Ironheart

Tug pushed Betty from him. Out of a full tide of feeling he came to consciousness of what he was doing.

“I can’t. I can’t,” he whispered hoarsely.

She understood only that something in his mind threatened their happiness. Her eyes clung to his. She waited, breathless, still under the spell of their great moment.

“Can’t what?” at last she murmured.

“Can’t ... marry you.” He struggled for expression, visibly in anguish. “I’m ... outside the pale.”

“How—outside the pale?”

“I’ve made it impossible. We met too late.”

“You’re not—married?”

“No. I’m ... I’m—” He stuck, and started again. “You know. My vice.”

It took her a moment to remember what it was. To her it was something done with ages ago in that pre-millennial past before they had found each other. She found no conceivable relationship between it and this miracle which had befallen them.

“But—I don’t understand. You’re not—”

She flashed a star-eyed, wordless question at him, born of a swift and panicky fear.

“No. I haven’t touched it—not since I went into the hills. But—I might.”

“What nonsense! Of course, you won’t.”

“How do I know?”

“It’s too silly to think about. Why should you?”

“It’s not a matter of reason. I tried to stop before, and I couldn’t.”

“But you stopped this time.”

“Yes. I haven’t had the headaches. Suppose they began again. They’re fierce—as though the top of my head were being sawed off. If they came back—what then? How do I know I wouldn’t turn to the drug for relief?”

“They won’t come back.”

“But if they did?”

She gave him both her hands. There were gifts in her eyes—of faith, of splendid scorn for the vice he had trodden underfoot, of faith profound and sure. “If they do come back, dear, we’ll fight them together.”

He was touched, deeply. There was a smirr of mist obscuring his vision. Her high sweet courage took him by the throat. “That’s like you. I couldn’t pay you a better compliment if I hunted the world over for one. But I can’t let you in for the possibility of such a thing. I’d be a rotten cad to do it. I’ve got to buck it through alone. That’s the price I’ve got to pay.”

“The price for what?”

“For having been a weakling: for having yielded to it before.”

“You never were a weakling,” she protested indignantly. “You weren’t responsible. It was nothing but an effect of your wounds. The doctors gave it to you because you had to have it. You used it to dull the horrible pain. When the pain stopped and you were cured, you quit taking it. That’s all there is to it.”

He smiled ruefully, though he was deadly in earnest. “You make it sound as simple as a proposition in geometry. But I’m afraid, dear, it isn’t as easily disposed of as that. I started to take it for my headaches, but I kept on taking it regularly whether I needed it for the pain or not. I was a drug victim. No use dodging that. It’s the truth.”

“Well, say you were. You’re not now. You never will be again. I’d—I’d stake my head on it.”

“Yes. Because you are you. And your faith would help me—tremendously. But I know the horrible power of the thing. It’s an obsession. When the craving was on me, it was there every second. I found myself looking for all sorts of plausible excuses to give way.”

“It hadn’t any real power. You’ve proved that by breaking away from it.”

“I’ve regained my health from the hills and from my work. That stopped the trouble with my head. But how do I know it has stopped permanently?”

Wise beyond her years, she smiled tenderly. “You mentioned faith a minute ago. It’s true. We have to live by that. A thousand times a day we depend on it. We rely on the foundations of the house not to crumble and let it bury us. I never ride a horse without assuming that it won’t kick me. We have to have the courage of our hopes, don’t we?”

“For ourselves, yes. But we ought not to invite those we love into the house unless we’re sure of the foundations.”

“I’m sure enough. And, anyhow, that’s a poor cold sort of philosophy. I want to be where you are.” The slim, straight figure, the dusky, gallant little head, the eyes so luminous and quick, reproached with their eagerness his prudent caution. She offered him the greatest gift in the world, and he hung back with ifs and buts.

There was in him something that held at bay what he wanted more than anything else on earth. He could not brush aside hesitations with her magnificent scorn. He had lost the right to do it. His generosity would be at her expense.

“If you knew, dear, how much I want you. If you knew! But I’ve got to think of you, to protect you from myself. Oh, Betty, why didn’t I meet you two years ago?” His voice was poignant as a wail.

“You didn’t. But you’ve met me now. If you really want me—well, here I am.”

“Yes, you’re there, the sweetest girl ever God made—and I’m here a thousand miles away from you.”

