9173
BOUT a week after this transaction Rayburn Miller went to Atlanta on business for one of his clients, and while there he incidentally called at the offices of the Southern Land and Timber Company, hoping to meet Wilson and learn something about his immediate plans in regard to the new railroad. But he was informed that the president of the company had just gone to New York, and would not be back for a week.
Rayburn was waiting in the rotunda of the Kimball House for his train, which left at ten o' clock, when he ran across his friend, Captain Ralph Burton, of the Gate City Guards, a local military company.
“Glad to see you,” said the young officer. “Did you run up for the ball?”
“What ball is that?” asked Miller. “I am at the first of it.”
“Oh, we are giving one here in this house tonight,” answered Burton, who was a handsome man of thirty-five, tall and erect, and appeared at his best in his close-fitting evening-suit and light overcoat. “Come up-stairs and I 'll introduce you to a lot of strangers.”
“Can't,” Rayburn told him. “I've got to leave at ten o' clock.”
“Well, you've got a good hour yet,” insisted the officer. “Come up on the next floor, where the orchestra is, anyway, and we can sit down and watch the crowd come in.”
Miller complied, and they found seats on the spacious floor overlooking the thronged office. From where they sat they could look through several large drawing-rooms into the ballroom beyond. Already a considerable number of people had assembled, and many couples were walking about, even quite near to the two young men.
“By George!” suddenly exclaimed Miller, as a couple passed them, “who is that stunning-looking blonde; she walks like a queen.”
“Where?” asked Burton, looking in the wrong direction.
“Why, there, with Charlie Penrose.”
“Oh, that one,” said Burton, trying to think, “I know as well as I know anything, but her name has slipped my memory. Why, she's visiting the Bishops on Peachtree Street—a Miss Bishop, that's it.”
“Adele, little Adele? Impossible!” cried Rayburn, “and I've been thinking of her as a child all these years.”
“So you know her?” said Captain Burton.
“Her brother is a chum of mine,” explained Miller. “I haven't seen her since she went to Virginia to school, five years ago. I never would have recognized her in the world. My Lord! she's simply regal.”
“I haven't had the pleasure of meeting her,” said the Captain; “but I've heard lots about her from the boys who go to Bishop's. They say she's remarkably clever—recites, you know, and takes off the plantation negro to perfection. She's a great favorite with Major Middleton, who doesn't often take to the frying size. She has been a big drawing card out at Bishop's ever since she came. The boys say the house overflows every evening. Are you going to speak to her?”
“If I get a good chance,” said Rayburn, his eyes on the couple as they disappeared in the ballroom. “I don't like to go in looking like this, but she'd want to hear from home.”
“Oh, I see,” said Burton. “Well, you'd better try it before the grand march sweeps everything before it.”
As Miller entered the ballroom, Penrose was giving Adele a seat behind a cluster of palms, near the grand piano, around which the German orchestra was grouped. He went straight to her.
“You won't remember me, Miss Adele,” he said, with a smile, “but I'm going to risk speaking to you, anyway.”
She looked up from the bunch of flowers in her lap, and, in a startled, eager sort of way, began to study his face.
“No, I do not,” she said, flushing a little, and yet smiling agreeably.
“Well, I call that a good joke,” Penrose broke in, with a laugh, as he greeted Miller with a familiar slap on the shoulder. “Why, Rayburn, on my word, she hasn't talked of anybody else for the last week, and here she—”
“You arenotRayburn Miller!” Adele exclaimed, and she stood up to give him her hand. “Yes, I have been talking of you, and it seems to me I have a thousand things to say, and oh, so many thanks!”
There was something in this impulsive greeting that gave Miller a delectable thrill all over.
“You were such a little thing the last time I saw you,” he said, almost tenderly. “I declare, you have changed—so, so remarkably.”
She nodded to Penrose, who was excusing himself, and then she said to Miller, “Are you going to dance to-night?”
He explained that he was obliged to take the train which left in a few minutes.
He saw her face actually fall with disappointment. The very genuineness of the expression pleased him inexplicably. “Then I must hurry,” she said. “Would you mind talking to me a little while?”
