Zane Grey Call Of The Canyon

Odnośniki

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

that had actuated her. Unworthy indeed was she of the love of this man. Only a
lifetime of devotion to him could acquit her in the eyes of her better self.
Sweetly and madly raced the thrill and tumult of her blood. There must be only
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
one outcome to her romance. Yet the next instant there came a dull
throbbing-an oppression which was pain an impondering vague thought of
catastrophe. Only the fearfulness of love perhaps!
She saw him complete his task and wipe his brown moist face and stride
toward her, coming nearer, tall and erect with something added to his
soldierly bearing, with a light in his eyes she could no longer bear.
The moment for which she had waited more than two months had come at last.
"Glenn when will you go back East?" she asked, tensely and low.
The instant the words were spent upon her lips she realized that he had
always been waiting and prepared for this question that had been so terrible
for her to ask.
"Carley," he replied gently, though his voice rang, "I am never going back
East."
An inward quivering hindered her articulation.
"Never?" she whispered.
"Never to live, or stay any while," he went on. "I might go some time for a
little visit... . But never to live."
"Oh Glenn!" she gasped, and her hands fluttered out to him. The shock was
driving home. No amaze, no incredulity succeeded her reception of the fact. It
was a slow stab. Carley felt the cold blanch of her skin. "Then this is it the
something I felt strange between us?"
"Yes, I knew and you never asked me," he replied.
"That was it? All the time you knew," she whispered, huskily. "You knew... .
I'd never marry you never live out here?"
"Yes, Carley, I knew you'd never be woman enough American enough to help me
reconstruct my broken life out here in the West," he replied, with a sad and
bitter smile.
That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring
love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down all else.
"Dearest I beg of you don't break my heart," she implored.
"I love you, Carley," he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on hers.
"Then come back home home with me."
"No. If you love me you will be my wife."
"Love you! Glenn, I worship you," she broke out, passionately. "But I could
not live here I could not."
"Carley, did you ever read of the woman who said, 'Whither thou goest, there
will I go' ..."
"Oh, don't be ruthless! Don't judge me... . I never dreamed of this. I came
West to take you back."
Page 78
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"My dear, it was a mistake," he said, gently, softening to her distress.
"I'm sorry I did not write you more plainly. But, Carley, I could not ask you
to share this this wilderness home with me. I don't ask it now. I always knew
you couldn't do it. Yet you've changed so that I hoped against hope. Love
makes us blind even to what we see."
"Don't try to spare me. I'm slight and miserable. I stand abased in my own
eyes. I thought I loved you. But I must love best the
crowd people luxury fashion the damned round of things I was born to."
"Carley, you will realize their insufficiency too late," he replied,
earnestly. "The things you were born to are love, work, children, happiness."
"Don't! don't! ... they are hollow mockery for me," she cried, passionately.
"Glenn, it is the end. It must come quickly... . You are free."
"I do not ask to be free. Wait. Go home and look at it again with different
eyes. Think things over. Remember what came to me out of the West. I will
always love you and I will be here hoping "
"I I cannot listen," she returned, brokenly, and she clenched her hands
tightly to keep from wringing them. "I I cannot face you... . Here is your
ring... . You are free... . Don't stop me don't come... . Oh, Glenn, good-by!"
With breaking heart she whirled away from him and hurried down the slope
toward the trail. The shade of the forest enveloped her. Peering back through
the trees, she saw Glenn standing where she had left him, as if already
stricken by the loneliness that must be his lot. A sob broke from Carley's
throat. She hated herself. She was in a terrible state of conflict. Decision
had been wrenched from her, but she sensed unending strife. She dared not look
back again. Stumbling and breathless, she hurried on. How changed the
atmosphere and sunlight and shadow of the canyon! The looming walls had
pitiless eyes for her flight. When she crossed the mouth of West Fork an
almost irresistible force breathed to her from under the stately pines.
An hour later she had bidden farewell to the weeping Mrs. Hutter, and to the
white-faced Flo, and Lolomi Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall, and the
haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.
Chapter VIII
At Flagstaff, where Carley arrived a few minutes before train time, she was
too busily engaged with tickets and baggage to think of herself or of the
significance of leaving Arizona. But as she walked into the Pullman she
overheard a passenger remark, "Regular old Arizona sunset," and that shook her
heart. Suddenly she realized she had come to love the colorful sunsets, to
watch and wait for them. And bitterly she thought how that was her way to
learn the value of something when it was gone.
The jerk and start of the train affected her with singular depressing
shock. She had burned her last bridge behind her. Had she unconsciously hoped
for some incredible reversion of Glenn's mind or of her own? A sense of
irreparable loss flooded over her the first check to shame and humiliation.
From her window she looked out to the southwest. Somewhere across the cedar
and pine-greened uplands lay Oak Creek Canyon, going to sleep in its purple
and gold shadows of sunset. Banks of broken clouds hung to the horizon, like
continents and islands and reefs set in a turquoise sea. Shafts of sunlight
streaked down through creamy-edged and purple-centered clouds. Vast flare of
gold dominated the sunset background.
Page 79
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
When the train rounded a curve Carley's strained vision became filled with
the upheaved bulk of the San Francisco Mountains. Ragged gray grass slopes and
green forests on end, and black fringed sky lines, all pointed to the sharp
clear peaks spearing the sky. And as she watched, the peaks slowly flushed
with sunset hues, and the sky flared golden, and the strength of the eternal
mountains stood out in sculptured sublimity. Every day for two months and more
Carley had watched these peaks, at all hours, in every mood; and they had
unconsciously become a part of her thought. The train was relentlessly
whirling her eastward. Soon they must become a memory. Tears blurred her
sight. Poignant regret seemed added to the anguish she was suffering. Why had
she not learned sooner to see the glory of the mountains, to appreciate the
beauty and solitude? Why had she not understood herself? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

angamoss.xlx.pl