Howard R. Garis - "Umboo, the Elephant"

William Shakespeare - "The life and death of King John"

Samuel Butler - "Unconscious Memory"

Thomas H. Huxley - "Time and Life"

The Silver Horde

R >> Rex Beach >> The Silver Horde




The first and only kiss he had ever given her burned fresh upon her lips.
She recalled that evening they had spent alone in this very room, when he
had seemed to waver and her hopes had risen at the dawning of a new light
in his eyes. At the memory she cried aloud, as if her heart would break:

"Boyd! Boyd!"

He entered noiselessly and took her in his arms.

"Yes, dear!" he murmured. But she rose with a startled exclamation, and
wrenched herself from his embrace. The piano gave forth a discordant
crash. Shrinking back as from an apparition, she stared into his flushed
and smiling face; then breathed:

"You! Why are you--here!"

"Because I love you!"

She closed her eyes and swayed as if under the spell of wonderful music;
he saw the throbbing pulse at her throat. Then she flung out her hands,
crying, piteously:

"Go away, please, before I find it is only another dream."

She raised her lids to find him still standing there then felt him with
fluttering fingers.

"Our dreams have come true," he said, gently, and strove to imprison her
hand.

"No, no!" Her voice broke wildly. "You don't mean it. You--you haven't
come to stay."

"I have come to stay if you will let me, dear."

She broke from his grasp end moved quickly away.

"Why are you here? I left you out there with--her. I made your way clear.
Why have you come back? What more can I do? Dear God! What more can I do?"
She was panting as if desperately frightened.

"There is but one thing more you can do to make me happy. You can be my
wife."

"But I don't understand!" She shook her head hopelessly. "You are jesting
with me. You love Miss Wayland."

"No. Miss Wayland leaves to-night, and I shall never see her again."

"Then you won't marry her?"

"No."

A dull color rose to Cherry Malotte's cheeks; she swallowed as if her
throat were very dry, and said, slowly:

"Then she refused you in spite of everything, and you have come to me
because of what I told you this afternoon. You are doing this out of pity
--or is it because you are angry with her? No, no, Boyd! I won't have it.
I don't want your pity--I don't want what she cast off."

"It has taken me a long time to find myself, Cherry, for I have been
blinded by a vision," he answered. "I have been dreaming, and I never saw
clearly till to-day. I came away of my own free will; and I came straight
to you because it is you I love and shall always love."

The girl suddenly began to beat her hands together.

"You--forget what I--have been!" she cried, in a voice that tore her
lover's heartstrings. "You can't want to--marry me?"

"To-night," he said, simply, and held out his arms to her. "I love you and
I want you. That is all I know or care about."

He found her upon his breast, sobbing and shaking as if she had sought
shelter there from some great peril. He buried his face in the soft masses
of her hair, whispering fondly to her till her emotion spent itself. She
turned her face shyly up at length and pressed her lips to his. Then,
holding herself away from him, she said, with a half-doubtful yet radiant
look:

"It is not too late yet. I will give you one final chance to save
yourself."

He shook his head.

"Then I have done my duty!" She snuggled closer to him. "And you have no
regrets?"

"Only one. I am sorry that I can't give you more than my name. I may have
to go out into the world and begin all over if Mr. Wayland carries out his
threat. I may be the poorest of the poor."

"That will be my opportunity to show how well I love you. You can be no
poorer than I in this world's goods."

"You at least have your copper-mine."

"I have no mine," said the girl. "Not even the smallest interest in one."

"But--I don't understand."

She dropped her eyes. "Mr. Hilliard is a hard man to deal with. I had to
give him all my share in the claims."

"I suppose you mean you sold out to him."

"No! When I found you could not raise the money, I gave him my share in
the mine. With that as a consideration, he made you the loan. You are not
angry, are you?"

"Angry!" Emerson's tone conveyed a supreme gladness. "You don't know--how
happy you have made me."

"Hark!" She laid a finger upon his lips. Through the breathless night
there came the faint rumble of a ship's chains.

"_The Grande Dame!_" he cried. "She sails at the flood tide."

They stood together in the open doorway of the little house and watched
the yacht's lights as they described a great curve through the darkness,
then slowly faded into nothingness down the bay. Cherry drew herself
closer to Boyd.

"What a wonderful Providence guides us, after all," she said. "That girl
had everything in the world, and I was poor--so poor--until this hour. God
grant she may some day be as rich as I!"

Out on _The Grande Dame_ the girl who had everything in the world
maintained a lonely vigil at the rail, straining with tragic eyes until
the sombre shadows that marked the shores of the land she feared had
shrunk to a faint, low-lying streak on the horizon. Then she turned and
went below, numbed by the knowledge that she was very poor and very
wretched, and had never understood.

THE END

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