第21章

He had been singularly moved when he heard that San Luis was the lady's probable destination.It did not seem to bear any relation to the mountain wilderness and the wild life she had just quitted;it was apparently the most antipathic,incongruous,and inconsistent refuge she could have taken.It offered no opportunity for the disposal of booty,or for communication with the gang.It was less secure than a crowded town.An old Spanish mission and monastery college in a sleepy pastoral plain,--it had even retained its old-world flavor amidst American improvements and social revolution.He knew it well.From the quaint college cloisters,where the only reposeful years of his adventurous youth had been spent,to the long Alameda,or double avenues of ancient trees,which connected it with the convent of Santa Luisa,and some of his youthful "devotions,"--it had been the nursery of his romance.He was amused at what seemed to be the irony of fate,in now linking it with this folly of his maturer manhood;and yet he was uneasily conscious of being more seriously affected by it.And it was with a greater anxiety than this adventure had ever yet cost him that he at last arrived at the San Jose hotel,and from a balcony corner awaited the coming of the coach.His heart beat rapidly as it approached.She was there!But at her side,as she descended from the coach,was the mysterious horseman of the Sierra road.Key could not mistake the well-built figure,whatever doubt there had been about the features,which had been so carefully concealed.With the astonishment of this rediscovery,there flashed across him again the fatefulness of the inspiration which had decided him not to go in the coach.His presence there would have no doubt warned the stranger,and so estopped this convincing denouement.It was quite possible that her companion,by relays of horses and the advantage of bridle cut-offs,could have easily followed the Three Pine coach and joined her at Stockton.But for what purpose?The lady's trunk,which had not been disturbed during the first part of the journey,and had been forwarded at Stockton untouched before Key's eyes,could not have contained booty to be disposed of in this forgotten old town.

The register of the hotel bore simply the name of "Mrs.Barker,"of Stockton,but no record of her companion,who seemed to have disappeared as mysteriously as he came.That she occupied a sitting-room on the same floor as his own--in which she was apparently secluded during the rest of the day--was all he knew.

Nobody else seemed to know her.Key felt an odd hesitation,that might have been the result of some vague fear of implicating her prematurely,in making any marked inquiry,or imperiling his secret by the bribed espionage of servants.Once when he was passing her door he heard the sounds of laughter,--albeit innocent and heart-free,--which seemed so inconsistent with the gravity of the situation and his own thoughts that he was strangely shocked.But he was still more disturbed by a later occurrence.In his watchfulness of the movements of his neighbor he had been equally careful of his own,and had not only refrained from registering his name,but had enjoined secrecy upon the landlord,whom he knew.

Yet the next morning after his arrival,the porter not answering his bell promptly enough,he so far forgot himself as to walk to the staircase,which was near the lady's room,and call to the employee over the balustrade.As he was still leaning over the railing,the faint creak of a door,and a singular magnetic consciousness of being overlooked,caused him to turn slowly,but only in time to hear the rustle of a withdrawing skirt as the door was quickly closed.In an instant he felt the full force of his foolish heedlessness,but it was too late.Had the mysterious fugitive recognized him?Perhaps not;their eyes had not met,and his face had been turned away.