As she walked on Mary was glad that Frazier had been called away before he had asked her whither she was going, for she did not want him to know that she had decided to call at Tobe Keith's home and inquire personally about his condition. It struck her as being incongruous that she was already keeping things from the man she might eventually marry. And at this moment various thoughts of Charles fairly besieged her brain. Somehow she could not imagine herself keeping any vital thing from him. How strange, and he such a new friend! She found herself blushing, she knew not why. What was it about the man that appealed to her so strongly? Was it the mystery that constantly enveloped him, and out of which had come such a stream of generous acts, or was it the constant heart-hungry and lonely look of the man who certainly was out of his natural sphere as a common laborer?
Her way took her through the poorest section of the little town. Small houses, some having only two and three rooms each, bordered the rugged, unpaved little streets. Part of the section was known as the "Negro Settlement," and there stood a little steepled church, with green blinds, the walls of which, in default of paint, had received frequent coatings of whitewash at the hands of the swarthy devotees. She had no trouble in finding her way, for she already had a general idea of where the mother of the wounded man lived, and only had to ask as to the particular house.
Can you tell me where Mr. Keith lives? she inquired of a little negro boy amusing himself in a swing.
You mean the man that was kilt? the child asked, blandly, as he halted himself by thrusting his bare feet down on the ground.
The man that was—hurt, Mary corrected, shuddering over the way the boy had put his reply.
De las' house at the end er de street, on dis yer side. You cayn't miss it. Miz' Keith got grape-vines in 'er front yard, en' er goat en' chickens en' ducks.
She found it without trouble. The house had four small rooms and a crude lean-to shed which served as a kitchen. A slender, thin woman of the lowest class of whites, about fifty years of age, scantily attired in a plain print skirt and a waist of white cotton material, her iron-gray hair plastered down on the sides of her face from a straight part in the middle of her head and drawn to a small doughnut-shaped knot behind, sat in the doorway smoking a clay pipe with a reed stem. As Mary arrived at the little gate, which was kept closed by a rope fastened to a stake and from which hung a brick for a weight, she looked up, drew her coarsely shod feet under her, and took the pipe from her mouth. She must have recognized the visitor, for she contracted her thin brows and allowed a sullen, resentful expression to spread over her wrinkled face and tighten the muscles of her lips.
May I come in, Mrs. Keith? Mary asked, holding the gate partly open and dubiously waiting for a response.
The pipe was clutched more firmly and the woman stared straight at her. "You may come in if you want to," was the caustic answer. "We don't keep no bitin' dog. I didn't 'low the likes of you would want to come, after what's happened, but if you do I can't hinder you an' Tobe hain't able to prevent it, nuther."
Who is it, mother? came a faint voice from within the house.
Never mind, sonny, who it is, the old woman called back. "I'll tell you after awhile. Remember what the doctor said, that you must not get excited an' lift your fever."
There was silence in the room behind the grim sentinel at the door, and Mary lowered her voice almost to a whisper.
Perhaps I'd better go away, Mrs. Keith, she faltered. "I thought I might see you alone. That's why I came. I don't want to disturb your son—I wouldn't, for all the world. Mrs. Keith, I am unhappy over this, too."
Huh! I don't see nothin' fer you to be upset over! sneered the old woman. "Your brothers lit out fer new fields an' pastures with money to pay expenses with, like all highfalutin folks manage to git, while us pore scrub stock o' whites has to suffer, like Tobe is thar on his back, unable to move, an' with barely enough t' eat except what neighbors send in."
No seat was offered the visitor; the speaker grimly kept her chair, her stiff knees parted for the reception between them of her two gnarled rebellious hands and the clay pipe.
I came to ask—I had to come, Mary faltered, her sweet face whitened by the rising terrors within her. "I came to see if any arrangements are being made to—to—I understand the doctors advise your son's removal to Atlanta, and—"
They advise anything to shuffle the blame off their own shoulders, blurted out the stubborn woman. "They see they ain't able to do nothing, an' they want my boy to die some'r's else, to save the county the expense of—of—" and she choked down a sob, a dry, alien thing in her scrawny neck. "I don't believe he'll ever be sent, so I don't. Sis Latimer, my cousin, a preacher's wife, has traipsed over two counties, tryin' to raise the four hundred dollars, and now says it can't be done. That was the last straw to Tobe. He lay thar, after she left, an' I heard 'im cryin' under the sheet, to keep me from hearin' him. He says he hain't got nothin' ag'in' your two brothers now. He says they was all to blame, an' if they hadn't been drunk an' gamblin' it wouldn't 'a' happened. Tobe's a odd boy—he forgives in a minute; but I hain't that way. I know how your brothers felt. They looked on my boy like dirt under their feet because you folks used to own niggers and live so high in your fine house with underlings to run an' fetch for you at every call. Kenneth Rowland would have thought a second time before pullin' down on a feller in his own set. Oh, I heard the filthy name he called Tobe, an' I didn't blame my boy for hittin' him, as they say he did, smack on the jaw. A blow with the bare hand, after a word like that is passed, doesn't justify the use of a gun while another feller is pinnin' a man's arms down at his side so he can't budge an inch. I'll tell you what you may not know, an' that is that if my boy does die them two whelps will be hunted down and strung up by the neck till they are dead, dead, dead! Thar never was a plainer case o' murder—cold-blooded murder. They say—folks say your brothers are livin' like lords in the West on money sent to 'em by rich kin to escape disgrace. The sheriff said so hisse'f, an' he ort to know. He's jest waitin' to see what comes o' Tobe. Your turn an' your stiff-backed, haughty old daddy's is comin', my fine young lady."
The faint voice was heard protesting from the interior of the house, and Mrs. Keith rose and stalked to the bed on which the wounded man lay. He said something in a low, guarded tone and Mary heard his mother answer:
I wouldn't do that if I was you, honey. Let 'er go on. I can't stan' the sight of 'er, after what has happened. She looks so uppity, in 'er fine clothes an' white skin not touched by the sun, while me an' you—
The man's voice broke in, plaintively rumbling, as if from a great distance. He must have been insisting on some point to be gained, for he continued talking, now and then coughing and spitting audibly.
Well, well, Mrs. Keith exclaimed, "I'll tell 'er. I think it is foolish, but I'll tell 'er. Do you want me to comb your head a little an' spruce you up some?"
He evidently did, for Mary was kept waiting ten minutes longer. Then the sullen virago appeared in the doorway. "Tobe wants you to come in and see 'im," she reluctantly announced.
Despite the feeling that she was unwelcomed by the woman, Mary saw no alternative but to go in. She regretted it the instant her eyes fell on the wasted form on the unkempt bed and beheld the eager orbs peering at her from deep, dark sockets beneath shaggy brows. The room seemed to swing around her, the crude board floor to rise and fall like the waves of a rocking sea, the bed to float like a raft holding a starving derelict. Grasping the back of a chair for support, Mary leaned on it for a moment, and then, slightly recovering, she sat down, wondering if she could possibly bear the impending ordeal.
I'm glad you thought enough o' me to come, Miss Mary, Tobe began, in the instinctive tone of respect that his class had for hers, "an' I want to say something to you." He hesitated and lifted his eyes to his mother, who was standing at the foot of his bed. "Ma," he said, "will you please go out a little while—just a little while?"
Me! Why, I'd like to know? she fiercely demanded. "Surely you hain't got no secrets from me?"
I hain't got no secrets, but I want to talk free an' easy like to Miss Mary, an' somehow when you stan' lookin' like that an' thinkin' what I know you are thinkin'—well, I just can't talk, that's all.
Humph! I say! Well, this is a pretty come-off! Mrs. Keith fairly quivered with suppressed rage. "Can't talk before me, eh? An' me your mother at that. Well, well, I won't hender you, though you know the doctor told me to keep you perfectly quiet, an' here you are—Well, well, I'll go; if you feel that-away I'll go! A mother's feelings is never paid attention to nohow."
Mary tried to protest, but could think of nothing to say under the circumstances; besides, the angry woman was already whirling away. Mary heard her treading the creaking boards of the adjoining room.
Please move your chair up a little mite closer, Tobe requested. "I've got just so much wind, an' no more, an' I can talk easier when you are close to me."
She obeyed, feeling like an inanimate thing pushed forward by some designing force. His thin hand lay within her reach. It was a repulsive object, and yet the same force directed her to take it; she did so, and with the act all her fears, all her timidity, left her. She pressed it gently; she leaned forward and stroked it almost caressingly with her other hand. Tears welled up in her eyes; they broke their bounds and fell upon her hands and his. He stared in slow astonishment, his lower lip quivered; he closed his great, somnolent eyes as if to give himself up to the dreamlike ecstasy of the moment. She saw his breast shaking, his throat moving as if he were swallowing rising sobs. Silence fell, broken only by the creaking boards in the next room, the clucking of a busy hen in the yard, the chirping of little chickens, the thwacking of an ax at a wood-pile not far away. Tobe turned his face from her. She saw him stealthily wiping his eyes on a soiled handkerchief.
I'm gittin' to be a fool, a babyish fool, he said, presently. "Lyin' here like this is calculated to make a feller that-away, an' you bein' so kind an' gentle, too, is—is sorter surprisin'. A sick man can hear a lot o' ridiculous things when he is down like this. You see, I'm surrounded mostly by women, an' they chatter a lot. Anyways, you hain't nothin' like most of 'em say you are—too proud an' stuck up even to inquire about a feller in my fix. Yes, I'm glad you come, so I am. I hain't heard anything lately but revenge! revenge! revenge! The idle women that huddle about me through the day talk hate from morning to night. They got Ma at it; she hain't that-away as a general thing. I wanted to see you. I've seen you at a distance an' always wanted to get a closer look. They all say you are pretty, an' so you are. By all odds, I should count you the prettiest young lady in this part o' the country. I know I hain't never seed one that could hold a candle to you. I want to talk to you about Ken an' Martin. Miss Mary, them boys hain't bad at heart. La! I used to love 'em both, an' they liked me, too! It was just rot-gut liquor. Mart didn't mean no harm by holdin' me when that scrimmage begun, an' Ken may have thought he saw a knife in my hand that I was about to stab into Martin. I understand that's what he claimed before they made off to the West, an' it all may be so, for a drunk feller will think all sorts o' things. I wanted to see you because, if I do peg out—an' it looks like I'm goin' to—I want you to write this to the boys. I want you to tell 'em, Miss Mary, that you saw me an' that Tobe Keith said he didn't bear no ill-will an' died without hard feelin's. Tell 'em, too, that I said I hoped they would show the law a clean pair o' heels, for it looks like they will have trouble if they are fetched back here. Oh, I'm sorry for 'em! I saw, while I was lyin' thar, how sorry them boys looked when they saw what had happened. It sobered 'em in a minute, an' they would have stayed to help me if their friends hadn't got scared an' told 'em to run, that the sheriff was comin', an' the like."
You mustn't say you are going to die, Tobe, Mary faltered, huskily, still gently stroking his hand. Beads of perspiration were on his sallow brow, and with her handkerchief she wiped them away. "The doctors say that if you go to Atlanta, to Doctor Elliot's sanatorium, he can—"
I've given that up. He smiled faintly. "The money ain't in sight an' never will be. Besides, they only want to experiment on me. I know my condition better than they do. Surgical skill may be all right in many such cases, but mine has stood too long. I hain't afeard to die, Miss Mary, but I am sorry my going will be so serious for Ken an' Martin. Do you know, I was to blame chiefly. I was the one that furnished the whisky for that racket. I got it from a moonshiner I know. That is between you an' me, Miss Mary, for I broke the law when I went to his secret still an' got it without reportin' him."
Mary remained twenty minutes longer, and when she was going out at the gate she met Doctor Harrison, who had just alighted from his buggy and was hitching his horse to a portable strap and iron weight near the fence. He doffed his straw hat and smiled from his genial, bearded, middle-aged face and twinkling blue eyes.
