_ CHAPTER XV. ALMOST A TRAGEDY
Morton's passion for the beautiful girl beside him had overcome his discretion to such an extent that he was hardly responsible for what he did. The exhilaration of this swift ride through the gathering darkness, the sense of nearness to the woman he believed he loved with every force in him, the certainty that they were alone, and that, for the moment at least, she was his sole possession, stirred up within the young ranchman's mind those elements of barbaric wildness which had grown and thrived to riotousness and recklessness during the life he had lived on the cattle-ranges of Montana, but which had been more or less dormant during his Eastern experiences. He forgot, for the moment, the Sunday-night scene wherein he had promised to be Patricia's friend, and had ceased to be her lover; he remembered only that she was there beside him, with her terror-stricken eyes peering into his beseechingly, and that she looked more beautiful than ever she had before. But, more than all else, the influence she had had over him was absent, and this was so because her haughty defiance and the proud spirit she had hitherto manifested in her attitude were gone. He had never seen her like this before, with the courage taken out of her. It was a new and unknown quality, alluringly feminine, wholly dependent, that possessed her now. She was frightened. And so Morton forgot himself. He permitted the innate wildness of his own nature to rule. He followed an impulse, as wild as it was unkind. He seized her in his arms, and crushed her against him, raining kisses upon her cheeks and brow, and upon even her lips. Patrica strove bravely to fight him off; she struggled mightily to prevent this greatest of all indignities. She cried out to him, beseeching that he release her, but he seemed not to hear, or, if he heard, he paid no heed, and, after a moment more of vain effort, Patricia's figure suddenly relaxed. She realized the utter futility of her effort to hold the man at bay, and she was suddenly inspired to practise a subterfuge upon him. She permitted herself to sink down helplessly, into his confining grasp, and she became, apparently, unconscious.
It was Richard Morton's turn to be frightened, then. On the instant, he realized what he had done. The enormity of the offense he had committed against her rushed upon him like a blow in the face, and he released her, so that she sank back into the confining seat beside him.
"Patricia! Patricia!" he called to her. He seized her hands, and rubbed them; he turned them over and struck the palms of them sharply, for he had somewhere heard that such action would bring a person out of a swoon; but, although he struggled anxiously, doing whatsoever he could to arouse her, and beseeching her in impassioned tones to speak to him, she seemed to remain unconscious, with her head lying back against the seat, her eyes closed, and her face paler than he had ever seen it before.
The car had stopped before the edge of a wood. Just beyond it, there was a bridge over which they must have passed, had they continued on their way. Morton raised his head and looked despairingly about him. He saw the bridge, and experience taught him that there must be a stream of water beneath it. With quick decision, he sprang from the car and ran forward, believing that, if he could return with his cap filled with water, he might restore his companion to consciousness. Then, strange to relate, no sooner had he left the car than Patricia opened her eyes, straightened her figure, and with a quick leap changed her seat to the one beneath the steering-wheel. She accomplished this while Morton was speeding away from her, toward the water.
She saw him arrive at the bridge and disappear down the bank, beneath it; and forthwith, she reversed the gear of the steamer, and opened the throttle. The engine responded instantly, and at the imminent risk of wrecking the car, she backed it, and turned it, reversing and going forward several times, before she quite succeeded in bringing it around, within the narrow space. But, at last, she did succeed, and, just at the moment when the car was headed in the opposite direction, Richard Morton reappeared. He saw, at a glance, what had happened during his short absence. He understood that Patricia had outwitted him, and he ran forward, shouting aloud as he did so.
Patricia caught one glimpse of him over her shoulder, and saw that he carried in his hands the cap he had filled with water to use in restoring her to consciousness--a consciousness she had not for a moment lost, which now was so alert and manifest in effecting her escape.
She paid no heed to his shouts. She opened the throttle wider and wider, and the steam roadster darted away through the darkness, with Patricia Langdon under the wheel, leaving Richard Morton, cap in hand, standing in the middle of the highway, gazing after her, speechless with amazement and more than ever in love with the courageous young woman who could dare, and do, so much.
Patricia Langdon was thoroughly capable of operating any automobile, as was demonstrated by this somewhat startling climax to the unpleasant scene through which she had just passed. Beneath her customary repose of manner, her outward self-restraint and her dignified if somewhat haughty manner, there was a spirit of wildness, which, for years, had found no expression, till now. But, the moment she turned the car about and succeeded in heading it in the opposite direction, the instant she realized that she was mistress of the situation, which, so short a time before, had been replete with unknown terrors, she experienced all that sense of exhilaration which the winner of any battle must feel, when it is brought to a successful issue. She heard herself laugh aloud, defiantly and with a touch of glee, although it did not seem to her as if it were Patricia Langdon who laughed; it was, perhaps, some hitherto undiscoverable spirit of recklessness within her, which called forth that expression of defiant joy, which Richard Morton could not fail to hear.
