THE following Sunday morning Nelson Floyd went to church. From the doorway he descried a vacant seat on the side of the house occupied by the men and boys, and when he had taken it and looked over the well-filled room, he saw that he had Cynthia Porter in plain view. She had come alone. A few seats behind her he saw Pole Baker and his wife. Pole had never looked better. He wore a new suit of clothes and had recently had his hair trimmed. Floyd tried to catch his eye, but Pole looked neither to the right nor left, seeming only intent on Hillhouse, who had risen to read the chapter from the Bible which contained the text for his sermon. In their accustomed places sat Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. The old gentleman had placed his silk-hat on the floor at the end of the bench on which he sat, and his kid-gloved hands rested on his gold-headed, ebony cane, which stood erect between his knees.
When the service was over and the congregation was passing out, Floyd waited for Cynthia, whom he saw coming out immediately behind the Duncans. “Hello, Floyd; how are you?” the captain exclaimed, cordially, as he came up. “Going home? Daughter and I have a place for you in the carriage and will drop you at the hotel—that is, if you won't let us take you on to dinner.”
Floyd flushed. Cynthia was now quite near, and he saw from her face that she had overheard the invitation.
“I thank you very much, captain,” Floyd said, as he smiled and nodded to her, “but I see that Miss Cynthia is alone, and I was just waiting to ask her to let me walk home with her.”
“Ah, I see!” Duncan exclaimed, with a gallant bow and smile to Cynthia. “I wouldn't break up a nice thing like that if I could. I haven't forgotten my young days, and this is the time of the year, my boy, when the grass is green and the sun drives you into the shade.”
With a very haughty nod to Floyd and Cynthia together, Evelyn Duncan walked stiffly on ahead of her father.
Outside, Cynthia looked straight into the eyes of her escort.
“Why did you refuse Captain Duncan's invitation?” she asked.
“Why did I?” He laughed, mysteriously. “Because during service I made up my mind that I'd get to you before the parson did; and then I had other reasons.”
“What were they?”
“Gossip,” he said, with a low, significant laugh.
“Gossip? I don't understand,” Cynthia said, perplexed.
“Well, I heard,” Floyd replied, “that since I've been finally invited to Duncan's house I'll run there night and day, and that it will end in my marrying that little bunch of lace and ribbons. I heard other speculations, too, on my future conduct, and as I saw our village talker, Mrs. Snodgrass, was listening just now, I was tickled at the chance to decline the invitation and walk home with you. It will be all over the country by night.”
They were traversing a cool, shaded road now, and as most of the congregation had taken other directions, they were comparatively alone.
“Evelyn Duncan is in love with you,” Cynthia said, abruptly, her glance on the ground.
“That's ridiculous,” Floyd laughed. “Simply ridiculous.”
“I know—I saw it in her face when you said you were going home with me. She could have bitten my head off.”
“Good gracious, I've never talked with her more than two or three times in all my life.”
“That may be, but she has heard dozens of people say it will be just the thing for you to marry her, and she has wondered—” Cynthia stopped.
“Look here, little woman, we've had enough of this,” Floyd said, abruptly. “I saw the light in your room the other night, and I stood and whistled and whistled, but you wouldn't come to me. I had a lot to tell you.”
“I told you I'd never meet you that way again, and I meant it.” Cynthia was looking straight into his eyes. .
“I know you did, but I thought you might relent. I was chock full of my new discovery—or rather Pole Baker's—and I wanted to pour it out on you.”
“Of course, you are happy over it?” Cynthia said, tentatively.
“It has been the one great experience of my life,” said Floyd, impressively. “No one who has not been through it, Cynthia, can have any idea of what it means. It is on my mind at night when I go to bed; it is in my dreams; it is in my thoughts when I get up.”
“I wanted to know about your mother,” ventured the girl, reverently. “What was she like?”
“That is right where I'm in the dark,” Floyd answered. “Pole didn't get my new relative to say a thing about her. I would have written to him at length, but Pole advised me to wait till I could see him personally. My uncle seems to be a crusty, despondent, unlucky sort of old fellow, and, as there was a kind of estrangement between him and my father, Pole thinks it would irritate him to have to answer my letters. However, I am going down to Atlanta to call on him next Wednesday.”
“Oh, I see,” said Cynthia. “Speaking of Pole Baker—I suppose you heard of what the White Caps did the other night?”
“Yes, and it pained me deeply,” said Floyd, “for I was the indirect cause of the whole trouble.”
“You?”
“Yes, Pole is this way: It is usually some big trouble or great joy that throws him off his balance, and it was the good news he brought to me that upset him. It was in my own room at the hotel, too, that he found the whiskey. A bottle of it was on my table and he slipped it into his pocket and took it off with him. I never missed it till I heard he was on a spree. His friends are trying to keep his wife from finding out about the White Caps.”
“They needn't trouble further,” Cynthia said, bitterly. “I was over there yesterday. Mrs. Snodgrass had just told her about it, and I thought the poor woman would die. She ordered Mrs. Snodgrass out of the house, telling her never to darken her door again, and she stood on the porch, as white as death, screaming after her at the top of her voice. Mrs. Snodgrass was so frightened that she actually broke into a run.”
“The old hag!” Floyd said, darkly. “I wish the same gang would take her out some night and tie her tongue at least.”
