MR. MACGLOWRIE'S WIDOW
Very little was known of her late husband, yet that little was of asufficiently awe-inspiring character to satisfy the curiosity ofLaurel Spring. A man of unswerving animosity and candid belligerency,untempered by any human weakness, he had been actively engaged assurvivor in two or three blood feuds in Kentucky, and some desultorydueling, only to succumb, through the irony of fate, to an attack offever and ague in San Francisco. Gifted with a fine sense of humor, heis said, in his last moments, to have called the simple-minded clergymanto his bedside to assist him in putting on his boots. The kindly divine,although pointing out to him that he was too weak to rise, muchless walk, could not resist the request of a dying man. When it wasfulfilled, Mr. MacGlowrie crawled back into bed with the remark that hisrace had always "died with their boots on," and so passed smilingly andtranquilly away.
It is probable that this story was invented to soften the ignominy ofMacGlowrie's peaceful end. The widow herself was also reported to beendowed with relations of equally homicidal eccentricities. Her twobrothers, Stephen and Hector Boompointer, had Western reputations thatwere quite as lurid and remote. Her own experiences of a frontier lifehad been rude and startling, and her scalp--a singularly beautiful oneof blond hair--had been in peril from Indians on several occasions. Apair of scissors, with which she had once pinned the intruding hand ofa marauder to her cabin doorpost, was to be seen in her sitting room atLaurel Spring. A fair-faced woman with eyes the color of pale sherry,a complexion sallowed by innutritious food, slight and tall figure, shegave little suggestion of this Amazonian feat. But that it exercised awholesome restraint over the many who would like to have induced herto reenter the married state, there is little reason to doubt. LaurelSpring was a peaceful agricultural settlement. Few of its citizensdared to aspire to the dangerous eminence of succeeding the defunctMacGlowrie; few could hope that the sister of living Boompointerswould accept an obvious mesalliance with them. However sincere theiraffection, life was still sweet to the rude inhabitants of LaurelSpring, and the preservation of the usual quantity of limbs necessary tothem in their avocations. With their devotion thus chastened by caution,it would seem as if the charming mistress of Laurel Spring House wassecure from disturbing attentions.
It was a pleasant summer afternoon, and the sun was beginning to strikeunder the laurels around the hotel into the little office where thewidow sat with the housekeeper--a stout spinster of a coarser Westerntype. Mrs. MacGlowrie was looking wearily over some accounts on thedesk before her, and absently putting back some tumbled sheaves from thestack of her heavy hair. For the widow had a certain indolent Southernnegligence, which in a less pretty woman would have been untidiness,and a characteristic hook and eyeless freedom of attire which on lessgraceful limbs would have been slovenly. One sleeve cuff was unbuttoned,but it showed the blue veins of her delicate wrist; the neck of herdress had lost a hook, but the glimpse of a bit of edging round thewhite throat made amends. Of all which, however, it should be said thatthe widow, in her limp abstraction, was really unconscious.
"I reckon we kin put the new preacher in Kernel Starbottle's room," saidMiss Morvin, the housekeeper. "The kernel's going to-night."
"Oh," said the widow in a tone of relief, but whether at the earlydeparture of the gallant colonel or at the successful solution of theproblem of lodging the preacher, Miss Morvin could not determine. Butshe went on tentatively:--
"The kernel was talkin' in the bar room, and kind o' wonderin' why youhadn't got married agin. Said you'd make a stir in Sacramento--but youwas jest berried HERE."
"I suppose he's heard of my husband?" said the widow indifferently.
"Yes--but he said he couldn't PLACE YOU," returned Miss Morvin.
The widow looked up. "Couldn't place ME?" she repeated.
"Yes--hadn't heard o' MacGlowrie's wife and disremembered yourbrothers."
"The colonel doesn't know everybody, even if he is a fighting man," saidMrs. MacGlowrie with languid scorn.
"That's just what Dick Blair said," returned Miss Morvin. "And thoughhe's only a doctor, he jest stuck up agin' the kernel, and told thatstory about your jabbin' that man with your scissors--beautiful; andhow you once fought off a bear with a red-hot iron, so that you'd haveadmired to hear him. He's awfully gone on you!"
The widow took that opportunity to button her cuff.
"And how long does the preacher calculate to stay?" she added, returningto business details.
