章节正文
could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess
with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change
the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he
must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent
doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safelygotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to
peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches,
and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night
sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the
valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond,
climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the
point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell
asleep.
In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was
pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great
stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay
mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood
which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening
its walled faces.
While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver
spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had
seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and
then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding
toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands
outstretched.
"Bern! You're back! You're back!" she cried, in joy that rang of
her loneliness.
"Yes, I'm back," he said, as she rushed to meet him.
She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him
closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled,
and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.
"Oh! What's happened?"
"A good deal has happened, Bess. I don't need to tell you what.
And I'm played out. Worn out in mind more than body."
"Dear--you look strange to me!" faltered Bess.
"Never mind that. I'm all right. There's nothing for you to be
scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have
planned. As soon as I'm rested we'll make a break to get out of
the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about
you."
"Truth about me?" echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be
casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself,
as he saw her, received a pang.
"Yes--the truth. Bess, don't misunderstand. I haven't changed
that way. I love you still. I'll love you more afterward. Life
will be just as sweet--sweeter to us. We'll be--be married as
soon as ever we can. We'll be happy--but there's a devil in me. A
perverse, jealous devil! Then I've queer fancies. I forgot for a
long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and
faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I've got to kill
them with the truth."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," she replied, frankly.
"Then by Heaven! we'll have it over and done with!...Bess--did
Oldring love you?"
"Certainly he did."
"Did--did you love him?"
"Of course. I told you so."
"How can you tell it so lightly?" cried Venters, passionately.
"Haven't you any sense of--of--" He choked back speech. He felt
the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands
and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes.
They were shadowing with the old wistful light, hut they were as
clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest,
solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters
shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could
not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the truth,
looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in
purity.
"What are--what were you to--to Oldring?" he panted, fiercely.
"I am his daughter," she replied, instantly.
Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the
force of his feeling--then creeping blankness.
"What--was it--you said?" he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.
"I am his daughter."
"Oldring's daughter?" queried Venters, with life gathering in his
voice.
"Yes."
With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew
her close.
"All the time--you've been Oldring's daughter?"
"Yes, of course all the time--always."
"But Bess, you told me--you let me think--I made out you
were--a--so--so ashamed."
"It is my shame," she said, with voice deep and full, and now the
scarlet fired her cheek. "I told you--I'm nothing--nameless--just
Bess, Oldring's girl!"
"I know--I remember. But I never thought--" he went on,
hurriedly, huskily. "That time--when you lay dying--you
prayed--you--somehow I got the idea you were bad."
"Bad?" she asked, with a little laugh.
She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute
unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might
of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.
"Bess! Bess!" He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against
his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held
her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded
sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw
Oldring. She was the rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had
loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men
and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child's. That was
part of the secret--part of the mystery. That was the wonderful
truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above
all innocence in the world--the innocence of lonely girlhood.
He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching,
softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love,
then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring
whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million
bellowing, thundering voices--gunshots of conscience,
thunderbolts of remorse--dinned horribly in his ears. He had
killed Bess's father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a
moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed--Oldring's knell.
He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and
grasped her with the hands of a drowning man.
"My God!...My God!...Oh, Bess!...Forgive me! Never mind what I've
done--what I've thought. But forgive me. I'll give you my life.
I'll live for you. I'll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man
ever loved a woman. I want you to know--to remember that I fought
a fight for you--however blind I was. I thought--I thought--never
mind what I thought--but I loved you--I asked you to marry me.
Let that--let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was
driven! And I might have known! I could not rest nor sleep till I
had this mystery solved. God! how things work out!"
"Bern, you're weak--trembling--you talk wildly," cried Bess.
"You've overdone your strength. There's nothing to forgive.
There's no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to
me!"
And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it
closely to her throbbing breast.
CHAPTER XIX. FAY
At the home of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing
Lassiter's knee.
"Does oo love me?" she asked.
Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and
loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was
her devoted subject. Fay looked thoughtful and appeared to be
debating the duplicity of men or searching for a supreme test to
prove this cavalier.
"Does oo love my new mower?" she asked, with bewildering
suddenness.
Jane Withersteen laughed, and for the first time in many a day
she felt a stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.
It was a still drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were
sitting in the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the
sage-slope Little Fay's brief spell of unhappylonging for her
mother--the childish, mystic gloom--had passed, and now where Fay
was there were prattle and laughter and glee. She had emerged
Iron sorrow to be the incarnation of joy and loveliness. She had
growl supernaturally sweet and beautiful. For Jane Withersteen
the child was an answer to prayer, a blessing, a possession
infinitely more precious than all she had lost. For Lassiter,
Jane divined that little Fay had become a religion.