“Nothing could possibly please me so much,” said he. “Suppose we stroll around?”
She took his arm and he led her back to the rotunda overlooking the office.
“So you are Rayburn Miller!” she said, looking at him wonderingly. “Do you know, I have pictured you in my mind many times since mother wrote me all about how you rescued us from ruin. Oh, Mr. Miller, I could not in a thousand years tell you how my heart filled with gratitude to you. My mother goes into the smallest details in her letters, and she described your every word and action during that transaction in your office. I could tell just where her eyes filled and her throat choked up by her quivering handwriting. I declare, I looked on you as a sort of king with unlimited power. If I were a man I'd rather use my brain to help suffering people than to be made President of the United States and be a mere figure-head. You must not think I am spoiled by all this glitter and parade down here. The truth is, I heartily despise it. I wanted to be at home so bad when I got that letter that I cried myself to sleep.”
“You must not forget that your brother conceived the plan,” Miller protested, “and that I only—”
“Oh yes; I know Alan thought of it,” she interrupted, “but without your experience and firmness it would have remained in his dear old brain till the Lord knows when. The idea of their being in debt was slowly killing my father and mother, and you came to their relief just when they were unable to bear it any longer. I'm so glad you thought of borrowing that money.”
Just then a young man, half a head shorter than Adele, came up hurriedly. “Oh, here you are,” he exclaimed, in a gasp of relief. “I've been looking for you everywhere. This is mine, you know—the grand march. They are all ready.”
Adele smiled pleasantly. “I hope you 'll excuse me from it, Mr. Tedcastle,” she said. “I've just met a friend from home; I want to talk with him, and—”
“But, Miss Bishop, I—”
“I asked you to please excuse me, Mr. Tedcastle.” Miller saw her face harden, as if from the sneer of contempt that passed over it. “I hope it will not be necessary for me to explain my reasons in detail until I have a little more time at my disposal.”
“Oh, certainly not, Miss Bishop,” said the young man, red with anger, as he bowed himself away.
“What's society coming to?” Adele asked Miller, with a nervous little laugh. “Does a lady have to get down on her knees and beg men, little jumping-jacks, like that one, to excuse her, and pet them into a good-humor when she has good reason to change her mind about an engagement? That's a sort of slavery I don't intend to enter.”
“You served him right,” said Miller, who had himself resented the young man's childish impetuosity, and felt like slapping him for his impertinence.
Adele shrugged her fine shoulders. “Let's not waste any more time talking about him,” she said. “I was going to tell you how happy you made them all. When I read mother's description of their return home that night—how she went round looking at each object and touching it, that she might realize it was hers again; and how father sat up till past midnight talking incessantly about it; and all the droll things Uncle Abner said, I cried and laughed by turns. I longed to see you, to tell you how I felt about what you did, and yet, now that I'm with you, all I say seems utterly weak and—inadequate.”
“It seems wonderfully nice to me,” Miller declared. “I don't deserve anything, and yet—well, I like to hear you talk.” He laughed. “Whether I deserve it or not, I could listen to you for a week on a stretch.”
In truth, Rayburn Miller had never in all his varied social career become so suddenly and startlingly interested in any woman. It all seemed like a dream, and a most delicious one—the gay assemblage, the intermittent strains of the music, the touch of the stately creature on his arm, the perfume of her flowers, her hair, her eyes! He suddenly felt fearful of the passage of time, the leaving of his train, the approach of some one to claim her attention. He could not explain the spell she had thrown on him. Was it because she was his friend's sister, and so astoundingly pretty, frank, and sensible, or could it be that—?
His train of thought was broken by the approach of Miss Ida Bishop, Adele's cousin, a rather plain girl, who, with her scrawny neck and scant hair—which rebelled against being made much of—would have appeared to better advantage in a street costume.
“Oh, Adele,” she cried, reproachfully, “whatdoyou mean? Do you know you have mortally offended Mr. Tedcastle? He had the march with you.”
