FOR midsummer, the next morning was clear and cool. Nathan Porter rolled the family spring-wagon down to the creek and washed off the wheels and greased the axles.
“Your pa's getting ready to drive us to church, Cynthia,” Mrs. Porter adroitly said to the girl as she was removing the dishes from the table in the diningroom. “I wish you'd go with me. I hate to sit there with just your pa.”
There was an instant's hesitation visible in Cynthia's sudden pause in her work and the startled lift of her eyebrows. Then she said:
“All right, mother, if you want me to, I'll go.”
“Well, then, go get out your white muslin and flowered hat. They become you more than anything you wear.”
Without further words Cynthia left the room, and Mrs. Porter walked out into the hall and stood in the front door-way.
“Somehow, I imagine,” she mused, “that she was thinking it would be her last time at our church. I don't know what makes me think so, but she had exactly that look in her face. I do wish I could go in and tell mother all about it, but she's too old and childish to act with caution. I can't go to Nathan, either, for he'd laugh at me; he'd not only do that, but he'd tell it all over the country and drive Cynthia to meet Floyd ahead of time. No, no; I must do the best I can with Mr. Hillhouse's help. He loves her; he'd make her a good, safe husband, too, while that dare-devil would most likely tire of her in a short time, and take to drinking and leave her high and dry in some far-off place. No, Floyd won't do to risk.”
The service was not well attended that morning, owing to a revival in progress at Darley. Reports of the good music and high religious excitement had drawn away a goodly number of Hillhouse's parishioners. But, considering the odd nature of the discourse he had planned, this was perhaps in the young preacher's favor. Indeed, as he sat in his high-backed chair behind the little wooden stand, which held a ponderous open Bible, a glass pitcher of water, and a tumbler, Mrs. Porter, as she and Cynthia entered and took their usual places, thought he looked as if he had not slept the preceding night. His skin was yellow, his hair stood awry, and his eyes had a queer, shifting expression. Had his wily old ally doubted that he intended to fulfil his promise to publicly touch on the matter so near to them both, she could do so no longer after he had risen and stood unconsciously swaying from side to side, as he made some formal announcements in harsh, rigid tones. Indeed, he had the appearance of a man who could have talked of only one thing, thought of only one thing, that to which his whole being was nailed. His subject was that of the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children, even to the third and fourth generations. And Mrs. Porter shrank guiltily as his almost desperate voice rang out in the still room How was it possible for those around not to suspect—to know—that she had instigated the sermon and brought her unsuspecting child there to be swerved by it from the dangerous course she was pursuing? In former sermons Hillhouse had unfailingly allowed his glance to rest on Cynthia's face, but on this occasion he looked everywhere but at her. As he proceeded, he seemed to take on confidence in his theme; his tone rose high, clear, and firm, and quivered in the sheer audacity of his aim. He showed, from that lesson, the serious responsibility resting on each individual—each prospective mother and father. Then, all at once, it dawned on the congregation that Floyd's misfortune had inspired the discourse, and each man and woman bent breathlessly forward that they might not lose a word. The picture was now most clear to their intelligences. And seeing that they understood, and were sympathetically following him, Hillhouse swept on, the bit of restraint between his clinched teeth, to direct, personal reference.