The night was dark, by now, and there were only the stars to light the narrow way along which Patricia was compelled to guide the flying car; but she thought nothing of this, for she could dimly discern the outlines of the roadway before her, and she believed she could follow it to the main highway, without accident. Morton had not lighted his lamps. There had been no opportunity to do so. But the road was an unfrequented one; and Patricia, as she fled away from Morton, through the darkness, thought only of making her escape, not at all of the dangers she might encounter while doing so.
Several times, she caught herself laughing softly at the recollection of how she had triumphed over the daring young ranchman, and at the predicament in which she had left him, standing there near the bridge, in a locality that was entirely unknown to him, from which he must have some difficulty in finding his way to a place where he could secure another conveyance. He might know what it meant to be left horseless on the ranges of the West, but this would be a new and a strange--perhaps a wholesome--experience for him.
Presently, she came to the turn of the road that would bring her upon the main highway; and here she stopped the car, and got down from it, long enough to light the lamps. This done, she went on again, as swiftly as she dared, yet not too rapidly, because now she felt that she was as free as the air singing past her. The highway she traversed was almost as familiar to her as the streets of New York City.
The exhilaration she had experienced when she triumphed over Richard Morton and escaped from him, increased rather than diminished as she sped onward, and when, almost an hour later, she guided the car between the huge gate-posts which admitted it to the grounds of Cedarcrest, and followed the winding driveway toward the entrance to the stone mansion, she was altogether a different Patricia Langdon from the one who had started out, in company with the young Westerner, shortly after five o'clock that afternoon.
She brought the car to a stop under the
porte-cochere, and announced her arrival by several loud blasts of the automobile-horn; a moment later, the doors were thrown open, and Sally Gardner rushed out to receive her.
"I am afraid I am late, Sally," Patricia called out, in a voice that was wholly unlike her usual calm tones. "Will you call someone to care for the car?" Without waiting for a reply, she sprang from beneath the wheel, and with a light laugh returned the impetuous embrace with which the young matron greeted her.
In some mysterious manner, word had already been passed to the guests that Patricia Langdon had arrived in Richard Morton's car, but alone; and so, by the time Patricia had released herself from Sally's clinging arms, Roderick Duncan, followed by the others of the party, appeared in the open doorway. Duncan came forward swiftly, but his host forestalled him in putting the question he would have asked.
"I say, Patricia!" Jack Gardner called out. "What have you done with Morton? Where is Dick?"
"Really, Jack, I don't know," replied Patricia, standing quite still, with her right arm around Sally's shoulders, and lifting her head like a thoroughbred filly. Mrs. Gardner's left arm still clung around her waist. "Mr. Morton is back there, somewhere, on the road. If he doesn't change his plans, he should arrive here, presently." She laughed, as she replied to the question, perceiving, at the moment, only the humorous side of it. She was still under the influence of that swift ride alone; still delighted by the thought of the predicament in which she had left her escort, because of his outrageous conduct toward her.
"Did you meet with an accident? Has anything happened to Mr. Morton?" inquired Agnes Houston.
Patricia shrugged her shoulders, and, again laughing softly, withdrew from Sally's embrace and began to ascend the steps. One of the Cedarcrest servants appeared at that moment, to take the car around to the garage; and for some reason each member of the party stepped aside, one way or another, so that Miss Langdon was the one who led the way into the house, the others falling in behind her, and following. The circumstance of her arrival in such a manner and the suggestion of mystery conveyed in Patricia's answer to Jack Gardner's question convinced all that something had happened which needed an explanation. Patricia's demeanor was so different from her usual half-haughty bearing, that it was, in a way, a revelation to them all. Each one there had his or her own conception of the occasion, and probably no two opinions were the same; but at least they were all agreed on one point: that there had been a scene somewhere, and that Richard Morton had got the worst of it.
Patricia led the way to the dining-room. Her head was high, her eyes were sparkling. Duncan hastened to her side, but she took no notice of his nearness. As she entered the room, she called out:
"Do order some dinner served to me, Sally. I am as hungry as the proverbial bear. You see, I had anticipated a hearty dinner with you, and the long ride I have had--particularly that part of it which I have taken alone--has whetted my appetite."
Sally nodded toward the butler, and waved him away, knowing that he had overheard Patricia's words, and that she would speedily be served; the others of the party resumed their former seats around the table, and the practical Sally turned and faced Patricia, again, her eyes flashing some of the indignation she felt because of her guest's evident reluctance to explain the strange circumstance of her arrival at Cedarcrest alone.
"Patricia Langdon," she said, "I think you might tell us what has happened. We are all on edge with expectancy. Where is Dick Morton?"
"Oh, he is somewhere back there on the highway, walking toward Cedarcrest, I suppose," replied Patricia smilingly, dropping into a chair beside the table.
"Did you start out from New York together?" persisted Sally.
"Oh, yes."
"Won't you please tell us what has happened?"
