CHAPTER XXXVI
MADGE ALDEN'S RIDE
Methodical Henry Muir found that the events of the last few days hadresulted in a reaction and weariness which he could not readily shakeoff, and he had expressed an intention of sleeping late on Monday andtaking the second train. When he and his family gathered at breakfast,the removal to Hotel Kaaterskill was the uppermost theme, and it wasagreed that Madge and Graydon should ride thither on horseback, andreturn by a train, if wearied. Mr. Muir then went to the city, wellprepared to establish himself on a safer footing. Graydon and Madgesoon after were on their way through the mountain valleys, the latterwith difficulty holding her horse down to the pace they desired tomaintain.
After riding rapidly for some distance, they reached long, lonelystretches, favorable for conversation, and Graydon was too fond ofhearing Madge talk to lose the opportunity. He looked wonderinglyat her flushed face, with the freshness of the morning in it; herbrilliant eyes, from which flashed a spirit that nothing seemedto daunt; the sudden compression of her lips, as with power andinimitable grace she reined in her chafing steed. Never before hadshe appeared so vital and beautiful, and he rode at her side withsomething like exultation that they were so much to each other. Hewas turning his back on a past fraught with peril, over which hung theshadow of what must have been a lifelong disappointment.
"The girl who would have taken me, as Henry chooses among commercialsecurities, cannot now make me an adjunct to her self-pleasingcareer," he thought. "I am free--free to become to Madge what I was inold times. No one now has the right to look askance at our affectionand companionship. What an idiot I was to endure Stella's criticismwhile she was playing it so sharp between Arnault and myself! Nowonder crystal Madge said she and Stella were not congenial!
"I call Madge crystal, yet I don't understand her fully, and have notsince my return. She has had some deep, sad experience, which she ishiding from all. From what Mrs. Wendall said at the funeral yesterday,Madge must have revealed more of it to that dying girl than to anyone else. How my heart thrilled at those strange whispered words! Howdearly I would love to help her and bring unalloyed happiness into herlife! But whatever it was referred to I cannot touch upon till sheof her own accord gives me her confidence. Could she have formed whatpromises to be a hopeless love in her Western home, and is she nowhiding a wound that will not heal, while bravely and cheerfully facinglife as it is? Perhaps her purpose to return to Santa Barbara provesthat she does not regard her love as utterly hopeless. Well, whateverthe truth may be, she hides her secret with consummate skill, and Ishall not pry into even her affairs. I only know that as I feel now Ishould prize her friendship above any other woman's love."
"What are you thinking of so deeply?" she asked, meeting his eyes.
"My thought just then was that I should prize your friendship aboveany other woman's love, and I had been felicitating myself that StellaWildmere would never have the right to criticise the fact."
"Oh, Graydon, what a man of moods and tenses you are!" Then she added,laughing, "There has been indeed a kaleidoscopic turn in affairs. Mr.Arnault disappeared yesterday, and Mary learned that the Wildmeresleft by the early train this morning."
"Yes, Miss Wildmere followed Arnault promptly. They are near of kin,but not too near to marry. Their nuptials should be solemnized in WallStreet, under flowers arranged into a dollar symbol."
"I feel sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Wildmere, though; especially theformer. I think he might have been quite different had the fates beenkinder."
"I would rather dismiss them all from my mind as far as possible.Don't think me callous about Stella. If she had decided for me at onceand been true I would have been loyal to her in spite of everything;but the revelation of her cold, mercenary soul makes me shudder when Ithink how narrowly I escaped allying myself to it."
"You have indeed had an escape," Madge replied, gravely. "If she werea young, thoughtless, undeveloped girl her womanhood might have cometo her afterward. I hope I am mistaken, but she has made a singularimpression on me."
"Please tell me it. You have insight into character that in one soyoung is surprising."
"I have no special insight. I simply feel people. They create anatmosphere and make some dominant impression with which I alwaysassociate them."
"I am eager to know what impression Miss Wildmere has made."
"I fear this would be true of her, even after she becomes a maturewoman. A man might be almost perishing at her side from mental troubleof some kind, and, so far from feeling for him and sympathizing, shewouldn't even know it, and he couldn't make her know it. She wouldlook at him quietly with her gray eyes as she would at a problem inthe calculus, and with scarcely more desire to understand him, andwith perhaps less power to do so. She would turn from him to a newdress, a new admirer, or a new phase of amusement, and forget him, andthe fact that he was her husband would not make much difference. Somedeep experience of her own may change her, but I don't know. I fearanother's experience would be like a tragedy without the walls whileshe was safe within."