“And I asked him as a favor to excuse me from it,” said Adele, simply. “I had just met Mr. Miller, who is to leave on an early train, and I wanted to talk to him about home. Have you been introduced? My cousin, Miss Bishop, Mr. Rayburn Miller.”
Miss Bishop bowed indifferently, and looked as if she still saw no justification in the slight under question.
“I'm awfully sorry,” she said, reprovingly. “Mr. Tedcastle has been as nice to you as he could be, and this is the way you show appreciation for it. I don't blame him for being mad, do you, Mr. Miller?”
“I'm afraid I'd be a prejudiced witness,” he smiled, “benefiting as I am by the gentleman' s discomfiture; but, really, I can' t think that any circumstances could justify a man in pressing a lady to fill an engagement when she chooses not to do so for any reason of hers.”
“I knew you'd say that,” said Adele. “If anybody has a right to be offended it is I, for the way he has acted without waiting for my full explanation.”
“Oh, that is a high and mighty course that will do better for novels than real life,” disagreed Miss Ida Bishop. “The young men are badly spoiled here, and if we want attention we've got to humor them.”
“They shall not be spoiled by me,” declared Adele. “Why,” shrugging her shoulders, contemptuously, “if I had to run after them and bind up their bruises every time they fell down, I'd not appreciate their attentions. Besides, Mr. Tedcastle and his whole ilk actually put me to sleep. What do they talk about? Driving, pet dogs, flowers, candies, theatre-parties, and silly bosh, generally. Last Sunday Senator Hare dined at uncle's, and after dinner he and I were having really a wholesome sort of talk, and I was respecting myself—well, a little like I am now—when in traped 'Teddy' with his hangers-on. Of course, I had to introduce them to the Senator, and I felt like a fool, for he knew they were my 'company,' and it was impossible to keep them quiet. They went on with their baby talk, just as if Senator Hare were being given an intellectual treat. Of course, there aresomegrown-up men in Atlanta, but they are driven to the clubs by the swarms of little fellows. There comes Major Middleton, one of the old régime. He may ask me to dance with him. Now watch; if he does, I 'll answer him just as I did Mr. Tedcastle, and you shall see how differently he will treat it.”
The Major, a handsome man of powerful physique and a great shock of curly, iron-gray hair, approached Adele, and with a low bow held out his hand.
“I'm after the next dance, my dear,” he said. “You are one of the very few who ever dance with me, and I don't want to go home without it.”
Adele smiled. “I'm very sorry, Major,” she said; “but I hope you 'll excuse me this evening.”
“Oh, that's all right, my dearchild,” he said. “No, don't explain. I know your reasons are all right. Go ahead and enjoy yourself in your own way.”
“I won my bet,” Adele laughed. “Major, I knew so well what you would say that I bet on it,” and then she explained the situation.
“Tedcastle ought to be spanked,” said the Major, in his high-keyed voice. “A girl who had not rather hear from home than spin around with him ought not to have a home. I'm going to mine rather early tonight. I came only to show the boys how to make my famous Kentucky punch.”
When the Major and Miss Ida Bishop had gone and left them together, Adele looked over the railing at the big clock in the office. “We have only a few minutes longer—if you are to take that train,” she said, regretfully.
“I never had as little interest in trains in my life,” he said. And he meant it.
“Not in the trains on our new road?” she laughed.
“They are too far ahead to interfere with my comfort,” he retorted. “This one is a steam nightmare.”
“I presume you really could not miss it?” Her long-lashed eyes were down.
He hesitated; the simple thought suggested by her thrilled him as he had never been thrilled before.
“Because,” she added, “it would be so nice to have you come out to-morrow afternoon to tea, about four.”
He drew out his watch and looked at it waveringly.
“I could send a night message,” he said, finally. “I really don't want to go. Miss Adele, I don't want to go at all.”
“I don't want you to either,” she said, softly. “It seems almost as if we are quite old friends. Isn't that strange?”
He restored his watch to his pocket. “I shall stay,” he said, “and I shall call to-morrow afternoon.”