"Does oo love my new mower?" repeated Fay.
Lassiter's answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative.
"Why don't oo marry my new mower an' be my favver?"
Of the thousands of questions put by little Fay to Lassiter the
was the first he had been unable to answer.
"Fay--Fay, don't ask questions like that," said Jane.
"Why?"
"Because," replied Jane. And she found it strangely embarrassing
to meet the child's gaze. It seemed to her that Fay's violet eyes
looked through her with piercing wisdom.
"Oo love him, don't oo?"
"Dear child--run and play," said Jane, "but don't go too far.
Don't go from this little hill."
Fay pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been
granted her for weeks.
"Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons?"
asked Lassiter.
"Are they?"
"I reckon so. Little Fay there--she sees things as they appear on
the face. An Indian does that. So does a dog. An' an Indian an' a
dog are most of the time right in what they see. Mebbe a child is
always right."
"Well, what does Fay see?" asked Jane.
"I reckon you know. I wonder what goes on in Fay's mind when she
sees part of the truth with the wise eyes of a child, an' wantin'
to know more, meets with strange falseness from you? Wait! You
are false in a way, though you're the best woman I ever knew.
What I want to say is this. Fay has taken you're pretendin'
to--to care for me for the thing it looks on the face. An' her
little formin' mind asks questions. An' the answers she gets are
different from the looks of things. So she'll grow up gradually
takin' on that falseness, an' be like the rest of the women, an'
men, too. An' the truth of this falseness to life is proved by
your appearin' to love me when you don't. Things aren't what they
seem."
"Lassiter, you're right. A child should be told the absolute
truth. But--is that possible? I haven't been able to do it, and
all my life I've loved the truth, and I've prided myself upon
being truthful. Maybe that was only egotism. I'm learning much,
my friend. Some of those blinding scales have fallen from my
eyes. And--and as to caring for you, I think I care a great deal.
How much, how little, I couldn't say. My heart is almost broken.
Lassiter. So now is not a good time to judge of affection. I can
still play and be merry with Fay. I can still dream. But when I
with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change
the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he
must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent
doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safelygotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
All day he rode slowly and cautiously up the Pass, taking time to
peer around corners, to pick out hard ground and grassy patches,
and to make sure there was no one in pursuit. In the night
sometime he came to the smooth, scrawled rocks dividing the
valley, and here set the burro at liberty. He walked beyond,
climbed the slope and the dim, starlit gorge. Then, weary to the
point of exhaustion, he crept into a shallow cave and fell
asleep.
In the morning, when he descended the trail, he found the sun was
pouring a golden stream of light through the arch of the great
stone bridge. Surprise Valley, like a valley of dreams, lay
mystically soft and beautiful, awakening to the golden flood
which was rolling away its slumberous bands of mist, brightening
its walled faces.
While yet far off he discerned Bess moving under the silver
spruces, and soon the barking of the dogs told him that they had
seen him. He heard the mocking-birds singing in the trees, and
then the twittering of the quail. Ring and Whitie came bounding
toward him, and behind them ran Bess, her hands
outstretched.
"Bern! You're back! You're back!" she cried, in joy that rang of
her loneliness.
"Yes, I'm back," he said, as she rushed to meet him.
She had reached out for him when suddenly, as she saw him
closely, something checked her, and as quickly all her joy fled,
and with it her color, leaving her pale and trembling.
"Oh! What's happened?"
"A good deal has happened, Bess. I don't need to tell you what.
And I'm played out. Worn out in mind more than body."
"Dear--you look strange to me!" faltered Bess.
"Never mind that. I'm all right. There's nothing for you to be
scared about. Things are going to turn out just as we have
planned. As soon as I'm rested we'll make a break to get out of
the country. Only now, right now, I must know the truth about
you."
"Truth about me?" echoed Bess, shrinkingly. She seemed to be
casting back into her mind for a forgotten key. Venters himself,
as he saw her, received a pang.
"Yes--the truth. Bess, don't misunderstand. I haven't changed
that way. I love you still. I'll love you more afterward. Life
will be just as sweet--sweeter to us. We'll be--be married as
soon as ever we can. We'll be happy--but there's a devil in me. A
perverse, jealous devil! Then I've queer fancies. I forgot for a
long time. Now all those fiendish little whispers of doubt and
faith and fear and hope come torturing me again. I've got to kill
them with the truth."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," she replied, frankly.
"Then by Heaven! we'll have it over and done with!...Bess--did
Oldring love you?"
"Certainly he did."
"Did--did you love him?"
"Of course. I told you so."
"How can you tell it so lightly?" cried Venters, passionately.
