The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📕

hand, but brilliant at the other end. He drew her along this passage, striding slower now and unsteadily. He turned into another hall lighted by lamps. Music and gaiety seemed to sweep stunningly into Allie’s face. But Allie saw only one person there—a Negress. As Ancliffe halted, the Negress rose from her seat. She was frightened.

“Call Stanton—quick!” he panted. He thrust gold at her. “Tell no one else!”

Then he opened a door, pushed Allie into a handsomely furnished parlor, and, closing the door, staggered to a couch, upon which he fell. His face wore a singular look, remarkable for its whiteness. All its weary, careless indifference had vanished.

As he lay back his hands loosed their hold of his coat and fell away all bloody. The knife slid to the floor. A crimson froth flecked his lips.

“Oh—Heaven! You were—stabbed!” gasped Allie, sinking to her knees.

“If Stanton doesn’t come in time—tell her what happened—ask her to fetch Neale to you,” he said. He spoke with extreme difficulty and a fluttering told of blood in his throat. Allie could not speak. She could not pray. But her sight and her perception were abnormally keen. Ancliffe’s strange, dear gaze rested upon her, and it seemed to Allie that he smiled, not with lips or face, but in spirit. How strange and beautiful.

Then Allie heard a rush of silk at the door. It opened—closed. A woman of fair face, bare of arm and neck, glittering with diamonds, swept into the parlor. She had great, dark-blue eyes full of shadows and they flashed from Ancliffe to Allie and back again.

“What’s happened? You’re pale as death!... Ancliffe! Your hands—your breast!... My God!”

She bent over him. “Stanton, I’ve been—cut up—and Hough is—dead.”

“Oh, this horrible Benton!” cried the woman.

“Don’t faint... Hear me. You remember we were curious about a girl—Durade had in his place. This is she—Allie Lee. She is innocent. Durade held her for revenge. He had loved—then hated her mother... Hough won all Durade’s gold—and then the girl... But we had to fight... Stanton, this Allie Lee is Neale’s sweetheart... He believes her dead... You hide her—bring Neale to her.”

Quickly she replied, “I promise you, Ancliffe, I promise... How strange—what you tell!... But not strange for Benton!... Ancliffe! Speak to me!—Oh, he is going!”

With her first words a subtle change passed over Ancliffe. It was the release of his will. His whole body sank. Under the intense whiteness of his face a cold gray shade began to creep. His last conscious instant spent itself in the strange gaze Allie had felt before, and now she had a vague perception that in some way it expressed a blessing and a deliverance. The instant the beautiful light turned inward, as if to illumine the darkness of his soul, she divined what he had once been, his ruin, his secret and eternal remorse—and the chance to die that had made him great.

So, forgetful of the other beside her, Allie Lee watched Ancliffe, sustained by a nameless spirit, feeling with tragic pity her duty as a woman—to pray for him, to stay beside him, that he might not be alone when he died.

And while she watched, with the fading of that singular radiance, there returned to his face a slow, careless weariness.

“He’s gone!” murmured Stanton, rising. A dignity had come to her. “Dead! And we knew nothing of him—not his real name—nor his place ... But even Benton could not keep him from dying like an English gentleman.”

She took Allie by the hand, led her out of the parlor and across the hall into a bedroom. Then she faced Allie, wonderingly, with all a woman’s sympathy, and something else that Allie sensed as a sweet and poignant wistfulness.

“Are you—Neale’s sweetheart?” she asked, very low.

“Oh—please—find him—for me!” sobbed Allie.

The tenderness in this woman’s voice and look and touch was what Allie needed more than anything, and it made her a trembling child. How strangely, hesitatingly, with closing eyes, this woman reached to fold her in gentle arms. What a tumult Allie felt throbbing in the full breast where she laid her head.

“Allie Lee!... and he thinks you dead,” she murmured, brokenly. “I will bring him—to you.”

When she released Allie years and shadows no longer showed in her face. Her eyes were tear-wet and darkening; her lips were tremulous. At that moment there was something beautiful and terrible about her.

But Allie could not understand.

“You stay here,” she said. “Be very quiet... I will bring Neale.”

Opening the door, she paused on the threshold, to glance down the hall first, and then back to Allie. Her smile was beautiful. She closed the door and locked it. Allie heard the soft swish of silk dying away.