“Mrs. Baker came back to me then,” Cynthia went on. “She put her head in my lap and sobbed as if her heart would break. Nothing I could possibly say would comfort her. She worships the ground Pole walks on. And sheoughtto love him. He's good and noble and full of tenderness. She saw him coming while we were talking, and quickly dried her eyes.
“'He mustn't see me crying,' she said. 'If he thought I knew this he would never get over it.'
“He came in then and noticed her red eyes, and I saw him turn pale as he sat studying her face. Then to throw him off she told him a fib. She told him I'd been taking her into my confidence about something which she was not at liberty to reveal.”
“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Floyd, admiringly. “She's a shrewd little woman—nearly as shrewd as he is.”
“But he acted queerly after that, I must say,”
Cynthia went on. “He at once quit looking at her, and sat staring at me in the oddest way. I spoke to him, but he wouldn't answer. When I was going home, he followed me as far as the bam. 'You couldn't tell me that secret, could you, little sister?' he said, with a strange, excited look on his face. Of course, I saw that he thought it was some trouble of mine, but I couldn't set him right and be true to his wife, and so I said nothing. He walked on with me to the branch, still looking worried; then, when we were about to part, he held out his hand. 'I want to say right here, little sister,' he said, 'that I love you like a brother, and if any harm comes to you,in any way, I'll be with you.'”
“He's very queer,” said Floyd, thoughtfully. They were now near the house and he paused. “I'll not go any farther,” he said. “It will do no good to disturb your mother. She hates the ground I walk on. She will only make it unpleasant for you if she sees us together. Good-bye, I'll see you when I get back from Atlanta.”
THE following Wednesday afternoon, when he had concluded his business at one of the larger wholesale houses in Atlanta, Nelson Floyd took a street-car for his uncle's residence. Reaching it, he was met at the door by the white woman who had admitted Pole Baker to the house on his visit to Atlanta. She explained that her master had only gone across the street to see a neighbor, and that he would be back at once. She led Floyd into the old-fashioned parlor and gave him one of the dilapidated, hair-cloth chairs, remaining in the room to put a few things to rights, and dusting the furniture with her apron. On either side of the mantel-piece hung a crude oil-portrait, in cracked and chipped gilt frames of very massive make. The one on the right was that of a dark-haired gentleman in the conventional dress of seventy-five years previous. The other was evidently his wife, a woman of no little beauty. They were doubtless family portraits, and Floyd regarded them with reverential interest. The servant saw him looking at them and remarked: “They are Mr. Floyd's mother and father, sir. The pictures were made a long time ago. Old Mr. Floyd was a very smart man in his day, and his wife was considered a great beauty and a belle, so I've heard folks say, though I'm sure I don't see how any woman could be popular with her hair fixed that bungly way. But Mr. Floyd is very proud of the pictures. He wouldn't sell them for any price. We thought the house was going to burn down one day when the kitchen-stove turned over, and he sprained his ankle climbing up in a chair to get them down.”
“They are my grandparents,” he told her.
“You don't say! Then you are Mr. Floyd's—”
“I'm his nephew. My name is Floyd—Nelson Floyd. I've never met my uncle.”
“Oh, I see!” The woman's brow was corrugated. “Mr. Floyddidhave a brother who died young, but I don't think I ever heard him speak of him. But he don't talk much to anybody, and now—la me!—he's so worried over his business that he's as near crazy as any man I ever saw. You say you haven't ever seen him! Then you'd better not expect him to be very sociable. As I say, he's all upset over business. The way he's doing is the talk of the neighborhood. There, I heard the gate shut. I reckon that's him now.”
She went to one of the front windows and parted the curtains and looked out.
“Yes, that's him. I'll go and tell him you are here.”
Nelson heard the door open and close and then muffled voices, a gruff, masculine one, and that of the servant lowered persuasively. Heavy steps passed on down the hall, and then the woman came back.
“I told him you was here, sir,” she said. “He's gone to his room, but will be back in a minute. He's queer, sir; if you haven't seen him before you had as well be prepared for that. I heard Dr. Plympton say the other day that if he didn't stop worrying as he is that he'd have a stroke of paralysis.”
The woman retired and the visitor sat for several moments alone. Presently he heard the heavy-steps in the hall and Henry A. Floyd came in. He was very pale, his skin appearing almost ashen in color, and his eyes, under their heavy brows, had a restless, shifting expression. Nelson felt repelled in a way he could not account for. The old man failed to offer any greeting, and it was only the caller's extended hand that seemed to remind him of the courtesy due a stranger. Even then only the ends of his cold fingers touched those of the young man. A thrill of intense and disagreeable surprise passed over Nelson, for his uncle stood staring at him steadily, without uttering a word.
“Did your servant tell you who I am?” the young man ventured, in no little embarrassment.
“Yes, she told me,” old Floyd answered. “She told me.”
“From your stand-point, sir,” Nelson said, “perhaps I have little excuse for coming to see you without an intimation from you that such a visit would be welcome, but I confess I was so anxious to hear, something from you about my parents that I couldn't wait longer.”
“Huh, I see, I see!” exclaimed the old man, his glance on the floor.
“You may understand my eagerness more fully,” said Nelson, “when I tell you that you are the first and only blood relative I remember ever to have seen.”
The old man shrugged his bent shoulders, and Nelson was almost sure that he sneered, but no sound came from his tightly compressed lips.
The young man, in even greater embarrassment, looked at the portraits on the wall, and, for the lack of anything more appropriate to say, remarked: “Your servant tells me that these are my grandparents—your father and mother.”