"Oh, Madge, think of a man with a strong, sensitive nature beating hisvery heart to death against such pumice-stone callousness!"
"I don't like to think of it," she replied. "Come, I ask with you nowthat we forget her as far as possible. She may not disappoint aman like Arnault. Let them both become shadows in the background ofmemory. Here's a level place. Now for a gallop."
When at last they pulled up, Graydon said, "Your horse is awfullystrong and restless to-day."
"Yes; he has not been used enough of late. He'll be quiet beforenight, for I am enjoying this so much that I should like to return inthe same way."
"I am delighted to hear you say so. My spirits begin to rise themoment I am with you, and you are the only woman I ever knew fromwhose side I could not go with the feeling, 'Well, some other timewould suit me now.'"
Her laugh rang out so suddenly and merrily that her horse sprang intoa gallop, but she checked him speedily, and thought, with an exultantthrill, "Graydon now has surely revealed an unmistakable symptom." Tohim she said:
"You amuse me immensely. You are almost as outspoken as little Harry,and, like him, you mistake the impression of the moment for theimmutable."
"Now, that's not fair to me. I've been constant to you. Own up, Madge,haven't I?"
With a glance and smile which she never gave to others, and rarely tohim, she said:
"I own up. I don't believe a real brother would have been half sonice.".
"Let the past guarantee the future, then. Shake hands against allfuture misunderstandings."
She was scarcely ready to shake hands on such a basis, but of coursewould have complied. In the slight confusion her hand relaxed itsgrasp on the curb-rein, and at the same moment a locomotive, comingalong the side of the opposite mountain, blew a shrill whistle.Instantly her horse had the bit in his teeth, and was off at a furiouspace.
At first she did not care, but soon found, with anxiety, that hepaid no attention to her efforts to check him, and that his pace waspassing into a mad run. The gorge was growing narrower, and the loftymountains stood, with their rocky feet, nearer and nearer together.She could see through the intervening trees that the road andrail-track were becoming closely parallel, and at last realized thather horse was unmanageable.
When the engineer of the train saw Madge's desperate riding hesurmised that her horse was not under control, and put on extra steamin order to take the exciting cause of the animal's terror out of theway. He thought he could easily reach the summit of the clove wherethe carriage-drive crossed the track before Madge, and then passswiftly over the down-grade beyond; but he had not calculated on theterrific speed of the horse; and when at last the track and roadwaywere almost side by side the frantic beast, with his pale rider, wasabreast of the train. For a moment the engineer was irresolute, andthen, too late, as he feared, "slowed up."
The narrow road, with a precipitous mountain on the left, was so nearto the flying train that
the passengers in an open car could almosttouch Madge, and she was to them like a strange and beautifulapparition, with her white face and large dark eyes filled with anunspeakable dread.
"Oh, stop the train!" she cried, and her voice, with the whole powerof her lungs, rang out far above the clatter of the wheels, wakeningdespairing echoes from the mountains impending on either side.
The speed of the cars was perceptibly checked; the passengers sawthe foam-flecked brute, with head stubbornly bent downward and eye offire, pass beyond them. An instant later, to their horrified gaze andthat of Graydon's, who was following as fast as a less swift horsecould carry him, Madge and the locomotive appeared to come together.The young man gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry between a curse and ashout, and whipped his horse forward furiously.
The speed of the train was renewed, and he saw through the open carthat Madge must have passed unharmed before the engine, just grazingit. It also appeared that she was gaining the mastery, for her horsewas rearing; then cars of ordinary make intervened and hid her fromview a moment, and the train clattered noisily on.
When he crossed the track Madge was not where he had last seen her.The road beyond ran at a greater distance from the railway, and waslined with trees and bushes. Through an opening among these he sawthat the horse had resumed his old mad pace, that Madge was stillmounted, but that she was no longer erect, and sat with her head bowedand her whip-hand clutching the mane. He also saw, with a sinkingheart, that the road curved a little further on, and evidently crossedthe track again.
A moment later--Oh, horror! An opening in the foliage revealed Madgedashing headlong, apparently, into the train. He grew so faint that healmost fell from his horse, and was scarcely conscious, until, witha strong revulsion of hope, he found himself under the track which,about an eighth of a mile from the previous crossing, passes justabove the roadway. Not aware of this fact, and with vision broken byintervening trees, he could not have imagined anything else than acollision, which must have been fatal in its consequences.
With hope his pulse quickened, his strength returned, and he againurged his jaded horse forward, at the same time sending out his voice:
"Madge, Madge, keep up a little longer."
The road had left the car-track, the noise of the train was dying awayin the distance. At last, turning a curve, he saw that Madge's horsehad come down to a canter, and that she was pulling feebly at therein.