“Not unless you think so, Tug,” she answered softly, her dusky eyes inviting him. “You’ve made me love you. What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to see you get the squarest deal I can give you, no matter what it costs.”

“Costs you or me?”

The sound in his throat was almost a groan. “Dear heart, I’m torn in two,” he told her.

“Don’t be, Tug.” Her tender eyes and wistfully smiling lips were very close to him. “It’s all right. I’m just as sure.”

He shook his head. “I’ve got to play the game,” he said miserably.

Betty talked, pleaded, argued with him, but his point of view remained unchanged.

A reaction of irritation swept her. It was in part offended modesty. She had offered herself, repeatedly, and he would not have her. How did she know that he was giving the true reason? It might be only a tactful way of getting rid of her.

“Play it then,” she replied curtly, and she walked out of the room without another look at him.

He was astounded, shocked. He had been to blame, of course, in ever letting his love leap out and surprise them. Probably he had not made clear to her the obligation that bound him not to let her tie up her life with his. He must see her at once and make her understand.

But this he could not do. A note dispatched by Ruth brought back the verbal message that she was busy. At supper Betty did not appear. The specious plea was that she had a headache. Nor was she at breakfast. From Bridget he gathered that she had gone to the Quarter Circle D E and would stay there several days.

“Lookin’ after some fencing,” the housekeeper explained. “That gir-rl’s a wonder if iver there was one.”

Tug agreed to that, but it was in his mind that the fencing would have had to wait if affairs had not come to a crisis between him and Betty. He had no intention of keeping her from her home. Over the telephone he made arrangements to stay at the Wild Horse House. Clint, perplexed and a little disturbed in mind, drove him to town.

Most of the way they covered in silence. Just before they reached the village, Reed came to what was in his mind.

“You an’ Betty had any trouble, Hollister?”

The younger man considered this a moment. “No trouble; that is, not exactly trouble.”

“She’s high-headed,” her father said, rather by way of explanation than apology. “But she’s the salt of the earth. Don’t you make any mistake about that.”

“I wouldn’t be likely to,” his guest said quietly. “She’s the finest girl I ever met.”

The cowman looked quickly at him. “Did she go to the Quarter Circle D E because of anything that took place between you an’ her?”

“I think so.” He added a moment later an explanation: “I let her see how much I thought of her. It slipped out. I hadn’t meant to.”

Reed was still puzzled. He knew his daughter liked the young fellow by his side. “Did that make her mad?” he asked.

“No. I found out she cared for me.”

“You mean—?”

“Yes.” The face of the engineer flushed. “It was a complete surprise to me. I had thought my feelings wouldn’t matter because she would never find out about them. When she did—and told me that she—cared for me, I had to tell her where I stand.”

“Just where do you stand?”

“I can’t marry. You must know why.”

Clint flicked the whip and the young team speeded. When he had steadied them to a more sedate pace, he spoke. “I reckon I do. But—you’ve given it up, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” He qualified the affirmative. “I’m not the first man who thought he’d given it up and hadn’t.”

“Got doubts about it, have you?”

“No. I think I’m done with the cursed stuff. But how do I know?” Tug went into details as to the nature of the disease. He finished with a sentence that was almost a cry. “I’d rather see her dead than married to a victim of that habit.”

“What did Betty say to that?”

“What I’d expect her to say. She wouldn’t believe there was any danger. Wouldn’t have it for a minute. You know how generous she is. Then, when I insisted on it, she seemed to think it was an excuse and walked out of the room. I haven’t seen her since. She wouldn’t let me have a chance.”

“I don’t see as there’s much you could say—unless you’re aimin’ to renig.” Reed’s voice took on a trace of resentment. “Seems to me, young fellow, it was up to you not to let things get as far as they did between you an’ Betty. That wasn’t hardly a square deal for her. You get her to tell you how she feels to you, an’ then you turn her down. I don’t like that a-tall.”

Tug did not try to defend himself. “That’s one way of looking at it. I ought never to have come to the house,” he said with humility.

“I wish you hadn’t. But wishing don’t get us anywhere. Point is, what are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t see anything to do. I’d take the first train out if it would help any,” Hollister replied despondently.

“Don’t you go. I’ll have a talk with her an’ see how she feels first.”

Hollister promised not to leave until he had heard from Reed.