Some one came for her a few minutes later, and he went down to the office and out into the street. He wanted to walk, to feel his body in action, keeping pace with his throbbing, bounding brain. His whole being was aflame with a fire which had never burned in him before.
“Alan' s little sister!” he kept repeating to himself. “Little Adele—she's wonderful, wonderful! Perhaps she may bethewoman. By George! sheis—sheis!A creature like that, with that soul full of appreciation for a man' s best efforts, would lift a fellow to the highest rung on the ladder of human effort. Alan's little sister! And the idiot never told me, never intimated that she was—a goddess.”
In his room at the hotel that night he slept little, his brain being so active with his new experience. He saw her the next afternoon alone, over a dainty tea-service of fragile china, in a Turkish corner in William Bishop's great, quiet, house, and then proposed driving her the next day to the Driving Club. He remained a week, seeing her, under some pretext or other, every day during that time. Sometimes it was to call with her on friends of hers. Once it was to attend a barbecue given by Captain Burton at a club-house in the country, and once he gave her and her cousin a luncheon at the Capitol City Club with a box at the matinée afterwards. He told himself that he had never lived before, and that, somehow, he was just beginning.
“No,” he mused, as he sat in his train homeward bound. “I can't tell Alan. I simply couldn't do it, after all the rubbish I have crammed into him. Then she's his sister. I couldn't talk to him about her—not now, anyway.”
9183
M glad you got back.” Rayburn's sister, Mrs. Lampson, said to him at breakfast the morning following his return on the midnight train. “We are having a glorious meeting at our church.”
“Oh, is that so?” said the young man, sipping his coffee. “Who is conducting it?”
“Brother Maynell,” answered Mrs. Lampson, enthusiastically, a tinge of color in her wan, thin face. “He's a travelling evangelist, who has been conducting revivals all over the South. It is really remarkable the interest he has stirred up. We are holding prayer-meetings morning and afternoon, though only the ladies meet in the afternoon. I conducted the meeting yesterday.”
“Oh no; did you, really? Why, sis—”
“Don't begin to poke fun at me,” said Mrs. Lamp-son. “I know I didn't do as well as some of the others, but I did the best I could, because I felt it was my duty.”
“I was not going to make fun,” said Miller, soothingly; “but it seems mighty strange to think of you standing up before all the rest, and—”
“It was not such a very hard thing to do,” said the lady, who was older than her brother by ten years. She had gray hairs at her temples, and looked generally as if she needed out-door exercise and some diversion to draw her out of herself.
Rayburn helped himself to the deliciously browned, fried chicken, in its bed of cream gravy, and a hot puffy biscuit.
“And how does Mr. Lapsley, the regular preacher, like this innovation?” he questioned. “I reckon you all pay the new man a fee for stirring things up?”
“Yes; we agreed to give him two hundred dollars, half of which goes to an orphan asylum he is building. Oh, I don't think brother Lapsley minds much, but of course it must affect him a little to see the great interest brother Maynell has roused, and I suppose some are mean enough to think he could have done the same, if he had tried.”
“No, it's clearly a case of a new broom,” smiled Rayburn, buttering his biscuit. “Old Lap might get up there and groan and whine for a week and not touch a mourner with a ten-foot pole. The other chap knows his business, and part of his business is not to stay long enough to wear out his pet phrases or exhaust his rockets. I'm sorry for Lapsley; he's paid a regular salary, and is not good for any other sort of work, and this shows him up unfairly. In the long run, I believe he 'll get as many into the church as the other man, and they will be more apt to stick. Sister, that's the trouble with these tin-pan revivals. The biggest converts backslide. I reckon you are working over old material now.”
Mrs. Lampson frowned and her lip stiffened.
“I don't like your tone in speaking of such things,” she said. “Indeed, Rayburn, I have been deeply mortified in the last week by some remarks that have been made about you. I didn't intend to mention them, but you make me do it.”
“Oh, I knew they wouldn't let me rest,” said Miller; “they never do in their annual shake-ups.”