“Yes, they are my parents,” the old man said, deep down in his throat. Then all of a sudden his eyes began to flash angrily. “That old hussy's been talking behind my back, has she? I'll teach her what her place is in my house, if—”
“Oh, she only answered a question or two of mine,” said Nelson, pacifically. “I told her you were my uncle and for that reason I was interested in family portraits.”
“Your uncle!” That was all the reply old Floyd made.
Nelson stared at him in deep perplexity for a moment, then he said: “I hope I am not on the wrong track, sir. A friend of mine—a rough mountaineer, it's true, but a sterling fellow—called here some time ago, and he came back and told me that you said—”
“He came here like the spy that he was,” snorted the old man. “He came here to my house pretending to want to rent land, and in that way got into my confidence and had me talk about family matters; but he didn't want to rent land. When he failed to come back my suspicions were roused and I made inquiries. I found out that he was the sharpest, keenest man among mountain revenue detectives, and that he had no idea of leaving his present location. Now I'd simply like to know what you and he are after. I haven't got anything for you—not a dollar in the world, nor any property that isn't mortgaged up to the hilt. Why did you send a man of that kind to me?”
“You actually astound me, sir,” Nelson said. “I hardly know what to say.”
“I reckon you don't—now that I hurl the unexpected truth into your teeth. You didn't think I'd be sharp enough to inquire about that fellow Baker, did you? You thought a man living here in a city as big as this would let a green country lout like that get him in a trap. Huh! But I wasn't a fool, sir. You thought you were getting facts from me through him, but you were not, by a long shot. I wasn't going to tell a stranger like that delicate family matters. God knows your father's conduct was disgraceful enough without my unfolding his life to a coarse greenhorn so long after his death. You know the reputation my brother Charles had, don't you?”
“Not till it came from you, sir,” said Nelson, coldly. “Baker told me you said he was a little wild, that he drank—”
“My father kicked him out of our home, I tell you,” the old man snapped. “He told him never to darken his door again, after the way he lived before the war and during it. It completely broke that woman's heart.” Old Floyd pointed a' trembling finger at his mother's portrait. “I don't understand why you—how you can come here as you do, calling me your uncle as if you had a right to do so.”
“Right to do so?—stop!” Nelson took him up sharply. “What do you mean? I've the right to ask that, sir, anyway.”
“Oh, you know what I mean, I reckon. That man Baker intimated that you knew all about your family history. You know that your mother and my poor, deluded brother were never married, that they—”
“Not married!” Nelson Floyd shrank as if he had been struck in the face. “For God's sake don't say that! I can stand anything but that.”
“I won't ask you to believe me without ample proof,” old Floyd answered, harshly. “Wait here a minute.”
Nelson sank into a chair, and pale and trembling, and with a heart that seemed dead within him, he watched the old man move slowly from the room. Old Floyd returned presently. An expression that seemed born of grim, palpitating satisfaction lay on his colorless face; a triumphant light blazed in his sullen eyes. He held some books and a package of letters in his hands.
“Here are your father's letters to my parents,” he began. “The letters will tell the whole story. They bear his signature. If you doubt their authenticity—if you think the name is forged, you can compare it to all the specimens of his writing in these old school-books of his. This is a diary he kept in college. You can see from its character how his life was tending. The letters are later, after he met your mother—a French girl—in New Orleans.”
For a moment Nelson stared up into the withered face above him, and then, with a groan of dawning conviction, he took the letters. He opened the one on the top.
How strange! The handwriting was not unlike his own. But that was too trivial to marvel over. It was the contents of the letter that at once benumbed and tore his heart in twain.
“Dear father and mother,” it began; “I am longing for the old home to-night; but, as you say, it is perhaps best that I should never come back again, especially as the facts are known in the neighborhood. The things you write me in regard to Annette's past are, alas! only too true. I don't deny them. Perhaps I'm the only one in the world who will overlook them, for I happen to know how she was tried by poverty and temptation when she was hardly more than a child. But on one point I can set your minds at rest. You seem to think that I intend to marry her; but I promise you now that I shall never link your honored name to hers. Really the poor girl doesn't wish it. She seems to understand how you feel exactly. And the baby! you are worried over its future. Let that go. As soon as the war is over, I shall do my full duty by it. It is nameless, as you say, and that fact may sting it later in life, but such things have happened before, and, my dear father and mother, young men have fallen into bad ways before, and—”
Nelson Floyd read no further. Turning the time-stained sheet over, he saw his father's signature. With lifeless fingers he opened one or two of the other letters. He tried to glance at the fly-leaves of the books on his quivering knees, but there was a blur before his sight. The scrawny hands of the old man were stretched out to prevent the mass from falling to the floor.
“Are you satisfied? That's the main thing,” he said. “Because, if you are not, there are plenty of legal records which—”
“I am satisfied.” Nelson stood up, his inert hand on the back of the rocking-chair he had just vacated.
“I was going to say if you are not I can give you further proof. I can cite to you old legal documents to which my brother signed his name. He got hard up and sold a piece of land to me once. I have that deed. You are welcome to—”
“I am satisfied.” Those words seemed the only ones of which the young man's bewildered brain were capable. But he was a gentleman to the core of his being. “I'm sorry I intruded on you, Mr. Floyd. Only blind ignorance on my part—” He went no further.
The inanimate objects about him, the chairs, the table, the door towards which he was moving, seemed to have life.