"Only a day. They'll have his house fixed up and ready for himto-morrow. They're spendin' a heap o' money on it. He ought to be thepow'ful preacher they say he is--to be worth it."
But here Mrs. MacGlowrie's interest in the conversation ceased, and itdropped.
In her anxiety to further the suit of Dick Blair, Miss Morvin hadscarcely reported the colonel with fairness.
That gentleman, leaning against the bar in the hotel saloon with acocktail in his hand, had expatiated with his usual gallantry uponMrs. MacGlowrie's charms, and on his own "personal" responsibilityhad expressed the opinion that they were thrown away on Laurel Spring.That--blank it all--she reminded him of the blankest beautiful womanhe had seen even in Washington--old Major Beveridge's daughter fromKentucky. Were they sure she wasn't from Kentucky? Wasn't her nameBeveridge--and not Boompointer? Becoming more reminiscent over hissecond drink, the colonel could vaguely recall only one Boompointer--ablank skulking hound, sir--a mean white shyster--but, of course, hecouldn't have been of the same breed as such a blank fine woman as thewidow! It was here that Dick Blair interrupted with a heightened colorand a glowing eulogy of the widow's relations and herself, which,however, only increased the chivalry of the colonel--who would be thelast man, sir, to detract from--or suffer any detraction of--a lady'sreputation. It was needless to say that all this was intensely divertingto the bystanders, and proportionally discomposing to Blair, who alreadyexperienced some slight jealousy of the colonel as a man whose fightingreputation might possibly attract the affections of the widow of thebelligerent MacGlowrie. He had cursed his folly and relapsed into gloomysilence until the colonel left.
For Dick Blair loved the widow with the unselfishness of a generousnature and a first passion. He had admired her from the first dayhis lot was cast in Laurel Spring, where coming from a rude frontierpractice he had succeeded the district doctor in a more peaceful anddomestic ministration. A skillful and gentle surgeon rather than ageneral household practitioner, he was at first coldly welcomed by thegloomy dyspeptics and ague-haunted settlers from riparian lowlands. Thefew bucolic idlers who had relieved the monotony of their lives by thestimulus of patent medicines and the exaltation of stomach bitters, alsolooked askance at him. A common-sense way of dealing with their ailmentsdid not naturally commend itself to the shopkeepers who vended thesenostrums, and he was made to feel the opposition of trade. But he wasgentle to women and children and animals, and, oddly enough, it wasto this latter dilection that he owed the widow's interest in him--aninterest that eventually made him popular elsewhere.
The widow had a pet dog--a beautiful spaniel, who, however, hadassimilated her graceful languor to his own native love of ease to suchan extent that he failed in a short leap between a balcony and a window,and fell to the ground with a fractured thigh. The dog was supposed tobe crippled for life even if that life were worth preserving--when Dr.Blair came to the rescue, set the fractured limb, put it in splints andplaster after an ingenious design of his own, visited him daily, andeventually restored him to his mistress's lap sound in wind and limb.How far this daily ministration and the necessary exchange of sympathybetween the widow and himself heightened his zeal was not known. Therewere those who believed that the whole thing was an unmanly trick to getthe better of his rivals in the widow's good graces; there were otherswho averred that his treatment of a brute beast like a human being wassinful and unchristian. "He couldn't have done more for a regularlybaptized child," said the postmistress. "And what mo' would a regularlybaptized child have wanted?" returned
Mrs. MacGlowrie, with the drawlingSouthern intonation she fell back upon when most contemptuous.
But Dr. Blair's increasing practice and the widow's preoccupationpresently ended their brief intimacy. It was well known that sheencouraged no suitors at the hotel, and his shyness and sensitivenessshrank from ostentatious advances. There seemed to be no chance of herbecoming, herself, his patient; her sane mind, indolent nerves, and calmcirculation kept her from feminine "vapors" of feminine excesses. Sheretained the teeth and digestion of a child in her thirty odd years, andabused neither. Riding and the cultivation of her little garden gaveher sufficient exercise. And yet the unexpected occurred! The day afterStarbottle left, Dr. Blair was summoned hastily to the hotel. Mrs.MacGlowrie had been found lying senseless in a dead faint in thepassage outside the dining room. In his hurried flight thither with themessenger he could learn only that she had seemed to be in her usualhealth that morning, and that no one could assign any cause for herfainting.
