第34章

"Jim reckoned it was you hangin' round the rocks, but I couldn't tell at that distance.Seemed you borrowed a hat and coat.Well--it's all fixed, and we've no time to lose.There's a coasting steamer just dropping down below the Heads, and it will take you aboard.But I can tell you you've kicked up a h-ll of a row over there." He stopped, evidently at some sign from her guest.The rest of the man's speech followed in a hurried whisper, which was stopped again by the voice she knew."No.Certainly not." The next moment his tall figure was darkening the door of the kitchen;his hand was outstretched."Good-by, Mrs.Bunker, and many thanks for your hospitality.My friends here," he turned grimly to the men behind him, "think I ought to ask you to keep this a secret even from your husband.I DON'T! They also think that I ought to offer you money for your kindness.I DON'T! But if you will honor me by keeping this ring in remembrance of it"--he took a heavy seal ring from his finger--"it's the only bit of jewelry I have about me--I'll be very glad.Good-by!" She felt for a moment the firm, soft pressure of his long, thin fingers around her own, and then--he was gone.The sound of retreating oars grew fainter and fainter and was lost.The same reserve of delicacy which now appeared to her as a duty kept her from going to the window to watch the destination of the boat.No, he should go as he came, without her supervision or knowledge.

Nor did she feel lonely afterwards.On the contrary, the silence and solitude of the isolated domain had a new charm.They kept the memory of her experience intact, and enabled her to refill it with his presence.She could see his tall figure again pausing before her cabin, without the incongruous association of another personality; she could hear his voice again, unmingled with one more familiar.For the first time, the regular absence of her husband seemed an essential good fortune instead of an accident of their life.For the experience belonged to HER, and not to him and her together.He could not understand it; he would have acted differently and spoiled it.She should not tell him anything of it, in spite of the stranger's suggestion, which, of course, he had only made because he didn't know Zephas as well as she did.For Mrs.Bunker was getting on rapidly; it was her first admission of the conjugal knowledge that one's husband is inferior to the outside estimate of him.The next step--the belief that he was deceiving HER as he was THEM--would be comparatively easy.

Nor should she show him the ring.The stranger had certainly never said anything about that! It was a heavy ring, with a helmeted head carved on its red carnelian stone, and what looked like strange letters around it.It fitted her third finger perfectly;but HIS fingers were small, and he had taken it from his little finger.She should keep it herself.Of course, if it had been money, she would have given it to Zephas; but the stranger knew that she wouldn't take money.How firmly he had said that "Idon't!" She felt the warm blood fly to her fresh young face at the thought of it.He had understood her.She might be living in a poor cabin, doing all the housework herself, and her husband only a fisherman, but he had treated her like a lady.

And so the afternoon passed.The outlying fog began to roll in at the Golden Gate, obliterating the headland and stretching a fleecy bar across the channel as if shutting out from vulgar eyes the way that he had gone.Night fell, but Zephas had not yet come.This was unusual, for he was generally as regular as the afternoon "trades" which blew him there.There was nothing to detain him in this weather and at this season.She began to be vaguely uneasy;then a little angry at this new development of his incompatibility.

Then it occurred to her, for the first time in her wifehood, to think what she would do if he were lost.Yet, in spite of some pain, terror, and perplexity at the possibility, her dominant thought was that she would be a free woman to order her life as she liked.

It was after ten before his lateen sail flapped in the little cove.

She was waiting to receive him on the shore.His good-humored hirsute face was slightly apologetic in expression, but flushed and disturbed with some new excitement to which an extra glass or two of spirits had apparently added intensity.The contrast between his evident indulgence and the previous abstemiousness of her late guest struck her unpleasantly."Well--I declare," she said indignantly, "so THAT'S what kept you!""No," he said quickly; "there's been awful times over in 'Frisco!

Everybody just wild, and the Vigilance Committee in session.Jo Henderson's killed! Shot by Wynyard Marion in a duel! He'll be lynched, sure as a gun, if they ketch him.""But I thought men who fought duels always went free.""Yes, but this ain't no common duel; they say the whole thing was planned beforehand by them Southern fire-eaters to get rid o'

Henderson because he's a Northern man and anti-slavery, and that they picked out Colonel Marion to do it because he was a dead shot.

They got him to insult Henderson, so he was bound to challenge Marion, and that giv' Marion the chyce of weppings.It was a reg'lar put up job to kill him.""And what's all this to do with you?" she asked, with irritation.

"Hold on, won't you! and I'll tell you.I was pickin' up nets off Saucelito about noon, when I was hailed by one of them Vigilance tugs, and they set me to stand off and on the shore and watch that Marion didn't get away, while they were scoutin' inland.Ye see THE DUEL TOOK PLACE JUST OVER THE BLUFF THERE--BEHIND YE--and they allowed that Marion had struck away north for Mendocino to take ship there.For after overhaulin' his second's boat, they found out that they had come away from Saucelito ALONE.But they sent a tug around by sea to Mendocino to head him off there, while they're closin' in around him inland.They're bound to catch him sooner or later.But you ain't listenin', Mollie?"She was--in every fibre--but with her head turned towards the window, and the invisible Golden Gate through which the fugitive had escaped.For she saw it all now--that glorious vision--her high-bred, handsome guest and Wynyard Marion were one and the same person.And this rough, commonplace man before her--her own husband--had been basely set to capture him!