The Night Riders Part 36

His words had raised hope within her. But with his next he dashed it.

"Brave? It was his duty," he snapped, resentful immediately. The red eyes were turned upon his daughter, and she fancied she saw something utterly cruel in their painful depths. "You are uncommonly interested," he went on slowly. "I was warned before that he and you were too thick. I told you of it--cautioned you. Isn't that sufficient, or have I to----" He left his threat unfinished.

A color flushed slowly into Diane's cheeks and her eyes sparkled.

"No, it isn't sufficient, father. You have no right to stop me speaking to Mr. Tresler. I have bowed to your decision with regard to the other men on the ranch. There, perhaps, you had a right--a parent's right. But it is different with Mr. Tresler. He is a gentleman. As for character, you yourself admit it is unimpeachable.

Then what right have you to refuse to allow me even speech with him?

It is absurd, tyrannical; and I refuse to obey you."

The frowning brows drew sharply down over the man's eyes. And Diane understood the sudden rising of storm behind the mask-like face. She waited with a desperate calmness. It was the moral bravery prompted by her new-born love.

But the storm held off, controlled by that indomitable will which made Julian Marbolt an object of fear to all who came into contact with him.

"You are an ungrateful girl, a foolish girl," he said quietly. "You are ungrateful that you refuse to obey me; and foolish, that you think to marry him."

Diane sprang to her feet. "I--how----"

"Tut! Do not protest. I know you have promised to be his wife. If you denied it you would lie." He sat for a moment enjoying the girl's discomfort. Then he went on, with a cruel smile about his lips as she returned to her seat with a movement that was almost a collapse.

"That's better," he said, following her action by means of his wonderful instinct. "Now let us be sensible--very sensible."

His tone had become persuasive, such as might have been used to a child, and the girl wondered what further cruelty it masked. She had not long to wait.

"You are going to give up this madness," he said coldly. "You will show yourself amenable to reason--my reason--or I shall enforce my demands in another way."

The girl's exasperation was growing with each moment, but she kept silence, waiting for him to finish.

"You will never marry this man," he went on, with quiet emphasis. "Nor any other man while I live. There is no marriage for you, my girl.

There can be no marriage for you. And the more 'unimpeachable' a man's character the less the possibility."

"I don't pretend to understand you," Diane replied, with a coldness equal to her father's own.

"No; perhaps you don't." The man chuckled fiendishly.

Tears sprang into the girl's eyes. She could no longer check them.

And with them came the protest that she was also powerless to withhold.

"Why may I not marry? Why can I not marry? Surely I can claim the right of every woman to marry the man of her choice. I know you have no good will for me, father. Why, I cannot understand. I have always obeyed you; I have ever striven to do my duty. If there has never been any great affection displayed, it is not my fault. For, ever since I can remember, you have done your best to kill the love I would have given you. How have I been ungrateful? What have I to be grateful for?

I cannot remember one single kindness you have ever shown me. You have set up a barrier between me and the world outside this ranch. I am a prisoner here. Why? Am I so hateful? Have I no claims on your toleration? Am I not your own flesh and blood?"

"No!"

The man's answer came with staggering force. It was the bursting of the storm of pa.s.sion, which even his will could no longer restrain.

But it was the whole storm, for he went no further. It was Diane who spoke next. Her cheeks had a.s.sumed an ashen hue, and her lips trembled so that she could scarcely frame her words.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"Tut! Your crazy obstinacy drives me to it," her father answered impatiently, but with perfect control. "Oh, you need have no fear.

There is no legal shame to you. But there is that which will hit you harder, I think."

"Father! What are you saying?"

Something of the man's meaning was growing upon her. Old hints and innuendoes against her mother were recalled by his words. Her throat parched while she watched the relentless face of this man who was still her father.

"Saying? You know the story of my blindness. You know I spent three years visiting nearly every eye-doctor in Europe. But what you don't know, and shall know, is that I returned home to Jamaica at the end of that time to find myself the father of a three-days'-old baby girl."

