"Your question is" – said Mr. Perkins, speaking for the first time without embarrassment.
"Is that document a forgery?"
He took it out of her hand, opened it with a kind of professional carelessness, barely glanced at the signature and seals, and returned it.
"The signatures are genuine," he said, with business-like brevity; then he added, as if in explanation of that brevity, "I have seen it before."
Donna Dolores moved her chair with the least show of uneasiness. The movement attracted Mr. Perkins' attention. It was something novel. Here was a woman who appeared actually annoyed that her claim to a valuable property was valid. He fixed his eyes upon her curiously.
"Then you think it is a genuine grant?" she said, with a slight sigh.
"As genuine as any that receive a patent at Washington," he replied, promptly.
"Ah!" said Donna Dolores, simply. The feminine interjection appeared to put a construction upon Señor Perkins' reply that both annoyed and challenged him. He assumed the defensive.
"Have you any reason to doubt the genuineness of this particular document?"
"Yes. It was only recently discovered among Don José's papers, and there is another in existence."
Señor Perkins again reached out his hand, took the paper, examined it attentively, held it to the light and then laid it down. "It is all right," he said. "Where is the other?"
"I have it not," said Donna Dolores.
Señor Perkins shrugged his shoulders respectfully as to Donna Dolores, but scornfully of an unbusiness-like sex. "How did you expect me to institute a comparison?"
"There is no comparison necessary if that document is genuine," said the Donna, quickly.
Señor Perkins was embarrassed for a moment. "I mean there might be some mistake. Under what circumstances is it held – who holds it? To whom was it given?"
"That is a part of my story. It was given five years ago to a Dr. Devarges – I beg your pardon, did you speak?"
Señor Perkins had not spoken, but was staring with grim intensity at Donna Dolores. "You – said – Dr. Devarges," he repeated, slowly.
"Yes. Did you know him?" It was Donna Dolores' turn to be embarrassed. She bit her lip and slightly contracted her eyebrows. For a moment they both stood on the defensive.
"I have heard the name before," Mr. Perkins said at last, with a forced laugh.
"Yes, it is the name of a distinguished savant," said Donna Dolores, composedly. "Well —he is dead. But he gave this grant to a young girl named – named" – Dolores paused as if to recall the name – "named Grace Conroy."
She stopped and raised her eyes quickly to her companion, but his face was unmoved, and his momentary excitement seemed to have passed. He nodded his head for her to proceed.
"Named Grace Conroy," repeated Donna Dolores, more rapidly, and with freer breath. "After the lapse of five years a woman – an impostor – appears to claim the grant under the name of Grace Conroy. But perhaps finding difficulty in carrying out her infamous scheme, by some wicked, wicked art, she gains the affections of the brother of this Grace, and marries him as the next surviving heir." And Donna Dolores paused, a little out of breath, with a glow under her burnished cheek and a slight metallic quality in her voice. It was perhaps no more than the natural indignation of a quickly sympathising nature, but Mr. Perkins did not seem to notice it. In fact, within the last few seconds his whole manner had become absent and preoccupied; the stare which he had fixed a moment before on Donna Dolores was now turned to the wall, and his old face, under its juvenile mask, looked still older.
"Certainly, certainly," he said at last, recalling himself with an effort. "But all this only goes to prove that the grant may be as fraudulent as the owner. Then, you have nothing really to make you suspicious of your own claim but the fact of its recent discovery? Well, that I don't think need trouble you. Remember your grant was given when lands were not valuable, and your late father might have overlooked it as unimportant." He rose with a slight suggestion in his manner that the interview had closed. He appeared anxious to withdraw, and not entirely free from the same painful pre-absorption that he had lately shown. With a slight shade of disappointment in her face Donna Dolores also rose.
In another moment he would have been gone, and the lives of these two people thus brought into natural yet mysterious contact have flowed on unchanged in each monotonous current. But as he reached the door he turned to ask a trivial question. On that question trembled the future of both.
"This real Grace Conroy then I suppose has disappeared. And this – Doctor – Devarges" – he hesitated at the name as something equally fictitious – "you say is dead. How then did this impostor gain the knowledge necessary to set up the claim? Who is she?"
"Oh, she is – that is – she married Gabriel Conroy under the name of the widow of Dr. Devarges. Pardon me! I did not hear what you said. Holy Virgin! What is the matter? You are ill. Let me call Sanchez! Sit here!"