Patricia's lips parted, while she hesitated for a reply. She had no desire to tell these people of the incidents that had actually occurred. Many another, in her position, would have revealed at once the whole truth, and would have made these others acquainted with the conduct of Richard Morton, during that wild ride she had been forced to take with him through the gathering gloom. But Patricia was not that kind. She was quite conscious of the strangeness of her arrival at Cedarcrest alone, in Morton's car, and of the wrong constructions which might be given to the incident. She knew that every man who was present in the room, would bitterly resent the indignities Morton had put upon her, if she should relate the facts. But she believed that Morton had been sufficiently punished. She even doubted if he would appear there, at all, now; and so, instead of replying to Sally's repeated request, she shrugged her shoulders, and responded:
"I think I'll leave the explanation to Mr. Morton, when he arrives."
Food was placed before her at that moment and she transferred her attention to it; while her friends, perceiving that she was not inclined to take them into her confidence, started other subjects of conversation, although the mind of each one of them was still intent upon what might have happened during Patricia's journey from New York in the company of Richard Morton.
Roderick Duncan had not resumed his seat at the table; he had remained in the background, and had maintained an utter silence. But his thoughts had been busy, indeed. He knew and understood Patricia, better than these others did--with the possible exception of Beatrice, who also was silent. But, now, he passed around the table until he stood behind Patricia's chair. Then, he dropped down upon a vacant one that was beside her, and, resting one elbow on the table, peered inquiringly into the girl's flushed face, more beautiful than ever in her excitement. That strange feeling of exhilaration was still upon her, and there was undoubted triumph and self-satisfaction depicted in her eyes and demeanor.
"What happened, Patricia?" he asked her, in a low tone, which the others could not hear.
"Nothing has happened that need concern you at all," she replied to him, coldly.
"But something must have happened, or you--"
"If something did happen," she interrupted him, "rest assured that I shall tell you nothing more about it, at the present time. If Mr. Morton chooses to explain, when he arrives, that is his affair, and not mine. I am here, and I am unharmed. Somewhere, back there on the road my escort is probably walking toward Cedarcrest; or, perhaps, away from it. You will have to be satisfied with that explanation, until he arrives--if he does arrive." She spoke with such finality that Duncan changed the character of his questioning.
"I have not seen you, Patricia, since the receipt of your letter, fixing our wedding-day for next Monday," he persisted. "It now occurs to me that, in the light of the contents of your letter, I have a right to ask you for an explanation of the incidents of to-night."
Patricia turned her eyes for an instant upon him, and then withdrew them, while she said, coldly:
"If you have taken time to read carefully the stipulations in the contract you signed yesterday morning, at Mr. Melvin's office, you will understand why I deny your right to do so."
"Has Morton affronted you in any way?"
"Ask him. I have no doubt that he will answer you."
"Patricia, are you going to persist in this attitude toward me, even after we are married?" Duncan inquired, anxiously. But, instead of replying, she raised her head in a listening attitude, and announced to all who were present:
"I hear the horn of an approaching automobile. Perhaps, Mr. Morton has caught a ride."
"Answer me, Patricia," Duncan insisted.
"My conduct will be the answer to your question," she said, with her face averted.
Jack Gardner hurriedly left the room, accompanied by Sally. A moment later, when the automobile horn sounded nearer, Duncan left his place beside Patricia, and followed. Melvin, the lawyer, also went out, and then one by one the others, until Patricia was the only guest who remained at the table. She continued to occupy herself with the food that had been placed before her, while the flush on her cheeks deepened, her eyes shone with added brightness, and she smiled as if she were rather pleased than otherwise by the predicament in which Morton would find himself, when he should be closely questioned by Jack and Sally Gardner and the guests as well, whose curiosity, she knew, would now far exceed their discretion.
It never once occurred to her that Dick Morton, having had time to think over the occurrences of the afternoon and evening, and to realize the enormity of the offense he had committed, would tell the truth about it. Men within her knowledge, who belonged to the society with which she was familiar, would temporize, under such circumstances, would seek, by diplomatic speech to shield the woman in the case from the comment that must follow a revelation, would make use of well-chosen words to escape responsibility for what had occurred; would practise a studied reserve until certain knowledge could be obtained of what the woman might have said, upon her arrival.
The doors had been left open, and Patricia was conscious of loud tones proceeding from the veranda at the front of the house; of masculine voices raised in anger; and then she heard the sound of a blow, followed instantly by a heavy fall. Almost at the same instant, the sharp crack of a pistol smote upon the air, for an instant stiffening her with horror. She started to her feet in terror, her face gone white, her eyes dilated with apprehension. Then, she somehow stumbled to her feet, and stood there, trembling in every nerve, until she could gather strength to run forward.
A horrified and silent group of persons surrounded the principals in the scene that had just occurred, for there had not yet been time for any of them to recover from the paralyzing effect of what had happened.
Richard Morton was on the floor of the veranda where he had raised himself upon one elbow, and he still held in his right hand the small revolver from which the shot that Patricia had overheard, had come. Roderick Duncan was standing a few feet away, and he was holding in his arms the limp form of Beatrice Brunswick, whose head had fallen backward, as if she were unconscious, or dead. Just at the instant when Patricia caught a view of this strange tableau, the other spectators threw off the momentary lethargy that had overpowered them, and rushed forward toward the principal actors in the scene that had passed, each shouting a different exclamation, but all alike in their expressions of horror and loathing for the man who was down--Richard Morton. _