The man's teeth were clenched, rage and pain distorted his face, rendering his sightless stare a hideous thing. "Yes," he went on, but now more to himself, "I returned home to that, and in time to hear the last words your mother uttered in life; in time to feel--feel her death-struggles." He mouthed his words with unmistakable relish, and relapsed into silence.

Diane fell back with a bitter cry. The cry roused her father.

"Well?" he continued. "You'll give this man up--now?"

For some minutes there was no answer. The girl sat like a statue carved in dead white stone; and the expression of her face was as stony as the mould of her features. Her blood was chilled; her brain refused its office; and her heart--it was as though that fount of life lay crushed within her bosom. Even the man lying sick on the bed beside her had no meaning for her.

"Well?" her father demanded impatiently. "You are going to give Tresler up now?"

She heard him this time. With a rush everything came to her, and a feeling of utter helplessness swept over her. Oh, the shame of it!

Suddenly she flung forward on the bed and sobbed her heart out beside the man she must give up. He had been the one bright ray in the dull gray of her life. His love, come so quickly, so suddenly, to her had leavened the memory of her unloved years. Their recollection had been thrust into the background to give place to the suns.h.i.+ne of a precious first love. And now it must all go. There was no other course open to her, she told herself; and in this decision was revealed her father's consummate devilishness. He understood her straightforward pride, if he had no appreciation of it. Then, suddenly, there came a feeling of resentment and hatred for the author of her misfortune, and she sat up with the tears only half dry on her cheeks. Her father's dead eyes were upon her, and their hateful depths seemed to be searching her.

She knew she must submit to his will. He mastered her as he mastered everybody else.

"It is not what I will," she said, in a low voice. "I understand; our lives must remain apart." Then anger brought harshness into her tone.

"I would have given him up of my own accord had I known. I could not have thrust the shame of my birth upon him. But you--you have kept this from me all these years, saving it, in your heartless way, for such a moment as this. Why have you told me? Why do you keep me at your side? Oh, I hate you!"

"Yes, yes, of course you do," her father said, quite unmoved by her attack. "Now you are tasting something--only something--of the bitterness of my life. And it is good that you should. The parent's sins--the children. Yes, you certainly can feel----"

"For heaven's sake leave me!" the girl broke in, unable to stand the taunting--the hideous enjoyment of the man.

"Not yet; I haven't done. This man----" The rancher leant over the bed, and one hand felt its way over Tresler's body until it rested over his heart. "At one time I was glad he came here. I had reasons.

His money was as good as in my pocket. He would have bought stock from me at a goodish profit. Now I have changed my mind. I would sacrifice that. It would be better perhaps--perhaps. No, he is not dead yet. But he may die, eh, Diane? It would be better were he to die; it would save your explanation to him. Yes, let him die. You are not going to marry him. You would not care to see him marry another, as, of course, he will. Let him die. Love? Love? Why, it would be kindness to yourselves. Yes, let him die."

"You--you--wretch!" Diane was on her feet, and her eyes blazed down upon the cruel, working face before her. The cry was literally wrung from her. "And that is the man who was ready to give his life for your interests. That is the man whose cleverness and bravery you even praised. You want me to refuse him the trifling aid I can give him.

You are a monster! You have parted us, but it is not sufficient; you want his life."

She suddenly bent over and seized her father's hand, where it rested upon Tresler's heart, and dragged it away.

"Take your hand off him; don't touch him!" she cried in a frenzy. "You are not----"

But she got no further. The lean, sinewy hand had closed over hers, and held them both as in a vice; and the pressure made her cry out.

"Listen!" he said fiercely. He, too, was standing now, and his tall figure dwarfed hers. "He is to be moved out of here. I will have Jake to see to it in the morning. And you shall know what it is to thwart me if you dare to interfere."

He abruptly released her hands and turned away; but he shot round again as he heard her reply.

"I shall nurse him," she said.

"You will not."

The girl laughed hysterically. The scene had been too much for her, and she was on the verge of breaking down.

"We shall see," she cried after him, as he pa.s.sed out of the room.