“Brother, you are looked on by nearly all religious workers in town as a dangerous young man—I mean dangerous to the boys who are just growing up, because they all regard you as a sort of standard to shape their conduct by. They see you going to balls and dances and playing cards, and they think it is smart and will not be interested in our meetings. They see that you live and seem to prosper under it, and they follow in your footsteps. I am afraid you don't realize the awful example you are setting. Brother May-nell has heard of you and asked me about you the other day. Some people think you have been in Atlanta all this time to avoid the meeting.”
“I didn't know it was going on,” said Miller, testily. “I assure you I never run from a thing like that. The best thing to do is to add fuel to the fire—it burns out quicker.”
“Well, you will go out to meeting, won't you?” insisted the sweet-voiced woman. “You won't have them all thinking you have no respect for the religion of our father and mother—will you?”
Rayburn squirmed under this close fire.
“I shall go occasionally when there ispreaching,” he said, reluctantly. “I would be out of place at one of the—the knock-down and drag-out shouting-bees.” Then, seeing her look of horror at the words which had unthoughtedly glided from his lips, he strove to make amends. “Oh, sister, do—dobe reasonable, and look at it from my point of view. I don't believe that's the way to serve God or beautify the world. I believe in being happy in one's own way, just so that you don't tread on the rights of other people.”
“But,” said Mrs. Lampson, her eyes flashing, “youaretreading on the rights of others. They are trying to save the souls of the rising generation in the community, and you and your social set use your influence in the other direction.”
“But what about the rights of my social set, if you want to call it by that name?” Miller retorted, warmly. “We have the right to enjoy ourselves in our way, just as you have in yours. We don't interfere—we never ask you to close up shop so we can have a dance or a picnic, but you do. If we dare give a party while some revivalist is filling his pockets in town the revivalist jumps on us publicly and holds us up as examples of headlong plungers into fiery ruin. There is not a bit of justice or human liberty in that, and you 'll never reach a certain element till you quit such a course. Last year one of the preachers in this town declared in the pulpit that a girl could not be pure and dance a round dance. It raised the very devil in the hearts of the young men, who knew he was a dirty liar, and they got up as many dances out of spite as they possibly could. In fact, some of them came near knocking the preacher down on the street. I am a conservative sort of fellow, but I secretly wished that somebody would slug that man in the jaw.”
“I'm really afraid you are worse than ever,” sighed Mrs. Lampson. “I don't know what to do with you.” She laughed good-naturedly as she rose and stood behind his chair, touching his head tenderly. “It really does make me rather mad,” she confessed, “to hear them making you out such a bad stripe when I know what a wonderful man you really are for your age. I really believe some of them are jealous of your success and standing, but I do want you to be more religious.” When Miller reached his office about ten o' clock and had opened the door he noticed that Craig's bank on the corner across the street was still closed. It was an unusual occurrence at that hour and it riveted Miller's attention. Few people were on the street, and none of them seemed to have noticed it. The church-bell in the next block was ringing for the revivalist's prayer-meeting, and Miller saw the merchants and lawyers hurrying by on their way to worship. Miller stood in his front door and bowed to them as they passed. Trabue hustled out of his office, pulling the door to with a jerk.
“Prayer-meeting?” he asked, glancing at Miller.
“No, not to-day,” answered Miller; “got some writing to do.”
“That preacher's a hummer,” said the old lawyer. “I've never seen his equal. He'd 'a' made a bang-up criminal lawyer. Why, they say old Joe Murphy's converted—got out of his bed at midnight and went to Tim Slocum's house to get 'im to pray for 'im. He's denied thar was a God all his life till now. I say a preacher's worth two hundred to a town if it can do that sort of work.”
“He's certainly worth it to Slocum,” said Miller, with a smile. “If I'd been denying there was a God as long as he has, I'd pay more than that to get rid of the habit. Slocum's able, and I think he ought to foot that preacher's bill.”
“You are a tough customer, Miller,” said Trabue, with a knowing laugh. “You'd better look out—May-nell's got an eye on you. He 'll call out yore name some o' these days, an' ask us to pray fer you.”
“I was just wondering if there's anything wrong with Craig,” said Miller. “I see his door's not open.”
