The horrid tragedy in which he had played such a disas-trous part now began, for the first time since he stole on board the fruiter, a wretched fugitive, to lose its sharper outlines.Distance lent assuagement to his view.Bibb had opened the flood-gates of a stream of long-dammed discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience that had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views and theories.
"One year more," said Bibb, "and I'll go back to God's country.Oh, I know it's pretty here, and you get dolce far niente banded to you in chunks, but this country wasn't made for a white man to live in.You've got to have to plug through snow now and then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman cuss you.Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole.And Mrs.Conant is here.When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we rush around to her house and propose.It's nicer to be rejected by Mrs.Conant than it is to be drowned.And they say drowning is a delightful sensation.""Many like her here?" asked Merriam.
"Not anywhere," said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh.
She's the only white woman in La Paz.The rest range from a dappled dun to the colour of a b-flat piano key.She's been here a year.Comes from -- well, you know how a woman can talk -- ask 'em to say 'string'
and they'll say 'crow's foot' or 'cat's cradle.' Some-times you'd think she was from Oshkosh, and again from Jacksonville, Florida, and the next day from Cape Cod.""Mystery?" ventured Merriam.
"M -- well, she looks it; but her talk's translucent enough.But that's a woman.I suppose if the Sphinx were to begin talking she'd merely say: 'Goodness me!
more visitors coming for dinner, and nothing to eat but the sand which is here.' But you won't think about that when you meet her, Merriam.You'll propose to her too."To make a hard story soft, Merriam did meet her and propose to her.He found her to be a woman in black with hair the colour of a bronze turkey's wings, and mysterious, remembering eyes that - well, that looked as if she might have been a trained nurse looking on when Eve was created.Her words and manner, though, were translucent, as Bibb had said.She spoke, vaguely, of friends in California and some of the lower parishes in Louisiana.The tropical climate and indolent life suited her; she had thought of buying an orange grove later on;La Paz.all in all, charmed her.
Merriam's courtship of the Sphinx lasted three months, although be did not know that he was courting her.He was using her as an antidote for remorse, until he found, too late, that he had acquired the habit.During that time he had received no news from home.Wade did not know where he was; and he was not sure of Wade's exact address, and was afraid to write.He thought he had better let matters rest as they were for a while.
One afternoon he and Mrs.Conant hired two ponies and rode out along the mountain trail as far as the little cold river that came tumbling down the foothills.There they stopped for a drink, and Merriam spoke his piece --he proposed, as Bibb had prophesied.
Mrs.Conant gave him one glance of brilliant tenderness, and then her face took on such a strange, haggard look that Merriam was shaken out of his intoxication and back to his senses.
"I beg your pardon, Florence," he said, releasing her hand; "but I'll have to hedge on part of what I said.Ican't ask you to marry me, of course.I killed a man in New York -- a man who was my friend - shot him down -- in quite a cowardly manner, I understand.Of course, the drinking didn't excuse it.Well, I couldn't resist having my say; and I'll always mean it.I'm here as a fugitive from justice, and -- I suppose that ends our acquaintance."Mrs.Conant plucked little leaves assiduously from the low-hanging branch of a lime tree.
"I suppose so," she said, in low and oddly uneven tones; "but that depends upon you.I'll be as honest as you were.I poisoned my husband.I am a self-made widow.A man cannot love a murderess.So I suppose that ends our acquaintance."She looked up at him slowly.His face turned a little pale, and he stared at her blankly, like a deaf-and-dumb man who was wondering what it was all about.
She took a swift step toward him, with stiffened arms and eyes blazing.
"Don't look at me like that!" she cried, as though she were in acute pain."Curse me, or turn your back on me, but don't look that way.Am I a woman to be beaten? If I could show you -- here on my arms, and on my back are scars -- and it has been more than a year -- scars that he made in his brutal rages.A holy nun would have risen and struck the fiend down.Yes, Ikilled him.The foul and horrible words that he hurled at me that last day are repeated in my ears every night when I sleep.And then came his blows, and the end of my endurance.I got the poison that afternoon.It was his custom to drink every night in the library before going to bed a hot punch made of rum and wine.Only from my fair hands would he receive it -- because he knew the fumes of spirits always sickened me.That night when the maid brought it to me I sent her downstairs on an errand.Before taking him his drink I went to my little private cabinet and poured into it more than a tea-spoonful of tincture of aconite -- enough to kill three men, so I had learned.I had drawn $6,000 that I had in bank, and with that and a few things in a satchel I left the house without any one seeing me.As I passed the library I heard him stagger up and fall heavily on a couch.I took a night train for New Orleans, and from there I sailed to the Bermudas.I finally cast anchor in La Paz.And now what have you to say? Can you open your mouth?"Merriam came back to life.
"Florence," he said earnestly, "I want you.I don't care what you've done.If the world -- ""Ralph," she interrupted, almost with a scream, "be my world!"Her eyes melted; she relaxed magnificentlv and swayed toward Merriam so suddenly that he had to jump to catch her.