He dropped into a chair, but only for an instant. As she turned to call assistance he rose and caught her by the arm.
"I am better," he said. "It is nothing – I am often taken in this way. Don't look at me. Don't call anybody except to get me a glass of water – there, that will do."
He took the glass she brought him, and instead of drinking it threw back his head and poured it slowly over his forehead and face as he leaned backward in the chair. Then he drew out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his face and hair until they were dry. Then he sat up and faced her. The chalk and paint was off his face, his high stock had become unbuckled, he had unbuttoned his coat and it hung loosely over his gaunt figure; his hair, although still dripping, seemed to have become suddenly bristling and bushy over his red face. But he was perfectly self-possessed, and his voice had completely lost its previous embarrassment.
"Rush of blood to the head," he said, quietly; "felt it coming on all the morning. Gone now. Nothing like cold water and sitting posture. Hope I didn't spoil your carpet. And now to come back to your business." He drew up his chair, without the least trace of his former diffidence, beside Donna Dolores, "Let's take another look at your grant." He took it up, drew a small magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the signature. "Yes, yes! signature all right. Seal of the Custom House. Paper all regular." He rustled it in his fingers, "You're all right – the swindle is with Madame Devarges. There's the forgery – there's this spurious grant."
"I think not," said Donna Dolores, quietly.
"Why?"
"Suppose the grant is exactly like this in everything, paper, signature, seal and all."
"That proves nothing," said Mr. Perkins, quickly. "Look you. When this grant was drawn – in the early days – there were numbers of these grants lying in the Custom House like waste paper, drawn and signed by the Governor, in blank, only wanting filling in by a clerk to make them a valid document. She! – this impostor – this Madame Devarges, has had access to these blanks, as many have since the American Conquest, and that grant is the result. But she is not wise, no! I know the handwriting of the several copyists and clerks – I was one myself. Put me on the stand, Donna Dolores – put me on the stand, and I'll confront her as I have the others."
"You forget," said Donna Dolores, coldly, "that I have no desire to legally test this document. And if Spanish grants are so easily made, why might not this one of mine be a fabrication? You say you know the handwriting of the copyists – look at this."
Mr. Perkins seized the grant impatiently, and ran his eye quickly over the interlineations between the printed portions. "Strange!" he muttered. "This is not my own nor Sanchez; nor Ruiz; it is a new hand. Ah! what have we here – a correction in the date – in still another hand? And this – surely I have seen something like it in the office. But where?" He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair, but after an effort at recollection abandoned the attempt. "But why?" he said, abruptly, "why should this be forged?"
"Suppose that the other were genuine, and suppose that this woman got possession of it in some wicked way. Suppose that some one, knowing of this, endeavoured by this clever forgery to put difficulties in her way without exposing her."
"But who would do that?"
"Perhaps the brother – her husband! Perhaps some one," continued Donna Dolores, embarrassedly, with the colour struggling through her copper cheek, "some – one – who – did – not – believe that the real Grace Conroy was dead or missing!"
"Suppose the devil! – I beg your pardon. But people don't forge documents in the interests of humanity and justice. And why should it be given to you?"
"I am known to be a rich woman," said Donna Dolores. "I believe," she added, dropping her eyes with a certain proud diffidence that troubled even the preoccupied man before her, "I – believe – that is I am told – that I have a reputation for being liberal, and – and just."
Mr. Perkins looked it her for a moment with undisguised admiration. "But suppose," he said, with a bitterness that seemed to grow out of that very contemplation, "suppose this woman, this adventuress, this impostor, were a creature that made any such theory impossible. Suppose she were one who could poison the very life and soul of any man – to say nothing of the man who was legally bound to her; suppose she were a devil who could deceive the mind and heart, who could make the very man she was betraying most believe her guiltless and sinned against; suppose she were capable of not even the weakness of passion; but that all her acts were shrewd, selfish, pre-calculated even to a smile or a tear – do you think such a woman – whom, thank God! such as you cannot even imagine – do you suppose such a woman would not have guarded against even this? No! no!"
"Unless," said Donna Dolores, leaning against the secretary with the glow gone from her dark face and a strange expression trembling over her mouth, "unless it were the revenge of some rival."