He could find out little more when he arrived and examined her as shelay pale and unconscious on the sofa of her sitting room. It had notbeen thought necessary to loosen her already loose dress, and indeed hecould find no organic disturbance. The case was one of sudden nervousshock--but this, with his knowledge of her indolent temperament, seemedalmost absurd. They could tell him nothing but that she was evidently onthe point of entering the dining room when she fell unconscious. Hadshe been frightened by anything? A snake or a rat? Miss Morvinwas indignant! The widow of MacGlowrie--the repeller ofgrizzlies--frightened at "sich"! Had she been upset by any previousexcitement, passion, or the receipt of bad news? No!--she "wasn't thatkind," as the doctor knew. And even as they were speaking he felt thewidow's healthy life returning to the pulse he was holding, and givinga faint tinge to her lips. Her blue-veined eyelids quivered slightlyand then opened with languid wonder on the doctor and her surroundings.Suddenly a quick, startled look contracted the yellow brown pupils ofher eyes, she lifted herself to a sitting posture with a hurried glancearound the room and at the door beyond. Catching the quick, observanteyes of Dr. Blair, she collected herself with an effort, which Dr. Blairfelt in her pulse, and drew away her wrist.
"What is it? What happened?" she said weakly.
"You had a slight attack of faintness," said the doctor cheerily, "andthey called me in as I was passing, but you're all right now."
"How pow'ful foolish," she said, with returning color, but her eyesstill glancing at the door, "slumping off like a green gyrl at nothin'."
"Perhaps you were startled?" said the doctor.
Mrs. MacGlowrie glanced up quickly and looked away. "No!--Let me see!I was just passing through the hall, going into the dining room,when--everything seemed to waltz round me--and I was off! Where did theyfind me?" she said, turning to Miss Morvin.
"I picked you up just outside the door," replied the housekeeper.
"Then they did not see me?" said Mrs. MacGlowrie.
"Who's they?" responded the housekeeper with more directness thangrammatical accuracy.
"The people in the dining room. I was just opening the door--and I feltthis coming on--and--I reckon I had just sense enough to shut the dooragain before I went off."
"Then that accounts for what Jim Slocum said," uttered Miss Morvintriumphantly. "He was in the dining room talkin' with the new preacher,when he allowed he heard the door open and shut behind him. Then heheard a kind of slump outside and opened the door again just to find youlyin' there, and to rush off and get me. And that's why he was so madat the preacher!--for he says he just skurried away without offerin'to help. He allows the preacher may be a pow'ful exhorter--but he ain'tworth much at 'works.'"
"Some men can't bear to be around when a woman's up to that sort offoolishness," said the widow, with a faint attempt at a smile, but areturn of her paleness.
"Hadn't you better lie down again?" said the doctor solicitously.
"I'm all right now," returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, struggling to her feet;"Morvin will look after me till the shakiness goes. But it was mightytouching and neighborly to come in, Doctor," she continued, succeedingat last in bringing up a faint but adorable smile, which stirred Blair'spulses. "If I were my own dog--you couldn't have treated me better!"
With no further excuse for staying longer, Blair was obliged todepart--yet reluctantly, both as lover and physician. He was by no meanssatisfied with her condition. He called to inquire the next day--but shewas engaged and sent word to say she was "better."
In the excitement attending the advent of the new preacher the slightillness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken thesettlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded eventhe extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the "InspiredCowboy," a common unlettered frontiersman, he was said to have developedwonderful powers of exhortatory eloquence among the Indians, andscarcely less savage border communities where he had lived, halfoutcast, half missionary. He had just come up from the Southernagricultural districts, where he had been, despite his rude antecedents,singularly effective with women and young people. The moody dyspepticsand lazy rustics of Laurel Spring were stirred as with a new patentmedicine. Dr. Blair went to the first "revival" meeting. Withoutundervaluing the man's influence, he was instinctively repelled byhis appearance and methods. The young physician's trained powers ofobservation not only saw an overwrought emotionalism in the speaker'seloquence, but detected the ring of insincerity in his more lucid speechand acts. Nevertheless, the hysteria of the preacher was communicated tothe congregation, who wept and shouted with him. Tired and discontentedhousewives found their vague sorrows and vaguer longings were only theresult of their "unregenerate" state; the lazy country youths feltthat the frustration of their small ambitions lay in their not being"convicted of sin." The mourners' bench was crowded with wildlyemulating sinners. Dr. Blair turned away with mingled feelings ofamusement and contempt. At the door Jim Slocum tapped him on theshoulder: "Fetches the wimmin folk every time, don't he, Doctor?" saidJim.
