The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains, Owen Wister [best e books to read txt] 📗

He glanced out of the window again, and saw the mountains of the same deep blue. But the cottonwoods were no longer in the sunlight. The shadow had come past them, nearer the town; for fifteen of the forty minutes were gone. “The bishop is wrong,” he said. “There is no sense in telling her.” And he turned to the door, just as she came to it herself.

“Oh!” she cried out at once, and rushed to him.

He swore as he held her close. “The fools!” he said. “The fools!”

“It has been so frightful waiting for you,” said she, leaning her head against him.

“Who had to tell you this?” he demanded.

“I don't know. Somebody just came and said it.”

“This is mean luck,” he murmured, patting her. “This is mean luck.”

She went on: “I wanted to run out and find you; but I didn't! I didn't! I stayed quiet in my room till they said you had come back.”

“It is mean luck. Mighty mean,” he repeated.

“How could you be so long?” she asked. “Never mind, I've got you now. It is over.”

Anger and sorrow filled him. “I might have known some fool would tell you,” he said.

“It's all over. Never mind.” Her arms tightened their hold of him. Then she let him go. “What shall we do?” she said. “What now?”

“Now?” he answered. “Nothing now.”

She looked at him without understanding.

“I know it is a heap worse for you,” he pursued, speaking slowly. “I knew it would be.”

“But it is over!” she exclaimed again.

He did not understand her now. He kissed her. “Did you think it was over?” he said simply. “There is some waiting still before us. I wish you did not have to wait alone. But it will not be long.” He was looking down, and did not see the happiness grow chilled upon her face, and then fade into bewildered fear. “I did my best,” he went on. “I think I did. I know I tried. I let him say to me before them all what no man has ever said, or ever will again. I kept thinking hard of you—with all my might, or I reckon I'd have killed him right there. And I gave him a show to change his mind. I gave it to him twice. I spoke as quiet as I am speaking to you now. But he stood to it. And I expect he knows he went too far in the hearing of others to go back on his threat. He will have to go on to the finish now.”

“The finish?” she echoed, almost voiceless.

“Yes,” he answered very gently.

Her dilated eyes were fixed upon him. “But—” she could scarce form utterance, “but you?”

“I have got myself ready,” he said. “Did you think—why, what did you think?”

She recoiled a step. “What are you going—” She put her two hands to her head. “Oh, God!” she almost shrieked, “you are going—” He made a step, and would have put his arm round her, but she backed against the wall, staring speechless at him.

“I am not going to let him shoot me,” he said quietly.

“You mean—you mean—but you can come away!” she cried. “It's not too late yet. You can take yourself out of his reach. Everybody knows that you are brave. What is he to you? You can leave him in this place. I'll go with you anywhere. To any house, to the mountains, to anywhere away. We'll leave this horrible place together and—and—oh, won't you listen to me?” She stretched her hands to him. “Won't you listen?”

He took her hands. “I must stay here.”

Her hands clung to his. “No, no, no. There's something else. There's something better than shedding blood in cold blood. Only think what it means! Only think of having to remember such a thing! Why, it's what they hang people for! It's murder!”

He dropped her hands. “Don't call it that name,” he said sternly.

“When there was the choice!” she exclaimed, half to herself, like a person stunned and speaking to the air. “To get ready for it when you have the choice!”

“He did the choosing,” answered the Virginian. “Listen to me. Are you listening?” he asked, for her gaze was dull.

She nodded.

“I work hyeh. I belong hyeh. It's my life. If folks came to think I was a coward—”

“Who would think you were a coward?”

“Everybody. My friends would be sorry and ashamed, and my enemies would walk around saying they had always said so. I could not hold up my head again among enemies or friends.”

“When it was explained—”

“There'd be nothing to explain. There'd just be the fact.” He was nearly angry.

“There is a higher courage than fear of outside opinion,” said the New England girl.

Her Southern lover looked at her. “Cert'nly there is. That's what I'm showing in going against yours.”

“But if you know that you are brave, and if I know that you are brave, oh, my dear, my dear! what difference does the world make? How much higher courage to go your own course—”

“I am goin' my own course,” he broke in. “Can't yu' see how it must be about a man? It's not for their benefit, friends or enemies, that I have got this thing to do. If any man happened to say I was a thief and I heard about it, would I let him go on spreadin' such a thing of me? Don't I owe my own honesty something better than that? Would I sit down in a corner rubbin' my honesty and whisperin' to it, 'There! there! I know you ain't a thief?' No, seh; not a little bit! What men say about my nature is not just merely an outside thing. For the fact that I let 'em keep on sayin' it is a proof I don't value my nature enough to shield it from their slander and give them their punishment. And that's being a poor sort of a jay.”

She had grown very white.

“Can't yu' see how it must be about a man?” he repeated.

“I cannot,” she answered, in a voice that scarcely seemed her own. “If I ought to, I cannot. To shed blood in cold blood. When I heard about that last fall,—about the killing of those cattle thieves,—I kept saying to myself: 'He had to do it. It was a public duty.' And lying sleepless I got used to Wyoming being different from Vermont. But this—” she gave a shudder—“when I think of to-morrow, of you and me, and of— If you do this, there can be no