“We can take it home to ourselves, brothers and sisters,” he went on, passionately. “Even in our own humble, uneventful lives here in the mountains, out of the great current of worldliness that flows through the densely populated portions of our land, we have seen a terrible result of this failure of man to do his duty to his posterity. Right here in our midst the hand of God has fallen so heavily that the bright hopes of sterling youth are crushed out completely. There was here among us a fine specimen of mental and physical manhood, a young soul full of hope and ambition. There was not a ripple on the calm surface of that life, not a cloud in the clear sky of its future, when, without warning, the shadow of God's hand spread over it. The awful past was unrolled—one man and woman, for selfish, personal desires, were at the root of it all. Some shallow thinkers claim that there is no hell, neither spiritual nor material. To convince such individuals I would point the scornful finger of proof to the agony of that young man. Are they—that selfish couple—enjoying the bliss of the redeemed and he, the helpless product of their sin, suffering as you know he must be suffering? In this case the tangible and visible must establish the verity of the vague and invisible. They are paying the debt—somewhere, somehow—you may count on that.” Mrs. Porter, with bated breath, eyed Cynthia askance. To her astonishment a flush had risen into the girl's cheeks, and there was in her steady eye something like the thin-spread tear of deep and glorified emotion, as she sat with tightly clasped hands, her breast tumultuously heaving. The house was very still, so still that the rustling of the leaves in the trees near the open windows now and then swept like the soft sighing of grief-stricken nature through the room. Hillhouse, a baffled, almost hunted look on his gaunt face, paused to take a sup of water, and for one instant his eyes met Cynthia's as he wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and with trembling hands returned it to his pocket. Mrs. Porter was conscious of the impression that he had not quite carried the subject to its logical climax, and was wondering how it had happened, when Hillhouse almost abruptly closed his discourse. He sat down, as if crushed by the weight of defeat, and looked steadily and despondently at the floor, while the congregation stood and sang the doxology. Then he rose and, with hands out-stretched as stiffly as those of a wired skeleton, he pronounced the benediction.
As they were turning to leave, Cynthia and her mother faced old Nathan, who stood waiting for them.
“Hillhouse don't look one bit well to-day,” he observed, as they were going out. “I'll bet he's been eatin' some o' the fool stuff women an' gals has been concoctin' to bewitch 'im with. They say the shortest road to a man's heart is through his stomach—it's the quickest route to a man's grave, too, I'm here to state to you.”
“Oh, do hush!” Mrs. Porter exclaimed, her mind on something foreign to Nathan's comment. “You two walk on; I'm going to shake hands with Brother Hillhouse and ask about his mother.”
She fell back behind the crowd surging through the door, and waited for the preacher to come down the aisle to her.
“I couldn't see exactly what you were driving at,” she said, extending her hand. “I never heard finer argument or argument put in better language than what you said, but it seemed to me you left off something.”
“Idid,” he said, desperately. “I was going to end up with the evil tendencies he had inherited from his parents, and the pitfalls such a man would lead others into, but I couldn't drive my tongue to it. I had gone too far in dilating on his wrongs for that, and then I caught sight of Cynthia's face. I read it. I read through it down into the depths of her soul. What I was saying was only making her glory in the prospect of self-sacrifice in his behalf. When I saw that—when I realized that it will take a miracle of God to snatch her from him, I felt everything swimming about me. Her flushed face, her sparkling, piercing eyes, drove me wild. I started in to attack him behind his back and was foiled in the effort. But I won't give up. I can't lose her—Ican't, I tell you! She was made for me. I was made for her, and she would realize it if this devil's dream would pass.”
Mrs. Porter sighed. “I don't know what to do,” she declared. “If I could trust him, I'd give in, but I can't. I can't let my only child go off with any man of his stamp, on those conditions. But I must run on—they are waiting for me. She must never suspect that this was done for her benefit.”
It was the afternoon of the day set for the meeting between Cynthia and Floyd. Mrs. Porter, still carrying her weighty secret, went into town actuated by nothing but the hope that she might accidentally meet Hillhouse. He seemed to be on the lookout for her, for he came down the street from the village square and waited for her to join him near the hitching-rack and public trough for the watering of horses.
“I was on the way to see you,” she said, looking about her cautiously, as if averse to being seen in his company.
“In answer to my prayer,” he replied. “I'm suffering great agony, Sister Porter.”
“Well, you are not any worse off than I am,” she made answer. “She's my only child.”
He leaned towards her till his face was close to her own. “Something must be done,” he said. “I'm ready for anything. I can't bear it any longer. Last night the devil rose in me and conquered me. I was ready to kill him.”
“And after all those beautiful things”—Mrs. Porter smiled calmly—“that you said about him in your sermon.”
“The feeling didn't last long,” Hillhouse said, gloomily. “It swept through me like a storm and left me on my knees praying God to spare her. Did she make any comment on my sermon?”