So you've turned nurse, have you? he jested. "Well, I'm glad you came, for more reasons than one."
You think it was right, then? she answered.
Decidedly, Miss Mary. At such a time as this we should not listen to gossip, but simply act humanely.
I hardly knew what to do, for some persons thought that it would look as if I—I admitted that my brothers were—
I know, the doctor broke in, "but, nevertheless, I'm glad you put that aside. If I were on a jury—" He hesitated, as if he realized that he was on ground forbidden by due courtesy to her feelings. "Well," he started anew, "it can't possibly do any harm, and I am sure you will feel all the better for it."
What are the chances for his recovery? Mary asked, with bated breath, as she met his mild gaze with her steady eyes.
He looked toward the cottage door, placed his whip in the holder on the dashboard of the buggy, and then slowly swept his eyes back to her face.
I am sorry to say—to have to say—that he is not doing so well. He seems a little weaker. However, when he gets to Atlanta—I hope I am not betraying secrets, but I met Albert Frazier just now and he told me that you had about concluded arrangements to supply the money. He did not say that he was telling me in confidence, but he may have meant it that way. People often say things to doctors, you know, that they would not make public, and if it is a private matter—
It is not, Doctor. I know—at least, I think I know—where I can get the money, and I shall not care who knows that it is from me. Tell me, please, do you think it best to send Tobe to Atlanta?
It is the only thing to do, was the decided answer. "You see, here in this small place we haven't the facilities, the surgical skill, the equipment for such a critical operation, and the truth is we all of us here balk at it. A doctor like Elliot can afford to take the risk, you see. If he should fail, you know there would be no criticism, while if one of us here were to do so we'd be thought—well, almost criminally wrong."
Mary's face was brooded over now by a shadow. She shuddered; her eyes held a tortured look. "So you think he ought to go at once?" she said.
The sooner the better, Miss Mary, was the prompt answer. She gave him her hand, and he wondered over the change in her mood as he lifted his hat.
I'll let you know very soon, Doctor, were her parting words. "Please don't mention it, for the present, anyway. I think I know where I can get the money that is needed."
Mary walked on, now toward the square. Her step was slow, her eyes were on the ground.
Oh God! how can I? And yet I must! she groaned. "He means to make me take the money; that is plain. He understands what it would mean, and so do I; but, oh, I don't want to marry him. I'd rather die—I would, I would, I would. And yet if I died—if I died—"
She had to pass through the square to get her horse, and she dreaded the possible encounter again with Albert Frazier. She felt relieved, on entering the square, to notice that he was not in sight. The plate-glass window of the bank, with its gilt-lettered sign, caught her eye. Why not try there to borrow the money, as a last resort? Perhaps the banker would consider lending her the money on her own name. She had heard of loans being made to women who had no security. Yes, she would try. It would be a last effort, but she must make it.
Entering the little building, she went to the opening in the wire netting and asked the cashier if Mr. Lingle were in. She was answered in the affirmative and directed to a half-closed door bearing the words, "The President's Office."
She opened the door without knocking, and saw the back and shaggy head of a man of sixty, without his coat, his collar and necktie loose, his sleeves rolled up, busy writing. Hearing her, he turned, suppressed a frown of impatience, stood up and bowed. His face was round, beardless, and reddish in tint.
Oh, Miss Mary, how are you? he asked, awkwardly extending a fat, perspiring hand. "Want to see me, eh, personally? Well, I'm at your service, though these are busy days for us. What can I do for you?"
Her voice seemed to have deserted her. She was conscious of the fear that no words at all would come from her, and yet immediately she heard herself speaking in a calm, steady tone. She was smiling, too, as if she knew that what she was saying had a touch of absurdity in it.
I've come to bore you, she said. "I need some money, not on my father's account now, Mr. Lingle, for I know about his debt to you, but for myself, this time. I have no security beyond my word and promise to pay. It is a very serious matter, Mr. Lingle. You know about Tobe Keith's condition and that he must be sent to Atlanta. No one else will pay for it, and—"
So you are going to mix yourself up in that mess, are you? asked Lingle, frowning till his shaggy iron-gray brows met and all but overlapped. "If you were my daughter—Oh, what's the use? I'm not your teacher, but if you were in my charge I'd make you stay out of this. I know, I reckon, what's the matter. You feel responsible because your brothers were held accountable; that's like a woman. But all that is neither here nor there. I can't let you have any money at all. I'm going to be plain. Maybe it will open your eyes a little to the facts. My dear girl, I hold a mortgage on all the crops in the ground at your place, on the very tools, cattle, hogs, and horses. Your father—I hate to say it—but your father is as helpless in business matters as a new-born baby. He belongs to the old order. He is up to his neck in debt to every friend he has. I can't let him have any more money, and I can't let you have any. I wouldn't let you have it for what you want it even if you had good collateral to pin to your note. I couldn't conscientiously do it, for it would be throwing it away. That drunken roustabout hasn't one chance in a thousand to live, anyway, and the country would be better off without his brand. As for your brothers—well, you'd better keep them in the West. Men of your father's stamp don't have quite the influence they used to have. Our courts are being criticized for their lax methods so much that our judges and juries are becoming more careful in administering justice. If Tobe Keith dies—well, your brothers had better stay away, that's all."
So there's no use asking you to—
No, Miss Mary, this bank can't mix up in such matters as that. Folks from up-to-date towns are making fun of us, too. One drummer was telling it around in Atlanta the other day that any stranger could cash a check here by simply inviting us to take a drink or handing us a cheap cigar. We are making new rules and sticking to them. With that the president of the bank turned toward his desk and reached out for a sheet of paper on which he had been writing.
I thank you, Mr. Lingle, she faltered. "I am sure that you know best."
He held his paper in his left hand while he gave her his right, and made a sort of scraping movement with his foot as he executed a bow.
As she went back into the main room she was conscious of the fear that Albert Frazier might have discovered her presence at the bank and be waiting for her outside. Why, she asked herself, was the thought actually so terrifying? He might propose that he should have her horse sent out and that he be allowed to drive her home. In that case it would all be over. She would have to give the promise he had so long sought and she had so long withheld. A thrill of relief went through her on finding that he was not in sight anywhere about the busy square. She walked rapidly now toward the livery-stable, still with the fear of pursuit on her that was like the haunting dread of a nightmare. She was soon in the saddle and galloping homeward. At the point where the village street gave into the main country road she checked her speed. What, after all, was she running from? If the thing was inevitable, what was the use in putting it off? Was not the delay injurious to the end she was seeking? Might not even another day count fatally against Tobe Keith's recovery? Yes, the answer was yes, and nothing else. If it had to be done, why wait longer? She actually tried to turn the head of her horse toward the village, but the animal had scented home and the food to be had there, and refused, allowing the taut rein to bend his neck but not to guide his limbs. She finally came to regard it as an omen to be obeyed and allowed him to gallop on toward the farm.
As she neared her home the sun's rays were dying out of the landscape and the dusk was gathering. Coming to meet her from the house she saw Charles, and she wondered what had happened, for he never left the field before sundown; moreover, it struck her that he was walking rapidly, as if to reach her before she got to the house. He could not be coming to take the saddle from her horse, for Kenneth or Martin at the stable could do that. She summoned a smile as she greeted him at the barn-yard gate and he reached up to catch the bridle-rein. To her surprise he failed to return it. She had never seen a graver expression on his face as he held up his strong arms to help her down.
What is the matter? she asked, now alarmed.
Don't get frightened, he said. "After all, it may amount to nothing, but still, I had to reach you and put you on your guard. I was afraid you might call out or whistle to your brothers, and that wouldn't do. After you left, they were so quiet, and remained out of sight so persistently, that, as the time passed, I became concerned about them. Usually, you know, they steal out and go into the woods for recreation or join me at my work. To-day they did not appear, so I went to the barn about two hours ago. Fortunately I did not whistle, but went directly up to them in the loft. They explained it. It seems that Kenneth had observed a strange man moving stealthily in and out of the woods, sometimes watching me, sometimes the house, and sometimes the barn."
Oh! and Mary went white from head to foot. "It is one of the sheriff's men. Don't you think so?"
I don't know. Kenneth says he got a good look at him and that he is sure he is a stranger here. To be plain, Kenneth thinks that the sheriff has sent for a detective and that the detective may suspect the thing we are trying to hide—that the boys are not in the West, but here at home.
Mary said nothing. The deepening pallor of her face rendered it grim and firm, but it was none the less beautiful in its unwonted lines. He took off the saddle, opened the gate, and turned the horse into the lot.
When the boys hear the horse in the stall, he said, "they will know you are back. Will it be necessary for you to go in to them? I mean—you see, if the fellow is still watching; in that case he might draw deductions from your being there. While if you go on to the house now—"
I understand, and you are right, Mary said, with tight lips. "No, I'll go to the house. It is awful—awful—awful!"
He closed the gate and walked by her side till they reached the path leading down to the field. Here he turned to leave her.
Where are you going? The tone and words carried an almost desperate appeal to him not to leave her. In her wonderful eyes something seemed to burn not unlike the celestial resignation of the ancient saints before approaching torture. But, withal, she seemed to want to lean on him for moral or physical support.
I think I'll go back to work, he answered. "It is still not quite time for supper. Besides, from the field I can keep a better watch on the woods while I appear to see nothing."
Well, well, you are right, she said, sighing, "but please don't be late, and tell me if you see anything."
As she was nearing the house she saw her father returning home by a small private road which led to some of the farms north of his property.
Where have you been? she asked, as he joined her at the front gate, gallantly opened it, and stood aside for her to enter before him.
I went over to see Tankersley, was his answer. "I heard he had some money he might lend, and—well, I thought maybe I'd get it and send it to Tobe Keith. But as soon as the old miser heard what I wanted it for he laughed and sneered in my face. He was very impudent. His standard is money, and nothing higher. Of course, I couldn't afford to get angry with a man so low bred, and I came away."
I didn't know you had thought of raising money for Tobe, Mary said, wistfully. "In fact, I thought you would oppose my trying to get it."
I admit I did think we ought not to go that far at first, Rowland said, as they reached the steps of the veranda, "but after you left this morning I was talking to Mr. Brown. He is a most remarkable man in many ways. He is quite a philosopher and has a wonderful vocabulary when he gets to talking. He swept everything away except the fact of Tobe's life being at stake, and the terrible consequences his death would have on the—the future state of mind and ultimate character of the boys. I confess he set me thinking. He had the courage to scold me pretty sharply, too, about—well, about my inactivity just at this time. He said I ought to lay everything aside and think more of you and my sons. He is right. I don't know who he is or what sort of ancestors he had, but he is a man of moral convictions, and I respect him. He is a gentleman at bottom. He has met reverses and taken up this mode of life through necessity. I told him I would try to get the money from old Tankersley, and he seemed glad when I went away for that purpose."
They were on the veranda now. Mary could think only of the strange man who had been seen about the premises, and she was trying to make up her mind as to whether it would be expedient to mention it to her father when she saw him looking down the road toward the village.
That is Albert's horse, he said. "Yes, he is headed this way. That means that he will stay all night again. I think I could get that money from him, but I don't want to ask for more right now. He has done as much as I could expect already. No, I'll not ask him for it. Besides, of all the discourtesy known, to borrow money from a guest seems to me to be the worst. He seems worried over what you intend to do in his case," and Rowland was smiling pointedly. "He says you won't say one thing or another positively. He seemed to be hinting the other day that he'd like for me to take a hand in it, but I'll never do that. You must be your own judge. He is away beneath you in the matter of birth, but—"
Father, Mary suddenly broke in, "you have not let him know that the boys are in the barn, have you?"