“Well, good-day.” Old Floyd remained in the centre of the room, the books and letters held awkwardly under his stiff arm. “I see that you were not expecting this revelation, but you might as-well have been told to-day as later. I understand that the Duncans and Prices up your way are under wrong impressions about your social standing, but I didn't want to be the one to open their eyes. I really don't care myself. However, a thing like that is sure to get out sooner or later.”
“They shall know the truth,” said Floyd, with the lips of a dead man. “I shall not sail under false colors. Good-day, Mr. Floyd.”
Out into the broad, balmy sunlight the young man went. There was a despondent droop upon him. His step was slow and uncertain, his feet seemed to him to have weights attached to them. He walked on to the corner of the next street and leaned against a tree. From the city's palpitating heart and stony veins came the hum of traffic on wheels, the clanging of bells, the escaping of steam. Near by some one was practising a monotonous exercise on a piano. He looked up at the sky with the stare of a subject under hypnotic influence.
A lump was in his dry throat. He made an effort to swallow it down, but it stuck and pained him. Persons passing caught sight of his face and threw back stares of mute inquiry as they moved on. After half an hour of aimless wandering here and there through the crowded streets, he paused at the door of a bar-room. He recognized the big gilt sign on the plate-glass windows, and remembered being there years before at midnight with some jolly friends and being taken to his hotel in a cab. After all, whiskey now, as then, would furnish forgetfulness, and that was his right. He went in and sat down at a little round table in the corner of the room. On a shelf near him was a bowl of brown pretzels, a plate of salted pop-corn, a saucer of parched coffee-beans mixed with cloves. One of the bartenders came to him, a towel over his arm. “What will you have, sir?” he asked.
“Rye whiskey straight,” said the customer, his eyes on the sawdust at his feet. “Bring the bottle along.”
TO Cynthia the day on which she expected Floyd to return from Atlanta passed slowly. Something told her that he would come straight to her from the station, on his arrival, and she was impatient to hear his news. The hack usually brought passengers over at six o'clock, and at that time she was on the porch looking expectantly down the road leading to the village. But he did not come. Seven o'clock struck—eight; supper was over and her parents and her grandmother were in bed.
“I simply will not go to meet him in the grape-arbor any more,” she said to herself. “He is waiting to come later, but I'll not go out, as much as I'd like to hear about his mother. He thinks my curiosity will drive me to it, but he shall see.” However, when alone in her room she paced the floor in an agony of indecision and beset by strange, unaccountable forebodings. Might not something have happened to him? At nine o'clock she was in bed, but not asleep. At half-past nine she got up. The big bed of feathers seemed a great, smothering instrument of torture; she could scarcely get her breath. Throwing a shawl over her, she went out on the porch and sat down in a chair.
She had been there only a moment when she heard her mother's step in the hall, and, turning her head, she saw the gaunt old woman's form in the doorway.
“I heard you walking about,” Mrs. Porter said, coldly, “and got up to see what was the matter. Are you sick?”
“No, mother, I simply am not sleepy, that's all.” The old woman advanced a step nearer, her sharp eyes on the girl's white night-gown and bare feet. “Good gracious!” she cried. “You'll catch your death of cold. Go in the house this minute. I'll bet I know why you can't sleep. You are worried about what people are saying about Nelson Floyd's marrying Evelyn Duncan and throwing you over, as he no doubt has many other girls.”
“I wasn't thinking of it, mother.” Cynthia rose and started in. “He can marry her if he wants to.”
“Oh, well, you can pretend all you like. I reckon your pride would make you defend yourself. Now, go in the house.”
In the darkness of her room Cynthia sat on the side of her bed. She heard her mother's bare feet as the old woman went along the hall back to her room in the rear. Floyd might be in the grape-arbor now. As her light was extinguished, he would think she had gone to bed, and he would not whistle. Then a great, chilling doubt struck her. Perhaps he had really gone to Duncan's to see Evelyn. But no, a warm glow stole over her as she remembered that he had declined to go home from church in the captain's carriage that he might walk with her. No, it was not that; but perhaps some accident had happened to him—the stage-horses might have become frightened on that dangerous mountain road. The driver was often intoxicated, and in that condition was known to be reckless. Cynthia threw herself back in bed and pulled the light covering over her, but she did not go to sleep till far towards morning.
The sun was up when she awoke. Her mother was standing near her, a half-repentant look flitting over her wrinkled face.
“Don't get up unless you feel like it,” she said. “I've done your work and am keeping your coffee and breakfast warm.”
“Thank you, mother.” Cynthia sat up, her mind battling with both dreams and realities.
“You don't look like you are well,” Mrs. Porter said. “I watched you before you waked up. You are awfully dark under the eyes.”
“I'll feel all right when I am up and stirring around,” Cynthia said, avoiding her mother's close scrutiny. “I tell you I'm not sick.”
When she had dressed herself and gone out into the dining-room she found a delicious breakfast waiting for her, but she scarcely touched the food. The coffee she drank for its stimulating effect, and felt better. All that morning, however, she was the helpless victim of recurring forebodings. When her father came in from the village at noon she hung about him, hoping that he would drop some observation from which she might learn if Floyd had returned, but the quaint old gossip seemed to talk of everything except the subject to which her soul seemed bound.
About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Porter said she wanted a spool of cotton thread, and Cynthia offered to go to the village for it.
“Not in this hot sun,” the old woman objected.