"Haven't you any sense of--of--" He choked back speech. He felt
the rush of pain and passion. He seized her in rude, strong hands
and drew her close. He looked straight into her dark-blue eyes.
They were shadowing with the old wistful light, hut they were as
clear as the limpid water of the spring. They were earnest,
solemn in unutterable love and faith and abnegation. Venters
shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul. He knew she could
not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the truth,
looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in
purity.
"What are--what were you to--to Oldring?" he panted, fiercely.
"I am his daughter," she replied, instantly.
Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the
force of his feeling--then creeping blankness.
"What--was it--you said?" he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.
"I am his daughter."
"Oldring's daughter?" queried Venters, with life gathering in his
voice.
"Yes."
With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew
her close.
"All the time--you've been Oldring's daughter?"
"Yes, of course all the time--always."
"But Bess, you told me--you let me think--I made out you
were--a--so--so ashamed."
"It is my shame," she said, with voice deep and full, and now the
scarlet fired her cheek. "I told you--I'm nothing--nameless--just
Bess, Oldring's girl!"
"I know--I remember. But I never thought--" he went on,
hurriedly, huskily. "That time--when you lay dying--you
prayed--you--somehow I got the idea you were bad."
"Bad?" she asked, with a little laugh.
She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute
unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might
of the truth. She did not understand his meaning.
"Bess! Bess!" He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against
his breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held
her while he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded
sight, in the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw
Oldring. She was the rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had
loved her. He had so guarded her, so kept her from women and men
and knowledge of life that her mind was as a child's. That was
part of the secret--part of the mystery. That was the wonderful
truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure, innocent above
all innocence in the world--the innocence of lonely girlhood.
He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching,
softening. He saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love,
then suddenly strain in terrible effort of will. He heard Oldring
whisper and saw him sway like a log and fall. Then a million
bellowing, thundering voices--gunshots of conscience,
thunderbolts of remorse--dinned horribly in his ears. He had
killed Bess's father. Then a rushing wind filled his ears like a
moan of wind in the cliffs, a knell indeed--Oldring's knell.
He dropped to his knees and hid his face against Bess, and
grasped her with the hands of a drowning man.
"My God!...My God!...Oh, Bess!...Forgive me! Never mind what I've
done--what I've thought. But forgive me. I'll give you my life.
I'll live for you. I'll love you. Oh, I do love you as no man
ever loved a woman. I want you to know--to remember that I fought
a fight for you--however blind I was. I thought--I thought--never
mind what I thought--but I loved you--I asked you to marry me.
Let that--let me have that to hug to my heart. Oh, Bess, I was
driven! And I might have known! I could not rest nor sleep till I
had this mystery solved. God! how things work out!"
"Bern, you're weak--trembling--you talk wildly," cried Bess.
"You've overdone your strength. There's nothing to forgive.
There's no mystery except your love for me. You have come back to
me!"
And she clasped his head tenderly in her arms and pressed it
closely to her throbbing breast.
CHAPTER XIX. FAY
At the home of Jane Withersteen Little Fay was climbing
Lassiter's knee.
"Does oo love me?" she asked.
Lassiter, who was as serious with Fay as he was gentle and
loving, assured her in earnest and elaborate speech that he was
her devoted subject. Fay looked thoughtful and appeared to be
debating the duplicity of men or searching for a supreme test to
prove this cavalier.
"Does oo love my new mower?" she asked, with bewildering
suddenness.
Jane Withersteen laughed, and for the first time in many a day
she felt a stir of her pulse and warmth in her cheek.
It was a still drowsy summer of afternoon, and the three were
sitting in the shade of the wooded knoll that faced the
sage-slope Little Fay's brief spell of unhappylonging for her
mother--the childish, mystic gloom--had passed, and now where Fay
was there were prattle and laughter and glee. She had emerged
Iron sorrow to be the incarnation of joy and loveliness. She had
growl supernaturally sweet and beautiful. For Jane Withersteen
the child was an answer to prayer, a blessing, a possession
infinitely more precious than all she had lost. For Lassiter,
Jane divined that little Fay had become a religion.
"Does oo love my new mower?" repeated Fay.
Lassiter's answer to this was a modest and sincere affirmative.
"Why don't oo marry my new mower an' be my favver?"
Of the thousands of questions put by little Fay to Lassiter the
was the first he had been unable to answer.
"Fay--Fay, don't ask questions like that," said Jane.
"Why?"
"Because," replied Jane. And she found it strangely embarrassing
to meet the child's gaze. It seemed to her that Fay's violet eyes
looked through her with piercing wisdom.
"Oo love him, don't oo?"
"Dear child--run and play," said Jane, "but don't go too far.