Her companion started. "Good! It is so," he muttered to himself. "I would have done it. I could have done it! You are right, Donna Dolores." He walked to the window and then came hurriedly back, buttoning his coat as he did so, and rebuckling his stock. "Some one is coming! Leave this matter with me. I will satisfy you and myself concerning this affair. Will you trust this paper with me?" Donna Dolores without a word placed it in his hand. "Thank you," he said, with a slight return of his former embarrassment, that seemed to belong to his ridiculous stock and his buttoned coat rather than any physical or moral quality. "Don't believe me entirely disinterested either," he added, with a strange smile. "Adios."
She would have asked another question, but at that instant the clatter of hoofs and sound of voices arose from the courtyard, and with a hurried bow he was gone. The door opened again almost instantly to the bright laughing face and coquettish figure of Mrs. Sepulvida.
"Well!" said that little lady, as soon as she recovered her breath. "For a religiously inclined young person and a notorious recluse, I must say you certainly have more masculine company than falls to the lot of the worldly. Here I ran across a couple of fellows hanging around the casa as I drove up, and come in only to find you closeted with an old exquisite. Who was it – another lawyer, dear? I declare, it's too bad. I have only one!"
"And that one is enough, eh?" smiled Donna Dolores, somewhat gravely, as she playfully tapped Mrs. Sepulvida's fair cheek with her fan.
"Oh yes!" she blushed a little coquettishly – "of course! And here I rode over, post haste, to tell you the news. But first, tell me who is that wicked, dashing-looking fellow outside the courtyard? It can't be the lawyer's clerk."
"I don't know who you mean; but it is, I suppose," said Donna Dolores, a little wearily. "But tell me the news. I am all attention."
But Mrs. Sepulvida ran to the deep embrasured window and peeped out. "It isn't the lawyer, for he is driving away in his buggy, as if he were hurrying to get out of the fog, and my gentleman still remains. Dolores!" said Mrs. Sepulvida, suddenly facing her friend with an expression of mock gravity and humour, "this won't do! Who is that cavalier?"
With a terrible feeling that she was about to meet the keen eyes of Victor, Donna Dolores drew near the window from the side where she could look out without being herself seen. Her first glance at the figure of the stranger satisfied her that her fears were unfounded; it was not Victor. Reassured, she drew the curtain more boldly. At that instant the mysterious horseman wheeled, and she met full in her own the black eyes of Mr. Jack Hamlin. Donna Dolores instantly dropped the curtain and turned to her friend.
"I don't know!"
"Truly, Dolores?"
"Truly, Maria."
"Well, I believe you. I suppose then it must be me!"
Donna Dolores smiled, and playfully patted Mrs. Sepulvida's joyous face.
"Well, then?" she said invitingly.
"Well, then," responded Mrs. Sepulvida, half in embarrassment and half in satisfaction.
"The news!" said Donna Dolores.
"Oh – well," said Mrs. Sepulvida, with mock deliberation, "it has come at last!"
"It has?" said Donna Dolores, looking gravely at her friend.
"Yes. He has been there again to-day."
"And he asked you?" said Donna Dolores, opening her fan and turning her face toward the window.
"He asked me."
"And you said" —
Mrs. Sepulvida tripped gaily toward the window and looked out.
"I said" —
"What?"
"NO!"
BOOK V.
THE VEIN
CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH GABRIEL RECOGNISES THE PROPRIETIES
After the visit of Mr. Peter Dumphy, One Horse Gulch was not surprised at the news of any stroke of good fortune. It was enough that he, the great capitalist, the successful speculator, had been there! The information that a company had been formed to develop a rich silver mine recently discovered on Conroy's Hill was received as a matter of course. Already the theories of the discovery were perfectly well established. That it was simply a grand speculative coup of Dumphy's – that upon a boldly conceived plan this man intended to build up the town of One Horse Gulch – that he had invented "the lead" and backed it by an ostentatious display of capital in mills and smelting works solely for a speculative purpose; that five years before he had selected Gabriel Conroy as a simple-minded tool for this design; that Gabriel's Two and One Half Millions was merely an exaggerated form of expressing the exact wages – One Thousand dollars a year, which was all Dumphy had paid him for the use of his name, and that it was the duty of every man to endeavour to realise quickly on the advance of property before this enormous bubble burst – this was the theory of one-half the people of One Horse Gulch. On the other hand, there was a large party who knew exactly the reverse. That the whole thing was purely accidental; that Mr. Peter Dumphy being called by other business to One Horse Gulch, while walking with Gabriel Conroy one day had picked up a singular piece of rock on Gabriel's claim, and had said, "This looks like silver;" that Gabriel Conroy had laughed at the suggestion, whereat Mr. Peter Dumphy, who never laughed, had turned about curtly and demanded in his usual sharp business way, "Will you take Seventeen Millions for all your right and title to this claim?" That Gabriel – "you know what a blank fool Gabe is!" – had assented, "and this way, sir, actually disposed of a property worth, on the lowest calculation, One Hundred and Fifty Millions." This was the generally accepted theory of the other and more imaginative portion of One Horse Gulch.