“I could keep in the shade all the way,” Cynthia told her.
“Well, if you'll do that, you may go,” Mrs. Porter gave in. “I don't know but what the exercise will do you good. I tell you, I don't like the looks of your skin and eyes. I'm afraid you are going to take down sick. You didn't touch breakfast and ate very little dinner.”
Cynthia managed to laugh reassuringly as she went for her hat and sunshade. Indeed, the prospect even of activity had driven touches of color into her cheeks and her step was light and alert as she started off—so at least thought Mrs. Porter, who was looking after her from a window. But what did the trip amount to? At Mayhew & Floyd's store Joe Peters waited on her and had nothing to say of Floyd. While the clerk's back was turned Cynthia threw a guarded glance in the direction of Floyd's desk, but the shadows of the afternoon had enveloped that part of the room in obscurity, and she saw nothing that would even indirectly reply to her heart's question. It was on her tongue to inquire if Floyd had returned, but her pride laid a firm hand over her pretty mouth, and with her small purchase tightly clasped in her tense fingers, she went out into the street and turned her face homeward.
The next day passed in much the same way, and the night. Then two other days and nights of racking torture came and went. The very lack of interest in the subject, of those about her, was maddening. She was sure now that something vital had happened to her lover, and Saturday at noon, when her father came from the village, she saw that he was the bearer of news. She knew, too, that it concerned Floyd before the old man had opened his lips.
“Well, what you reckon has happened?” Nathan asked, with one of his unctuous smiles. “You two women could guess, an' guess, fer two thousand years, an' then never git in a mile o' what everybody in town is talkin' about.”
Cynthia's heart sank like a plummet. It was coming—the grim, horrible revelation she had feared. But her father was subtly enjoying the blank stare in her eyes, the depth of which was beyond his comprehension. As usual, he purposely hung fire.
“What is it, Nathan?” his wife said, entreatingly. “Don't keep us waiting as you always do.” She looked at Cynthia and remarked: “It's something out of the common. I can see that from the way he begins.”
Porter laughed dryly. “You kin bet yore sweet lives it's out o' the common, but I hain't no hand to talk when my throat's parched dry with thirst. I cayn't drink that town water, nohow. Has any fresh been fetched?”
“Just this minute,” declared his wife, and she hastened to the water-shelf in the entry, returning with a dripping gourd. “Here, drink it! You won't say a word till you are ready.”
Porter drank slowly. “You maycallthat fresh water,” he sneered, “but you wouldn't ef you had it to swallow. I reckon you'd call old stump water fresh ef you could git news any the quicker by it. Well, it's about Nelson Floyd.”
“Nelson Floyd!” gasped Mrs. Porter. “He's gone and married Evelyn Duncan—that's my guess.”
“No, it ain't that,” declared Porter. “An' it ain't another Wade gal scrape that anybody knows of. The fact is nobody don't knowwhatit is. Floyd went down to Atlanta Wednesday, so Mayhew says, to lay in a few articles o' stock that was out, an' to call on that new uncle o' his. He was to be back Wednesday night, without fail, to draw up some important mortgages fer the firm, an' a dozen customers has been helt over in town fer two days. They all had to go back without transactin' business, fer Floyd didn't turn up. Nor he didn't write a line, nuther. And, although old Mayhew has been firin' telegrams down thar, fust to Nelson an' later to business houses, not a thing has been heard o' the young man since last Wednesday. He hain't registered at no hotel in Atlanta. One man has been found that said he knowed Floyd by sight, an' that he had seed 'im walkin' about at night in the vilest street in Atlanta lookin' like a dead man or one plumb bereft of his senses.”
Cynthia stood staring at her father with expanded eyes, and then she sat down near a window, her face averted from the others. She said nothing.
“He's crazy,” said Mrs. Porter. “I've always thought something was wrong with that man. His whole life shows it. He was an outlaw when he was a child, and when he grew up he put on high' an' mighty airs, an' started to drinkin' like a lord. He'd no sooner let up on that than he got into that Wade trouble, an'—”
“Some think he was drugged, an' maybe put out of the way on the sly,” said Porter, bluntly. “But I don't know. Thoughts is cheap.”
“Hush, Nathan!” Mrs. Porter said, under her breath, for Cynthia had risen, and without looking to the right or left was moving from the room. “This may kill that poor child.”
“Kill her, a dog's hind foot!” Porter sneered. “To be a woman yorse'f, you are the porest judge of 'em I ever seed. You women are so dead anxious to have some man die fer you that you think the same reckless streak runs in yore own veins. You all said Minnie Wade had tuck powdered glass when she was sick that time an' was goin' to pass in 'er checks on this feller's account, but she didn't die fer him, nor fer Thad Pelham, nor the two Thomas boys, nor Abe Spring, nor none o' the rest.”
“You ought to be ashamed of speaking of your own child in the same breath with that girl,” said Mrs. Porter, insincerely, her eyes anxiously on the door through which Cynthia had gone.
“I hain't bunchin' 'em together at all,” Porter declared. “I was only tryin' to keep you from layin' in a burial outfit that may go out o' fashion 'fore Cynthy wants to use it. You watch 'er an' you'll see 'er pick up' in a day or so. I've seed widows wear black so heavy that the dye in the goods seemed to soak into the'r skins an' drip of'n the'r eyelashes, an' them same women was wearin' red stockin's an' flirtin' em at another fool inside of a month.”