“Oh, I reckon not,” said the old lawyer. “He's been taking part in the meeting. He may have overslept.”
There was a grocery-store near Miller's office, and the proprietor came out on the sidewalk and joined the two men. His name was Barnett. He was a powerful man, who stood six feet five in his boots; he wore no coat, and his suspenders were soiled and knotted.
“I see you-uns is watchin' Craig's door,” he said. “I've had my eye on it ever since breakfast. I hardly know what to make of it. I went thar to buy some New York exchange to pay for a bill o' flour, but he wouldn't let me in. I know he's thar, for I seed 'im go in about an hour ago. I mighty nigh shook the door off'n the hinges. His clerk, that Western fellow, Win-ship, has gone off to visit his folks, an' I reckon maybe Craig's got all the book-keepin' to do.”
“Well, he oughtn't to keep his doors closed at this time of day,” remarked Miller. “A man who has other people's money in his charge can' t be too careful.”
“He's got some o' mine,” said the grocer, “and Mary Ann Tarpley, my wife's sister, put two hundred thar day before yesterday. Oh, I reckon nothin' s wrong, though I do remember I heerd somebody say Craig bought cotton futures an' sometimes got skeerd up a little about meetin' his obligations.”
“I have never heard that,” said Rayburn Miller, raising his brows.
“Well, I have, an' I've heerd the same o' Winship,” said the grocer, “but I never let it go no furder. I ain't no hand to circulate ill reports agin a good member of the church.”
Miller bit his lip and an unpleasant thrill passed over him as Trabue walked on. “Twenty-five thousand,” he thought, “is no small amount. It would tempt five men out of ten if they were inclined to go wrong, and were in a tight.”
The grocer was looking at him steadily.
“You bank thar, don't you?” he asked.
Miller nodded: “But I happen to have no money there right now. I made a deposit at the other bank yesterday.”
“Suspicious, heigh? Now jest a little, wasn't you?” The grocer now spoke with undisguised uneasiness.
“Not at all,” replied the lawyer. “I was doing some business for the other bank, and felt that I ought to favor them by my cash deposits.”
“You don't think thar's anything the matter, do you?” asked the grocer, his face still hardening.
“I think Craig is acting queerly—very queerly for a banker,” was Miller's slow reply. “He has always been most particular to open up early and—”
“Hello,” cried out a cheery voice, that of the middle-aged proprietor of the Darley Flouring Mills, emerging from Barnett's store. “I see you fellows have your eye on Craig's front. If he was a drinking man we might suspicion he'd been on a tear last night, wouldn't we?”
“It looks damned shaky to me,” retorted the grocer, growing more excited. “I'm goin' over there an' try that door again. A man 'at has my money can't attract the attention Craig has an' me say nothin'.”
The miller pulled his little turf of gray beard and winked at Rayburn.
“You been scarin' Barnett,” he said, with a tentative inflection. “He's easily rattled. By-the-way, now that I think of it, it does seem to me I heard some of the Methodists talkin' about reproving Craig an' Winship for speculatin' in grain and cotton. I know they've been dabblin' in it, for Craig always got my market reports. He's been dealin' with a bucket-shop in Atlanta.”
“I'm going over there,” said Miller, abruptly, and he hurried across in the wake of the big grocer. The miller followed him. On the other side of the street several people were curiously watching the bank door, and when Barnett went to it and grasped the handle and began to shake it vigorously they crossed over to him.
“What's wrong?” said a dealer in fruits, a short, thick-set man with a florid face; but Barnett's only reply was another furious shaking of the door.
“Why, man, what's got into you?” protested the fruit-dealer, in a rising tone of astonishment. “Do you intend to break that door down?”
“I will if that damned skunk don't open it an' give me my money,” said Barnett, who was now red in the face and almost foaming at the mouth. “He's back in thar, an' he knows it's past openin' time. By gum! I know more 'n I'm goin' to tell right now.”
This was followed by another rattling of the door, and the grocer's enormous weight, like a battering-ram, was thrown against the heavy walnut shutter.
