University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

It must be remembered that when Mrs. Stanley carried off skipper Glover
to help her investigate the religion of the Moquis, she left Coronado alone with
Clara in one of the interior rooms of the chief's house.

Thurstane, to be sure, was in the next room and in sight; but he had with
him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter;
they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point
on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was
a pretty smart jabbering. Thus Coronado could say his say without being overheard
or interrupted.

For a little while he babbled commonplaces. The truth is that the sight of
the girl had unsettled his resolutions a little. While he was away from her, he
could figure to himself how he would push her into taking him at once, or how,
if she refused him, he would let loose upon her the dogs of fate. But once face
to face with her, he found that his resolutions had dispersed like a globule of
mercury under a hammer, and that he needed a few moments to scrape them together
again. So he prattled nothings while he meditated; and you would have
thought that he cared for the nothings. He had that faculty; he could mentally
ride two horses at once; he would have made a good diplomatist.

His mind glanced at the past while it peered into the future. What a sinuous
underground plot the superficial incidents of this journey covered! To
his fellow-travellers it was a straight line; to him it was a complicated and endless
labyrinth. How much more he had to think of than they! Only he knew
that Pedro Muñoz was dead, that Clara Van Dieman was an heiress, that she
was in danger of being abandoned to the desert, that Thurstane was in danger
of assassination. Nothing that he had set out to do was yet done, and some of
it he must absolutely accomplish, and that shortly. How much? That depended
upon this girl. If she accepted him, his course would be simple, and he
would be spared the perils of crime.

Meantime, he looked at Clara even more frankly and calmly than she looked
at him. He showed no guilt or remorse in his face, because he felt none in his
heart. It must be understood distinctly that the man was almost as destitute
of a conscience as it is possible for a member of civilized society to be. He
knew what the world called right and wrong; but the mere opinion of the world

had no weight with him; that is, none as against his own opinion. His rule of
life was to do what he wanted to do, providing he could accomplish it without
receiving a damage. You can hardly imagine a being whose interior existence
was more devoid of complexity and of mixed motives than was Coronado's.
Thus he was quite able to contemplate the possible death of Clara, and still look
her calmly in the face and tell her that he loved her.

The girl returned his gaze tranquilly, because she had no suspicions of his
profound wickedness. By nature confiding and reverential, she trusted those
who professed friendship, and respected those who were her elders, especially
if they belonged in any manner to her own family. Considering herself under
obligations to Coronado, and not guessing that he was capable of doing her a
harm, she was truly grateful to him and wished him well with all her heart. If
her eye now and then dropped under his, it was because she feared a repetition
of his offer of marriage, and hated to pain him with a refusal.

The commonplaces lasted longer than the man had meant, for he could not bring
himself promptly to take the leap of fate. But at last came the dance; the chief
and his comrades led Thurstane away to look at it; now was the time to talk of
this fateful betrothal.

“Something is passing outside,” observed Clara. “Shall we go to see?”

“I am entirely at your command,” replied Coronado, with his charming air
of gentle respect. “But if you can give me a few minutes of your time, I shall
be very grateful.”

Clara's heart beat violently, and her cheeks and neck flushed with spots
of red, as she sank back upon her seat. She guessed what was coming; she
had been a good deal afraid of it all the time; it was her only cause of dreading
Coronado.

“I venture to hope that you have been good enough to think of what I said
to you a week ago,” he went on. “Yes, it was a week ago. It seems to me a
year.”

“It seems a long time,” stammered Clara. So it did, for the days since had
been crammed with emotions and events, and they gave her young mind an impression
of a long period passed.

“I have been so full of anxiety!” continued Coronado. “Not about our
dangers,” he asserted with a little bravado. “Or, rather, not about mine. For
you I have been fearful. The possibility that you might fall into the hands of
the Apaches was a horror to me. But, after all, my chief anxiety was to know
what would be your final answer to me. Yes, my beautiful and very dear cousin,
strange as it may seem under our circumstances, this thought has always outweighed
with me all our dangers.”