Don't go from this little hill."
Fay pranced off wildly, joyous over freedom that had not been
granted her for weeks.
"Jane, why are children more sincere than grown-up persons?"
asked Lassiter.
"Are they?"
"I reckon so. Little Fay there--she sees things as they appear on
the face. An Indian does that. So does a dog. An' an Indian an' a
dog are most of the time right in what they see. Mebbe a child is
always right."
"Well, what does Fay see?" asked Jane.
"I reckon you know. I wonder what goes on in Fay's mind when she
sees part of the truth with the wise eyes of a child, an' wantin'
to know more, meets with strange falseness from you? Wait! You
are false in a way, though you're the best woman I ever knew.
What I want to say is this. Fay has taken you're pretendin'
to--to care for me for the thing it looks on the face. An' her
little formin' mind asks questions. An' the answers she gets are
different from the looks of things. So she'll grow up gradually
takin' on that falseness, an' be like the rest of the women, an'
men, too. An' the truth of this falseness to life is proved by
your appearin' to love me when you don't. Things aren't what they
seem."
"Lassiter, you're right. A child should be told the absolute
truth. But--is that possible? I haven't been able to do it, and
all my life I've loved the truth, and I've prided myself upon
being truthful. Maybe that was only egotism. I'm learning much,
my friend. Some of those blinding scales have fallen from my
eyes. And--and as to caring for you, I think I care a great deal.
How much, how little, I couldn't say. My heart is almost broken.
Lassiter. So now is not a good time to judge of affection. I can
still play and be merry with Fay. I can still dream. But when I
- jealous [´dʒeləs]
a.妒忌的 (初中英语单词) - spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- safely [´seifli] ad.安全地；平安地 (初中英语单词)
- pursuit [pə´sju:t] n.追踪；追击；事务 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- belief [bi´li:f] n.相信；信仰，信条 (初中英语单词)
- violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- magnificent [mæg´nifisənt] a.壮丽的；豪华的 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- earnest [´ə:nist] a.认真的 n.认真；诚恳 (初中英语单词)
- elaborate [i´læbərət, -reit] a.精心设计的 (初中英语单词)
- supreme [su:´pri:m, sju:-] a.最高的，无上的 (初中英语单词)
- warmth [wɔ:mθ] n.温暖；热情；激动 (初中英语单词)
- unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- blessing [´blesiŋ] n.祝福 (初中英语单词)
- modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
- sincere [sin´siə] a.真挚的；直率的 (初中英语单词)
- unable [ʌn´eibəl] a.不能的；无能为力的 (初中英语单词)
- strangely [´streindʒli] ad.奇怪地；陌生地 (初中英语单词)
- violet [´vaiələt] n.&a.紫罗兰(的)；紫色 (初中英语单词)
- grown-up [´grəun-ʌp] n.成年人 a.成熟的 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)
- stifle [´staifəl] vt.(使)窒息，闷死 (高中英语单词)
- cautiously [´kɔ:ʃəsli] ad.小心地；谨慎地 (高中英语单词)
- innocence [´inəsəns] n.无罪；天真 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- tenderly [´tendəli] ad.娇嫩地；柔和地 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtful [´θɔ:tfəl] a.深思的；体贴的 (高中英语单词)
- drowsy [´drauzi] a.困倦的；催眠的 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- joyous [´dʒɔiəs] a.充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- gotten [´gɔtn] get的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- grassy [´grɑ:si] a.多草的；青草味的 (英语四级单词)
- exhaustion [ig´zɔ:stʃən] n.用完；精疲力尽 (英语四级单词)
- bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
- wistful [´wistfəl] a.渴望的；不满足的 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- passionately [´pæʃənitli] ad.多情地；热烈地 (英语四级单词)
- gladness [´glædnis] n.愉快，高兴，喜悦 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- wooded [´wudid] a.多树林的 (英语四级单词)
- loveliness [´lʌvlinis] n.美丽，可爱 (英语四级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- awakening [ə´weikəniŋ] n.&a.觉醒(中的) (英语六级单词)
- misunderstand [,misʌndə´stænd] vt.误会 (英语六级单词)
- bewilderment [bi´wildəmənt] n.为难；狼狈；迷惑 (英语六级单词)
- nameless [´neimlis] a.无名字的；无名声的 (英语六级单词)
- inquisitive [in´kwizitiv] a.好奇的，好问的 (英语六级单词)
- horribly [´hɔrəbli] ad.恐怖地 (英语六级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
- mystic [´mistik] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (英语六级单词)
- piercing [´piəsiŋ] a.刺(贯)穿的；尖刻的 (英语六级单词)
- truthful [´tru:θfəl] a.诚实的；真实的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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