well enough just now," she said eagerly. "Did you hear what hesaid?"
"Not exactly," said the doctor, abstractedly, gazing at the man.
"He said, 'You'll have to kill me first,'" said Josephine, slowly.
"Humph;" said the doctor, passing his hand backwards and forwards beforethe man's eyes to note any change in the staring pupils.
"Yes," continued Josephine, gravely. "I suppose," she added, cautiously,"he was thinking of the operation--of what you had just done to him?"
"What I had done to him? Oh, yes!"
CHAPTER II
Before noon the next day it was known throughout Burnt Ridge Valley thatDr. Duchesne had performed a difficult operation upon an unknown man,who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and carried to BurntRidge Ranch. But although the unfortunate man's life was saved by theoperation, he had only momentarily recovered consciousness--relapsinginto a semi-idiotic state, which effectively stopped the discoveryof any clue to his friends or his identity. As it was evidently anACCIDENT, which, in that rude community--and even in some more civilizedones--conveyed a vague impression of some contributary incapacity on thepart of the victim, or some Providential interference of a retributivecharacter, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It isunnecessary to say that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves andJosephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied fromthe first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted tohave a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranch,they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy betweenJosephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, ashe had already in the spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THEVERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen--eh?" said Mrs. Forsyth."Tell me that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggyto bring him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh? Looks mightycurious, don't it?" she muttered darkly to the old man. But althoughthat gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely havesubmitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price ofinsuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt others were base enoughto do it; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions.
Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further.Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment atthe incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's life,but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for thediagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable progress. Itwas a most interesting case. He would watch it carefully, and as soonas the patient could be removed would take him to the county hospital,where, under his own eyes, the poor fellow would have the benefit ofthe latest science and the highest specialists. Physically, he was doingremarkably well; indeed, he must have been a fine young chap, free fromblood taint or vicious complication, whose flesh had healed like aninfant's. It should be recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs.Forsyth first learnt that a SILVER PLATE let into the artful stranger'sskull was an adjunct of the healing process! Convinced that thisinfamous extravagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and wasonly the beginning of other assimilations of the Forsyths' metallicsubstance; that the plate was probably polished and burnished witha fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into thepossession and adornment of a perfect stranger, her rage knew no bounds.He or his friends ought to be made to pay for it or work it out! In vainit was declared that a few dollars were all that was found in the man'spocket, and that no memoranda gave any indication of his name, friends,or history beyond the suggestion that he came from a distance. This wasclearly a part of the conspiracy! Even Josephine's practical goodsense was obliged to take note of this singular absence of all recordregarding him, and the apparent obliteration of everything that might beresponsible for his ultimate fate.
Homeless, friendless, helpless, and even nameless, the unfortunate manof twenty-five was thus left to the tender mercies of the mistress ofBurnt Ridge Ranch, as if he had been a new-born foundling laid at herdoor. But this mere claim of weakness was not all; it was supplementedby a singular personal appeal to Josephine's nature. From the time thathe turned his head towards her voice on that fateful night, his eyes hadalways followed her around the room with a wondering, yearning, caninehalf-intelligence. Without being able to convince herself that heunderstood her better than his regular attendant furnished by thedoctor, she could not fail to see that he obeyed her implicitly, andthat whenever any difficulty arose between him and his nurse she wasalways appealed to. Her pride in this proof of her practical sovereigntyWAS flattered; and when Doctor Duchesne finally admitted that althoughthe patient was now physically able to be removed to the hospital, yethe would lose in the change that very strong factor which Josephine hadbecome in his mental recovery, the young girl as frankly suggested thathe should stay as long as there was any hope of restoring his reason.Doctor Duchesne was delighted. With all his enthusiasm for science, hehad a professional distrust of some of its disciples, and perhaps wasnot sorry to keep this most interesting case in his own hands. Tohim her suggestion was only a womanly kindness, tempered with womanlycuriosity. But the astonishment and stupefaction of her parents at thisevident corroboration of suspicions they had as yet only half believedwas tinged with superstitious dread. Had she fallen in love with thishelpless stranger? or, more awful to contemplate, was he really nostranger, but a surreptitious lover thus strategically brought under herroof? For once they refrained from open criticism. The very magnitude oftheir suspicions left them dumb.
It was thus that the virgin Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge Ranch was left togaze untrammeled upon her pale and handsome guest, whose silken,bearded lips and sad, childlike eyes might have suggested a more ExaltedSufferer in their absence of any suggestion of a grosser materialmanhood. But even this imaginative appeal did not enter into herfeelings. She felt for her good-looking, helpless patient a profoundand honest pity. I do not know whether she had ever heard that "pity wasakin to love." She would probably have resented that utterly untenableand atrocious commonplace. There was no suggestion, real or illusive,of any previous masterful quality in the man which might have made hispresent dependent condition picturesque by contrast. He had come to herhandicapped by an unromantic accident and a practical want of energy andintellect. He would have to touch her interest anew if, indeed, hewould ever succeed in dispelling the old impression. His beauty, in acommunity of picturesquely handsome men, had little weight with her,except to accent the contrast with their fuller manhood.
Her life had given her no illusions in regard to the other sex. She hadfound them, however, more congenial and safer companions than women, andmore accessible to her own sense of justice and honor. In return, theyhad respected and admired rather than loved her, in spite of her womanlygraces. If she had at times contemplated eventual marriage, it was onlyas a possible practical partnership in her business; but as she lived ina country where men thought it dishonorable and a proof of incompetencyto rise by their wives' superior fortune, she had been free from thatkind of mercenary persecution, even from men who might have worshipedher in hopeless and silent honor.
For this reason, there was nothing in the situation that suggesteda single compromising speculation in the minds of the neighbors, ordisturbed her own tranquillity. There seemed to be nothing in the futureexcept a possible relief to her curiosity. Some day the unfortunateman's reason would be restored, and he would tell his simple history.Perhaps he might explain what was in his mind when he turned to herthe first evening with that singular sentence which had often recurredstrangely to her, she knew not why. It did not strike her until laterthat it was because it had been the solitary indication of an energy andcapacity that seemed unlike him. Nevertheless, after that explanation,she would have been quite willing to have shaken hands with him andparted.
And yet--for there was an unexpressed remainder in her thought--shewas never entirely free or uninfluenced in his presence. The flick
eringvacancy of his sad eyes sometimes became fixed with a resoluteimmobility under the gentle questioning with which she had sought todraw out his faculties, that both piqued and exasperated her. He couldsay "Yes" and "No," as she thought intelligently, but he could not uttera coherent sentence nor write a word, except like a child in imitationof his copy. She taught him to repeat after her the names of theinanimate objects in the room, then the names of the doctor, hisattendant, the servant, and, finally, her own under her Christianprenomen, with frontier familiarity; but when she pointed to himself hewaited for HER to name him! In vain she tried him with all the masculinenames she knew; his was not one of them, or he would not or could notspeak it. For at times she rejected the professional dictum of thedoctor that the faculty of memory was wholly paralyzed or held inabeyance, even to the half-automatic recollection of his letters, yetshe inconsistently began to teach him the alphabet with the same method,and--in her sublime unconsciousness of his manhood--with thesame discipline as if he were a very child. When he had recoveredsufficiently to leave his room, she would lead him to the porch beforeher window, and make him contented and happy by allowing him to watchher at work at her desk, occasionally answering his wondering eyes witha word, or stirring his faculties with a question. I grieve to saythat her parents had taken advantage of this publicity and his supposedhelpless condition to show their disgust of his assumption, to theextreme of making faces at