Coronado, as we have already declared, was really in love with Clara. It
seems incredible, at first glance, that a man who had no conscience could have
a heart. But the assertion is not a fairy story; it is founded in solid philosophy.
It is true that Coronado's moral education had been neglected or misdirected;
that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become
indifferent to it; and that he was an egotist of the first water, bent solely upon
favoring and gratifying himself. But while his nature was somewhat chilled by
these things, he had the hottest of blood in his veins, he possessed a keen perception
of the beautiful, and so he could desire with fury. His love could not
be otherwise than selfish; but it was none the less capable of ruling him
tyrannically.

Just at this moment his intensity of feeling made him physically imposing and
almost fascinating. It seemed to remove a veil from his usually filmy black eyes,
and give him power for once to throw out all of truth that there was in his soul.
It communicated to his voice a tremor which made it eloquent. He exhaled, as
it were, an aroma of puissant emotion which was intoxicating, and which could
hardly fail to act upon the sensitive nature of woman. Clara was so agitated by
this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in
the world but Coronado. Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he
vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her
tempter. Still she could not or would not answer; though she trembled, she
remained speechless.

“I have asked you to be my wife,” resumed Coronado, seeing that he must
urge her. “I venture now to ask you again. I implore you not to refuse me.
I cannot be refused. It would make me utterly wretched. It might perhaps
bring wretchedness upon you. I hope not. I could not wish you a pain, though
you should give me many. My very dear Clara, I offer you the only love of my
life, and the only love that I shall ever offer to any one. Will you take it?”

Clara was greatly moved. She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who
heard him could have doubted it; he was sincere. To her, young, tender-hearted,
capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it
seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection. If it had not been for Thurstane,
she would have taken Coronado for pity.

“Oh, my cousin!” she sighed, and stopped there.

Coronado drew courage from the kindly title of relationship, and, leaning
gently towards her, attempted to take her hand. It was a mistake; she was
strangely shocked by his touch; she perceived that she did not like him, and
she drew away from him.

“Thank you for that word,” he whispered. “Is it the kindest that you can
give me? Is there—?”

“Coronado!” she interrupted. “This is all an error. See here. I am not
an independent creature. I am a young girl. I owe some duty somewhere.
My father and mother are gone, but I have a grandfather. Coronado, he is the
head of my family, and I ought not to marry without his permission. Why can
you not wait until we are with Muñoz?”

There she suddenly dropped her head between the palms of her hands. It
struck her that she was hypocritical; that even with the consent of Muñoz she
would not marry Coronado; that it was her duty to tell him so.

“My cousin, I have not told the whole truth,” she added, after a terrible
struggle. “I would not marry any one without first laying the case before my
grandfather. But that is not all. Coronado, I cannot—no, I cannot marry you.”

The man without a conscience, the man who was capable of planning and ordering
murder, turned pale under this announcement.

Notwithstanding its commonness, notwithstanding that it has been described
until the subject is hackneyed, notwithstanding that it has become a laughing-stock
for many, even including poets and novelists, there is probably no heart-pain
keener than disappointment in love. The shock of it is like a deep stab;
it not merely tortures, but it instantly sickens; the anguish is much, but the
sense of helplessness is more; the lover who is refused feels not unlike the soldier
who is wounded to death.

This sorrow compares in dignity and terror with the most sublime sorrows

of which humanity is capable. The death of a parent or child, though rendered
more imposing to the spectator by the ceremonies of the sepulchre, does not
chill the heart more deeply than the death of love. It lasts also; many a human
being has carried the marks of it for life; and surely duration of effect is
proof of power. We are serious in making these declarations, strange as they
may seem to a satirical age. What we have said is strictly true, notwithstanding
the mockery of those who have never loved, or the incredulity of those who,
having loved, have never lost. But probably only the wretchedly initiated will
believe.

Coronado, though selfish, infamous, and atrocious, was so far susceptible of
affection that he was susceptible of suffering. The simple fact of pallor in that
hardened face was sufficient proof of torture.

However, it stood him in hand to recover his self-possession and plead his
suit. There was too much at stake in this cause for him to let it go without a
struggle and a vehement one. Although he had seen at once that the girl was
in earnest, he tried to believe that she was not so, and that he could move her.

“My dear cousin!” he implored in a voice that was mellow with agitation,
“don't decide against me at once and forever. I must have some hope. Pity
me.”

“Ah, Coronado! Why will you?” urged Clara, in great trouble.

