The Cattle-Baron's Daughter

The maid writhed in an agony of fear, but she stood still shivering when Hetty turned towards her with a blanched face that emphasized the ominous glow in her dark eyes.

“You wicked woman!” she said. “How dare you tell me that?”

“I mean Mr. Clavering. Oh – !”

The maid stopped abruptly, for Flora Schuyler drove her towards the door. “Go and undo your work,” she said. “Slip down at the back of the bluff.”

“I daren’t – I tried,” and the girl quivered in Miss Schuyler’s grasp. “If I could have warned him I would not have told you; but Joe saw me, and I was afraid. I told him to come at nine.”

It was evident that she was capable of doing very little just then, and Flora Schuyler drew her out into the corridor.

“Go straight to your room and stay there,” she said, and closing the door, glanced at Hetty. “It is quite simple. This woman has taken your note-paper and written Larry. He is in the bluff now, and I think she is right. Your friends mean to make him prisoner or shoot him.”

“Stop, and go away,” said Hetty hoarsely. “I am going to him.”

Flora Schuyler placed her back to the door, and raised her hand. “No,” she said, very quietly. “It would be better if I went in place of you. Sit down, and don’t lose your head, Hetty!”

Hetty seized her arm. “You can’t – how could I let you? Larry belongs to me. Let me go. Every minute is worth ever so much.”

“There are twenty of them yet. He has come too early,” said Flora Schuyler, with a glance at the clock. “Any way, you must understand what you are going to do. It was Clavering arranged this, but your father knew what he was doing and I think he knows everything. If you leave this house to-night, Hetty, everybody will know you warned Larry, and it will make a great difference to you. It will gain you the dislike of all your friends and place a barrier between you and your father which, I think, will never be taken away again!”

Hetty laughed a very bitter laugh, and then grew suddenly quiet.

“Stand aside, Flo,” she said. “Nobody but Larry wants me now.”

Miss Schuyler saw that she was determined, and drew aside. “Then,” she said, with a little quiver in her voice, “because I think he is in peril you must go, my dear. But we must be very careful, and I am coming with you as far as I dare.”

She closed the door, and then her composure seemed to fail her as they went out into the corridor; and it was Hetty who, treading very softly, took the lead. Flitting like shadows, they reached the head of the stairway, and stopped a moment there, Hetty’s heart beating furiously. The passage beneath them was shadowy, but a blaze of light and a jingle of glasses came out of the half-opened door of the hall, where Torrance sat with his guests; and while they waited, they heard his voice and recognized the vindictive ring in it. Hetty trembled as she grasped the bannister.

“Flo,” she said, “they may come out in a minute. We have got to slip by somehow.”

They went down the stairway with skirts drawn close about them, in swift silence, and Hetty held her breath as she flitted past the door. There was a faint swish of draperies as Flora Schuyler followed her, but the murmur of voices drowned it; and in another minute Hetty had opened a door at the back of the building. Then, she gasped with relief as she felt the cold wind on her face, and, with Miss Schuyler close behind her, crept through the shadow of the house towards the bluff. When the gloom of the trees closed about them, she clutched her companion’s shoulder.

“No,” she said hoarsely, “not that way. Joe is watching there. We must go right through the bluff and down the opposite side of it.”

They floundered forward, sinking ankle-deep in withered leaves and clammy mould, tripping over rotting branches that ripped their dresses, and stumbling into dripping undergrowth. There was no moon now, and it was very dark, and more than once Flora Schuyler valiantly suppressed the scream that would have been a vast relief to her, and struggled on as silently as she could behind her companion; but it seemed to her that anybody a mile away could have heard them. Then, a little trail led them out of the bluff on the opposite side to the house, and the roar of the river grew louder as they hastened on, still in the gloom of the trees, until something a little blacker than the shadows behind it grew into visibility; and when it moved a little, Flora Schuyler touched Hetty’s arm.

“Yes,” she said. “It is Larry. If I didn’t know the kind of man he is, I would not let you go. Kiss me, Hetty.”

Hetty stood still a second, for she understood, and then very quietly put both hands on Flora Schuyler’s shoulders and kissed her.