“No, but I saw it failed to affect her as we wanted it to. I have kept a close watch on her. At times she's had the appearance of a woman giving up all hope, and then again a rebellious look would come in her face, and she'd move about with a quick step, her head up and a defiant expression, as if she was telling herself that she had a right to her happiness, and would have it at any cost.”
“Ah, I guess she loves him,” Hillhouse sighed; “and she is fascinated by his hellish proposal and the thought that she is sacrificing something for his sake. I wish I could abuse him, but I can't. I can't blame him for trying to get her; it is no more than any man would do, any man who knows what she is.”
“I want to ask you one thing, Brother Hillhouse”—Mrs. Porter was looking at a row of cottages across the square—“and I ask it as a member of your church and a woman that don't want to commit unpardonable sin. So far, I've tried to obey the commandments to the letter. I want to know if I'd ever be forgiven if I was to descend to downright deception—lying with my tongue and lying in my actions—that is, I mean, if, by so doing, I could save my child from this thing?”
Hillhouse avoided her piercing eyes; his own shifted under lowering brows.
“If you could actually save her?” he said.
“Yes, if I could make her give him up—send him off?”
“I'll answer you this way,” Hillhouse replied.
“If she were in a room and a madman came searching for her with a pistol and a long knife bent upon killing her, and if he were to ask you, as you stood at the door, if she were inside, would you say yes?”
“Of course I wouldn't.”
“Well, there's your answer,” said the preacher. “He's a madman—mad in soul, brain, and body. He is seeking her eternal damnation, and the damnation of unborn souls. Lie?” He laughed sardonically. “Sister Porter, I could stand before God and lie that way, and wink at the angels hovering over the throne.”
“I reckon you are right,” said the woman; “but I wanted to make sure. And let me tell you something. If Idoresort to lying I'll put up a good one, and I'll back it up by acting that she nor no one else could see through. Let me alone. Leave it to me. It's my last card, but I feel like it's going to win. I'm going home now. I can hardly walk, I feel so weak at the knees. I haven't slept regular since this thing came up. I'm going crazy—I know I am.”
“Would you mind telling me what you intend to do?” Hillhouse asked, almost hopefully.
“No, I'm not ready to do that yet, but it will have a powerful effect on her. The only thing that bothered me was the sin of it, but since you think I'd have the right I'll throw my whole soul into it. She's so pure-minded that she won't suspect me.”
“God grant that you succeed,” Hillhouse said, fervently, and he stood as if rooted to the spot, and watched her till she had disappeared down the road leading to her home.
DURING supper that evening Mrs. Porter eyed her daughter furtively. Cynthia ate very little and seemed abstracted, paying no heed to her father's rambling, inconsequential remarks to her grandmother, who, in her white lace cap, sat across the table from him. Supper over, the family went out, leaving Cynthia to put the dishes away. Mrs. Radcliffe shambled quietly to her own room, and Porter took his pipe to his favorite chair on the porch. Being thus at liberty to carry out her own plans, Mrs. Porter stole unnoticed into Cynthia's room, and in the half-darkness looked about her. The room was in thorough order. The white bedspread was as smooth as a drift of snow, and the pillows had not a wrinkle or a crease. The old woman noiselessly opened the top drawer of the bureau; here everything was in its place. She looked in the next and the next with the same result. Then she stood erect in the centre of the room, an expression of perplexity on her face. Suddenly she seemed to have an inspiration, and she went to the girl's closet and opened the door. And there, under a soiled dress belonging to Cynthia, she found a travelling-bag closely packed.
With a soundless groan, Mrs. Porter dropped the dress, closed the closet-door, and moved back to the centre of the room.
“My God! my God!” she cried. “I can't stand it! She's fully made up her mind.”
Mrs. Porter left the room, and, passing her husband, whose placid face appeared intermittently in a red disk of light on the end of the porch, she went down the steps into the yard and thence around the house towards the orchard and grape-arbor. She paused among the trees, looking thoughtfully at the ground.
“If I'm going to do it,” she reflected, “I'd better throw out some hint in advance, to sort of lead up to it. I wonder if my mind is actually giving way? I am sure I've been through enough to—but somebody is coming.”