“You don't know what you are talking about,” responded Mrs. Porter. “It is going hard with her, but I really hope Floyd'll not come back to Spring-town. I don't feel safe with him around.”
“You don't want 'im here,” sneered Porter, “but yo're dead sure his absence is a-goin' to lay our only child under the sod. That's about as sensible as the stand a woman takes on most questions. As fer me, I confess I'm sorter upset. I'd about made up my mind that our little gal was goin' to yank that chap an' his boodle into this family before long, but it looks like I was off in my calculations. To look at her now, a body wouldn't think she was holdin' the drivin'-reins very tight. But come what may, storm, hail, wind, rain, or sunshine an' fine crops, I'll be the only one, I reckon, in this house that will sleep sound to-night. An' that's whar you are all a set o' fools. A person that loses sleep wonderin' whether another person is dead or alive mought be in better business, in this day and time, when justanybodyis liable to drap dead in the'r tracks. La, me! What you got fer dinner? I smell some'n' a-cookin'.”
And Porter went into the kitchen, got down on his knees at the stove, and looked into it.
“That's all right,” he said to himself, with a chuckle, “but she hain't put half enough gravy on it, an' ef I hadn't a-been here to 'a' turned it, it 'ud not 'a' got cooked clean through. If it's tough I'll raise a row. I told 'em to sell the tough 'uns. What's the use o' raisin' hens ef you have to eat the scrubs an' don't git half-pay fer the ones you send to market?”
AWEEK went by. To Cynthia its days were veritable months of mental torture. Porter came in one day at sundown from the village. As usual, he had something to say regarding the all-absorbing topic of Nelson Floyd's mysterious disappearance. Through the day neighbors had been in with many vague and groundless rumors, all of which were later discredited, but Nathan Porter, sardonic old observer that hie was, usually got nearer the facts than any one else, and in consequence he was always listened to.
“What's anybody heard now?” his wife asked him, as he came through the gate to where she and Cynthia sat on the porch.
“They've heard a lots,” he said. “Among other things, it's finally leaked out that Lee's surrendered an' the niggers is all declared free. Some say George Washington has jest crossed the Delaware in a tippy-canoe, an' that Napoleon discovered America, but I doubt it. What I want to know is whether supper is ready or not.”
“No, it isn't,” Mrs. Porter made haste to inform him, “but it will be in a few minutes. The table's set an' all is ready, except the bread isn't quite done. Now, what have you heard in town?”
“A body kin hear a lots,” Porter drawled out. “The trouble is to keep from listenin' to so much. People are standin' as thick about Mayhew & Floyd's shebang as flies over a fresh ginger-cake. You two are the only women in the county that hain't been thar, an' I'm proud of the distinction. Old Mrs. Snodgrass mighty nigh had a fisticuff fight to retain her corner in the store, whar she's had 'er distributin' office fer the last week. Joe Peters needed the space. He tried to put a coop o' chickens thar, but you bet the chickens had to go some'rs else. Mrs. Snod' said she was gittin' hard o' hearin', an' ef she wasn't right thar in the front she wouldn't git a thing till it was second-handed.”
“Oh, I get out of all patience with you,” cried Mrs. Porter. “Why does it take you so long to get to a point?”
“The truth is, thar ain't any rale developments as I kin see,” Porter gave in, reluctantly. “Old Mayhew, though, is back from Atlanta. He sets thar, as yaller as a pumpkin, without much to say. He's got a rope tied to every nickel he owns, an' he sees absolute ruin ahead o' the firm. He's depended on Nelson Floyd's popularity an' brains to keep things a-goin' so long that now he's like a loaded wagon runnin' downhill without a tongue, swingle-tree, or hold-back strop. You see, ef Nelson Floyd is dead, or put out o' the way—accordin' to Mrs. Snodgrass, who heard a Darley lawyer say it—why the young man's interest in the business will slide over to his new kin—a receiver will have to be appointed an' Mayhew closed up. Mrs. Snod' is authority fer the statement that Floyd's uncle has connived agin the boy to git his pile, an' bliffed 'im in the head with a sock full o' sand or some'n' equally as deadly. I dunno. I never knowed her to be right about anything, an' I hain't a-goin' to believe Floyd's dead till the report comes from some other direction. But this much seems to have foundation in fact: Mayhewdidgo down; hedidmake inquiries of the police; an' somesay—now, mind you, I hain't a-standin' fer this—some say he paid out solid coin to git expert detectives a-holt o' the matter. They say the detectives run across a low-class hotel out in the edge o' town whar a feller answerin' Floyd's description had come in the night after the boy left here an' axed fer a room. They say he was lookin' awful—like he had been on a big jag, an' when they give 'im the pen to register he studied a minute an' then thro wed it at the clerk, an' told 'im he didn't have no name to sign, an' turned an' stalked out. That was the last seed of 'im.”
“An' that's all you heard,” said Mrs. Porter, in disgust.
“All but one thing more,” Porter replied. “Folks about here that has missed Pole Baker fer the last three days 'lowed he was off on another bender, but he was down thar in Atlanta nosin' around tryin' to find Floyd. Old Mayhew paid his expenses. He said Pole had a longer head on 'im than any detective in the bunch. Pole got back about two hours ago, but what he discovered not even Mrs. Snod' knows. Him an' Mayhew had the'r heads clamped together in the rear end o' the store fer an hour, but Joe Peters helt the crowd back, an' thar it stands.”
