“Take—­this—­key!” she whispered.  Her hand shook.  She felt herself to be a black and monstrous creature.  All of Benton seemed driving her.  She was another woman.  This was her fling at a rotten world, her slap in Neale’s face.  But she could not speak again; her lips failed.  She pointed to a door.

She waited long enough to see the stalking, graceful cowboy halt in front of the right door.  Then she fled.

27

For many moments after the beautiful bare-armed woman closed and locked the door Allie Lee sat in ecstasy, in trembling anticipation of Neale.

Gradually, however, in intervals of happy mind-wanderings, other thoughts intruded.  This little bedroom affected her singularly and she was at a loss to account for the fact.  It did not seem that she was actually afraid to be there, for she was glad.  Fear of Durade and his gang recurred, but she believed that the time of her deliverance was close at hand.  Possibly Durade, with some of his men, had been killed in the fight with Hough.  Then she remembered having heard the Spaniard order Fresno and Mull to go round by the street.  They must be on her trail at this very moment.  Ancliffe had been seen, and not much time could elapse before her whereabouts would be discovered.  But Allie bore up bravely.  She was in the thick of grim and bloody and horrible reality.  Those brave men, strangers to her, had looked into her face, questioned her, then had died for her.  It was all so unbelievable.  In another room, close to her, lay Ancliffe, dead.  Allie tried not to think of him; of the remorseless way in which he had killed the Mexican; of the contrast between this action and his gentle voice and manner.  She tried not to think of the gambler Hough—­the cold iron cast of his face as he won Durade’s gold, the strange, intent look which he gave her a moment before the attack.  There was something magnificent in Ancliffe’s bringing her to a refuge while he was dying; there was something magnificent in Hough’s standing off the gang.  Allie divined that through her these two men had fought and died for something in themselves as well as for her honor and life.

The little room seemed a refuge for Allie, yet it was oppressive, as had been the atmosphere of the parlor where Ancliffe lay.  But this oppressiveness was not death.  Allie had become familiar with death near at hand.  This refuge made her flesh creep.

The room was not the home of any one—­it was not inhabited, it was not livable.  Yet it contained the same kind of furniture Durade had bought for her and it was clean and comfortable.  Still, Allie shrank from touching anything.  Through the walls came the low, strange, discordant din to which she had become accustomed—­an intense, compelling blend of music, song, voice, and step actuated by one spirit.  Then at times she imagined she heard distant hammering and the slap of a falling board.

Probably Allie had not stayed in this room many moments when she began to feel that she had been there hours.  Surely the woman would return soon with Neale.  And the very thoughts drove all else out of her mind, leaving her palpitating with hope, sick with longing.