It was Cynthia, and she came daintily over the dewy grass.
“Mother, is that you?” she called out.
Mrs. Porter made no reply.
“Mother, is that—but why didn't you answer me?” Cynthia came up, a searching look of inquiry in her eyes.
Still Mrs. Porter showed not the slightest indication of being aware of her presence. Cynthia, in increasing surprise, laid her hand on her mother's arm, but Mrs. Porter shook it off impatiently.
“Look here, Nathan, if you don't quit following me up, dogging my steps, and bothering me with your—” Mrs. Porter broke off, looking blankly into Cynthia's face.
“Why, mother, what is the matter?” the girl exclaimed.
“Oh, you look like—you look like—” Mrs. Porter moved to a near-by apple-tree and leaned against its trunk, and with her head down she began to laugh softly, almost sillily. Cynthia drew near her again, and, catching the old woman by the shoulders, she turned her forcibly to her.
“Mother, what's the matter?” she demanded, her tone now quite full of alarm. .
“Oh, Cynthia, nothing is the matter with me! I'm all right, but, but, but—good gracious! just this minute you were—we were all at the table. Your pa was in his place, mother was in hers, and, how in the world”—Mrs. Porter was looking around in seeming astonishment—“how in the world did I get out here? I don't remember leaving the house. The last thing I recall was—”
“Mother, what's the matter?”
Mrs. Porter stared in a bewildered way at her daughter for a moment, then she put her hand to her brow with a weary gesture. “Somethingmustbe wrong with me,” she declared. “I didn't want to mention it, but this evening as I was coming back from town I got rather warm, and all at once I heard a little sound and felt something give way in my head. Oh, Cynthia, I'm afraid—I'm afraid I'm going like your aunt Martha did. They say hers was a drop of blood on the brain. Do you suppose it could be that, daughter?”
“Oh, mother, come on in the house and lie down. Go to bed, and you will feel better in the morning.” Cynthia caught her arm, and, greatly perturbed, slowly led the old woman towards the house.
“It's worry, daughter,” Mrs. Porter said, confidingly—“worry about you. You seem to be bothered on account of Nelson Floyd's being away, and I've allowed that to prey on my thoughts.”
“Never mind him, mother,” Cynthia said. “Come on in and lie down. You don't feel any pain, do you?”
“No, daughter, not a bit—not a bit; but your aunt didn't, either. She didn't suffer.”
“Don't you think we ought to send for the doctor, mother?”
“Doctor? No—how ridiculous! Even if it is a drop on the brain, he couldn't do me a bit of good. The brain is inside the—the—what do you call it? See there, my mind isn't what it was. I can't think of as common a thing as a—you know what I mean, Cynthia.”
“You mean skull, mother,” the girl said, anxiously.
“Yes, I mean that. Your aunt's memory was bad, too. She suddenly forgot her own name, and came in from the strawberry-patch one day scared out of her senses. The next thing was her hand getting numb. My thumb feels queer; I believe you could stick a needle through it and I wouldn't feel it. But don't you tell your pa, Cynthia. Wait, anyway, till to-morrow, and see how I feel then. It may pass away, and then—then, again, it may be the first stroke. They say people about my age usually have three, and the last one ends it. I hope I'll go naturally—the way Martha went was horrible; and yet when I think of all my trouble I—”
“Hush, mother, don't!” Cynthia cried. They had now reached the porch. Porter had retired, and so they passed on unnoticed to Mrs. Porter's room.
Cynthia helped her mother undress and get into the bed, and then she went to her own room and sat down, irresolutely, at her table. She leaned her head on her crossed arms and remained quite still. She was very tired in brain and body, and presently dropped to sleep. She slept for about two hours. Suddenly she waked with a start. The clock in the sitting-room was striking ten. Nelson would be at the grape-arbor soon, she told herself with a shudder. Perhaps he was already there, and too cautious to whistle as on former meetings. She stood up, tiptoed to the closet, and opened the door. She uncovered the hidden valise and lifted it out into the light. Then a recollection of her mother's strange condition struck her like a blow in the face, and, standing in the centre of the room, she sighed.