Howbeit within the next few weeks following the advent of Mr. Dumphy, the very soil seemed to have quickened through that sunshine, and all over the settlement pieces of plank and scantling – thin blades of new dwellings – started up under that beneficent presence. On the bleak hill sides the more extensive foundations of the Conroy Smelting Works were laid. The modest boarding-house and restaurant of Mrs. Markle was found inadequate to the wants and inconsistent with the greatness of One Horse Gulch, and a new hotel was erected. But here I am anticipating another evidence of progress – namely, the daily newspaper, in which these events were reported with a combination of ease and elegance one may envy yet never attain. Said the Times: —
"The Grand Conroy House, now being inaugurated, will be managed by Mrs. Susan Markle, whose talents as a chef de cuisine are as well known to One Horse Gulch as her rare social graces and magnificent personal charms. She will be aided by her former accomplished assistant, Miss Sarah Clark. As hash-slinger, Sal can walk over anything of her weight in Plumas."
With these and other evidences of an improvement in public taste, the old baleful title of "One Horse Gulch" was deemed incongruous. It was proposed to change that name to "Silveropolis," there being, in the figurative language of the Gulch, "more than one horse could draw."
Meanwhile, the nominal and responsible position of Superintendent of the new works was filled by Gabriel, although the actual business and executive duty was performed by a sharp, snappy young fellow of about half Gabriel's size, supplied by the Company. This was in accordance with the wishes of Gabriel, who could not bear idleness; and the Company, although distrusting his administrative ability, wisely recognised his great power over the workmen through the popularity of his easy democratic manners, and his disposition always to lend his valuable physical assistance in cases of emergency. Gabriel had become a great favourite with the men ever since they found that prosperity had not altered his simple nature. It was pleasant to them to be able to point out to a stranger this plain, unostentatious, powerful giant, working like themselves, and with themselves, with the added information that he owned half the mine, and was worth Seventeen Millions! Always a shy and rather lonely man, his wealth seemed to have driven him, by its very oppressiveness, to the society of his humble fellows for relief. A certain deprecatoriness of manner whenever his riches were alluded to, strengthened the belief of some in that theory that he was merely the creature of Dumphy's speculation.
Although Gabriel was always assigned a small and insignificant part in the present prosperity of One Horse Gulch, it was somewhat characteristic of the peculiar wrongheadedness of this community that no one ever suspected his wife of any complicity in it. It had been long since settled that her superiority to her husband was chiefly the feminine charm of social grace and physical attraction. That, warmed by the sunshine of affluence, this butterfly would wantonly flit from flower to flower, and eventually quit her husband and One Horse Gulch for some more genial clime, was never doubted. "She'll make them millions fly ef she hez to fly with it," was the tenor of local criticism. A pity, not unmixed with contempt, was felt for Gabriel's apparent indifference to this prophetic outlook; his absolute insensibility to his wife's ambiguous reputation was looked upon as the hopelessness of a thoroughly deceived man. Even Mrs. Markle, whose attempts to mollify Olly had been received coldly by that young woman – even she was a convert to the theory of the complete domination of the Conroy household by this alien and stranger.
