The Forbidden Way. Gibbs George

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СКАЧАТЬ to fire him. If Harbison had obeyed orders there would have been a different story to tell about the 'Lone Tree.' But my foreman took pity on him because he had a family; then tried to get him started right again. The man used to work extra time at night, sometimes with a shift and sometimes alone. And one night in the small gallery at the hundred-foot level he found the vein we had been looking for. He was a German, Max Reimer, by name – "

      "Max Reimer," she repeated mechanically.

      "Alone there in that cavern he thought out the plan which afterward resulted in putting me out of business. He quickly got some timbers together and hid the hole he'd made. This was easy, for the steps and railing of the winze needed supports and planking. He put in a blast farther over and hid the gold-bearing rock – all but a few of the pieces. These he took out in the pockets of his overalls and carried them to Jeff Wray – "

      "Jeff – "

      "Your husband called in Pete Mulrennan, and they talked it over. Then one night Pete and Max crept up to the mine, got past the watchman, and Max showed Pete what he'd found. I learned all this from Harbison after they let Max loose."

      "Let him loose? What do you mean?"

      "I'll tell you. Max wanted a lump sum in cash. They laughed at him – chiefly because they didn't have the money to pay. Then he wanted a percentage bigger than they wanted to give. When they temporized he got ugly, swore he'd rather run his chances with Harbison and me, but he never had an opportunity – "

      "You don't mean – ?" she gasped.

      "Wray and Mulrennan lured Reimer to a room over the saloon and got up a fight; they put him out, gagged and trussed him like a fowl, and left him there until Jeff Wray had closed the deal with me. That's how your husband got my mine."

      "It can't be," she stammered. "Yes – yes. And Reimer?"

      "They hid him for two weeks, until they brought to terms."

      "I remember," she said, passing her hand over her brow. "Reimer's boy was in my school. They missed old Max. They thought he had deserted them. What a horrible thing! And Jeff – my husband – "

      "That is what people call Jeff Wray's luck," he said, and then added grimly, "and my misfortune."

      "But the law?" she said. "Was there no way in which you could prove the – the – "

      "The fraud?" he said brutally. "Oh, yes. The Law! Do you know who impersonates the Law in Mesa City? Pete Mulrennan! He's judge, court, and jury. We had the best lawyer in Denver. But Lawrence Berkely had done his work too well. There's a suit still pending, but we haven't a show. Good God, Camilla! do you mean to say you heard nothing of all this?"

      "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. When I heard of the suit and questioned Jeff he – he said it was maliciousness, jealousy, disappointment, and I believed him."

      He turned away from her and paced the floor. "He was right. It was all of these. But there was something else – "

      "Oh, I know," she broke in. "It was what I am feeling now – the sense of a wrong. But you forget – " She got up and faced him, groping vaguely for an extenuating circumstance. "That sort of thing has been done in the West before. A successful mine is all a matter of luck. Max Reimer's find might have only been a pocket. In that case you would have been the gainer, and Jeff would have lost."

      "That's sophistry. I can't blame you for defending your husband. Mines have been leased and bought on theory – with a chance to win, a chance to lose – for the mere love of a gamble. There was no gamble here. The gold ore was there – one had only to look. There never has been anything like it since Cripple Creek. It was mine. Jeff Wray wanted it – so he took it – by force."

      She had sunk on the settee between the windows, her face buried in her hands, and was trying to think. All this, the hired magnificence, the empty show, the damask she was sitting on, the rings on her hands, her clothing even, belonged by every law of decency and morality to the man who stood there before her. And the wrong she had so long cherished in her heart against him was as nothing to the injury her husband had done to him. She knew nothing of the law, cared nothing for it. All she could think of were the facts of the case as he had presented them. Cortland told the truth, she recognized it in everything he had said, in the ringing note of his voice, the clear light of his eye, the resentment of a nature that had been tried too far. A hundred forgotten incidents were now remembered – Jeff's reticence about the law-suit, Max Reimer's disappearance, the many secret conferences with Mulrennan. She wondered that suspicion of Jeff had never entered her mind before. She realized now more poignantly than ever that she had been moving blindly, supinely, under the spell of a personality stronger than her own. She recalled the scene in the cañon when, beside herself with shame and mortification, she had struck him in the face and he had only laughed at her, as he would have laughed at a rebellious child. In that moment she had hated him. The tolerance that had come later had been defensive – a defense of her pride. When Cortland Bent had left, she had flown like a wounded swallow to the hawk's nest, glad of any refuge from the ache at her heart.

      She raised her head and sought Bent's eyes with her own. A while ago it had seemed so easy to speak to him. He had been so gentle with her, and his reticence had made her own indifference possible. He had gone back to the dead fire again as though to find there a phenix of his lost hope, and was leaning with an elbow on the mantel, his head bowed in subjection. He had put his fetters on again as though to make her understand that his sharp indictment of her husband had not been intended to include the woman he loved. Painfully she rose and took a step toward him, and, when she spoke, her voice was low and constrained, for her thoughts came with difficulty.

      "You are right. There is a moral code – a law of conscience. In my heart I know that no matter what other men have done in the West in their madness for gold, the fever for wealth, nothing the law holds will make Jeff's responsibility to you any the less in my sight. I – I did not know. You believe me, don't you? I did not know. Even if I had known, perhaps it would not have made any difference. But I am sure of one thing – I could never have married a man to live on what he had stolen from another." As he turned toward her she put her hands over her face. "Oh, I am shamed – shamed. Perhaps I could have done something; I would have tried. You know that I would have tried – don't you?"

      "Yes, yes, I know. I would not have told, I would not have made you unhappy – but it maddens me to see you here with what is mine – his wife." He took her hands down and made her look in his face. "Don't think harshly of me. It isn't the money. If you could have had it – if you didn't have to share it with him – can't you understand?"

      But she would not look at him, and only murmured, "I understand – I understand many things I did not know before. But the one thing that seems most important is that I am his wife. Whatever he has done to others, he has been very good, very gentle and kind to me."

      He dropped her hands and turned violently away. "How could you?" he groaned. "How could you have married him?"

      "God knows!"

      The words were wrung from her quickly, like the sudden dropping of a burden which shocked by the noise of its impact before she was conscious of its loss. She turned in the same moment and looked at him, hoping that he had not heard her. But before she could prevent him he had caught her in his arms and held her close to his body, so that, struggle as she might, there was no chance for her to escape. And in his eyes she saw the gleam of an old delight, a bright, wild spark among the embers of bitterness.

      "Camilla!" he whispered. "I know now. God forgive me that I did not know before – out there in the schoolhouse, when you gave yourself to him. You loved me then – you love me now. Isn't that why you tremble, Camilla? You СКАЧАТЬ