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The Alaskan: A Novel of The North, a novel by James Oliver Curwood |
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Chapter 7 |
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_ CHAPTER VII That it was past midnight, and Mary Standish had deliberately come to his room, entering it and closing the door without a word or a nod of invitation from him, seemed incredible to Alan. After his first explosion of astonishment he stood mute, while the girl looked at him steadily and her breath came a little quickly. But she was not excited. Even in his amazement he could see that. What he had thought was fright had gone out of her eyes. But he had never seen her so white, and never had she appeared quite so slim and childish-looking as while she stood there in these astounding moments with her back against the door. The pallor of her face accentuated the rich darkness of her hair. Even her lips were pale. But she was not embarrassed. Her eyes were clear and unafraid now, and in the poise of her head and body was a sureness of purpose that staggered him. A feeling of anger, almost of personal resentment, began to possess him as he waited for her to speak. This, at last, was the cost of his courtesies to her, The advantage she was taking of him was an indignity and an outrage, and his mind flashed to the suspicion that Rossland was standing just outside the door. In another moment he would have brushed her aside and opened it, but her quiet face held him. The tenseness was fading out of it. He saw her lips tremble, and then a miracle happened. In her wide-open, beautiful eyes tears were gathering. Even then she did not lower her glance or bury her face in her hands, but looked at him bravely while the tear-drops glistened like diamonds on her cheeks. He felt his heart give way. She read his thoughts, had guessed his suspicion, and he was wrong. "You--you will have a seat, Miss Standish?" he asked lamely, inclining his head toward the cabin chair. "No. Please let me stand." She drew in a deep breath. "It is late, Mr. Holt?" "Rather an irregular hour for a visit such as this," he assured her. "Half an hour after midnight, to be exact. It must be very important business that has urged you to make such a hazard aboard ship, Miss Standish." For a moment she did not answer him, and he saw the little heart-throb in her white throat. "Would Belinda Mulrooney have considered this a very great hazard, Mr. Holt? In a matter of life and death, do you not think she would have come to your cabin at midnight--even aboard ship? And it is that with me--a matter of life and death. Less than an hour ago I came to that decision. I could not wait until morning. I had to see you tonight." "And why me?" he asked. "Why not Rossland, or Captain Rifle, or some other? Is it because--" He did not finish. He saw the shadow of something gather in her eyes, as if for an instant she had felt a stab of humiliation or of pain, but it was gone as quickly as it came. And very quietly, almost without emotion, she answered him. "I know how you feel. I have tried to place myself in your position. It is all very irregular, as you say. But I am not ashamed. I have come to you as I would want anyone to come to me under similar circumstances, if I were a man. If watching you, thinking about you, making up my mind about you is taking an advantage--then I have been unfair, Mr. Holt. But I am not sorry. I trust you. I know you will believe me good until I am proved bad. I have come to ask you to help me. Would you make it possible for another human being to avert a great tragedy if you found it in your power to do so?" He felt his sense of judgment wavering. Had he been coolly analyzing such a situation in the detached environment of the smoking-room, he would have called any man a fool who hesitated to open his cabin door and show his visitor out. But such a thought did not occur to him now. He was thinking of the handkerchief he had found the preceding midnight. Twice she had come to his cabin at a late hour. "It would be my inclination to make such a thing possible," he said, answering her question. "Tragedy is a nasty thing." She caught the hint of irony in his voice. If anything, it added to her calmness. He was to suffer no weeping entreaties, no feminine play of helplessness and beauty. Her pretty mouth was a little firmer and the tilt of her dainty chin a bit higher. "Of course, I can't pay you," she said. "You are the sort of man who would resent an offer of payment for what I am about to ask you to do. But I must have help. If I don't have it, and quickly"--she shuddered slightly and tried to smile--"something very unpleasant will happen, Mr. Holt," she finished. "If you will permit me to take you to Captain Rifle--" "No. Captain Rifle would question me. He would demand explanations. You will understand when I tell you what I want. And I will do that if I may have your word of honor to hold in confidence what I tell you, whether you help me or not. Will you give me that pledge?" "Yes, if such a pledge will relieve your mind, Miss Standish." He was almost brutally incurious. As he reached for a cigar, he did not see the sudden movement she made, as if about to fly from his room, or the quicker throb that came in her throat. When he turned, a faint flush