Just then she heard the tread of bare feet in the hall, and a low-mumbled monologue. Her heart stood still, for she recognized her mother's voice. Going softly to the door, she peered out, and there, in a thin, white dress, stood Mrs. Porter, Nathan's double-barrelled shot-gun clutched in her hand, her long hair hanging loose on her back. The old woman's face was averted, and she seemed unaware of her daughter's presence.
“Lord, my God, pardon me for this last act,” she was praying. “It may be a sin in Thy sight for a tortured person to seek escape from trouble by this course, but I can't stand it any longer.”
“Mother, what is this?” Cynthia darted out into the hall and snatched the gun from her mother's hands.
For an instant Mrs. Porter stood staring at her daughter, and then, as if to escape her glance, she turned and went slowly into Cynthia's room.
“Sh!” she said; “don't wake your pa.” And, seeing Cynthia's lamp burning low, she blew down the chimney and put it out. The room was now dark save for the moonlight that struggled in at the windows on each side of the drawn shades.
“Mother, you've got to tell me,” Cynthia demanded, as she leaned the cumbersome weapon against the wall and groped towards the still, white figure; “what were you going to do with that gun?”
Mrs. Porter said nothing, but moved backward to Cynthia's bed and, with a groan, sat down on it.
“Mother”—Cynthia leaned over her, a horrible fear gripping her heart-cords—“what were you about to do?”
“I don't know as I am obliged to tell you or anybody,” Mrs. Porter said, doggedly.
“Mother”—Cynthia sat down by the old woman and put her arm about the gaunt figure—“what were you going to do?”
“I was going to get out of my trouble, if youwillknow,” Mrs. Porter said, looking her daughter defiantly in the face.
“Your trouble, mother?”
“Yes, I've borne it as long as I can. Huh! you can't guess how much I know. I was awake last Friday night and overheard your plan to run off with Nelson Floyd. I was in a yard of you, crouched down behind the rose-bushes. You said you'd decide by to-night, and ever since then I've been tortured like a condemned soul. That's what affected my brain to-day. It wasn't the sun. Since that awful hour I have been praying God to spare you—to have mercy on my misguided child, and I hoped He would do it, but to-night, while you were putting the dishes away, I came in here and saw your packed valise, and knew you had concluded to leave. Then—then I decided to—to go like Sister Martha did. I was going out in the meadow, by the creek, where it was quiet. I couldn't bear the thought of having to face all those curious people who will throng the house to-morrow to find out about your disgrace.”
“You say you were there?” Cynthia gasped—“you heard?”
“Every word,” answered Mrs. Porter; “and every one was a rusty nail in my heart.”
There was silence. Cynthia had no defence to offer. She simply sat with bowed head, her arm lying limp upon her mother's thinly clad shoulders.'
“Yes, you made up your mind to stain forever our family record. No other girl that I ever heard of, even among our far-off kin, ever threw away her honor as you—”
“Stop, mother, you are going too far!” Cynthia cried, removing her arm and standing erect before the old woman.
“Cynthia, mypoor, poor baby!in all that man said the other night he didn't once mention marriage.
“But he meant it, mother!” broke from the girl's pallid lips—“he meant it!”
“He didn't mean anything of the kind, you little fool! As plain as plain could be, he said, right out, that he had no name to give you. And any fool knows no marriage can be legal unless it is brought about under the lawful names of the contracting parties. He simply was trying to give you to understand that he wanted you as a companion in his sin and misery. He has lost his right to a foothold in society, and he wants you, of your own accord and free will, to renounce yours. It was a crazy idea, and one that could have come from none but a brain disordered by liquor, but that is what he had in view.”
“I don't believe it,” Cynthia said, firmly.