"So it seems," said Blair dryly.
"You're one o' them scientific fellers that look inter things--what doYOU allow it is?"
The young doctor restrained the crushing answer that rose to his lips.He had learned caution in that neighborhood. "I couldn't say," he saidindifferently.
"'Tain't no religion," said Slocum emphatically; "it's jest purefas'nation. Did ye look at his eye? It's like a rattlesnake's, and themwimmin are like birds. They're frightened of him--but they hev to dojest what he 'wills' 'em. That's how he skeert the widder the otherday."
The doctor was alert and on fire at once. "Scared the widow?" herepeated indignantly.
"Yes. You know how she swooned away. Well, sir, me and that preacher,Brown, was the only one in that dinin' room at the time. The widderopened the door behind me and sorter peeked in, and that thar preachergive a start and looked up; and then, that sort of queer light come inhis eyes, and she shut the door, and kinder fluttered and flopped downin the passage outside, like a bird! And he crawled away like a snake,and never said a word! My belief is that either he hadn't time to turnon the hull influence, or else she, bein' smart, got the door shutbetwixt her and it in time! Otherwise, sure as you're born, she'dhev been floppin' and crawlin' and sobbin' arter him--jist like themcritters we've left."
"Better not let the brethren hear you talk like that, or they'll lynchyou," said the doctor, with a laugh. "Mrs. MacGlowrie simply had anattack of faintness from some overexertion, that's all."
Nevertheless, he was uneasy as he walked away. Mrs. MacGlowrie hadevidently received a shock which was still unexplained, and, in spite ofSlocum's exaggerated fancy, there might be some foundation in his story.He did not share the man's superstition, although he was not a skepticregarding magnetism. Yet even then, the widow's action was one ofrepulsion, and as long as she was strong enough not to come to thesemeetings, she was not in danger. A day or two later, as he was passingthe garden of the hotel on horseback, he saw her lithe, graceful,languid fi
gure bending over one of her favorite flower beds. The highfence partially concealed him from view, and she evidently believedherself alone. Perhaps that was why she suddenly raised herself from hertask, put back her straying hair with a weary, abstracted look, remainedfor a moment quite still staring at the vacant sky, and then, witha little catching of her breath, resumed her occupation in a dull,mechanical way. In that brief glimpse of her charming face, Blair wasshocked at the change; she was pale, the corners of her pretty mouthwere drawn, there were deeper shades in the orbits of her eyes, and inspite of her broad garden hat with its blue ribbon, her light floweredfrock and frilled apron, she looked as he fancied she might have lookedin the first crushing grief of her widowhood. Yet he would have passedon, respecting her privacy of sorrow, had not her little spanieldetected him with her keener senses. And Fluffy being truthful--as dogsare--and recognizing a dear friend in the intruder, barked joyously.
The widow looked up, her eyes met Blair's, and she reddened. But he wastoo acute a lover to misinterpret what he knew, alas! was only confusionat her abstraction being discovered. Nevertheless, there was somethingelse in her brown eyes he had never seen before. A momentary lightingup of RELIEF--of even hopefulness--in his presence. It was enough forBlair; he shook off his old shyness like the dust of his ride, andgalloped around to the front door.
But she met him in the hall with only her usual languid good humor.Nevertheless, Blair was not abashed.
"I can't put you in splints and plaster like Fluffy, Mrs. MacGlowrie,"he said, "but I can forbid you to go into the garden unless you'relooking better. It's a positive reflection on my professional skill, andLaurel Spring will be shocked, and hold me responsible."
Mrs. MacGlowrie had recovered enough of her old spirit to reply that shethought Laurel Spring could be in better business than looking at herover her garden fence.
"But your dog, who knows you're not well, and doesn't think me quite afool, had the good sense to call me. You heard him."
But the widow protested that she was as strong as a horse, and thatFluffy was like all puppies, conceited to the last degree.
