Outwardly Ellen remained the same. She had been prepared for an unknown and a terrible blow. It had fallen. And her face, her body, her hands, locked with the supreme fortitude of pride and sustained by hate, gave no betrayal of the crashing, thundering ruin within her mind and soul. Motionless she leaned there, meeting the piercing fire of Isbel's eyes, seeing in them a righteous and terrible scorn. In one flash the naked truth seemed blazed at her. The faith she had fostered died a sudden death. A thousand perplexing problems were solved in a second of whirling, revealing thought.
"Ellen Jorth, you know your father's in with this Hash Knife Gang of rustlers," thundered Isbel.
"Shore," she replied, with the cool, easy, careless defiance of a Texan.
"You know he's got this Daggs to lead his faction against the Isbels?"
"Shore."
You know this talk of sheepmen buckin' the cattlemen is all a blind?"
"Shore," reiterated Ellen.
Isbel gazed darkly down upon her. With his anger spent for the moment, he appeared ready to end the interview. But he seemed fascinated by the strange look of her, by the incomprehensible something she emanated.
Havoc gleamed in his pale, set face. He shook his dark head and his broad hand went to his breast.
"To think I fell in love with such as you!" he exclaimed, and his other hand swept out in a tragic gesture of helpless pathos and impotence.
The hell Isbel had hinted at now possessed Ellen--body, mind, and soul.
Disgraced, scorned by an Isbel! Yet loved by him! In that divination there flamed up a wild, fierce passion to hurt, to rend, to flay, to fling back upon him a stinging agony. Her thought flew upon her like whips. Pride of the Jorths! Pride of the old Texan blue blood! It lay dead at her feet, killed by the scornful words of the last of that family to whom she owed her degradation. Daughter of a horse thief and rustler! Dark and evil and grim set the forces within her, accepting her fate, damning her enemies, true to the blood of the Jorths. The sins of the father must be visited upon the daughter.
"Shore y'u might have had me--that day on the Rim--if y'u hadn't told your name," she said, mockingly, and she gazed into his eyes with all the mystery of a woman's nature.
Isbel's powerful frame shook as with an ague. "Girl, what do you mean?"
"Shore, I'd have been plumb fond of havin' y'u make up to me," she drawled. It possessed her now with irresistible power, this fact of the love he could not help. Some fiendish woman's satisfaction dwelt in her consciousness of her power to kill the noble, the faithful, the good in him.
"Ellen Jorth, you lie!" he burst out, hoarsely.
"Jean, shore I'd been a toy and a rag for these rustlers long enough.
I was tired of them. . . . I wanted a new lover. . . . And if y'u hadn't give yourself away--"
Isbel moved so swiftly that she did not realize his intention until his hard hand smote her mouth. Instantly she tasted the hot, salty blood from a cut lip.
"Shut up, you hussy!" he ordered, roughly. "Have you no shame? . . .
My sister Ann spoke well of you. She made excuses--she pitied you."
That for Ellen seemed the culminating blow under which she almost sank.
But one moment longer could she maintain this unnatural and terrible poise.
"Jean Isbel--go along with y'u," she said, impatiently. "I'm waiting heah for Simm Bruce!"
At last it was as if she struck his heart. Because of doubt of himself and a stubborn faith in her, his passion and jealousy were not proof against this last stab. Instinctive subtlety inherent in Ellen had prompted the speech that tortured Isbel. How the shock to him rebounded on her! She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for her to move a hand. One arm crushed round her like a steel band; the other, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back. Then she tried to wrestle away. But she was utterly powerless. His dark face bent down closer and closer. Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle. She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnotic eyes of a snake. Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death by her, she welcomed it.
"Ellen Jorth, I'm thinkin' yet--you lie!" he said, low and tense between his teeth.
"No! No!" she screamed, wildly. Her nerve broke there. She could no longer meet those terrible black eyes. Her passionate denial was not only the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her, repudiating herself and him, and all this sickening, miserable situation.
Isbel took her literally. She had convinced him. And the instant held blank horror for Ellen.
"By God--then I'll have somethin'--of you anyway!" muttered Isbel, thickly.
Ellen saw the blood bulge in his powerful neck. She saw his dark, hard face, strange now, fearful to behold, come lower and lower, till it blurred and obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple and stretch--then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope.
Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen's senses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. The spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and terrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he held her so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braised her lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed so hard that she choked under them. It was as if a huge bat had fastened upon her throat.
Suddenly the remorseless binding embraces--the hot and savage kisses--fell away from her. Isbel had let go. She saw him throw up his hands, and stagger back a little, all the while with his piercing gaze on her.
His face had been dark purple: now it was white.
"No--Ellen Jorth," he panted, "I don't--want any of you--that way."
And suddenly he sank on the log and covered his face with his hands.
"What I loved in you--was what I thought--you were."