It was the first time that he had ever asserted himself in her presence, and even then he did it half apologetically, yet with an unconscious dignity in his manner that became him well. He reached down as he spoke, and took up his pick and his bundle and turned to go.
"There is nothing then that you are leaving behind you?" she asked.
He raised his eyes squarely to hers.
"No," he said, simply, "nothing."
Oh, if she could have only spoken! Oh, had she but dared to tell him that he had left behind that which he could not take away, that which the mere instincts of his manhood would have stirred him to treat with tenderness and mercy, that which would have appealed to him through its very helplessness and youth. But she dared not. That eloquence which an hour before had been ready enough to sway the feelings of the man to whom she had been faithless and did not love, failed her now. In the grasp of her first and only hopeless passion this arch-hypocrite had lost even the tact of the simplest of her sex. She did not even assume an indifference! She said nothing; when she raised her eyes again he was gone.
She was wrong. At the front door he stopped, hesitated a moment and then returned slowly and diffidently to the room. Her heart beat rapidly, and then was still.
"Ye asked me jest now," he said falteringly, "ef thar was anything ez I was leavin' behind. Thar is, ef ye'll overlook my sayin' it. When you and me allowed to leave fur furrin parts, I reckoned to leave thet housekeeper behind, and unbeknowed to ye I gin her some money and a charge. I tole her thet if ever that dear chile, Sister Grace, came here, thet she should take her in and do by her ez I would, and let me know. Et may be a heap to ask, but if it tain't too much—I—shouldn't—like—yer—to turn— thet innocent unsuspectin' chile away from the house thet she might take to be mine. Ye needn't let on anythin' thet's gone; ye needn't tell her wot a fool I've been, but jest take her in and send for me. Lawyer Maxwell will gin ye my address."
The sting recalled her benumbed life. She rose with a harsh dissonant laugh and said, "Your wishes shall be fulfilled—if"—she hesitated a moment—"I am here."
But he did not hear the last sentence, and was gone.
CHAPTER XXXV.
WHAT PASSED UNDER THE PINE AND WHAT
REMAINED THERE.
Ramirez was not as happy in his revenge as he had anticipated. He had, in an instant of impulsive rage, fired his mine prematurely, and, as he feared, impotently. Gabriel had not visibly sickened, faded, nor fallen blighted under the exposure of his wife's deceit. It was even doubtful, as far as Ramirez could judge from his quiet reception of the revelation, whether he would even call that wife to account for it. Again, Ramirez was unpleasantly conscious that this exposure had lost some of its dignity and importance by being wrested from him as a confession made under pressure or duress. Worse than all, he had lost the opportunity of previously threatening Mrs. Conroy with the disclosure, and the delicious spectacle of her discomfiture. In point of fact his revenge had been limited to the cautious cowardice of the anonymous letter-writer, who, stabbing in the dark, enjoys neither the contemplation of the agonies of his victim, nor the assertion of his own individual power.
To this torturing reflection a terrible suspicion of the Spanish translator, Perkins, was superadded. For Gabriel, Ramirez had only that contempt which every lawless lover has for the lawful husband of his mistress, while for Perkins, he had that agonizing doubt which every lawless lover has for every other man but the husband. In making this exposure had he not precipitated a catastrophe as fatal to himself as to the husband? Might they not both drive this woman into the arms of another man? Ramirez paced the little bedroom of the Grand Conroy hotel, a prey to that bastard remorse of all natures like his own—the overwhelming consciousness of opportunities for villainy misspent.
Come what might, he would see her again and at once. He would let her know that he suspected her relations with this translator. He would tell her that he had written the letter—that he had forged the grant—that—
A tap at the door recalled him to himself. It opened presently to Sal, coy, bashful, and conscious. The evident agitation of this young foreigner had to Sal's matter-of-fact comprehension only one origin—a hopeless, consuming passion for herself.
"Dinner hez bin done gone an hour ago," said that arch virgin, "but I put