"Well," said Blair cheerfully, "suppose I admit you are all right,physically, you'll confess you have some trouble on your mind, won'tyou? If I can't make you SHOW me your tongue, you'll let me hear you USEit to tell me what worries you. If," he added more earnestly, "you won'tconfide in your physician--you will perhaps--to--to--a--FRIEND."
But Mrs. MacGlowrie, evading his earnest eyes as well as his appeal, waswondering what good it would do either a doctor, or--a--a--she herselfseemed to hesitate over the word--"a FRIEND, to hear the worriments of asilly, nervous old thing--who had only stuck a little too closely to herbusiness."
"You are neither nervous nor old, Mrs. MacGlowrie," said the doctorpromptly, "though I begin to think you HAVE been too closely confinedhere. You want more diversion, or--excitement. You might even go tohear this preacher"--he stopped, for the word had slipped from his mouthunawares.
But a swift look of scorn swept her pale face. "And you'd like me tofollow those skinny old frumps and leggy, limp chits, that slobber andcry over that man!" she said contemptuously. "No! I reckon I only want achange--and I'll go away, or get out of this for a while."
The poor doctor had not thought of this possible alternative. His heartsank, but he was brave. "Yes, perhaps you are right," he said sadly,"though it would be a dreadful loss--to Laurel Spring--to us all--if youwent."
"Do I look so VERY bad, doctor?" she said, with a half-mischievous,half-pathetic smile.
The doctor thought her upturned face very adorable, but restrained hisfeelings heroically, and contented himself with replying to the pathetichalf of her smile. "You look as if you had been suffering," he saidgravely, "and I never saw you look so before. You seem as if you hadexperienced some great shock. Do you know," he went on, in a lower toneand with a half-embarrassed smile, "that when I saw you just now in thegarden, you looked as I imagined you might have looked in the first daysof your widowhood--when your husband's death was fresh in your heart."
A strange expression crossed her face. Her eyelids dropped instantly,and with both hands she caught up her frilled apron as if to meetthem and covered her face. A little shudder seemed to pass overher shoulders, and then a cry that ended in an uncontrollable andhalf-hysterical laugh followed from the depths of that apron, untilshaking her sides, and with her head still enveloped in its covering,she fairly ran into the inner room and closed the door behind her.
Amazed, shocked, and at first indignant, Dr. Blair remained fixed tothe spot. Then his indignation gave way to a burning mortification as herecalled his speech. He had made a frightful faux pas! He had been foolenough to try to recall the most sacred memories of that dead husbandhe was trying to succeed--and her quick woman's wit had detected hisridiculous stupidity. Her laugh was hysterical--but that was onlynatural in her mixed emotions. He mounted his horse in confusion androde away.
For a few days he avoided the house. But when he next saw her she hada charming smile of greeting and an air of entire obliviousness of hispast blunder. She said she was better. She had taken his advice andwas giving herself some relaxation from business. She had been ridingagain--oh, so far! Alone?--of course; she was always alone--else whatwould Laurel Spring say?
"True," said Blair smilingly; "besides, I forgot that you are quite ableto take care of yourself in an emergency. And yet," he added, admiringlylooking at her lithe figure and indolent grace, "do you know I never canassociate you with the dreadful scenes they say you have gone through."
"Then please don't!" she said quickly; "really, I'd rather you wouldn't.I'm sick and tired of hearing of it!" She was half laughing and yet halfin earnest, with a slight color on her cheek.
Blair was a little embarrassed. "Of course, I don't mean yourheroism--like that story of the intruder and the scissors," hestammered.
"Oh, THAT'S the worst of all! It's too foolish--it's sickening!" shewent on almost angrily. "I don't know who started that stuff." Shepaused, and then added shyly, "I really am an awful coward and horriblynervous--as you know."
He would have combated this--but she looked really disturbed, and hehad no desire to commit another imprudence. And he thought, too, that heagain had seen in her eyes the same hopeful, wistful light he had onceseen before, and was happy.
This led him, I fear, to indulge in wilder dreams. His practice,although increasing, barely supported him, and the widow was rich. Herbusiness had been profitable, and she had repaid the advances made herwhen she first took the hotel. But this disparity in their fortuneswhich had frightened him before now had no fears for him. He felt thatif he succeeded in winning her affections she could afford to wait forhim, despite other suitors, until his talents had won an equal position.His rivals had always felt as secure in his poverty as they had in hispeaceful profession. How could a poor, simple doctor aspire to the handof the rich widow of the redoubtable MacGlowrie?
