George Gibbs - The Forbidden Way

"I hope so – " She emerged diffidently and laid her hand gently on his arm. "If you want to be my friend you must forget."

"I'll try. I have tried. That was easier this morning than it is this afternoon. It will be harder to-night – harder still to-morrow." He gave a short laugh and turned away from her toward the fireplace where he stood, watching the gray embers.

"Oh, people don't die of this sort of thing," he muttered.

It was almost with an air of unconcern that she began rearranging the Beauties on the table, speaking with such a genuine spirit of raillery that he turned to look at her.

"Oh, it isn't nearly as bad as you think it is. A man is never quite so madly in love that he can't forget. You've been dreaming. I was different from the sort of girls you were used to. You were in love with the mountains, and mistook me for background."

"No. There wasn't any background," he broke in. "There was never anything in the picture but you. I know. It's the same now."

"Sh – I must not let you speak to me so. If you do, I must go away from New York – or you must."

"You wouldn't care."

She could make no reply to that, and attempted none. When the flowers were arranged she sat on the edge of the table facing him. "Perhaps it would be the better way for me to go back to the West," she said, "but New York is surely big enough to hold us both without danger of your meeting me too often. And I have another idea," her smile came slowly, with difficulty, "when you see enough of me in your own city, you will be glad to forget me whether you want to or not. Perhaps you may meet me among your own kind of people – your own kind of girls, at dinners, or at dances. You don't really know me very well, after all. Wouldn't it bother you if from sheer awkwardness I spilled my wine or said 'yes, ma'am,' or 'no, ma'am,' to my hostess, not because I wanted to, but because I was too frightened to think of anything else? Or mistook the butler for my host? Or stepped on somebody's toes in a ballroom. You know I don't dance very well. Suppose – "

"Oh, what's the use, Camilla?" he broke in angrily. "You don't deceive anybody. You know that kind of thing wouldn't make any difference to me."

"But it might to other people. You wouldn't fancy seeing me ridiculous." He turned to the fire again, and she perceived that her warning hadn't merited the dignity of a reply, but her attitude and the lighter key in which her tone was pitched had saved the situation. When he spoke again, all trace of his discomposure had vanished.

"Oh, I suppose I'll survive. I've got a name for nerve of a certain kind, and nobody shall say I ran away from a woman. I don't suppose there's any use of my trying to like your husband. You see, I'm frank with you. But I'll swallow a good deal to be able to be near you."

There was a silence during which she keenly searched his face.

"You mustn't dislike Jeff. I can't permit that. You can't blame him for being lucky – "

"Lucky? Yes, I suppose you might call it luck. Didn't you know how your husband and Mulrennan got that mine?"

She rose, her eyes full of a new wonder and curiosity.

"They leased it. Everything was legally done," she said.

"Oh, yes. Legally – " he paused.

"Go on – go on."

"What is the use?"

"I must know – everything."

"He never told you? I think I know why. Because your code and his are different. The consciences of some men are satisfied if they keep their affairs within the letter of the law. But there's a moral law which has nothing to do with the courts. He didn't tell you because he knew you obeyed a different precept."

"What did he do? Won't you tell me?"

He came forward and stood facing her, one hand clutching the back of a chair, his eyes blazing with newly kindled resentment. "Yes, I will tell you. It's right for you to know. There was a man in my employ who had a fancied grievance against my foreman. He had no just cause for complaint. I found that out and told Harbison 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.