“Open up, I say—open up in thar!” yelled the grocer, in a voice hoarse with passion and suspense.
A dozen men were now grouped around the doorway. Barnett released the handle and stood facing them.
“Somethin' s rotten in Denmark,” he panted. “Believe me or not, fellows, I know a thing or two. This bank's in a bad fix.”
A thrill of horror shot through Miller. The words had the ring of conviction. Alan Bishop's money was in bad hands if it was there at all. Suddenly he saw a white, trembling hand fumbling with the lower part of the close-drawn window-shade, as if some one were about to raise it; but the shade remained down, the interior still obscured. It struck Miller as being a sudden impulse, defeated by fear of violence. There was a pause. Then the storm broke again. About fifty men had assembled, all wild to know what was wrong. Miller elbowed his way to the door and stood on the step, slightly raised above the others, Barnett by his side. “Let me speak to him,” he said, pacifically. Barnett yielded doggedly, and Rayburn put his lips to the crack between the two folding-doors.
“Mr. Craig!” he called out—“Mr. Craig!”
There was no reply, but Rayburn heard the rustling of paper on the inside near the crack against which his ear was pressed, and then the edge of a sheet of writing-paper was slowly shoved through. Rayburn grasped it, lifting it above a dozen outstretched hands. “Hold on!” he cried, authoritatively. “Til read it.” The silence of the grave fell on the crowd as the young man began to read.
“Friends and citizens,” the note ran, “Winship has absconded with every dollar in the vaults, except about two hundred dollars in my small safe. He has been gone two days, I thought on a visit to his kinfolks. I have just discovered the loss. I'm completely ruined, and am now trying to make out a report of my condition. Have mercy on an old man.”
Rayburn's face was as white as that of a corpse. The paper dropped from his hand and he stepped down into the crowd. He was himself no loser, but the Bishops had lost their all. How could he break the news to them? Presently he began to hope faintly that old Bishop might, within the last week, have drawn out at least part of the money, but that hope was soon discarded, for he remembered that the old man was waiting to invest the greater part of the deposit in some Shoal Creek Cotton Mill stock which had been promised him in a few weeks. No, the hope was groundless. Alan, his father, Mrs. Bishop, and—Adele—Miller's heart sank down into the very ooze of despair. All that he had done for Adele's people, and which had roused her deepest, tenderest gratitude, was swept away. What would she think now?
His train of thought was rudely broken by an oath from Barnett, who, with the rage of a madman, suddenly threw his shoulder against the door. There was a crash, a groan of bursting timber and breaking bolts, and the door flew open. For one instant Miller saw the ghastly face and cowering form of the old banker behind the wire-grating, and then, with a scream of terror, Craig ran into a room in the rear, and thence made his escape at a door opening on the side street. The mob filled the bank, and did not discover Craig's escape for a minute; then, with a howl of rage, it surged back into the street. Craig was ahead of them, running towards the church, where prayer-meeting-was being held, the tails of his long frock-coat flying behind him, his worn silk hat in his convulsive grasp.
“Thar he goes!” yelled Barnett, and he led the mob after him, all running at the top of their speed without realizing why they were doing so. They gained on the fleeing banker, and Barnett could almost touch him when they reached the church. With a cry of fear, like that of a wild animal brought to bay, Craig sprang up the steps and ran into the church, crying and groaning for help.
A dozen men and women and children were kneeling at the altar to get the benefit of the prayers of the ministers and the congregation, but they stood up in alarm, some of them with wet faces.
The mob checked itself at the door, but the greater part of it crowded into the two aisles, a motley human mass, many of them without coats or hats. The travelling evangelist seemed shocked out of expression; but the pastor, Mr. Lapsley, who was an old Confederate soldier, and used to scenes of violence, stood calmly facing them.
“What's all this mean?” he asked.
“I came here for protection,” whined Craig, “to my own church and people. This mob wants to kill me—tear me limb from limb.”
“But what's wrong?” asked the preacher.
“Winship,” panted Craig, his white head hanging down as he stood touching the altar railing—“Win-ship's absconded with all the money in my vault. I'm ruined. These people want me to give up what I haven't got. Oh, God knows, I would refund every cent if I had it!”