It was late one afternoon, and the low sun was beginning to strikeathwart the stark columns and down the long aisles of the redwoods onthe High Ridge. The doctor, returning from a patient at the loggers'camp in its depths, had just sighted the smaller groves of LaurelSprings, two miles away. He was riding fast, with his thoughts filledwith the widow, when he heard a joyous bark in the underbrush, andFluffy came bounding towards him. Blair dismounted to caress him, aswas his wont, and then, wisely conceiving that his mistress was not faraway, sauntered forward exploringly, leading his horse, the dog houndingbefore him and barking, as if bent upon both leading and announcing him.But the latter he effected first, for as Blair turned from the trailinto the deeper woods, he saw the figures of a man and woman walkingtogether suddenly separate at the dog's warning. The woman was Mrs.MacGlowrie--the man was the revival preacher!
Amazed, mystified, and indignant, Blair nevertheless obeyed his firstinstinct, which was that of a gentleman. He turned leisurely aside asif not recognizing them, led his horse a few paces further, mounted him,an
d galloped away without turning his head. But his heart was filledwith bitterness and disgust. This woman--who but a few days beforehad voluntarily declared her scorn and contempt for that man and hisadmirers--had just been giving him a clandestine meeting like one of themost infatuated of his devotees! The story of the widow's fainting,the coarse surmises and comments of Slocum, came back to him withoverwhelming significance. But even then his reason forbade him tobelieve that she had fallen under the preacher's influence--she, withher sane mind and indolent temperament. Yet, whatever her excuse orpurpose was, she had deceived him wantonly and cruelly! His abruptavoidance of her had prevented him from knowing if she, on her part, hadrecognized him as he rode away. If she HAD, she would understand why hehad avoided her, and any explanation must come from her.
Then followed a few days of uncertainty, when his thoughts againreverted to the preacher with returning jealousy. Was she, after all,like other women, and had her gratuitous outburst of scorn of THEIRinfatuation been prompted by unsuccessful rivalry? He was too proud toquestion Slocum again or breathe a word of his fears. Yet he was notstrong enough to keep from again seeking the High Ridge, to discoverany repetition of that rendezvous. But he saw her neither there, norelsewhere, during his daily rounds. And one night his feverish anxietygetting the better of him, he entered the great "Gospel Tent" of therevival preacher.
It chanced to be an extraordinary meeting, and the usual enthusiasticaudience was reinforced by some sight-seers from the neighboring countytown--the district judge and officials from the court in session, amongthem Colonel Starbottle. The impassioned revivalist--his eyes ablazewith fever, his lank hair wet with perspiration, hanging beside hisheavy but weak jaws--was concluding a fervent exhortation to hisauditors to confess their sins, "accept conviction," and regenerate thenand there, without delay. They must put off "the old Adam," and put onthe flesh of righteousness at once! They were to let no false shameor worldly pride keep them from avowing their guilty past before theirbrethren. Sobs and groans followed the preacher's appeals; his ownagitation and convulsive efforts seemed to spread in surging wavesthrough the congregation, until a dozen men and women arose,staggering like drunkards blindly, or led or dragged forward by sobbingsympathizers towards the mourners' bench. And prominent among them, butstepping jauntily and airily forward, was the redoubtable and worldlyColonel Starbottle!
At this proof of the orator's power the crowd shouted--but stoppedsuddenly, as the colonel halted before the preacher, and ascended therostrum beside him. Then taking a slight pose with his gold-headed canein one hand and the other thrust in the breast of his buttoned coat, hesaid in his blandest, forensic voice:--
"If I mistake not, sir, you are advising these ladies and gentlemen toa free and public confession of their sins and a--er--denunciationof their past life--previous to their conversion. If I ammistaken I--er--ask your pardon, and theirs and--er--hold myselfresponsible--er--personally responsible!"