“Pig-oop-pig-oo! Pig-oop-pig-oo!” The mellow, resonant sound floated to them on the still air. Porter smiled.
“That's Pole now callin' his hogs,” he said, laconically. “The blamed fool told me t'other day he was goin' to fatten them pigs on buttermilk, but that sort o' fat won't stick any more'n whiskey bloat on a reformed drunkard. By the time he drives 'em to market they'll look as flabby as a ripe tomato with the inside squashed out. Speakin' o' hogs, I want you-uns to fry me a piece o' that shuck-sausage on the top shelf in the smoke-house. You'd better go git it now. Swallowin' all that gush in town has made me want some'n' solid.”
When her mother and father had gone into the house Cynthia hastened across the fields through the gathering dusk in the direction of Pole Baker's voice. He would tell her, she was sure, if anything of importance had turned up concerning Floyd, and she could not bear the thought of another night of suspense.
Presently, through the dusk, she saw Pole at his hog-pen in the edge of a little thicket behind his cottage.
“Pig-oop-pig-oo!” she heard him calling. “Dem yore lazy hides, ef you don't come on I'll empty this bucket o' slop on the ground an' you kin root fer it. I've mighty nigh ripped the linin' out o' my throat on yore account.” Then he descried Cynthia coming towards him over the dew-damp grass and he paused, leaning on the rail-fence, his eyes resting expectantly on her.
“Oh, it's you, little sister!” he exclaimed, pleasantly. “That's sorter foolish o' you gittin' them little feet o' yore'n wet in this dew. It may settle on yore lungs an' keep you from j'inin' in the singin' Sunday.”
“I want to see you,” Cynthia said, in a voice that shook. “I heard you calling your hogs, and thought I'd catch you here.”
“Well, little sister, I hain't very nice-lookin' in this old shirt an' pants of many colors, like Joseph's coat, but every patch was sewed on by the fingers o' the sweetest, most patient little woman God ever made, an' I hain't ashamed of 'em; but she is—God bless 'er!—an' she'd have a spasm ef she knowed I talked to you in 'em.”
“My father says you went down to Atlanta,” Cynthia said, falteringly, “and I thought—”
“Yes, I went down.” Pole avoided her fixed stare.
“You went to see if you could learn anything of Mr. Floyd's whereabouts, didn't you?”
“Yes, I did, little sister. I hain't a-talkin' much. Mayhew says it's best to sorter lie low until some'n' accurate is found out, an' while I did my level best down thar, I've got to acknowledge I'm as much in the dark as anybody else. In fact, I'm mighty nigh bothered to death over it. Nelson, poor boy, seems to have disappeared clean off'n the face o' the earth. The only thing I have to build on is the fact that—an' I hate to say it, little sister—the fact that he evidentlydidstart to drinkin' again. He told me once that he wasn't plumb sure o' hisse'f, an' that any big trouble or despair might overthrow his resolutions. Now, he's been drinkin', I reckon—an' what could 'a' been his trouble? I went three times to his uncle's, but the doctors wouldn't let me see 'im. The old man's broke down with nervous prostration from business troubles, an' they are afeard he's goin' to kick the bucket. Comin' back on the cars—”
Pole's voice died away. He crossed and recrossed his hands on the fence. He avoided her steady stare. His massive eyebrows met on his wrinkled forehead. It was as if he were suffering inward pain. “I say—as I set in the train on the way back tryin' an' tryin' to find some explanation, the idea come to me that—since trouble was evidently what upset Nelson—that maybe you mought be able to throw some light on it.”
“Me, Mr. Baker?”
Pole hung his head; he spat slowly. Was she mistaken, or had he actually turned pale? Was it that, or a trick of her vision in the vague starlight?
“Little sister,” he said, huskily, “you could trust me with yore life. I'd die rather than—than not stand to you in anything on earth. You see, if you happened to know any reason why Nelson Floyd—” Pole was interrupted by the loud grunting and squealing of his drove of hogs as they rushed round the fence-corner towards him. “Wait,” he said—“wait till I pour the'r feed in the trough.”
He took up the pail and disappeared for a moment behind the cow-house.
Cynthia felt a great lump of wondering suspense in her throat. What could he mean? What was coming? She had never seen Pole act so strangely before. Presently he came back to her, holding the dripping paddle with which he had stirred the dregs in the bottom of his slop-bucket. He leaned over the fence again.
“You see, it's this away, little sister,” he began, lamely. “You an' Nelson—that is, you an' him was sorter runnin' together. He went with you, I reckon, more, on the whole, than with any other young lady in this section, an', you see, ef anybody was in a position to know any particular trouble or worry he had, you mought be that one.”
“But I'm afraid I don't know anything of the kind,” she said, wonderingly, her frank eyes resting blankly on his face.
“I see you don't understand me,” he went on. “The God's truth is that I hain't no hand to talk about delicate matters to a young gal, an' you above all, but I want toknow—I wantsome'n''to build on. I don't know how to put what I want to ax. Maybe I'm away—away off, an' will want to kill myse'f fer even dreamin' that—but—well, maybe you'll git at what I mean from this. You see, I run in the room on you an' my wife not long ago an' ketched Sally an' you a-cryin' over some'n' or other you'd confided to 'er, an' then other things of a like nature has crapped up lately, an'—”
“I don't understand you, Mr. Baker,” said Cynthia, anxiously, when she saw he was going no further. “I really don't. But I assure you, I'm ready to tell you anything.”