“You shall have our protection,” said the minister, calmly. “They won't violate the sacredness of the house of God by raising a row. You are safe here, brother Craig. I'm sure all reasonable people will not blame you for the fault of another.”
“I believe he's got my money,” cried out Barnett, in a coarse, sullen voice, “and the money of some o' my women folks that's helpless, and he's got to turn it over. Oh, he's got money some'r's, I 'll bet on that!”
“The law is your only recourse, Mr. Barnett,” said the preacher, calmly. “Even now you are laying yourself liable to serious prosecution for threatening a man with bodily injury when you can't prove he's wilfully harmed you.”
The words told on the mob, many of them being only small depositors, and Barnett found himself without open support. He was silent. Rayburn Miller, who had come up behind the mob and was now in the church, went to Craig's side. Many thought he was proffering his legal services.
“One word, Mr. Craig,” he said, touching the quivering arm of the banker.
“Oh, you're no loser,” said Craig, turning on him. “There was nothing to your credit.”
“I know that,” whispered Miller, “but as attorney for the Bishops, I have a right to ask if their money is safe.” The eyes of the banker went to the ground.
“It's gone—every cent of it!” he said. “It was their money that tempted Winship. He'd never seen such a large pile at once.”
“You don't mean—” But Miller felt the utter futility of the question on his tongue and turned away. Outside he met Jeff Dukes, one of the town marshals, who had been running, and was very red in the face and out of breath.
“Is that mob in thar?” he asked.
“Yes, and quiet now,” said Miller. “Let them alone; the important thing is to put the police on Winship's track. Come back down-town.”
“I 'll have to git the particulars from Craig fust,” said Dukes. “Are you loser?”
“No, but some of my clients are, and I'm ready to stand any expense to catch the thief.”
“Well, I 'll see you in a minute, and we 'll heat all the wires out of town. I 'll see you in a minute.”
Farther down the street Miller met Dolly Barclay. She had come straight from her home, in an opposite direction from the bank, and had evidently not heard the news.
“I'm on my way to prayer-meeting,” she smiled. “I'm getting good to please the old folks, but—” She noticed his pale face. “What is the matter? Has anything—”
“Craig's bank has failed,” Rayburn told her briefly. “He says Winship has absconded with all the cash in the vaults.”
Dolly stared aghast. “And you—you—”
“I had no money there,” broke in Miller. “I was fortunate enough to escape.”
“But Alan—Mr. Bishop?” She was studying his face and pondering his unwonted excitement. “Had they money there?”
Miller did not answer, but she would not be put aside.
“Tell me,” she urged—“tell me that.”
“If I do, it's in absolute confidence,” he said, with professional firmness. “No one must know—not a soul—that they were depositors, for much depends on it. If Wilson knew they were hard up he might drive them to the wall. They were not only depositors, but they lose every cent they have—twenty-five thousand dollars in a lump.”
He saw her catch her breath, and her lips moved mutely, as if repeating the words he had just spoken. “Poor Alan!” he heard her say. “This is too,toomuch, after all he has gone through.”
Miller touched his hat and started on, but she joined him, keeping by his side like a patient, pleading child. He marvelled over her strength and wonderful poise. “I am taking you out of your way, Miss Dolly,” he said, gently, more gently than he had ever spoken to her before.
“I only want to know if Alan has heard. Do—do tell me that.”
“No, he's at home. I shall ride out as soon as I get the matter in the hands of the police.”
She put out her slender, shapely hand and touched his arm.
“Tell him,” she said, in a low, uncertain voice, “that it has broken my heart. Tell him I love him more than I ever did, and that I shall stick to him always.”
Miller turned and took off his hat, giving her his hand.
“And I believe you will do it,” he said. “He's a lucky dog, even if hehasjust struck the ceiling. I know him, and your message will soften the blow. But it's awful, simply awful! I can't now see how they can possibly get from under it.”
“Well, tell him,” said Dolly, with a little, soundless sob in her throat—“tell him what I told you.”