But despite this baleful prophecy, Mrs. Conroy did not fly nor show any inclination to leave her husband. A new house was built, with that rapidity of production that belonged to the climate, among the pines of Conroy's Hill, which on the hottest summer day still exuded the fresh sap of its green timbers and exhaled a woodland spicery. Here the good taste of Mrs. Conroy flowered in chintz, and was always fresh and feminine in white muslin curtains and pretty carpets, and here the fraternal love of Gabriel brought a grand piano for the use of Olly, and a teacher. Hither also came the best citizens of the county – even the notabilities of the State, feeling that Mr. Dumphy had, to a certain extent, made One Horse Gulch respectable, soon found out also that Mrs. Conroy was attractive; the Hon. Blank had dined there on the occasion of his last visit to his constituents of the Gulch; the Hon. Judge Beeswinger had told in her parlour several of his most effective stories. Colonel Starbottle's manly breast had dilated over her dish-covers, and he had carried away with him not only a vivid appreciation of her charms capable of future eloquent expression, but an equally vivid idea of his own fascinations, equally incapable of concealment. Gabriel himself rarely occupied the house except for the exigencies of food and nightly shelter. If decoyed there at other times by specious invitations of Olly, he compromised by sitting on the back porch in his shirt sleeves, alleging as a reason his fear of the contaminating influence of his short black pipe.
"Don't ye mind me, July," he would say, when his spouse with anxious face and deprecatory manner would waive her native fastidiousness and aver that "she liked it." "Don't ye mind me, I admire to sit out yer. I'm a heap more comfortable outer doors, and allus waz. I reckon the smell might get into them curtings, and then – and then," added Gabriel, quietly ignoring the look of pleased expostulation with which Mrs. Conroy recognised this fancied recognition of her tastes, "and then Olly's friends and thet teacher, not being round like you and me allez and used to it, they mightn't like it. And I've heerd that the smell of nigger-head terbacker do git inter the strings of a pianner and kinder stops the music. A pianner's a mighty cur'us thing. I've heerd say they're as dilikit and ailin' ez a child. Look in 'em and see them little strings a twistin' and crossin' each other like the reins of a six mule team, and it 'tain't no wonder they gets mixed up often."
It was not Gabriel's way to notice his wife's manner very closely, but if he had at that moment he might have fancied that there were other instruments whose fine chords were as subject to irritation and discordant disturbance. Perhaps only vaguely conscious of some womanish sullenness on his wife's part, Gabriel would at such times disengage himself as being the possible disorganising element, and lounge away. His favourite place of resort was his former cabin, now tenantless and in rapid decay, but which he had refused to dispose of, even after the erection of his two later dwellings rendered it an unnecessary and unsightly encumbrance of his lands. He loved to linger by the deserted hearth and smoke his pipe in solitude, not from any sentiment, conscious or unconscious, but from a force of habit, that was in this lonely man almost as pathetic.
He may have become aware at this time that a certain growing disparity of sentiment and taste which he had before noticed with a vague pain and wonder, rendered his gradual separation from Olly a necessity of her well-doing. He had indeed revealed this to her on several occasions with that frankness which was natural to him. He had apologised with marked politeness to her music teacher, who once invited him to observe Olly's proficiency, by saying in general terms that he "took no stock in chunes. I reckon it's about ez easy, Miss, if ye don't ring me in. Thet chile's got to get on without thinkin' o' me – or my 'pinion – allowin' it was wuth thinkin' on." Once meeting Olly walking with some older and more fashionable school friends whom she had invited from Sacramento, he had delicately avoided them with a sudden and undue consciousness of his great bulk, and his slow moving intellect, painfully sensitive to what seemed to him to be the preternatural quickness of the young people, and turned into a by-path.
On the other hand, it is possible that with the novelty of her new situation, and the increased importance that wealth brought to Olly, she had become more and more oblivious of her brother's feelings, and perhaps less persistent in her endeavours to draw him toward her. She knew that he had attained an equal importance among his fellows from this very wealth, and also a certain evident, palpable, superficial respect which satisfied her. With her restless ambition and the new life that was opening before her, his slower old-fashioned methods, his absolute rusticity – that day by day appeared more strongly in contrast to his surroundings – began to irritate where it had formerly only touched her sensibilities. From this irritation she at last escaped by the unfailing processes of youth and the fascination of newer impressions. And so, day by day and hour by hour, they drifted slowly apart. Until one day Mrs. Conroy was pleasantly startled by an announcement from Gabriel, that he had completed arrangements to send Olly to boarding-school in Sacramento. It was understood, also, that this was only a necessary preliminary to the departure of herself and husband for a long-promised tour of Europe.