As he approached he shouted "Whoa!" with such a voice of command thatthe horse stopped suddenly and she almost fell forward.
"Quick, Graydon, quick!" she gasped.
He sprang to the ground, and a second later she was an unconsciousburden in his arms.
He laid her gently on a mossy bank under an oak; then, with aface fairly livid with passion, he drew a small revolver from hiship-pocket, stepped back to the horse that now stood trembling andexhausted in the road, and shot him dead.
He now saw that they had been observed at a neighboring farmhouse,and that people were running toward them. Gathering Madge again inhis arms, he bore her toward the dwelling, in which effort he was soonaided by a stout countryman.
The farmer's wife was all solicitude, and to her and her daughter'sministrations Madge was left, while Graydon waited, with intenseanxiety, in the porch, explaining what had occurred, with a mannermuch distraught, in answer to many questions.
"The cursed brute is done for now," he concluded.
Madge's faint proved obstinate, and at last Graydon began to urge thefarmer to go for a physician.
The daughter at last appeared with the glad tidings that the younggirl was "coming to nicely."
Graydon breathed a fervent "Thank God!" and sank weak and limp intoa seat on the porch. The farmer brought him a glass of cool milk fromthe cellar, and then Graydon sent in word that he would like to seethe lady as soon as possible.
When he entered the "spare room" of the farmhouse Madge, with a smilethat was like a ray of sunshine, extended her hand from the lounge onwhich she was reclining, and said:
"You didn't fail me, Graydon. I couldn't have kept up a moment longer.I should have fainted before had I not heard your voice. How good Godhas been!"
He held her hand in both his own, his mouth twitched nervously, buthis emotion was too strong for speech.
"Don't feel so badly, Graydon," she resumed, and her voice wasgentleness itself; "I am not hurt, nor are you to blame."
"I am to blame," he said, hoarsely. "I gave you that brute, but he'sdead. I shot him instantly. Oh, Madge, if--if--I feel that I wouldhave shot myself."
"Graydon, please be more calm," she faltered, tears coming into hereyes. "There, see, you are making me cry. I can't bear to see you--Ican't bear to see a man--so moved. Please now, you look so pale thatI am frightened. I'm not strong, but shall get better at once if I seeyou yourself."
"Forgive me, Madge, but it seems as if I had suffered the pangs ofdeath ten times over--there, I won't speak about it till we both haverecovered from the shock. Dear, brave little girl; how can I thank youenough for keeping up till I could reach you!"
She began to laugh a little too nervously to be natural. Her heart wasglad over her escape, and in a gladder tumult at his words and manner.He was no shadow of a man, nor did ice-water flow in his veins. Hisfeeling had been so strong that it had almost broken her self-control.
"Some day," she exulted, "some day God will turn his fraternalaffection into the wine of love."
"I'm so nervous," she said, "that I must either laugh or cry. What aplight we are in! How shall we go forward or backward?"
"We shall not do either very soon. Mrs. Hobson is making you a cup oftea, and then you must rest thoroughly, and sleep, if possible."
"What will you do?"
"Oh, I'll soothe my nerves with a cigar, and berate myself on theporch! When you are thoroughly rested I'll have Mr. Hobson drive us onto the nearest station. We are in no plight whatever, if you receivedno harm."
"I haven't. Promise me one thing."
"Anything--everything."
"Do no berating. I'm sorry you killed the horse; but he did actvilely, and I suppose you had to let off your anger in some way. I wasangry myself at first--he was so stupid. But when I found I couldn'thold him at all I thought I must die--Oh, how it all comes back tome! What thoughts I had, and how sweet life became! Oh, oh--" and shebegan sobbing like a child.
"Madge, please--I can't endure this, indeed I can't."
But her overwrought nerves were not easily controlled, and he kneltbeside her, speaking soothingly and pleadingly. "Dear Madge, dearsister Madge. Oh, I wish Mary was here!" and he kissed her again andagain.
"Graydon," she gasped, "stop! There--I'm better;" and she did seem torecover almost instantly.
"Law bless you, sir," said Mrs. Hobson, who had entered with the tea,"your sister'll be all right in an hour or so."
Graydon sprang to his feet, and there was a strong dash of color inhis face. As for the hitherto pallid Madge, her visage was like apeony, and she was preternaturally quiet.
"Try to sleep, Madge," said Graydon, from the doorway, "and I won't'worry or take on' a bit;" and he disappeared.
There was no sleep for her, and yet she felt herself wonderfullyrestored. Was it the potency of Mrs. Hobson's tea? or that which hehad placed upon her lips?