Joan listened. Was there sound or silence? A faint and indescribably
low roar, so low that it might have been real or false, came on the
soft night breeze. It was the roar of the camp down there--the
strife, the agony, the wild life in ceaseless action--the strange
voice of gold, roaring greed and battle and death over the souls of
men. But above that, presently, rose the murmur of the creek, a
hushed and dreamy flow of water over stones. It was hurrying to get
by this horde of wild men, for it must bear the taint of gold and
blood. Would it purge itself and clarify in the valleys below, on
its way to the sea? There was in its murmur an imperishable and
deathless note of nature, of time; and this was only a fleeting day
of men and gold.
Only by straining her ears could Joan hear these sounds, and when
she ceased that, then she seemed to be weighed upon and claimed by
silence. It was not a silence like that of Lost Canon, but a silence
of solitude where her soul stood alone. She was there on earth, yet
no one could hear her mortal cry. The thunder of avalanches or the
boom of the sea might have lessened her sense of utter loneliness.
And that silence fitted the darkness, and both were apostles of
dread. They spoke to her. She breathed dread on that silent air and
it filled her breast. There was nothing stable in the night shadows.
The ravine seemed to send forth stealthy, noiseless shapes, specter
and human, man and phantom, each on the other's trail.
If Jim would only come and let her see that he was safe for the
hour! A hundred times she imagined she saw him looming darker than
the shadows. She had only to see him now, to feel his hand, and
dread might be lost. Love was something beyond the grasp of mind.
Love had confounded Jim Cleve; it had brought up kindness and honor
from the black depths of a bandit's heart; it had transformed her
from a girl into a woman. Surely with all its greatness it could not
be lost; surely in the end it must triumph over evil.
Joan found that hope was fluctuating, but eternal. It took no stock
of intelligence. It was a matter of feeling. And when she gave rein
to it for a moment, suddenly it plunged her into sadness. To hope
was to think! Poor Jim! It was his fool's paradise. Just to let her
be his wife! That was the apex of his dream. Joan divined that he
might yield to her wisdom, he might become a man, but his agony
would be greater. Still, he had been so intense, so strange, so
different that she could not but feel joy in his joy.