The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand
Читать онлайн книгу.
and he came closer. “He told me straight, you’re not to come out.”
Caroline had shrunk back, and she was on the verge of turning when the arm of Ruth was passed strongly around her shoulders and stayed her.
“She’s going with me,” she told John Mark’s bulldog. “Does that make a difference to you?”
He ducked his head and grinned feebly in his anxiety. “Sure it makes a difference. You go where you want, any time you want, but this—”
“I say she’s going with me, and I’m responsible for her.”
She urged Caroline forward, and the latter made a step, only to find that she was directly confronted by the guard.
“I got my orders,” he said desperately to Ruth.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked hotly.
“I know who you are,” he answered, “and, believe me, I would not start bothering you none, but I got to keep this lady back. I got the orders.”
“They’re old orders,” insisted Ruth Tolliver, “and they have been changed.”
“Not to my knowing,” replied the other, less certain in his manner.
Ruth seized the critical moment to say: “Walk on, Caroline. If he blocks your way—” She did not need to finish the sentence, for, as Caroline started on, the guard slunk sullenly to one side of the corridor.
“It ain’t my doings,” he said. “But they got two bosses in this joint, and one of them is a girl. How can a gent have any idea which way he ought to step in a pinch? Go on, Miss Smith, but you’ll be answered for!”
They hardly heard the last of these words, as they turned down the stairway, hurrying, but not fast enough to excite the suspicion of the man behind them.
“Oh, Ruth,” whispered Caroline Smith. “Oh, Ruth!”
“It was close,” said Ruth Tolliver, “but we’re through. And, now that I’m about to leave it, I realize how I’ve hated this life all these years. I’ll never stop thanking you for waking me up to it, Caroline.”
They reached the floor of the lower hall, and a strange thought came to Ruth. She had hurried home to execute the bidding of John Mark. She had left it, obeying the bidding of Ronicky Doone.
They scurried to the front door. As they opened it the sharp gust of night air blew in on them, and they heard the sound of a man running up the steps. In a moment the dim hall light showed on the slender form and the pale face of John Mark standing before them.
Caroline felt the start of Ruth Tolliver. For her part she was on the verge of collapse, but a strong pressure from the hand of her companion told her that she had an ally in the time of need.
“Tut tut!” Mark was saying, “what’s this? How did Caroline get out of her room—and with you, Ruth?”
“It’s idiotic to keep her locked up there all day and all night, in weather like this,” said Ruth, with a perfect calm that restored Caroline’s courage almost to the normal. “When I talked to her this evening I made up my mind that I’d take her out for a walk.”
“Well,” replied John Mark, “that might not be so bad. Let’s step inside and talk it over for a moment.”
They retreated, and he entered and clicked the door behind him. “The main question is, where do you intend to walk?”
“Just in the street below the house.”
“Which might not lead you across to the house on the other side?”
“Certainly not! I shall be with her.”
“But suppose both of you go into that house, and I lose two birds instead of one? What of that, my clever Ruth?”
She knew at once, by something in his voice rather than his words, that he had managed to learn the tenor of the talk in Caroline’s room. She asked bluntly: “What are you guessing at?”
“Nothing. I only speak of what I know. No single pair of ears is enough for a busy man. I have to hire help, and I get it. Very effective help, too, don’t you agree?”
“Eavesdropping!” exclaimed Ruth bitterly. “Well—it’s true, John Mark. You sent me to steal her from her lover, and I’ve tried to steal her for him in the end. Do you know why? Because she was able to show me what a happy love might mean to a woman. She showed me that, and she showed me how much courage love had given her. So I began to guess a good many things, and, among the rest, I came to the conclusion that I could never truly love you, John Mark.
“I’ve spoken quickly,” she went on at last. “It isn’t that I have feared you all the time—I haven’t been playing a part, John, on my word. Only —tonight I learned something new. Do you see?”
“Heaven be praised,” said John Mark, “that we all have the power of learning new things, now and again. I congratulate you. Am I to suppose that Caroline was your teacher?”
He turned from her and faced Caroline Smith, and, though he smiled on her, there was a quality in the smile that shriveled her very soul with fear. No matter what he might say or do this evening to establish himself in the better graces of the girl he was losing, his malice was not dead. That she knew.
“She was my teacher,” answered Ruth steadily, “because she showed me, John, what a marvelous thing it is to be free. You understand that all the years I have been with you I have never been free?”
“Not free?” he asked, the first touch of emotion showing in his voice. “Not free, my dear? Was there ever the least wish of yours since you were a child that I did not gratify? Not one, Ruth; not one, surely, of which I am conscious!”
“Because I had no wishes,” she answered slowly, “that were not suggested by something that you liked or disliked. You were the starting point of all that I desired. I was almost afraid to think until I became sure that you approved of my thinking.”
“That was long ago,” he said gravely. “Since those old days I see you have changed greatly.”
“Because of the education you gave me,” she answered.
“Yes, yes, that was the great mistake. I begin to see. Heaven, one might say, gave you to me. I felt that I must improve on the gift of Heaven before I accepted you. There was my fault. For that I must pay the great penalty. Kismet! And now, what is it you wish?”
“To leave at once.”
“A little harsh, but necessary, if you will it. There is the door, free to you. The change of identity of which I spoke to you is easily arranged. I have only to take you to the bank and that is settled. Is there anything else?”
“Only one thing—and that is not much.”
“Very good.”
“You have given so much,” she ran on eagerly, “that you will give one thing more—out of the goodness of that really big heart of yours, John, dear!”
He winced under that pleasantly tender word.
And she said: “I want to take Caroline with me—to freedom and the man she loves. That is really all!”
The lean fingers of John Mark drummed on the back of the chair, while he smiled down on her, an inexplicable expression on his face.
“Only that?” he asked. “My dear, how strange you women really are! After all these years of study I should have thought that you would, at least, have partially comprehended me. I see that is not to be. But try to understand that I divide with a nice distinction the affairs of sentiment and the affairs of business. There is only one element in my world of sentiment—that is you. Therefore, ask what you want and take it for yourself; but for Caroline, that is an entirely different matter. No, Ruth, you may take what you will for yourself, but for her, for any other living soul, not a penny,