was gathering in her cheeks. "I want to leave the ship," she said. The simplicity of her desire held him silent. "And I must leave it tonight, or tomorrow night--before we reach Cordova." "Is that--your problem?" he demanded, astonished. "No. I must leave it in such a way that the world will believe I am dead. I can not reach Cordova alive." At last she struck home and he stared at her, wondering if she were insane. Her quiet, beautiful eyes met his own with unflinching steadiness. His brain all at once was crowded with questioning, but no word of it came to his lips. "You can help me," he heard her saying in the same quiet, calm voice, softened so that one could not have heard it beyond the cabin door. "I haven't a plan. But I know you can arrange one--if you will. It must appear to be an accident. I must disappear, fall overboard, anything, just so the world will believe I am dead. It is necessary. And I can not tell you why. I can not. Oh, I _can not_." A note of passion crept into her voice, but it was gone in an instant, leaving it cold and steady again. A second time she tried to smile. He could see courage, and a bit of defiance, shining in her eyes. "I know what you are thinking, Mr. Holt. You are asking yourself if I am mad, if I am a criminal, what my reason can be, and why I haven't gone to Rossland, or Captain Rifle, or some one else. And the only answer I can make is that I have come to you because you are the only man in the world--in this hour--that I have faith in. Some day you will understand, if you help me. If you do not care to help me--" She stopped, and he made a gesture. "Yes, if I don't? What will happen then?" "I shall be forced to the inevitable," she said. "It is rather unusual, isn't it, to be asking for one's life? But that is what I mean." "I'm afraid--I don't quite understand." "Isn't it clear, Mr. Holt? I don't like to appear spectacular, and I don't want you to think of me as theatrical--even now. I hate that sort of thing. You must simply believe me when I tell you it is impossible for me to reach Cordova alive. If you do not help me to disappear, help me to live--and at the same time give all others the impression that I am dead--then I must do the other thing. I must really die." For a moment his eyes blazed angrily. He felt like taking her by the shoulders and shaking her, as he would have shaken the truth out of a child. "You come to me with a silly threat like that, Miss Standish? A threat of suicide?" "If you want to call it that--yes." "And you expect me to believe you?" "I had hoped you would." She had his nerves going. There was no doubt of that. He half believed her and half disbelieved. If she had cried, if she had made the smallest effort to work upon his sentiment, he would have disbelieved utterly. But he was not blind to the fact that she was making a brave fight, even though a lie was behind it, and with a consciousness of pride that bewildered him. She was not humiliating herself. Even when she saw the struggle going on within him she made no effort to turn the balance in her favor. She had stated the facts, as she claimed them to be. Now she waited. Her long lashes glistened a little. But her eyes were clear, and her hair glowed softly, so softly that he would never forget it, as she stood there with her back against the door, nor the strange desire that came to him--even then--to touch it with his hand. He nipped off the end of his cigar and lighted a match. "It is Rossland," he said. "You're afraid of Rossland?" "In a way, yes; in a large way, no. I would laugh at Rossland if it were not for the other." The _other_! Why the deuce was she so provokingly ambiguous? And she had no intention of explaining. She simply waited for him to decide. "What other?" he demanded. "I can not tell you. I don't want you to hate me. And you would hate me if I told you the truth." "Then you confess you are lying," he suggested brutally. Even this did not stir her as he had expected it might. It did not anger her or shame her. But she raised a pale hand and a little handkerchief to her eyes, and he turned toward the open port, puffing at his cigar, knowing she was fighting to keep the tears back. And she succeeded. "No, I am not lying. What I have told you is true. It is because I will not lie that I have not told you more. And I thank you for the time you have given me, Mr. Holt. That you have not driven me from your cabin is a kindness which I appreciate. I have made a mistake, that is all. I thought--" "How could I bring about what you ask?" he interrupted. "I don't know. You are a man. I believed you could plan a way, but I see now how foolish I have been. It is impossible." Her hand reached slowly for the knob of the door. "Yes, you are foolish," he agreed, and his voice was softer. "Don't let such thoughts overcome you, Miss Standish. Go back to your cabin and get a night's sleep. Don't let Rossland worry you. If you want me to settle with that man--" "Good night, Mr. Holt." She was opening the door. And as she went out she turned a little and looked at him, and now she was smiling, and there were tears in her eyes. "Good night." "Good night." The door closed behind her. He heard her retreating footsteps. In half a minute he would have called her back. But it was too late. _ |
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