“It doesn't make any difference what you believe,” Mrs. Porter returned. “I'm older than you, and I see through him. He tried and tried to ruin you as he did Minnie Wade, but when he was reduced to despair by his trouble he rose from his debauch and wanted to turn his very misfortune to your undoing. The idiot was trying to make himself believe, because his parents had brought all that nastiness down on him, that he would be justified in a like course. The disgrace he had inherited he intended to hand down to another generation, and you—you poor, simple thing!—you calmly packed your white, unspotted things and were ready to sell yourself to his hellish purpose.”
There was awful silence. Cynthia stared, unable to utter a word. She may have doubted the fairness of her mother's version, but the grim picture painted there in the darkness by a woman in seeming readiness to take her own life on account of it fairly chilled her young life's blood. Suddenly a sound broke the outside stillness. There was no mistaking it. It rang out as shrilly on the girl's quaking consciousness as the shriek of a locomotive dashing through a mountain gorge.
“There he is now,” said Mrs. Porter. “Pick up your valise and hurry, hurry to him; but before you go hand me that gun. Before you and he get in that buggy you'll hear my death-knell, and you may know, too, that you fired the shot into the withered breast that nursed you. Go! I'm not keeping you!”
Cynthia swayed visibly in the darkness, and then she sank to her knees and put her head in her mother's lap.
“I won't go,” she groaned, softly. “Mother, I'll do anything you say—anything!”
“Now you are joking, I know,” Mrs. Porter said, harshly.
“No, I mean it—God knows I mean it, mother! Only give me a chance to prove that I mean it. I'll never see him again, if that will suit you—never on earth! I'll stay and nurse you and make you well.”
“If I thought you meant that, Cynthia—Lord, Lord, what a load it would take off of me! Don't—don't say that unless you mean it; the—the joy of saving you would almost kill me.”
“Oh, mother, God knows I mean it!”
“Then”—Mrs. Porter seemed to squeeze her words from her frail body as she stiffly rose to her feet—“then you must let me go, myself, out there and send him off.”
Cynthia, still on her knees, glanced up, her startled eyes wide open.
“Would you ask that, mother?”
“Yes, for in my present condition I'm afraid I'd never believe it was absolutely settled. I—I'm not as clear-headed as I used to be. I've got deep-rooted suspicions, and I'm afraid they would prey on my mind.”
“Then go, mother—go send him away. I'd rather never see him again on earth than to cause you to—to contemplate—but go, mother!”
“Well, you stay here then.” Mrs. Porter was moving towards the door. “I'll be easy with him. I'm so happy over this release that I feel grateful even to him. I'll be gentle, Cynthia.”
As she stood in the door-way of the chamber and glanced back, Mrs. Porter saw Cynthia throw herself face downward on the bed. The old woman was in the hall making her way towards the front-door when she heard Cynthia call her. Retracing her steps, she found her daughter sitting up.
“Mother,” the girl said, “let me go with you. You can hear all that passes between us. That ought to be satisfactory.”
“No, that won't suit me,” Mrs. Porter said, firmly. “I've set my heart on your never facing that man again. For you to go, it would look like you are crazy after him, and he'd hang around here no telling how long.”
“Then go on, mother.” Cynthia fell back on the bed, and, covering her face with her hands, lay still.
AS Mrs. Porter stepped down into the yard the whippoorwill call sounded again. “Huh!” she said to herself, exultingly, “I reckon I'll reach there soon enough to suit you, Nelson Floyd. You wanted to get her away from her mother's tongue, did you? Well, you'll find that I'm no fool, if Iamold.”
As she emerged from the shade of the apple-trees into the little open in front of the grape-arbor, Nelson Floyd, the red, impatient flare of a cigar in his face, appeared in the door-way.
“Thank God you didn't fail me!” he exclaimed, in accents of vast relief. “For a while I was actually afraid—”
“Afraid that I wouldn't be on time!” Mrs. Porter broke in, with a metallic little laugh. “I always keep my engagements, Nelson Floyd—or, I beg your pardon, Cynthia says you don't call yourself by that name now.”
“Great God, it'syou!” he exclaimed, and his cigar fell at his feet. “Why, Mrs. Porter—”
“Oh, we needn't stand here and take up time talking about whether it's going to rain or not,” she sneered. “The truth is, I'm due in bed. I've been asleep in my chair half a dozen times since supper. You see, I promised Cynthia that I'd keep this appointment for her, and she tumbled into bed, and is snoozing along at a great rate, while I am doing her work.”
