第34章

Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haughtily waved his hand towards the path.They walked on in silence, without even looking at each other, until they reached a small summer-house that stood in the angle of the wall.Demorest entered."We cannot be heard here," he said curtly.

"And we can see what is going on.Good," said Blandford, coolly following him.The summer-house contained a bench and a table.

Blandford seated himself on the bench.Demorest remained standing beside the table.There was a moment's silence.

"I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you," said Blandford, with cold indifference."A few weeks ago I might perhaps have avoided you, for your own sake.But since then I have learned that among the many things I owe to--to your wife is the fact that five years ago she secretly DIVORCED ME, and that consequently my living presence could neither be a danger nor a menace to you.I see," he added, dryly, with a quick glance at Demorest's horror-stricken face, "that I was also told the truth when they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was."He stopped, half in pity of his adversary's shame, half in surprise of his own calmness.Five years before, in the tumultuous consciousness of his wrongs, he would have scarcely trusted himself face to face with the cooler and more self-controlled Demorest.He wondered at and partly admired his own coolness now, in the presence of his enemy's confusion.

"As your mind is at rest on that point," he continued, sarcastically, "I don't suppose you care to know what became of ME when I left North Liberty.But as it happens to have something to do with my being here to-night, and is a part of my business with you, you'll have to listen to it.Sit down! Very well, then--stand up! It's your own house."His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the real issue between them was more crushing to Demorest than the keenest reproach or most tragic outburst.He did not lift his eyes as Blandford resumed in a dry, business-like way:

"When I came across the plains to California, I fell in with a man about my own age--an emigrant also.I suppose I looked and acted like a crazy fool through all the journey, for he satisfied himself that I had some secret reason for leaving the States, and suspected that I was, like himself--a criminal.I afterwards learned that he was an escaped thief and assassin.Well, he played upon me all the way here, for I didn't care to reveal my real trouble to him, lest it should get back to North liberty--" He interrupted himself with a sarcastic laugh."Of course, you understand that all this while Joan was getting her divorce unknown to me, and you were marrying her--yet as I didn't know anything about it I let him compromise me to save her.But"--he stopped, his eye kindled, and, losing his self-control in what to Demorest seemed some incoherent passion, went on excitedly: "that man continued his persecution HERE--yes, HERE, in this very house, where I was a trusted and honored guest, and threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple girl who had taken pity on me--unless I helped him in a conspiracy of cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was chief.I was such a cursed sentimental fool then, that believing him capable of doing this, believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife, and to spare that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I purchased his silence by consenting.May God curse me for it!"He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the indication of an overmastering passion that to Demorest, absorbed only in the stupefying revelation of his wife's divorce and the horrible doubt it implied, seemed utterly vacant and unmeaning.

He had often dreamed of Blandford as standing before him, reproachful, indignant, and even desperate over his wife's unfaithfulness; but this insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that plump, baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent denunciation.Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated that he had come there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan, and even turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of apology as he stammered--"Then it was YOU who were Rosita's lover, and you who have been here to see her.Forgive me, Ned--if I had only known it." He stopped and timidly extended his hand.But Blandford put it aside with a cold gesture and folded his arms.

"You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demorest! I am not in the habit of making clandestine appointments with helpless women whose natural protectors I dare not face.I have never pursued an innocent girl to the house I dared not enter.When I found that Icould not honorably retain Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her roof.When I believed that even if I broke with this scoundrel--as I did--I was still legally if not morally tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I left her never to return.And I tore my heart out to do it."The tears were standing in his eyes.Demorest regarded him again with vacant wonder.Tears!--not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him--but for this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism.It was horrible!