“It can’t be very wrong; and you have been a good friend, Flo,” she said.

She turned, and Flora Schuyler, standing still, saw her slim figure flit across a strip of frost-bleached sod as the moon shone through.

XXIX

HETTY DECIDES

It was in a pale flash of silvery light that Larry saw the girl against the gloom of the trees. The moaning of the birches and roar of the river drowned the faint sound her footsteps made, and she came upon him so suddenly, statuesque and slender in her trailing evening dress and etherealized by the moonlight, that as he looked down on the blanched whiteness of her upturned face, emphasized by the dusky hair, he almost fancied she had materialized out of the harmonies of the night. For a moment he sat motionless, with the rifle glinting across his saddle, and a tightening grip of the bridle as the big horse flung up its head, and then, with a sudden stirring of his blood, moved his foot in the stirrup and would have swung himself down if Hetty had not checked him.

“No!” she said. “Back into the shadow of the trees!”

Larry, seeing the fear in her face, touched the horse with his heel, and wheeled it with its head towards the house. He could see the warm gleam from the windows between the birches. Then, he turned to the girl, who stood gasping at his stirrup.

“You sent for me, dear, and I have come. Can’t you give me just a minute now?” he said.

“No,” said Hetty breathlessly, “you must go. The Sheriff is here waiting for you!”

Larry laughed a little scornful laugh, and slackening the bridle, sat still, looking down on her very quietly.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You sent for me!”

“No,” the girl again gasped. “Oh, Larry, go away! Clavering and the others who are most bitter against you are in the house.”

Instinctively Larry moved his hand on the rifle and glanced towards the building. He could see it dimly, but no sound from it reached him, and Hetty, looking up, saw his face grow stern.

“Still,” he persisted, with a curious quietness, “somebody sent a note to me!”

“Yes,” said Hetty, turning away from him, “it was my wicked maid. Clavering laid the trap for you.”

The man sat very still a moment, and then bent with a swift resoluteness towards his companion.

“And you came to warn me?” he said. “Hetty, dear, look up.”

Hetty glanced at him and saw the glow in his eyes, but she clenched her hand, and would have struck the horse in an agony of fear if Larry had not touched him with his heel and swung a pace away from her.

“Oh,” she gasped, “why will you waste time! Larry, they will kill you if they find you.”

Once more the little scornful smile showed upon Grant’s lips, but it vanished and Hetty saw only the light in his eyes.

“Listen a moment, dear,” he said. “I have tried to do the square thing, but I think to-night’s work relieves me of the obligation. Hetty, can’t you see that your father would never give you to me, and you must choose between us sooner or later? I have waited a long while, and would try to wait longer if it would relieve you of the difficulty, but you will have to make the decision, and it can’t be harder now than it would be in the future. Promise me you will go back to New York with Miss Schuyler, and stay with her until I come for you.”

Hetty trembled visibly, and the moonlight showed the crimson in her cheeks; but she looked up at him bravely. “Larry,” she said, “you are sure – quite sure – you want me, and will be kind to me?”

The man bent his head solemnly. “My dear, I have longed for you for eight weary years – and I think you could trust me.”

“Then,” and Hetty’s voice was very uneven, though she still met his eyes. “Larry, you can take me now.”

Larry set his lips for a moment and his face showed curiously white. “Think, my dear!” he said hoarsely. “It would not be fair to you. Miss Schuyler will take you away in a week or two, and I will come for you. I dare not do anything you may be sorry for; and they may find you are not in the house. You must go home before my strength gives way.”

The emotion she had struggled with swept Hetty away. “Go home!” she said passionately. “They wanted to kill you – and I can never go back now. If I did, they would know I had warned you – and believe – Can’t you understand, Larry?”

Then, the situation flashed upon Grant, and he recognized, as Hetty had done, that she had cast herself adrift when she left the house to warn him. He knew the cattle-baron’s vindictiveness, and that his daughter had committed an offence he could not forgive. That left but one escape from the difficulty, and it was the one his own passions, which he had striven to crush down, urged him to.

“Then,” he said in a strained voice, “you must come with me. We can be married to-morrow.”

Hetty held up her hands to him. “I am ready. Oh, be quick. They may come any minute!”