No, I never let on about that, Rowland said, wearily, his eyes on the approaching horse and buggy. "I promised you I wouldn't, and, while I saw no reason—"
He mustn't know; he mustn't know! Mary broke in again. "I can't tell you now why, but he mustn't know that. He must not put up his horse, either, unless the boys are warned. It is getting dark and they may not see him coming. But keep him here, chat with him, and I'll slip to the barn by the back way and warn the boys."
Well, I'll do that, Rowland promised, "but hurry on back. I can't entertain him. He comes to see you, not me. He is daft about you—actually crazy. He'd give his right arm to have you agree to—"
But Mary had vanished into the hall and with lowered head was scudding through the shrubbery to the barn. The buggy was stopping at the gate, and Rowland went down the walk with a stately step to meet the incongruous suitor for the hand of his daughter.
In his corn-field, Charles took up his hoe and set to work. Now and then his eyes furtively swept the thicket on the hillside where Kenneth had seen the lurking stranger. Something seemed to tell Charles that the man was still in the neighborhood and was only waiting for the darkness to veil his further operations. He heard the sound of Frazier's horse on the road and saw Mary slip from a rear door of the house and steal rapidly down to the barn, but he did not understand what it meant. It became plain a moment later when Mary was seen hurrying back and the sound of hoofs and wheels at the gate had ceased. That it was Frazier making another call he did not doubt, and a sense of helpless discontent descended upon him, seeming to gather weight and substance from the very thickening darkness, and disconsolate voice from the dismal croaking of the frogs in the near-by marshes. Fireflies were flitting over the corn and about the shrubbery bordering the walk to the house. Charles now gazed more frequently and keenly toward the thicket. It was growing so dark that he felt that his pretense at working could not be kept up longer without exciting undue suspicion in the mind of the possible observer. He had decided to stop, when something among the branches of the young trees on the hillside caught his eye. To his astonishment he saw the vague outlines of a masculine figure emerge, stand out from the trees, and then slowly advance toward him. That he had been under the eye of this person the greater part of the day and was still being watched he did not doubt. That the man knew he was there and was coming toward him for a purpose he was sure. What could it mean other than that the man, if he was a detective, had decided to reveal his purpose and seek an interview from a man so recently hired that he ought to be a disinterested witness? That must be it, and Charles steeled himself for an ordeal he dreaded in many ways. With his hoe on his shoulder he made his way between two rows of corn toward the path leading up to the house. The man was still approaching. He was not a hundred feet away when, as Charles was turning toward the house, the stranger suddenly and softly coughed.
Ahem! the man cleared his throat, coughed again, and waved his hand. Charles turned quite around and stood hesitating.
Wait! Please don't go yet, sir, a strangely familiar voice exclaimed, in a low, urgent tone. "I must see you."
Great God! Mike, is it you? Charles lowered his hoe and stood peering through the gloom.
Yes, sir, it is me, Mr. Charles, was the faltering reply. "I hope you won't be angry, but I felt that I must see you. I waited till night, thinking it would please you for me to do so."
My God! Mike! was all Charles could say, as he reached out his hand and dropped his hoe.
Yes, sir. I hope you will forgive me. I haven't the right to do all this, considering your wishes, sir, but I couldn't keep from it, sir. I saw you about a year ago in Madison Square in New York. You were with a friend, sir, and I dared not address you then, so I followed you and him.
My Lord! You were that fellow! Charles laughed out of sheer relief in finding that his greater fears were ungrounded.
Yes, sir, and I stood watch over the house, hoping to see you alone, but you both got away that night, and—
Thank God! Mike—I'm glad—rejoiced to see you! and Charles affectionately wrung the hand that was in his. "How are the people at home?"
All well, sir—your brother, the missus and the little girl. She is always asking about you—can't seem to understand like—like—well, like the others.
I see, and a sudden chill passed over Charles at the thought now in his mind. "But, Mike, how did you happen to locate me? Surely they don't know at home that I am down here."
Oh no, sir! That was just my discovery, sir.
Your discovery?
Yes. You see, I've been making rather frequent trips to New York to see my mother, and when I was there I was always on the lookout for you. You see, I didn't then know but what you and your friend might return from New Jersey and be hiding somewhere in New York. So a short time ago, sir, happening to be in Washington Square, who should I see but a man who looked so much like your friend that I determined to get a closer view. It turned out to be Mr. Mason, sir; but we were playing at cross-purposes, Mr. Charles, for he thought I was a plain-clothes detective. He had spotted me that time a year ago in Madison Square and, sir, your friend—he will do to trust—he shut up like a clam. He lied like a good fellow, sir. I don't know what he didn't tell me with as straight a face as a parson at a funeral. We had it up and down, sir, for quite a while, and him thinking every minute that I would show my badge, whistle for help, and take him in as a witness against you. Presently, however, he seemed to get tired of the tack we were on and made a bluff, sir. He got up and just as good as told me to mind my own business. He walked off, madlike, in a huff, as if he had had enough of me. But I couldn't let him depart so, Mr. Charles. I went after him again, and then he came back and we had it out. To make a long story short, I finally convinced him that I was your friend, sir. In fact, he said that you had honored me by mentioning me to him. It was the money, however, I think, that clinched the matter.
Money? Mason didn't accept money from you, did he? Charles asked, in bewilderment.
Oh no, sir! He is the soul of honor, Mr. Charles! I mean the money I owe you and which I told him I had then in the bank to pay you. He said you were—I think he said 'strapped,' sir, down here in the neighborhood of Carlin, and he was sure you needed the cash, as you were so hard up that you were going to work on a farm. And this is the way I find you, sir, dressed like a common laborer. Thank God, I've got the money, Mr. Charles. Here it is in a roll. It is burning a hole in my pocket, sir. You ought not to have left Boston without it.
Charles's heart bounded at the sight of the money Michael was now extending toward him. He took it. He fondled it. His eyes beamed through the dusk. "Oh, Mike," he cried. "You can never imagine how much I am in need of this. I wouldn't take it from you, but I really must, for it is going to help a sweet, beautiful girl out of serious trouble. I'll tell you about her later. She is the daughter of the gentleman for whom I am working."
Was she the young lady who came on a horse and whom you assisted at the barn, sir?
Yes. Did you see her, Mike?
Yes, sir, and a good look I had, too, sir, for I was hidden behind some thick bushes only twenty yards from where you and she stood with the horse. Oh, she is indeed beautiful, sir, and must have a fine character. Pardon me, sir, but I think I understand. You could not keep from—from—no natural man full of young blood could keep from—admiring her. Ah, sir, I congratulate you. I see now that maybe you need not be so—so lonely and unhappy in your new life.
There is nothing between us, and never can be, Mike, Charles sighed. "You know of the cloud hanging over me. That will forever prevent my marrying. This is a fine old aristocratic family, Mike. But, Mike, this money may save her from a marriage that is repulsive to her. It will have to be used secretly. I mustn't be known in it."
You don't mean, sir, that you are giving the—the money away as soon as you get it? Ah, that is like you, Mr. Charles! You are never thinking of yourself—always of others, as you did in my case and many others. But I had hoped—when Mr. Mason told me of your condition down here—I had hoped that the money would come in handy to—
It is worth my life to me, Charles interrupted, grasping the hand of his companion and pressing it fervently. "I would have given my right arm to have gotten it anywhere for her use."
Then it really is love, sir, Michael opined, simply. "And considering what I've seen of the lady, I can imagine how you feel under the fear, sir, of her going to some one else who is unworthy of her. Yes, I'll have to be satisfied."
At this point the bell at the kitchen door clanged. "It is for me, Mike," Charles explained. "I'm late for supper and must go now. But I must see you to-night. Are you stopping at Carlin?"
Yes, sir, at that remarkable inn. It was there, from that talkative clerk, sir, that I learned of a circus man being employed on this place.
Well, go back now, Mike, and I'll be in to see you to-night. It may be as late as eleven o'clock, but I'll not fail. Wait up for me. There are many things to be inquired about, but first that other business must be attended to.
About the young lady, sir?
Yes.
I'll be there, Mr. Charles, and I'll be guarded in my conduct, you may be sure. I'll get directions from you later. Come straight to my room, sir.
One other question, Mike, before you go. Charles lowered the hoe which he had put on his shoulder and leaned on it.
Did the—the thing I did at the bank harm my brother financially? Is he still employed there? You see, I was afraid that, on my account—
Oh, that is all over with, sir. Your brother, if anything, stands higher than ever. You see, that was due to your uncle James.
To Uncle James!
Yes, sir. You know he came home from Europe very soon after you left. He took a high hand at the bank—bought up all the floating stock and only recently was made the president. I have hoped, sir, that, that being the case, the charges against you would be dismissed. You see, I know, Mr. Charles, and they must know, that you were unconscious of what you were doing. I myself have seen you, sir, when you were in a condition that—
Well, never mind that, and Charles seemed to shrink within himself, shouldered his hoe, and turned. "We'll talk it all over at the hotel to-night."
On reaching the house he found that the family and the guest had already supped. He went into the dining-room and sat in his accustomed place. He heard voices from the veranda, and knew that Mary, her father, and Frazier were seated there. Aunt Zilla brought his supper, and he apologized for his delay.
Dat's all right, Mr. Brown. She smiled significantly. "Young Miss done tol' me dat you was doin' er favor fer 'er. You could stay till daybreak, fer all I care—she is in so much trouble. My Gawd! ef you des could 'a' looked at 'er while she was settin' eatin' 'side dat low rapscallion ter-night, you'd 'a' pitied 'er like I done do. I could 'a' poured de scaldin' coffee down his thick bull neck fum behind when I fetched it in. Why, you kin tell fum de looks of 'im dat his money is all he got! Huh! I say!"
She vanished through the door of her sanctum, letting it shut with a bang that shook the wooden partition.
Presently Charles was conscious of the entry into the room of some one whose step was soundless. It was Mary. She fairly crept into the circle of lamplight from the unlighted hall and sitting-room. Sinking into the chair next to his, she whispered:
I slipped away. I had to. I couldn't wait to know. Did you find out what—who—
She was at a loss for words, and he smiled reassuringly. "It was all a mistake. The man Kenneth saw was looking for me. He is an old friend from up North, and a trusty one. He acted oddly, but—but he is rather eccentric, and he was somewhat afraid that I might not want to see him."
Oh! then it wasn't a detective?
No, only an old friend of mine whom I have not seen for some time. I'm sorry it caused you such a fright.
That doesn't matter. Mary rose, her eyes on the door leading to the veranda. She stood as if listening. The alternate mumbling of two masculine voices came in on the sultry air. She sighed, looked down at Charles, and he saw that the light of relief which had illumined her face had already died down.
That is out of the way, she whispered, as if to herself in part, "but something almost as bad has come."
You mean—? He stood up to keep her company, and saw her sweep her eyes furtively toward the door again.
She nodded as if he had finished a remark that she fully understood. "Albert says that the doctors held another consultation just before he left Carlin this afternoon. They decided that Tobe must be removed to-morrow night at the latest. He came to tell me and to drive me to town with him in the morning."
And you are going to—allow him to furnish the money?
She nodded again, her face averted. "I've tried everywhere, and so has father. This is no time for sentiment. I shall do my duty."
There was a sound of steps approaching through the hall. There was no mistaking that careless, blustering stride. With a startled, almost frightened expression, Mary whirled toward the kitchen and disappeared just as Frazier entered the sitting-room. An instant later and Frazier would have seen the two together.
I was looking for Miss Mary, he said, and he glowered on Charles, who had resumed his chair and taken up his knife and fork. Charles thought with lightning swiftness. He did not want to give the man the slightest information, so with a steady, contemptuous stare he simply made no answer.
His manner and silence fairly stunned Frazier, who, in default of anything else to do, simply glared at him for a moment and then turned back toward the veranda. Charles was glad he had taken the course he did, the next moment, for he heard Mary's voice on the veranda speaking to her father. She had slipped out at the kitchen door and had hastily made her way over the grass back to the front.