The preacher glanced uneasily at the colonel, but replied, still in thehysterical intonation of his exordium:--
"Yes! a complete searching of hearts--a casting out of the seven Devilsof Pride, Vain Glory"--
"Thank you--that is sufficient," said the colonel blandly. "But mightI--er--be permitted to suggest that you--er--er--SET THEM THE EXAMPLE!The statement of the circumstances attending your own past life andconversion would be singularly interesting and exemplary."
The preacher turned suddenly and glanced at the colonel with furiouseyes set in an ashy face.
"If this is the flouting and jeering of the Ungodly and Dissolute," hescreamed, "woe to you! I say--woe to you! What have such as YOU to dowith my previous state of unregeneracy?"
"Nothing," said the colonel blandly, "unless that state were also theSTATE OF ARKANSAS! Then, sir, as a former member of the Arkansas BAR--Imight be able to assist your memory--and--er--even corroborate yourconfession."
But here the enthusiastic adherents of the preacher, vaguely consciousof some danger to their idol, gathered threateningly round the platformfrom which he had promptly leaped into their midst, leaving the colonelalone, to face the sea of angry upturned faces. But that gallant warriornever altered his characteristic pose. Behind him loomed the reputationof the dozen duels he had fought, the gold-headed stick on which heleaned was believed to contain eighteen inches of shining steel--and thepeople of Laurel Spring had discretion.
He smiled suavely, stepped jauntily down, and made his way to theentrance without molestation.
But here he was met by Blair and Slocum, and a dozen eager questions:--
"What was it?" "What had he done?" "WHO was he?"
"A blank shyster, who had swindled the widows and orphans in Arkansasand escaped from jail."
"And his name isn't Brown?"
"No," said the colonel curtly.
"What is it?"
"That is a matter which concerns only myself and him, sir," said thecolonel loftily; "but for which I am--er--personally responsible."
A wild idea took possession of Blair.
"And you say he was a noted desperado?" he said with nervous hesitation.
The colonel glared.
"Desperado, sir! Never! Blank it all!--a mean, psalm-singing, crawling,sneak thief!"
And Blair felt relieved without knowing exactly why.
The next day it was known that the preacher, Gabriel Brown, had leftLaurel Spring on an urgent "Gospel call" elsewhere.
Colonel Starbottle returned that night with his friends to the countytown. Strange to say, a majority of the audience had not grasped thefull significance of the colonel's unseemly interruption, and those whohad, as partisans, kept it quiet. Blair, tortured by doubt, had a newdelicacy added to his hesitation, which left him helpless until thewidow should take the initiative in explanation.
A sudden summons from his patient at the loggers' camp the nextday brought him again to the fateful redwoods. But he was vexed andmystified to find, on arriving at the camp, that he had been made thevictim of some stupid blunder, and that no message had been sent fromthere. He was returning abstractedly through the woods when he wasamazed at seeing at a little distance before him the flutter of Mrs.MacGlowrie's well-known dark green riding habit and the figure ofthe lady herself. Her dog was not with her, neither was the revivalpreacher--or he might have thought the whole vision a trick of hismemory. But she slackened her pace, and he was obliged to rein upabreast of her in some confusion.
"I hope I won't shock you again by riding alone through the woods with aman," she said with a light laugh.
Nevertheless, she was quite pale as he answered, somewhat coldly, thathe had no right to be shocked at anything she might choose to do.
"But you WERE shocked, for you rode away the last time withoutspeaking," she said; "and yet"--she looked up suddenly into his eyeswith a smileless face--"that man you saw me with once had a better rightto ride alone with me than any other man. He was"--
"Your lover?" said Blair with brutal brevity.
"My husband!" returned Mrs. MacGlowrie slowly.
"Then you are NOT a widow," gasped Blair.
"No. I am only a divorced woman. That is why I have had to live a liehere. That man--that hypocrite--whose secret was only half exposedthe other night, was my husband--divorced from me by the law, when, anescaped convict, he fled with another woman from the State three yearsago." Her face flushed and whitened again; she put up her hand blindlyto her straying hair, and for an instant seemed to sway in the saddle.
But Blair as quickly leaped from his horse, and was beside her. "Letme help you down," he said quickly, "and rest yourself until you arebetter." Before she could reply, he lifted her tenderly to the groundand placed her on a mossy stump a little distance from the trail. Hercolor and a faint smile returned to her troubled face.
"Had we not better go on?" she said, looking around. "I never went sofar as to sit down in the woods with HIM that day."