“Ah! Are you? Well, I started to say Sally don't cry over other folks' matters unless they are purty sad, an' you know at the time you refused to tell me what yore trouble was. Maybe you ain't ready yet, little sister. But could you tell me, right out plain, what ailed you that day?”
Cynthia stared and then dropped her glance to the ground.
“I don't see that it would help in the matter,” she said, awkwardly.
“Well, maybe it wouldn't,” he declared, in despair; “an' I reckon thar are things one woman would tell another woman that she wouldn't speak of to a man.”
“I guess that's so,” said Cynthia, still perplexed over the turn the conversation had taken and yet firm in her determination to say nothing that would involve Mrs. Baker's secret.
“Well, maybe you won't mind it much ef I put it this away,” Pole continued. “Now, remember, you don't have to say yes or no unless you want to. Little sister, I'll put it this away: ef Nelson Floyd was to never come back here again, could you, as—as a good, true woman—could you conscientiously marry another man? Could you with a clear conscience, I mean, before God, ever marry another man? Thar, it's out! Could you?”
Cynthia started. She looked down. She was silent. Her color rose.
“Now, mind,” Pole said, suddenly, “you don'thaveto answer unless you want to. No man's got a right to hem a weak, excited woman up in a corner and get at her heart's secrets.”
“Would it do any good for you to know that, Mr. Baker?” the girl said, in a low voice.
“I think so, little sister.”
“Well, then”—she turned her face away—“I don't think I'd ever want to marry any other living man.”
“Oh, my God!” Pole averted his face, but not before she had seen its writhing torture. She stared at him in astonishment, and, to avoid her eyes, he lowered his head to his arms, which were folded on the top rail of the fence. Fully a minute passed; still he did not look up. She saw his broad shoulders rising and falling as if he were trying to subdue a torrent of emotion. She laid her hand firmly on his arm.
“Tell me what you mean,” she suddenly demanded. “I want to know. This has gone far enough. What do you mean?”
He raised a pair of great, blearing eyes to hers. He started to speak, but his voice hung in his throat. Tightening her clasp on his arm she repeated her demand.
“I see through it now,” he found voice to say, huskily. “I don't mean to say Nelson Floyd is afeard o' man, beast, nor devil when it comes to ajustencounter, but he knows now that ef me an' him was to come face to face one of us ud have to die, an' he's man enough not to want to kill me in sech a cause. I gave 'im due warnin'. I told 'im the day he drove you to bush-arbor meetin' that ef he tuck advantage o' you I'd kill 'im as shore as God give me the strength. I knowed whar that stormy night was spent, but I refused to believe the wust. I give 'im the benefit o' that doubt, but now since you tell me with your own lips that—”
“Oh! Oh!Oh!” The cry burst from her lips as if she were in sudden pain. “I don't meanthat. Why, I'm agoodgirl, Mr. Baker! I'm a good girl!”
Pole leaned over the fence and laid his big, quivering hands on her shoulders. “Thank God!” he gulped, his eyes flashing with joy. “Then I've still got my little sister an' I've got my friend. Thank God! thank God!”
Cynthia stood for a moment with hanging head, and then with a deep sigh she turned to go away. He climbed over the fence and caught up with her, the light of a new fear now in his eyes, its fire in his quickened pulse.
“I see you ain't never goin' to forgive me in the world fer sayin' what I did,” he said, humbly; “but God knows I wasn't thinkin' wrong o' you. It was him, damn 'im!—his hot-blooded natur', an' a lots o' circumstances that p'inted jest one way. I ain't more'n human, little sister, an' through that I've offended you beyond forgiveness.”
“A woman learns to bear a great many things,” Cynthia said. “My mother and others have hardened me so that I scarcely feel what you said as any other pure-minded woman might. Then—then—” She faced him squarely, and her voice rang out sharply. “We don't know—you don't—I don't know whether he is alive or—” Her words failed her, a sob, dry and deep, shook her from head to foot. “Don't curse him as you did just now, Mr. Baker; you may be cursing a dead man who, himself, was only human. But I know what he was—I saw his real and higher nature, and, as it struggled for growth in good and bad soil, it was the most beautiful flower God ever made. He can't be dead—hemustnot be dead. I—I could not bear that. Do you hear me? Call me what you will for my imprudent conduct with him, but don't admit that bare possibility for one instant—even in your thoughts. Don't do it, I say!”
Pole gulped down his tense emotion. “I'll tell you what I'll do, little sister,” he proposed. “Promise me you'll overlook what I said just now, an' I'll work these here hands”—he held them up in the starlight—“to the naked bone; I'll use this here brain”—he struck his broad brow with a resounding slap—“till it withers in the endeavor to fetch 'im back safe an' sound, ef you'll jest forgive me.”
“Forgive you!” She laughed harshly and tossed her head. “That's already done. More than that, I want to tell you that I've always looked on you as a brother. You made me love you a long time ago by your gentleness and respect for women.”
“Oh, little sister,” Pole cried, “I don't deserve that!”
“Yes, you do; but find him—find him, and bring him back.”
“All right, little sister; I'll do my best.”
He stood still and watched her hurry away through the darkness.
“Poor little trick,” he sighed. “I was countin' on that one thing to explain Nelson's absence. Since it ain't that, what the hell is it, unless he's been sandbagged down thar in Atlanta an' put out o' the way?”