Charles finished his supper and, having nothing just then to do, he started up to his room. He intended to go to the village as soon as he could leave the house unnoticed, and that meant waiting till the family and the guest had retired. As he was ascending the stairs he heard the angry voice of Frazier raised above a normal tone.
He simply glared at me when I spoke, sneered and didn't open his lips. Now I tell you that if it hadn't been here in your house, Mr. Rowland, I'd have given him a licking that he would remember all his life—a common, roustabout circus tramp acting in such a high and mighty way with me!
Charles heard Rowland's faint voice in response, but failed to catch his words. It was ten o'clock before he heard the others go to their rooms, and he waited half an hour afterward before stealing down the stairs and starting on his walk to the village.
The following morning Charles went to his work after breakfasting alone. Aunt Zilla said the others were not yet up. From his corn-field he saw Frazier lead his horse up to the gate and hitch it to his buggy, which had been left there. Presently Mary came out, and was assisted into the vehicle. Frazier attentively tucked the lap-robe about her feet, waved a parting hand to Rowland at the gate, and they drove away. The buggy seat was a narrow one and the couple had to sit close together. Frazier, in a very loutish way, had dropped his right foot over the edge of the buggy, and it was swinging to and fro close to the wheels, like a pendulum.
I want to warn you and your father both against that fellow, he was saying to the thought-immersed girl, who, pale and rigid, sat by his side. "I am sure there is something crooked about him. He has all the earmarks of a suspicious character. I have helped my brother in several detective cases and I never saw a man I suspected more. It is not all groundless, either, little girl. You see, the last time I was here to stay all night I heard him coming in away after midnight, slipping up the stairs with his shoes in his hand, and this morning between two and three he did the same thing. The first time I stopped him with my gun in my hand, but this morning I let him pass. I intend to give him plenty of rope and watch him. Some suspicious characters were connected with the circus he left, and my frank opinion is that this Brown dropped off here, and is working on your place merely as a blind to cover up some shady game."
You say you heard him come in this morning between two and three? Mary said, wonderingly. "Are you not mistaken?"
No. The truth is I thought I heard him go out about eleven, but was not sure, so I left my door slightly ajar. I am a light sleeper when I want to be, and I heard him at the front door and watched him creep up the stairs without his shoes again. A fellow like that may stare at me and not answer a decent question, but it won't pay him. He doesn't know who he is fooling with.
Mary said nothing. She was wondering what could have taken Charles out at that hour. Finally she thought of the old friend he had mentioned and decided his going out must have been connected with him. But—again she found herself perplexed—why had the "old friend" acted so strangely the preceding day? Why had he hidden in the thicket for so many hours before approaching Charles, and why had he waited for the darkness to fall before accomplishing his purpose? It was queer, very queer, but not for a moment did she doubt that all was as it should be. She found herself actually too miserable to attempt a defense of Charles against Frazier's insinuations. After all, what could be of importance beyond the object of her mission to the village that morning? Frazier had said that he would go to the bank as soon as they reached Carlin and get the necessary money. Whether the life of the wounded man might be saved was very doubtful at best, but one thing seemed settled beyond recall, and that was her marriage to the man by her side. Could it be possible? she kept asking herself, to the thudding accompaniment of the horse's hoofs; yes, yes, it was now inevitable. She was glad, vaguely glad, that Frazier forebore mentioning the subject during the drive. He evidently felt that after the price had been paid she would be ready to complete the bargain. She was beginning to feel herself a slave, but she was a haughty, uncringing one, and well knew the value of what she was giving.
They were entering the village. He told her it was nine o'clock and the bank would be open for business. He could, by going only a short distance out of his way, drop her at Keith's house. How would she like to stop and tell Tobe the good news while he went on to the bank for the money?
It was just what she desired, for she shrank from being seen at the bank on such business. The president, at least, would understand and make mental, if not open, comments. So at the gate of the cottage Frazier left her, promising to come back very soon.
No one was in sight about the place, though the front door was open, and as she entered the gate she heard the grinding tread of thick-shod feet on the boards of the floor within.
The buggy was disappearing down the street as she timidly reached the door. She stood there a moment, and then summoned up the courage to rap on the lintel.
Go see who it is, Ma, she heard Tobe say. "Maybe they are here already."
Then Mrs. Keith appeared. Her facial expression was more cheerful than it was the day before, her form more erect and confident. She was even courteous in her unlettered way.
Come in, come in, she said, smiling. "Tobe, it is Miss Mary. He is daft about you, Miss Mary; he hasn't talked about a thing since you left but the sweet way you acted and spoke yesterday. He has a lot to tell you, but I reckon you have heard by this time. News spreads like fire in dry broomsedge in a little place like this."
I have heard nothing new, Mary answered, wonderingly.
You say you haven't? Well, everybody else has, here in town, I'll bet a horse. Tobe, she hain't heard. You tell her. He can do it to the queen's taste. Mrs. Keith laughed in a chuckling way.
You can't fool me with that prim look of yours, Miss Mary, the wounded man said, smiling wanly from his pillow, as Mary bent over him. "You know all about it. I'm not such a fool as to think that two big things would just happen together like you being here yesterday and that other piling in so quick afterwards."
What do you mean by 'that other'? Mary asked, in groping surprise.
Listen, Ma, listen at her! Tobe laughed. "You know women better 'n I do. Ain't she just making out?"
She looks to me like she's really puzzled, Mrs. Keith answered. "The truth is, Miss Mary, the money for the Atlanta trip was sent last night, an' we don't know who it come from; but Tobe declares you are at the bottom of it."
I believe it, and nothing won't shake me from it, Tobe insisted, still smiling confidently.
You say—you say that you got the money! Mary fairly gasped in surprise.
Not only that, but a cool hundred over the amount, Tobe went on. "You'd as well get off your high perch, Miss Mary Rowland. You see, I've got evidence."
Evidence! I don't understand. Mary was truly bewildered.
Yes. I had no sooner mentioned it to Mrs. Bartlett this morning than she told about how you was riding from place to place to borrow the money. I can put two and two together easy enough. You simply got the money and are trying to keep from being known in it, that's all.
I give you my word, Tobe, I know nothing about it, Mary answered, her head hanging in embarrassment. "I confess I did try to get the money, and—and I intended to try again to-day. Of course, I'm glad it has come."
I believe she is in earnest, Tobe, Mrs. Keith said, her gaunt hands clutching the foot of the bedstead. "Well, it is awfully strange, Miss Mary. It happened like this. I was up with Tobe to give him his fever mixture about two o'clock this morning, when down the street, alongside Mrs. Bartlett's picket fence, I saw two men coming. It looked like one was trying to persuade the other to do something that he didn't exactly want to tackle, an' my first thought was that they were niggers trying to rob some hen-roost. But while I was watching, sorter scrouched down on the door-sill, so as not to be seen, the two men come on to our gate and halted. Then in the starlight, that was pretty bright, I saw they was white men. I was still, an' so was they for a minute; then I heard one of them say, sorter peevish-like: 'Go on. Knock at the door, an' when somebody comes out hand it to 'em and say what I told you to say. That ain't hard to remember. Nobody won't hurt you.'"
Tobe laughed merrily from his bed. "'Fraid he'd get shot, I reckon. Think o' that, Miss Mary—afraid he'd have somebody pull down on him when he was out to do a kind deed like that!"
Mrs. Keith's smile blended into her son's mood, and she went on:
"The feller that was doing the ordering opened the gate an' sorter shoved the other one in and stayed back behind hisse'f. On come the other one then, and found me settin' on the door-sill. It seemed to scare the very wits out of 'im, for at the sudden sight of me rising from my seat he made a gruntin' sound, and would have bolted outright if I hadn't halted 'im. I asked him what he wanted. For a minute he was tongue-tied and then he hauled out something that I took for a gun at first, but which was a big fat roll o' Uncle Sam's currency wrapped in tissue-paper. It's a present from a friend an' well-wisher of the young man that was hurt. He hopes he will use it and get well.' That was all he said or would say. He had a sort o' Irish twist to his tongue, I should say, and he had on a nice suit of dark-gray clothes. He was a plumb stranger in this place, it seemed to me. I know I never laid eyes on him before. Well, sir, he just bolted, an' him an' the other feller made off towards the square at a lively gait. I didn't then know what was in the roll, for I had only the feel of my fingers to guide me, but you bet I hustled in and turned up the lamp. You can't imagine my astonishment. I was so crazy that I could not count the stuff. Tobe was asleep, and thar I stood at that center-table with all that boodle. Tobe woke up and saw me, and I told him as well as I could what had happened, and me an' him counted the stuff bill by bill—some tens, some twenties, and as high up as fifties. Five hundred dollars! I locked the front door. I wanted to bolt down the winders, hot as the night was. I thought about getting out Tobe's revolver. As I say, I was plumb off my nut. I knowed I ought not to 'a' done it, but I stayed awake and let Tobe chatter till daybreak. He was in for sending to the doctor an' letting him know at once, but we didn't till about seven o'clock. And Doctor Harrison heated the wires hot between here and Atlanta. It is all ready fixed down there, and our tickets bought. We are to take the one-o'clock through express. The doctor is going along, too, an' a nurse, just for the trip. The doctor engaged the drawing-room in a sleeping-car, whar he says thar hain't a bit of jolting, and plenty o' space for Tobe to stretch out comfortable. Four buck niggers from the cotton-warehouse is coming to tote Tobe on a cot to the train, and a whole drug-store o' mixtures is going along. The doctor is powerful pleased, and said we was taking it just in the nick o' time. In fact, he said we mustn't be too hopeful, as all depended on what Doctor Elliot would be able to do down thar. He said we was too excited, for one thing, an' that we must calm ourselves down—that a trip like this would be hard enough on Tobe, anyway. I promised I'd keep Tobe quiet, but how can I? Every minute somebody drops in to find out if the tale going about is so, and we go over it again.""
"I am afraid that I am exciting him now, said Mary, as she rose. "I must be going. I came in this morning, Tobe, to—to find out how you are," she said, haltingly, "and I am delighted to hear the good news."
I know you are—I know that, Tobe answered, extending his pale hand. "I'm glad you come, Miss Mary. Coming like you have has wiped out all hard feeling between me and your brothers. If I get well I'll do my level best to keep the thing out of court, and if I die I'll leave word that I was as much to blame as the boys."
The sensation which came over the gentle girl as she went out into the cool morning air was indescribable. She felt almost as if the balmy sunlight were some joy-giving fluid to be drunk like wine. Her step was buoyant. She told herself that a veritable miracle had happened. She could not explain it, but it had happened. Her unspoken prayer constantly framed in heart-sinking desire had been answered. She didn't want aid to come from Albert Frazier, and it had not.
This thought reminded her that she must try to see him before he had put himself to the trouble of getting the money at the bank. So she hastened toward the square.
She was soon entering the bank, and in the little vestibule she saw Frazier in earnest conversation with an employee of the bank. Frazier's heavy brow was clouded over as with displeasure. He failed to note her presence at first, and she heard him say, angrily:
I don't see any necessity of waiting for him. It is a mere matter of form, anyway. I'm in a hurry right now.
The embarrassed clerk was about to reply when Frazier noticed Mary and turned to meet her, his hat in hand.
I've been delayed by these idiots, he said, fuming. "I've always had my check honored without delay, but simply because I overchecked a little yesterday they want me to wait and see the president. Bosh! I'll show them a thing or two! We need another bank here, anyway, and I'll get one started. These fellows have a monopoly and are getting entirely too particular. I suppose you got tired waiting for me, and—"
No, it wasn't that, Mary corrected him. "The Keiths have already got the money."
Got the money! he repeated. He took her arm, and in almost benumbed astonishment led her out to his buggy in front. She explained as well as she could, and noted the slow look of sullen chagrin steal over his face. "And you say they don't know who sent it? That sounds fishy to me. Who ever heard of such a thing?"