"Forgive me," he said pleadingly, "but, of course, I knew nothing. Idis
liked the man from instinct--I thought he had some power over you."
"He has none--except the secret that would also have exposed himself."
"But others knew it. Colonel Starbottle must have known his name? Andyet"--as he remembered he stammered--"he refused to tell me."
"Yes, but not because he knew he was my husband, but because he knew hebore the same name. He thinks, as every one does, that my husband diedin San Francisco. The man who died there was my husband's cousin--adesperate man and a noted duelist."
"And YOU assumed to be HIS widow?" said the astounded Blair.
"Yes, but don't blame me too much," she said pathetically. "It was awild, a silly deceit, but it was partly forced upon me. For when Ifirst arrived across the plains, at the frontier, I was still bearingmy husband's name, and although I was alone and helpless, I found myselfstrangely welcomed and respected by those rude frontiersmen. It was notlong before I saw it was because I was presumed to be the widow of ALLENMacGlowrie--who had just died in San Francisco. I let them think so, forI knew--what they did not--that Allen's wife had separated from him andmarried again, and that my taking his name could do no harm. I acceptedtheir kindness; they gave me my first start in business, which broughtme here. It was not much of a deceit," she continued, with a slighttremble of her pretty lip, "to prefer to pass as the widow of a deaddesperado than to be known as the divorced wife of a living convict. Ithas hurt no one, and it has saved me just now."
"You were right! No one could blame you," said Blair eagerly, seizingher hand.
But she disengaged it gently, and went on:--
"And now you wonder why I gave him a meeting here?"
"I wonder at nothing but your courage and patience in all thissuffering!" said Blair fervently; "and at your forgiving me for socruelly misunderstanding you."
"But you must learn all. When I first saw MacGlowrie under his assumedname, I fainted, for I was terrified and believed he knew I was hereand had come to expose me even at his own risk. That was why I hesitatedbetween going away or openly defying him. But it appears he was morefrightened than I at finding me here--he had supposed I had changed myname after the divorce, and that Mrs. MacGlowrie, Laurel Spring, was hiscousin's widow. When he found out who I was he was eager to see meand agree upon a mutual silence while he was here. He thought only ofhimself," she added scornfully, "and Colonel Starbottle's recognitionof him that night as the convicted swindler was enough to put him toflight."
"And the colonel never suspected that you were his wife?" said Blair.
"Never! He supposed from the name that he was some relation of myhusband, and that was why he refused to tell it--for my sake. Thecolonel is an old fogy--and pompous--but a gentleman--as good as theymake them!"
A slightly jealous uneasiness and a greater sense of shame came overBlair.
"I seem to have been the only one who suspected and did not aid you," hesaid sadly, "and yet God knows"--
The widow had put up her slim hand in half-smiling, half-patheticinterruption.
"Wait! I have not told you everything. When I took over theresponsibility of being Allen MacGlowrie's widow, I had to take overHER relations and HER history as I gathered it from the frontiersmen. Inever frightened any grizzly--I never jabbed anybody with the scissors;it was SHE who did it. I never was among the Injins--I never had anyfighting relations; my paw was a plain farmer. I was only a peacefulBlue Grass girl--there! I never thought there was any harm in it; itseemed to keep the men off, and leave me free--until I knew you! And youknow I didn't want you to believe it--don't you?"
She hid her flushed face and dimples in her handkerchief.
"But did you never think there might be another way to keep the men off,and sink the name of MacGlowrie forever?" said Blair in a lower voice.
"I think we must be going back now," said the widow timidly, withdrawingher hand, which Blair had again mysteriously got possession of in herconfusion.
"But wait just a few minutes longer to keep me company," said Blairpleadingly. "I came here to see a patient, and as there must have beensome mistake in the message--I must try to discover it."
"Oh! Is that all?" said the widow quickly. "Why?"--she flushed again andlaughed faintly--"Well! I am that patient! I wanted to see you alone toexplain everything, and I could think of no other way. I'm afraid I'vegot into the habit of thinking nothing of being somebody else."
"I wish you would let me select who you should be," said the doctorboldly.
"We really must go back--to the horses," said the widow.
"Agreed--if we will ride home together."
They did. And before the year was over, although they both remained, thename of MacGlowrie had passed out of Laurel Spring.