“I must! You must not stop me!” he persisted eagerly. “My life is in
it. I love you so that I don't know how I shall end if you will not hearken to
me. I shall be driven to desperation. Why do you turn away from me? Is it
my fault that I care for you? It is your own. You are so beautiful!”

“Coronado, I wish I were very ugly,” murmured Clara, for the moment
sincere in so wishing.

“Is there anything you dislike in me? I have been as kind as I knew how
to be.”

“It is true, Coronado. You have overwhelmed me with your goodness. I
could go on my knees to thank you.”

“Then—why?”

“Ah! why will you force me to say hard things? Don't you see that it tortures
me to refuse you?”

“Then why refuse me? Why torture us both?”

“Better a little pain now than much through life.”

“Do you mean to say that you never can—?” He could not finish the
question.

“It is so, Coronado. I never could have said it myself. But you have said
it. I never shall love you.”

Once more the man felt a cutting and sickening wound, as of a bullet penetrating
a vital part. Unable for the moment to say another word, he rose and
walked the room in silence.

“Coronado, you don't know how sorry I am to grieve you so,” cried the girl,
almost sobbing. “It seems, too, as if I were ungrateful. I can only beg your
pardon for it, and pray that Heaven will reward you.”

“Heaven!” he returned impatiently. “You are my heaven. You are the
only heaven that I know.”

“Oh, Coronado! Don't say that. I am a poor, sinful, unworthy creature.
Perhaps I could not make any one happy long. Believe me, Coronado, I am not
worthy to be loved as you love me.”

“You are!” he said, turning on her passionately and advancing close to her.
“You are worthy of my life-long love, and you shall have it. You shall have it,
whether you wish it or not. You shall not escape it. I will pursue you with it
wherever you go and as long as you live.”

“Oh! You frighten me. Coronado, I beg of you not to talk to me in that
way. I am afraid of you.”

“What is the cause of this?” he demanded, hoping to daunt her into submission.
“There is something in my way. What is it? Who is it?”

Clara's paleness turned in an instant to scarlet.

“Who is it?” he went on, his voice suddenly becoming hoarse with excitement.
“It is some one. Is it this American? This boy of a lieutenant?”

Clara, trembling with an agitation which was only in part dismay, remained
speechless.

“Is it?” he persisted, attempting to seize her hands and looking her fiercely
in the eyes. “Is it?”

“Coronado, stand back!” said Clara. “Don't you try to take my hands!”

She was erect, her eyes flashing, her cheeks spotted with crimson, her expression
strangely imposing.

The man's courage drooped the moment he saw that she had turned at bay.
He walked to the other side of the room, pressed his temples between his palms
to quiet their throbbing, and made an effort to recover his self-possession.
When he returned to her, after nearly a minute of silence, he spoke quite in his
natural manner.

“This must pass for the present,” he said. “I see that it is useless to talk
to you of it now.”

“I hope you are not angry with me, Coronado.”

“Let it go,” he replied, waving his hand. “I can't speak more of it now.”

She wanted to say, “Try never to speak of it again;” but she did not dare
to anger him further, and she remained silent.

“Shall we go to see the dance?” he asked.

“I will, if you wish it.”

“But you would rather stay alone?”

“If you please, Coronado.”

Bowing with an air of profound respect, he went his way alone, glanced at
the games of the Moquis, and hurried back to camp, meditating as he went.

What now should be done? He was in a state of fury, full of plottings of
desperation, swearing to himself that he would show no mercy. Thurstane must
die at the first opportunity, no matter if his death should kill Clara. And she?
There he hesitated; he could not yet decide what to do with her; could not resolve
to abandon her to the wilderness.

But to bring about any part of his projects he must plunge still deeper into
the untraversed. To him, by the way, as to many others who have had murder
at heart, it seemed as if the proper time and place for it would never be found.
Not now, but by and by; not here, but further on. Yes, it must be further on;
they must set out as soon as possible for the San Juan country; they must get
into wilds never traversed by civilized man.

To go thither in wagons he had already learned was impossible. The region
was a mass of mountains and rocky plateaux, almost entirely destitute of
water and forage, and probably forever impassable by wheels. The vehicles
must be left here; the whole party must take saddle for the northern desert;
and then must come death—or deaths.

But while Coronado was thus planning destruction for others, a noiseless,
patient, and ferocious enmity was setting its ambush for him.