Mary was unable to make an adequate reply. His face was clouded over and growing darker every minute.
Well, he asked, "what are you going to do this morning?"
I want to call on Mrs. Quinby at the hotel, she answered. "I promised to come the next time I was in town. You mustn't bother about me. I shall take dinner with her."
As she spoke Mary turned toward the hotel, and Frazier walked along with her, taking care to be on the outside of the pavement, as was the custom. The look of disappointed anger was leaving his face and a shrewd expression was taking its place.
I'll be around to take you home after dinner, then, he remarked, his glance failing to meet her upturned eyes. "The truth is, I must see my brother and have a roundabout chat with him in regard to the boys."
In regard to them? Mary said, in a startled undertone.
Yes. It is like this, he went on, his shrewd expression deepening. "Things are not quite in as good shape as they were, little girl. I didn't intend to tell you yet, but I reckon I may as well. It seems that the grand jury has been criticizing my brother in a roundabout way for not making a more thorough effort to—to locate the boys, and I'm a little bit afraid that he may telegraph to Texas and make inquiry of the man whose name was signed to the letter I showed him. I'll have to watch him closely and try to prevent that, you know."
Oh! Mary muttered, in alarm. "Then he might—"
Yes, if he got on to that trick he would be furious and maybe see through the whole thing—find out about my interest in you and all the rest. He saw me with you the other day, and I had to pretend that I was pumping you on the sly to help him locate your brothers. It went down, for he is none too bright, but there is no telling when he may suspicion the truth and then, you see, he might take a notion to search the mountains. That would be bad, wouldn't it? But I'm going to work hard to-day to throw him off. If he should happen to see us together I'll tell him—you see, he knows I've had financial deals with your father—I'll tell him that you came to pay me some interest or something like that. As a last resort I may—I don't say it would come to that—but as a last resort I may just come out flat with the truth and tell him, you know, that you are—well, what you are to me, and throw our case on his mercy. I don't know how he would act about it, I'm sure, but he might, you know, give the boys a chance to—to—
He seemed unable to proceed further in his crude diplomacy, and Mary, blinded by terror to his designs, suppressed a deep sigh, and with tight lips remained silent. They were now at the entrance of the hotel.
I'll find out all I can, he said, as he was leaving her, "and will let you know when I come for you this afternoon. By the way, I'll drive around to the rear door, and we can go out by the back street without passing through the square. We have to be very careful. It is a wonder folks haven't got on to my trips out your way, but they haven't so far, it seems, and they must not just now. It might upset things awfully."
Mary went into the office of the hotel. Sam Lee was behind the counter, and came to her quickly.
How d' do, Miss Mary? he cried, flushing to the roots of his smoothly matted hair, which lay over his eyebrows like the bang of a mountain school-girl. "Mrs. Quinby is out the back way, buying a load of frying-chickens from a farmer. She will be in in a minute. Will you wait here, or will you go up to the parlor?"
Mary decided to go to the parlor, dreading the entrance of some acquaintance and not being in the mood for greetings or conversation. Sam accompanied her, gallantly opening the parlor door and going in to raise the blinds of the shaded windows.
Oh, by the way, Miss Mary, he said, as he was about to leave, "how did you come out with that circus man I told you about that wanted to do farm work?"
Very well, the girl replied.
And he is satisfactory?
Yes, quite, Mary answered.
I was wondering how he would suit, Lee pursued, thoughtfully, "for he seemed a sort of a misfit to me. You see, I meet all sorts of characters from everywhere, almost, and I'd never have put him down as a good farm-hand."
He does very well, Mary said, evasively. "We are entirely satisfied."
Well, he is odd in many ways, Lee continued, observantly. "He never comes in town in the daytime, but always at night, and late at that. He was here last night about midnight. There was a queer chap here that refused to register. I say refused, but I can't say he did that, either, for he simply paid for a whole day in advance at the transient rate and was assigned a room. We always require a guest to register, but he was so busy asking questions about the people and the town that I overlooked it. Well, if that looks odd, it seems a little more so that your man should come in last night, wake me up after twelve, and want to see the fellow. The funny part of it was that when I asked him who he wanted to see he didn't know, or pretended that he didn't, anyway. He set in to describe him—said he had on a dark-gray sack-suit and wore a green necktie, and the like. It was No. 37 that he was after, all right, and I showed him up to the room. They must have had an appointment, for Thirty-seven was up, reading a paper, when I knocked. Then I remembered that he had questioned me about the circus and the men that dropped out here. I remembered then that I told him about getting Brown a job on your farm. It was all odd, but I run across so many strange things here in this joint that I have quit keeping track of 'em. However—now I hope you will take this as coming from a friend, Miss Mary?—I believe, if I was you, and in as much trouble as you are already, why, I'd be on my guard with that fellow Brown. I heard the sheriff talking one day to his brother about the outlaws that was with that circus, and I must say, while I am not a detective of the first water, I think for a common hired hand your Mr. Brown is a mystery. I noticed that the two did not shake hands, and that looked as though they had met that day before. They just waited till I left, and then the man in the gray suit closed the door. They must have stayed there an hour or more, and then—now comes the strange part—they come down, passed through the office, and went out on the square. They may have been gone an hour when the fellow came back alone and slipped up to his room."
A dark-gray suit! Mary said to herself, recalling Mrs. Keith's description of the mysterious visitor at her house, "and a friend of Mr. Brown!" Her heart was beating rapidly now. She was afraid that the clerk would note the excitement which was fast mastering her, and she abruptly changed the subject. Going to the window, she looked out, and then said:
I see Mrs. Quinby is coming in. Please tell her that I am up here, but ask her not to hurry on my account.
I will—I'll do that, Miss Mary, said Lee, backing from the room, a mystified look in his observant eyes. "Yes, I'll tell her, and she will be right up."
It was growing dusk when Frazier brought Mary back to the farm. He did not stop, having some important business to attend to that evening, and drove back to the village. Mary was very unhappy. From a window in the parlor of the hotel she had seen Tobe Keith taken to the train, and the silent awe of the bystanders, the grave looks of the doctors, the nurse, and Mrs. Keith in her best dress induced a feeling of vast depression. She had heard people on the pavement below saying that Keith would never be cured—that no man in his condition could stand the operation that was proposed. She thought, too, that Mrs. Quinby had failed to give her much encouragement. Indeed, it was almost as if her good friend were trying to prepare her for the worst.
Finding no one in sight about the house, Mary went straight to the barn to acquaint her brothers with all that had taken place. She tried to shake off the morbid feeling which clung to her so persistently, not realizing that it was due to the fact of her still being, in a sense, in the power of Albert Frazier. It was true that he had not paid for Keith's expenses, but he had managed to make her feel her absolute dependence on him for the safety of her brothers. She shuddered, and fairly cringed, under the thought that she had not repulsed him when he had put his arm around her in a secluded spot on the road home and kissed her on the cheek. The spot stung now as if it were a wound which her rising flush was irritating.
She had seen her brothers in their loft, and was entering the house, when she met Charles descending from his room.
You are late, he smiled. "We have had supper already."
So have I, she answered. "I took it early with Mrs. Quinby at the hotel. We drove rapidly, as Mr. Frazier had to hurry back to town."
She sat down on the veranda, and he stood, with an unusual air of embarrassment, quite near to her.
Sit down, please, she said. "I know you are tired from your work."
He obeyed willingly enough, but it seemed to her that there was a certain undefinable restraint about him. They sat silent for several minutes. She was watching his face attentively. At any other time she might have been amused. Did he not realize that his failure to inquire about Tobe Keith was an indirect confession of the part he had played the night before?
Well, they took Tobe to Atlanta to-day, she suddenly announced, still eying him closely.
Oh, did they? he exclaimed.
She said nothing for another moment. "I suppose you think that Albert furnished the money?" she continued. She smiled now at his look of confusion, and as he made no reply she went on: "Well, he didn't. When I got to Mrs. Keith's this morning I learned that some one else had given her the necessary money. No one knows from whom it came."
That's strange, Charles said, feebly.
Yes, it was very strange. It seems that the man who brought it was an absolute stranger. He turned it over to Mrs. Keith, but refused to say who sent it. The whole town is talking about it.
Very strange indeed, Charles said, still awkwardly. "I hope the poor fellow will stand his journey well."
Yes, sending money like that was very strange, Mary persisted. "Most persons do their charity differently. They blow a horn, sound a trumpet, or get it into the papers; but this is genuine charity. However, it will leak out. You can't keep things like that hidden long."
What do the doctors think—do they think that his chances are good for recovery?
Again Mary ignored his remark, smiling faintly through the dusk as she watched his obvious floundering. "No, a deed like that is too rare and fine for the author of it to keep hidden. Oh, if you could have been there with me this morning and seen that poor mother's face and her son's as they told about how the money came, you would have felt like crying for joy. I did. I couldn't help it. I broke down. I think I know now what heaven is like. It is like I felt at that moment. They were like two happy children, and I was happy, too, and grateful." Here Mary actually sobbed. "I was grateful to some unknown person who had saved me from—from the most humiliating thing that ever threatened me. I was willing to give my life rather than accept that aid from Albert Frazier, and it had come in that mysterious way like a gift from God at the very last moment. You must help me—help me find out who did it, Mr. Brown. Will you?"
He stared like a man in a bewildered dream. "Yes, yes," he stammered, "I will, but why bother about it now, anyway?"
'Bother about it'! How can you use such words? You see, you are not in my place. You can't realize how I feel. I want to see him. I want to look into his face, as—as I am looking into yours now, and tell him just how I feel and what he has done for me. I want to repay him. I want to tell him that there is nothing—nothing under high heaven I would not do for him. I want him to tell me what to do in all this darkness that has gathered about me and is stifling hope and life out of me, young as I am. I want to be his faithful friend till the end of time. I want to serve him—to be his slave—anything.
Charles rose to his feet awkwardly. "I—I see how you feel, Miss Rowland," he said. "But I am afraid I am keeping you from your duties. By the way, your father has gone over to Dodd's. He came by the field and asked me to tell you that he would not be back till about bedtime."
Mary got up also. She reached out and took his arm and walked with him to the other end of the veranda. He felt her hand trembling. She pressed his arm against her side. "You shall not go yet!" she cried, passionately. "I have been beating about the bush. I know that you did that thing. I've known it all day. No one else knows, but I do—and it has made me so happy. I could not have taken it from any one else, but I want to take it from you. I want to take it, because I know you wanted to give it. I know how you feel about me, and I want you to know how I feel about you."
Had the heavens split above him, dropping flames of celestial fire, he could not have felt more ecstatic. She had suddenly paused and lifted her wondrous face to his. Her beautiful lips hung quivering like drooping flowers. He was a man of remarkable restraint, but sometimes acted under impulse. He took her face between his hands, he bent to kiss her unresisting lips; then suddenly he checked himself. A picture of his whole past flashed before him. He was a man with a price on his head and liable to exposure at any moment. What right had he to the heart of such a girl as this—to win it under her father's kindly roof through the agency of a just act to a suffering man. He dropped his hands. With his face full of deepening agony he simply looked at her fixedly and remained mute.
What is the matter? she asked. "You are troubled about something; I see it. I've known it a long time."
Miss Rowland— he began.
Miss Rowland! she cried, impatiently. "Charlie—don't you see I call you Charlie! I have called you that a hundred times to myself since finding out what you did. I used it when I prayed to you—actually prayed to you this afternoon to forgive me for allowing that man to kiss me on the way home."
To kiss you! She saw him start and stand quivering under her earnest upward stare. She saw him lower his head as a slave being scourged with thongs of steel—a slave who was determined to show no signs of suffering. "He kissed you! Then—then—my God! you are engaged to him! After all, you are engaged to him!"
No, not quite that! she cried, in almost piteous appeal, "but I was afraid, from the way he talked—Oh, Charlie, you can't understand! It is true that I did not have to take his money to-day, but I am still at his mercy."
Still at his mercy! Charles groaned, his eyes ablaze with blended lights of fury and despair.
Falteringly she explained Frazier's veiled threats. As she ended she put her hands on his shoulders and again she lifted her face to his. Again he was swept by the flames of desire; again he held himself in check; again the shackles of his hopeless condition bit into the flesh of his memory, sinking to the very bones of his consciousness. What could he do? He might tell her of the blight on his life which had isolated him from all others, but what good would that do? And had he not promised William that the truth should never be known? No, his fate was sealed. He had won her, but he must lose her. No honorable man could ask such a woman to share such a precarious fate. She would be less unfortunate even as the wife of a man like Frazier. Charles was a social outcast who had crept into the shelter of unsuspecting hospitality. One loophole, and one only, flashed before his eyes on the screen of temptation, and that was to go back to Boston and demand his moral rights. But that would mean that he was failing to make good those sacred obligations. That would mean the degradation of William, and the terrible blight upon his family whom till now he had saved from humiliation and pain. No, that course would rouse condemnation even in the heart of the girl before him. Was there anything she would not do or suffer to save her brothers? Could such a selfless creature approve of a man less selfless? Her wondrous face, the all but visible halo about it, was his answer.
What is the matter, Charlie? she asked. "Have you lost respect for me for allowing him to kiss me? I could have died when he did it—I hated myself so, for I was thinking of what you would think if you knew. But I was afraid—afraid of him. If he were to become angry and turn against me, he would give my brothers up at once. He would lead in the search for them, and if he knew or suspected—"
Suspected what? he interrupted, as she paused and stood shuddering, her eyes filling with shadows.
If he suspected that I—if he suspected how I feel to you—he would try to kill you. Already he is your enemy, already he suspects you of—
Suspects me of what?
—of being a fugitive from the law who left the circus to avoid being arrested. It is absurd, ridiculous! Only such a man as he is would dream of such a thing. If ten thousand persons testified under oath that such was the case I'd not believe them.
You'd not believe them? he echoed, and he hugged to himself his inherent right to her faith in him as an honest man, for dishonest he had never been.
No, I'd not believe them. It seems to me now that I believe only in you. In all humanity I know of no one I trust so much—my father, my brothers, even my sweet dead— She hesitated, then finished, fervently: "Yes, even my mother. She would forgive me if she were here and understood."
Again the infinite yearning to take her to his breast swept over him. He put his arm about her; he was drawing her to him, when, with a groan of tortured resolution, he released her. His face was white in the dusk as he stood grimly silent.
I can't understand you, Charlie, she whispered, tenderly, and yet in a groping, bewildered tone. "Somehow I know—I'm sure that you—love me.
Oh, I do! he said, quickly, "but I have no right to do so. I can't explain. It would do no good, anyway. I am bound by honor not to reveal certain things, even to you."
I see, I see; now I begin to understand a little, she said, wistfully. "And I won't press you to tell me, either. It may be that you are bound to others, as I am bound. Though I have the sweet comfort of talking to you about it. I couldn't bear it all but for you, but I shall be braver, less complaining, from now on."
She lowered her head; she stood back from him. An overwhelming sense of losing her pressed down on him like a pall. He wondered if in her mute attitude lay any touch of womanly resentment against him for the stand he had taken. He held out his hands to her, but she simply sighed and slowly shook her head.
What is it? he asked, tremblingly.
It must be as you say, she answered. "I wonder why God brought us together like this. It is strange—strange—strange!"
He could not answer. His arms sank to his sides. She turned and left him.
Like a sheer mechanical thing, actuated by some external force, he went down the steps and on to the lawn. Standing near the front gate, he saw Rowland coming down the road, and stepped aside to avoid meeting him. He was in no mood for mere passing platitudes such as the old man often dealt with. Charles crept around the house on the dewy grass, and found himself in the vicinity of the barn. Suddenly, despite his own depression, he felt a surge of pity pass over him at the thought of the plight of the two boys. They were her brothers, and on that account he loved them. He wondered if they were asleep already. Presently, while he stood looking at the dark, sloping roof of the barn, he saw a figure steal out from the kitchen door and move across the sward toward the barn. It was Mary. She passed close to him, but made no sign of having seen him. Again his fears of having offended her womanhood besieged him. She had said that she understood him, but she could not know how vast and grave his obligations were. Was there any way by which he could make them known and still be true to his vow? He could see none, and to suffer under her displeasure might only be another burden to bear. He walked back to the front of the house. He saw Rowland ascending the stairs with a candle in his hand on his way to his room. Twenty minutes passed and then he saw Mary returning. How it was that he had the boldness to advance toward her he could not have explained, for, despite her open admissions in regard to himself, he still felt that he was only what he appeared to the outer world to be—a hired man of no social standing.
I was hoping that I'd see you again to-night, she began, in an even tone. "I've just been to see my poor boys. Martin has a cold and I am giving him some medicine for it. I wanted to make a confession to you before I went to sleep to-night. I took the liberty of telling them something which you may not want them to know."
About you and Frazier? he ventured.
No, no! she answered, with a near approach to the sweet tone which she had used on the veranda. "Have you held that thought all by yourself here on the lawn? Was it that which made you stand like a post as I passed just now? No, I did not mention his name. They don't like him. They don't want me to—to—I sha'n't use the word. I think that is why you are so gloomy to-night—I mean because I said I was still at his mercy. This is what I told the boys. I could not help it. I could not keep it back. They won't tell, anyway. They promised, and do you know they would not displease you for anything; they admire you intensely. I told them who it was that sent Tobe Keith that money. I was partly guessing, but I told them that you sent it, too, by the friend who came here to see you and caused them such a fright."
Charles could find no words with which to answer; he heard her laugh softly as she stepped close to him and put her hand to his lapel and held it as she might have done were she pinning a flower upon it.
Your good deeds tie your tongue, she said, "but you can't lie. You would lie out of this if you could. You tried to hide that act of goodness by what really was a sly trick, but I saw through it. I saw through it because I wanted it to be that way."
He caught her hand and held it, telling himself that it was a brief offense surely when he had made up his mind to give her up forever. But, oh, how it throbbed and pleaded in his clasp! Each little finger seemed to have a soul of its own. He dared not look into her eyes. Their drooping lashes seemed breakable bars between him and a life of eternal bliss.
Are you angry because I told them? she asked.
Not if it pleased you, he said, passionately. "That is all I live for—to please you."
Do you mean it? Do you mean it, Charlie? and she pressed his fingers—his calloused fingers—in her soft ones. She raised her face to his. "Oh, I know you do, but I am dying to hear you say so."
He nodded. He took a deep, quivering breath and slowly exhaled it; she felt him trembling; his face was grim and pale.
I have no right, he said, "to talk to you this way—to allow you to—to talk to me in a way that would be impossible if you knew my whole history." He was speaking now as a man might just before the black cap was placed over his face. "I ought not to have come here to your father's house without—without telling him and you the full truth. I am a fugitive from the law. I can say that much without breaking my word to others. At any moment I may be caught and imprisoned. In that case your family would be mentioned as harboring me, and I had no right to let you unsuspectingly run that risk."
You—you a fugitive from the law? Mary cried. "You!"
He released her hand and mutely nodded. He kept his eyes now on the ground.
With a motion as swift as the flight of a hummingbird she caught his hand. She held it against her breast and forced his eyes to rise to hers. "I won't believe it! I won't! I won't! I won't! God will not let that be true, Charlie. You've come into my tormented life like a sweet dream of everything that is good and noble. You can't make me believe it. You have reasons for deceiving me. What they are I don't know, but what you say is not true. It would kill me to believe it. When Albert Frazier mentioned it I knew that it was too absurd to think about."
Well, he was wrong about that, said Charles, seeing her drift. "There were certain men in the circus who left about the time I did, and there were warrants out for their arrest. I was not one of them. I left for fear that certain questions regarding my identity might be put to me that I could not answer, and for the additional reason that I was sick of the life I was leading. The—the offense with which I am charged dates further back. I did not think that I'd ever have to tell you these things, but I find that I must. I am not a safe man for you to know—certainly not a man worthy of—of the things you have said to-night. This living here and helping you a little has been like heaven to me, but it can't go on. I am a misfit in life. I am an outcast for all time. You may be holding a sort of ideal of me—women in their deep purity will do those things sometimes—but I must undeceive you. You must see me as I really am. I was a drunkard, a gambler—disgraced in the town I lived in, expelled from the clubs I belonged to, found guilty in court; I came away to hide myself from the eyes of all who knew me. The new life has changed me to some extent. I see things differently. I think I have a keener moral sense. Adversity seems to have awakened it in me, but Fate is punishing me severely, for the consequences of my past, it will always—always stand between me and the things I now want."
Mary still clung to his hand. Through his desperate recital she had looked steadfastly into his eyes. "I don't care what you have been," she said, under her breath. "It is what you are now that counts with me. The greatest men and the best in history have made mistakes when they were young. It is for you to judge whether—whether we can ever be anything more to each other than we are now. I don't think it amounts to much which it is, if only we love each other. That is the main thing. I don't know how you feel, but I can never love any other man—never!"
He lowered his head, but she saw that his eyes were ablaze.
I think—he was speaking now very earnestly, very despondently—"that I shall leave you as soon as my summer's work is over—that is, if you are out of your trouble by then. I could not go while you are so unhappy. I couldn't stand that."
Oh, you mustn't go! she sobbed, pressing the back of his hand to her wet eyes. "Why need you go?"
Because the longer I stay the worse it will be for both of us, and I am afraid that my presence here will be discovered. I am using my own name. I never threw it off. I must not be taken here. There are a thousand reasons why I should avoid a chance of that. You are the main one.
Yes, that would kill me, she asserted. Almost unconsciously she kissed his hand, she fondled it as a mother might that of a dying child. "I couldn't live after that." Suddenly, and after a pause, she fixed her eyes on his face again. "I want you to do something for me," she faltered.
What is it? he asked.
I don't want you to tell father or my brothers what you have told me to-night.
Why? he wondered.
Because they would misunderstand it all. They don't know you as I do, and I could not bear to have them misjudge you. You may have broken the law, but you said you were once in the habit of drinking too much. I am sure that if you did wrong you really were not conscious of what you were doing. No man with your nobility of character could do wrong knowingly. It is not in you and never was. Don't tell my father and brothers. Will you?
If you don't want me to do so, I shall not, he promised. "I only wished you to understand my situation and be on your guard. It may be that a man's adoration of a woman may stir her sympathy and even cause her to imagine that she reciprocates his feeling, and you must have known how I felt about—"
Yes, she interrupted, "I know. That night in the cabin—oh, that night! I've kissed its memory a thousand times. That night I saw love born in your eyes and I knew that for you no other girl existed. Is it any wonder that I loved you when I saw how humbly and unselfishly you were striving to save me from pain? Imagine that I reciprocate, indeed! There is no imagination about my feeling for you, Charlie. This morning, when I discovered who it was that had sent that money to Tobe Keith, and knew that you were trying to keep me from discovering that you did it, I was so happy that I could not speak. In my mind I saw you stealing out of the house at night, meeting your friend at the hotel, and his slipping up to that cottage door while you remained hidden from view. Is it any wonder that I gloated in triumph over the fact that it was you who did the act of mercy rather than Albert Frazier? Is it any wonder that when he kissed me—It was just on the cheek, my darling, just here and it was as cold as ice. Kiss me, Charlie, kiss me—kiss me." Her face was raised to his, her lips were poised expectantly.
A storm of doubt swept over him, and then he clasped her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers.
It was just after sundown, two days later. Charles was at work in a patch of cabbages near the outer fence of the farm, not far from the barn. Presently, happening to look toward the thicket, he saw a man in a gray suit of clothes and a straw hat cautiously emerging. Their eyes met. The man waved a handkerchief and then stood still, partly hidden by the bushes among which he stood. Charles glanced toward the house and, seeing no one, he put down his hoe and walked toward the man. They met in the edge of the thicket and clasped hands.
You are back already—or did you really go to Atlanta? he questioned, eagerly.
Yes, sir. I would have written, Mr. Charles, but—well, I thought it might not be best. You didn't say that I might. Yes, sir. I attended to everything the best I could. I was at the train when they got there with the poor fellow, and saw them take him from the Pullman at the station and put him into an ambulance from the sanatorium.
How did he look? How did he seem to stand the trip? Charles asked, anxiously.
I couldn't tell, sir. I couldn't see his face. The police kept the crowd back, but the old woman—his mother—looked worried, and I thought the doctor from here did also, and the nurse that came along. I think they gave him a stimulant. I know I saw a bottle and a glass in the doctor's hand. They drove slowly, and so I had no trouble keeping up with them afoot. I saw them drive into the grounds of Doctor Elliot's sanatorium, and I felt relieved. I would have telegraphed you, but did not know how to reach you here in the country.
Well, that was two days ago, Charles said. "Have you heard anything more?"
They operated last night, sir. I was there early this morning. I went into the grounds, hoping to get information, but a guard stopped me at the door and refused to tell me anything. I was trying to persuade him, sir—I know how to deal with such persons, as a rule—but this fellow, although I showed him some money, refused to talk at all. I was greatly worried till Mrs. Keith chanced along and saw me. She recognized me, sir, and she ran out and grabbed my hand. She wanted me to go into the public sitting-room, but I refused. Oh, she was crowding me with questions; they came so fast, sir, that she wouldn't let me get a word in! However, she was so—I may say so gay, sir, that I began to think she had good news. Finally, Mr. Charles, she told me that the operation was done, and most successfully. In fact, sir, she says Doctor Elliot says her son's recovery is almost assured, though it was a narrow escape.
That is good news, Mike—wonderful news! Charles exclaimed. "It will make some people very happy."
The young lady especially, I presume, sir?
Yes, her most of all, Mike.
Well, I think she need not worry any more about the poor fellow. I am sure, from all I hear down there, that he will soon be on his feet. That old lady, Mrs. Keith, fairly hung on to me, Mr. Charles. I can hold my own with the average man in a shady deal of this sort, but not a woman out of her head with gratitude and curiosity combined. Why, sir, I thought once that she'd have me arrested to force me to tell her who sent the money. It was only by lying straight out that I got away from her clutches. I told her, I did, sir, that I'd go down-town and ask permission to let the cat out of the bag and return. That was the only thing that saved me. I'd have been there yet but for that little trick.
So she doesn't know that, anyway? Charles said.
No, sir, she hasn't the slightest idea. She tried to make me say that I did it, but of course I couldn't allow that, sir. So I simply stuck to it that I'd been sent by some one else—a friend, a well-wisher and—you know what you said to tell her.
And what are your present plans? Charles asked.
I must return home, sir. I want to stop in New York and see my mother, and then go back to Boston. I have been away as long as I can manage it now, sir.
You have been of great service to me, Mike, Charles said. It was growing darker now. The twilight was thickening, the yellow glow in the western sky above the mountain-tops was fading away. They strolled down a path toward the house. "Yes, Mike," Charles continued, "no man on earth could have done me such a valuable service. If you hadn't come that poor fellow would have died and half a dozen persons would have been stricken down with grief and overwhelmed with disgrace."
And the young lady—the beautiful young lady, sir—you say she would have suffered most of all?
Yes, most of all, Mike. But you mustn't go away with the thought that—that there is anything of a serious nature between me and her, for there isn't. No one else here knows the truth, but I have told her—given her to understand—that something is hanging over me which will forever keep us apart. She belongs to an old and honorable family, Mike, and I am what you see me now in these old clothes; I am a servant and can never be anything else. So you are going back? Well, I want you, if you can, to see Mason in New York and thank him for sending you to me; and as for the people at home—
I was going to ask what I might do in regard to them, Mr. Charles, Michael said, suddenly, as Charles paused. "Your brother and your uncle, who lives with us now, will not ask questions, but the missis—she will. She is sure to, the first opportunity."
You think— Again Charles lost his way to satisfactory expression.
Yes, sir. You see, she has always questioned me on my return from New York, to find out if I have heard anything. She will want to know this time, too, sir, and I confess that it will be hard to fool her. She looks one so straight in the face, you know, sir, and the truth is she loves you as if you were her own brother, sir. Nothing wins a woman's heart like being tender to her child, and she knows how you loved the little lady, sir. Pardon me, Mr. Charles, for making a suggestion. The missis can be trusted where you are concerned. She'd die rather than betray your interests. Would you mind if I frankly told her that I have seen you and that you are well and safe? I think, sir, that it would only be fair to her, after all the worry she has had about you. It would make her very happy, Mr. Charles. You see, as it is, she does not even know if you are dead or alive, and—and—But it is not for me to advise, sir.
Charles hesitated. Then he said: "I think you may tell her, Mike. I couldn't risk writing back, but I can trust you with that news of me. Give her my love, please, and tell her to kiss Ruth for me, and—and, well, tell her anything you like. She won't betray me. After all, I'm glad to be able in this way to relieve her mind."
So closely were they occupied with their parting words that they failed to see a figure approaching from the direction of the house. It was Mary, and she was close to them when they heard her step and, turning, saw her.
Oh, she exclaimed, on seeing the stranger, "I thought it was one of my—" She checked herself abruptly.
For a moment Charles stood as if dazed, and then recovered himself. "This is my friend, Michael Gilbreth," he said. "He is the one who aided us so substantially the other night."
Oh, and I have wanted so much to meet you—to thank you, said Mary. She held out both her hands to the astonished servant, and he awkwardly took them.
I'm pleased, I'm sure, miss, to meet you, but—but, he stammered, "you must not thank me. Mr. Charles is back of all that. You see, miss, it wasn't expense out of my pocket—"
I know—I understand, but you kindly delivered it, Mary said. "And that was a great service. It may result in saving a human life and avert much misery and misfortune."
But, you see, I owed the money to Mr. Charles, Michael went on, simply. "He advanced it to me a long time ago when I was in need myself. He is always doing the like, miss, and it is strange, for the minute I pay him back out it goes to somebody else; but—"
Mike has just brought good news from Atlanta, Charles, hot with embarrassment, broke in.
Oh, have you? Mary cried.
Michael hesitated, looking at Charles, who answered for him: "Yes. The operation was highly successful. Keith's recovery is now practically assured."
Oh, that is good news! Mary cried, her eyes flashing with joy, and she prevailed upon Michael to tell her all the details. When he had concluded she looked toward the barn. "I must hurry and tell my—tell my brothers." She was starting away when she turned back. "You must stay with us, Mr. Gilbreth. We have plenty of room. Any friend of Mr. Brown's is welcome at our house."
Michael threw an awkward glance at Charles and then said: "I thank you, miss, but I must hurry away. My time is up."
Then I'll say good-by. Mary held out her hands. "I shall never forget your kindness, and I wish you a long, happy life."
The two men lapsed into silence as she flitted away in the gloom.
Presently Michael, with a deep sigh, said: "Now I understand, Mr. Charles—I understand how you are placed. Why, sir, she is the most exquisite young lady I ever saw! She's not only beautiful, but, sir, she is the real thing in womanhood, and her voice—I have never heard one like it. It is like music, sir, full of sweetness and gentleness and human sympathy. Oh, I can't blame you for wanting to stay here and cut out all the rest. Labor such as you are doing now with such companionship—"
You mustn't misunderstand, Mike, said Charles, and his voice sank low in his throat. "She can never be more to me than a friend. You know why well enough. I am trying to be of use to her, that's all."
But your heart, Mr. Charles, Mike said. "You'd not be a natural man if you could keep from loving a lady like her, sir. In fact, I see it in you. You never were struck that way at home, sir. Among all the fair ones you knew up there, none of them—"
We mustn't talk of that, Mike, Charles broke in, huskily. "I don't allow myself to think of the impossible. How are you going to Carlin?"
Afoot, sir. I like it. I can easily make my train to-night. Well, sir, you will have to be going in and I'll say good-by, Mr. Charles.
Good-by, Mike. Your coming has been a great help to me.
Tears suddenly filled the servant's eyes, and, turning swiftly, he walked back toward the thicket and disappeared.
As he neared the house Charles saw Mary coming from the barn. Her head was cast down and she was moving slowly. They met near the kitchen door.
I've just left them, she said, in a voice full of joyful emotion. "Oh, I can't describe all that took place. They have both been in abject despair night and day since Tobe was taken away, and when I told them the news they—I can't describe it. The joy seemed to bewilder them, stupefy them. Kenneth sat still on the horse-trough—I couldn't see his face in the dark, but I heard him catch his breath, and when he tried to speak he choked up. And Martin—he came to me and put his head on my breast and cried like the child he really is at times. Oh, Charlie, life is wonderful! I am in heaven to-night, and my reason tells me that I never could have reached it in any other way than through what I've suffered and your help. Yes, you—you did it. But for your money all would have been lost."
You forget that you yourself would have paid it if I had not, Charles argued, "or rather, it would have been paid by—"
No, there's where you are wrong, Mary protested. "My father tells me that the bank would not have cashed Albert's check that day. He has met with great losses in some enterprises, and is on the verge of bankruptcy. No, if it hadn't been for you all would have been lost. When your friend said just now that you were always doing kind deeds he said only what I already knew to be the truth. You are the most unselfish man I ever knew. Is it any wonder that I—" She did not finish, but suddenly turned and left him.
Two days later Rowland came back from the village. He brought the news that Keith was well on the road to recovery, and that he had had a talk with the district attorney, who had intimated discreetly that it was unlikely that grave charges would be made against his sons, owing to the disposition of the Keiths to drop the matter. The boys might be charged with disorderly conduct and fined, but an arrest would not be made and the case might not reach the court at all, owing to the sympathy of the judge, who felt that Kenneth and Martin had already been punished enough.
The next morning after this Charles found both the boys at the breakfast-table when he came down. To his surprise, they announced that they were going to help him in the field, that they were willing now to run the risk of being seen by passers-by, though they were going to keep out of sight as much as possible. So, accordingly, they both secured hoes and set to work in the cotton-field.
All that morning they worked with energy, which, no doubt, was due to their long confinement and the exhilarating sense of freedom. Mary came down herself at noon and brought them all a delightful lunch which she had prepared with her own hands. It was a warm day, with plenty of sunshine, and they all sat in the shade of some oaks which stood on the edge of the field. When the lunch was over Mary got ready to go home and the boys hastened for their hoes, to resume work.
You are wonderful! and Mary smiled up at Charles, who was helping her put the things back into her basket.
Because I eat so much? he jested.
Because you are having the most remarkable effect on my brothers. Even Kenneth has changed. He says he wants to be like you. He sees what your industry is producing for us. We have never had such promising crops before. Then—then your talks have done them good. I mean your talks on moral lines.
'Moral lines,' he repeated, sadly. "Take it from me that I am a most unworthy adviser. I do not want to sail under false colors. Your brothers are fortunate in having had their lesson without fatal and lasting consequences. As I have told you—as I have tried to have you understand—I shall always be what I am—a man without a home, without a family, without a country, for I cannot legally cast a vote. What your brothers are escaping from—long imprisonment—I am in danger of every hour. So far I have escaped, but I may not be able to keep it up. Do you know—and I must say it now, so that you will understand thoroughly—do you know, while I dread being taken back home in shackles, I dread another thing far more, and that is being arrested here. Your friends would laugh at you for being hoodwinked by a criminal tramp in whom you have such absurd confidence as to give him food and shelter."
Mary's eyes were full of unshed tears. She hastily crammed the table-cloth into the basket. "Why are you talking to me like this to-day, when I was so happy?" she gulped.
Because you insist on saying things about my—my worthiness, when I am so overwhelmingly unworthy, he answered, grimly, standing over her, his fine brow wrinkled with inner pain and bared to the sun. "Besides, as I say, you must be prepared for it if I suddenly leave without a hint of my intentions. If I could live a thousand years and be trained in the highest modes of expression I could never tell you how much peace and happiness I have found here. This," and he waved his hand over the growing crops—"this has been like the fields and meadows of Paradise into which I walked suddenly like a man who was born blind receiving sight. You say you believe in the existence of God. Sometimes I do, but I wonder really how He could have allowed me to grow unsuspectingly from infancy into dissolute manhood, and then send me here? Why did He direct my repentant steps to this spot—to this soul-soothing spot which I have enjoyed only to lose?"
Oh, because of all you have been to us! the gentle girl softly sobbed, as she stood by his side. She would have taken his hand but for the nearness of her brothers. "You say you have done wrong in your past. I don't believe it; but I shall not dispute with you over it. I only know that God could not make a man so helpful, so useful as He has you without eventually rewarding him. As Kenneth and Martin are escaping, so shall you escape. Your troubles will not last. As for your going away, you shall not. I say it. You shall not, I could not live without you. I know that as well as I know that you are standing there. I'd follow you to the end of the world. If you went to prison I'd go, too."
You can't mean that. He bent toward the ground and uttered a low moan, and yet his face was ablaze with triumphant light.
I do mean it, she reiterated, "and if you think your running away would save me from silly, weak-minded embarrassment, you must know that it would kill me. Yes, Charlie, I tell you now that if you leave me and I fail to see you again I'll end my life."
She had stepped close to him and he suddenly drew back.
Your brothers are looking this way, he warned her.
I don't care, she blurted out, desperately. "They may know. They adore you as I do. I'll tell them how I feel. They are human. They will understand."
They would not want you—Charles sighed—"want you to care for a man who may any day be thrust into jail. Brought up as you have been brought up, with your family back of you, they could not want you to care for a man whose life is the deplorable wreck mine is. Our parting is inevitable. I've tried to see it otherwise for a long time, but in vain. I am responsible for the blight that is on me, and I must bear it to the end. Maybe I can tell you more, honorably tell you more, some day, but I cannot do so now. But, after all, even that mild justification would do no good. I shall never forget you, but it is your duty to forget me. Women do forget such things, but I shall hold you in my mind and soul forever."
Kenneth was approaching to ask some question of Charles, and in order to hide her distraught face from her brother's view Mary lifted the basket and moved away.
That night the family, including the two boys, sat on the veranda after supper. Rowland deported himself as if nothing very remarkable had happened in the escape of his sons, but they themselves acted like persons completely changed in character. Kenneth had lost his vaunting air of self-assertion and overconfidence, and was very quiet. Martin was effervescing with the sense of his release from the dangers he feared and half lay, half sat with his head in his sister's lap. Mary's hands were gently stroking back his hair, and now and then she bent and whispered something mother-like and tender in his ear.
Dreading another reference from the family to the part he had played in their rescue, Charles got up and went to his room. He was tired, but not conscious of it, and not at all sleepy, for his brain was in a whirl with thoughts of what had happened, together with grim cogitations on the course he was trying to lay out for his future guidance.
His reason told him that two courses only lay before him. The more logical seemed to be his abrupt disappearance from the spot which had become so dear to him. The other alternative was to return to Boston and appeal to William to release him from his agreement. This temptation was by far the greater, and for a moment, in his fancy, it mastered him. That girl—that wonderful girl down-stairs with her brother's head in her lap—might then become his wife. "Wife! wife! wife!"—the very word thrilled him through and through. He was seated on the edge of his bed, his hardened hands clasped between his knees. His muscles were taut, his face was wet with perspiration; it trickled in cold drops down his neck onto his strong chest. Then another vision was spread before his mental sight. He pictured William as he had last seen him at his desk in the bank at night. He saw himself standing there telling the brother, whom he really loved, that he had come back to undo the thing that he himself had proposed. He saw the dumb appeal in the cowering man's eyes.
But you were free, William seemed to say, "and this means death to me. Charlie, it means death!"
I know, but I now love a noble woman, he heard himself pleading, "and for her sake I must live, and now I have learned what life really means. William, my brother, I have failed in what I undertook to do. I am not an angel. I'm only a man of flesh, blood, and bone—a primitive man who knows no law but that of his heart's desire."
He fancied that he saw William's head sink to his desk, the death stamp of agony on his face. He could hear him say: "You are right. I am the one to suffer, not you. Leave me alone this time. I have the same means here in my drawer. I won't fail now. Go home, say nothing, but be there to comfort them when the news is brought."
He saw himself turn away, pass out at the big door and into the lighted streets. It was the old walk home across the Common. Familiar objects were here and there. Celeste met him at the door. He led her into the parlor and turned on the light. They faced each other. She, too, had the shadow of death upon her face.
I know why you've come, he heard her say, resignedly. "I've been expecting it. No man could be unselfish enough to accomplish what you undertook." The light of her affection for him had died out of her eyes. She quivered now in fear and dread.
I had to do it, he imagined himself saying, in the tone of an executioner hardened to grim duty.
I understand. We are ready—Ruth and I are ready.
May I see the child? If she is asleep I won't wake her. But may I have just one look? I have her picture, but that is all of her that was left to me.
She seemed to lead him up the stairs. How like a dream it all was! Celeste moved through the space his thought created as silently as a creeping ray of moonlight. She opened the door of the child's room. The gas burnt low. There was the snowy bed. He dared not look at it quite yet. Around the room crept the eyes of his thought, seeking respite from his growing remorse. There hung dainty dresses. There in the open closet were other things—little boots, slippers, shoes with skates attached, toys, dolls—and there on the bed—how he loved the child! How he pitied her as she lay asleep with that pink glow of life's alluring dawn upon her, unconscious of the blade he had unsheathed.
Yes, she must be told now, Celeste seemed to say, in vague, ethereal tones. "She is young to shoulder it, but justice must be done even by a child like her. She must not rob you of a single right or privilege."
The child waked. Startled joy blazed in her opening eyes. She uttered a scream of delight and held out her arms. He took her to his breast and clasped her tightly, her fragrant cheek against his own, her warm body filling his chilled soul with fresh life.
I can't do it, he heard himself deciding, and forthwith, the pulsing thing on his breast became the cold drops of sweat which his agony had forced from him. "No, I can't do it," he repeated. "I'll wander again. I've given my word, and I'll keep it."
The voices on the veranda seemed louder now. He thought he heard Mary uttering a startled command of some sort; and then there were steps on the stairway and Kenneth and Martin softly knocked on his door. He opened it.
Some one is driving up the road, Kenneth explained. "Sister thought it might be Albert Frazier coming to call on her. Anyway, she said, as he doesn't know that we are at home, we'd better keep out of sight. He may want to stay all night, and in that case we'll have to go to the barn again."
The three men went to a window and cautiously looked out. A horse and buggy were stopping at the gate. Frazier was alighting, while Rowland went down the walk to meet him in accordance with his hospitable habit.
I can't stop long, Frazier was heard saying. "Leave the horse there. He'll stand, all right. I only want to see your daughter a few minutes."
Thank God! Kenneth exclaimed, in relief. "Then we can get to bed, Martin. Oh, how I hate that man!"
The boys left Charles alone. He heard them creeping down the hall to their room at the end of the house. Later he heard their father pass on his way to his room. Charles sat down on his bed again. A different mood was now on him. Hot fury raged through him as he thought of what might be taking place below. That man might be urging the gentle girl to marry him. He might still be holding threats over her, and Mary might accept him. He heard their low voices. Frazier's dominated. Its coarse monotone rumbled through the hall. He seemed to be explaining something. Charles closed his ears, for the sound was maddening.
It is rather late to call, Frazier was saying, "but I had to see you, and this was the only time. I've thought it all over about me and you, little girl. I don't know, but maybe I'm not as tough a proposition as I appear to be. The truth is, I'm all in. I've lost every cent of money I had. I plunged too reckless. I lived too high. It was come-easy-go-easy with me. I've been a bad man, but you were always what I wanted. I reckon it is because you are so good at heart, but I knew that you'd never love me. I knew that, and so I resorted to that other game. I am sorry, for it was a sneaking thing to do. But, as I say, I'm all in financially. I could not maybe for many years give you what you deserve, and so I've decided to tell you about it and move away from here. I have a chance of getting something to do in Seattle. My mother's brother has an opening for me there and I am going at once. You never cared for me, did you, little girl? Now be honest."
I don't think I ever loved you, Mary responded. "It was because you were so—so kind to me and father and the boys—that—"
Oh, I know. That was part of my dirty work, Frazier sighed. "I was looking a long way ahead. Your father is as simple as a child, and I was using him, tempting him to let me indorse for him. However, he owes me nothing now. I am a bankrupt and the bank that advanced the money to him with my security will look to him for it. Your crops are good this year, and he will be able to make a substantial payment on account when they are marketed. That man you picked up is a wonder. My brother thinks there is something crooked about him and is looking him up. The fellow acts strangely, but he is doing your place no harm, and perhaps you ought to keep him. There is some mystery about him, but I've seen others like him who turned out all right in the end. I think he has secret associates. In fact, I have an idea that some friend of his advanced the money for Tobe Keith's operation. I started to make investigations on that line, but my crash came, and all that is off."
Do you think Tobe's chance is good to recover? Mary asked, falteringly.
That is one thing I came to tell you, Frazier answered. "The latest news is even more favorable. I heard this afternoon from Doctor Harrison that he is doing splendidly."
Oh, I'm so glad! Mary cried. "You can't imagine how much it means to me!"
I think I can, little girl, for you are a mother to the boys, young as you are. I came to say something else, too. I wanted to wipe my slate off as clean as possible before I go, and so I set to work on my brother. He now knows all about how I felt to you, and, as he is a good fellow, he promised to help all he could. He is sure now that the boys will never be seriously punished and has promised me not to arrest them.
Does he know that they did not go West, after all? Mary asked, anxiously.
Yes, he does now. The boys were seen working in the field by a mischievous neighbor, who reported it, but no harm will come of it now. You can depend on my brother. He will not molest them. They've had their lesson. They never were a bad sort, but only a little wild. They have good blood in them and will come out all right in the end. My brother really hates to have me leave, and he will stand behind any friend of mine. I'm a rotten egg, little girl. Wanting to tie to you was my best point, and that was a doubtful one, for I was unworthy of you, and knew it all along—all along. I reckon a man ought to be as clean as the woman he marries, and I was wrong, too, in trying to get you by the methods I was using.
The horse at the gate was pawing the ground impatiently. Frazier looked over the landscape musingly. The moon was just appearing above a mountain-top. The old house which had blazed with the festive light and rung with the merriment of buried generations stood swathed in darkness, its roof-edge drawing a line against the dun sky. Ghosts of the past, earth-anchored by sweet memories, perchance, came and went through the old doorway and strolled about the moonlit grounds.
It is time I was going, Frazier announced. "I don't know what has come over me of late, little girl, but I know that I am different from what I used to be. If I hadn't been I'd never have said what I've said to-night. I hope you will be happy. You'd never have been so with me—never! Good-by!"
Good-by! she echoed. She was crying. Why? She couldn't have answered. She went with him to the gate. She held his arm in a gentle grasp of pitying gratitude. They shook hands over the gate. He took up the reins, got into the buggy with his old ponderous movement, raised his hat, and the impatient horse bore him away.
She turned and glanced up at the window of Charles's room. He was standing there, looking at her, but she could not see him through the murky panes.
Now go to bed, darling, a voice from the past whispered in her subconscious ear, "Mother is watching over you."