“You—you promised—I—I—don't understand,” Floyd managed to get out of the chaos of his brain.
“Oh, I reckon you don't see it exactlyourway,” Mrs. Porter sneered. “And that's because of your high opinion of your own charm. There is nothing on earth that will lead a man from the road of fact as quick as vanity. You thought my girl would jump at your proposition, but, la me! she just dallied with you to get you away last Friday night. At least, that's what I think, for she brought the whole thing to me the next morning, even telling me how you abused me behind my back. She asked me how she'd better get out of it. Most girls plunge headlong into things of this kind without deliberation, but she's not that way. She generally looks ahead, and the truth is, if I may tell state secrets, she has a strong leaning towards Brother Hillhouse. He's a good man—a man that can be counted on—and a man with a respectable family behind him, and, while I'm not sure about it, I think she intends to accept him.”
“Great God, Mrs. Porter, you don't mean that she—”
“You see there! I knew you were incapable of seeing anything that don't tend to your own glory. You thought all along that my girl was crazy about you, but you didn't know her. She's no fool. She's got a long head on her shoulders.”
“But didn't she—she send me any message?” Floyd asked, in a tone of abject bewilderment.
“Oh yes, now I come to think of it, she did. She said for me to beg you never to bother her any more.”
“She said that? Oh, Mrs. Porter, I—”
“Yes, and just as she was cuddling up in bed”—Mrs. Porter's selection of words had never been so adroit—“she called me to her and said that she wondered if you would mind never telling how foolish she had been to meet you out here like she did. I don't know why she was so particular, unless it is that people in this day and time love to throw up to a preacher's wife all the imprudent things she did when she was young.”
“Mrs. Porter, do you actually think Cynthia loves that man?” Floyd's voice shook, and he leaned heavily against the frame of the arbor.
“Love him? How can anybody tell who a woman loves? They don't know themselves half the time; but I'll say this to you: Mr. Hillhouse has been courting her in an open, straightforward way, and that pleased her. He's a man of brains, too, and is going to work his way high up in his profession. He'll be a great light some day. The regard of a man like that is a compliment to a poor country girl; and then she is sure of a life of solid respectability, while with you—good gracious! What's the use of talking about it? But you haven't told me whether you will agree not to bother her again. She'll be anxious to know what you said about that. You see, you might get drunk again, and there is no telling how foolish and persistent you may become, and—”
“I shall not bother her again,” said Floyd. “Tell her I gave you my faithful promise on that. Not only that, but I am going away, and shall never come back here again.”
“Well, I'll tell her—I'll tell her in the morning as soon as she wakes up. La me! I used to be a girl myself, and there was no bother equal to having an old beau hanging around, as we girls used to say in slang, after he'd got his 'walking papers'—that is, after the right man was settled on.”
“There is one thing I want you to tell her”—Floyd breathed heavily—“and that is that I'll never care for any other girl.”
“Shucks! I won't take any such message as that,” the old woman sniffed. “Besides, what's the use? After a flirtation is laid away it ought to die a natural death. The biggest wasters of time in the world are married women who love to look back on old love-scrapes, and sit and brag about them, instead of mending socks and attending to the responsibilities that are piled up on every hand. Well, I'm going in now. It's been a long, hot day, but in this thin dress I feel chilly. I don't want to be hard on you, and I wish you well, so I do, where-ever you go.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Porter,” and, with his head hanging low, Nelson Floyd turned to leave. “I can only assure you,” he added, “that I'll never trouble Cynthia any more. I shall certainly respect her wish.”
“All right; that's as much as she could ask of you,” the old woman returned; “and perhaps, since you are so polite, I ought to thank you.”
As she was drawing near the house, she said to herself with a low, satisfied chuckle: “I believe I worked him exactly right. If I'd 'a' let him know I suspected his full villany he wouldn't have been shaken off so easily. But what am I going to do about that drop of blood on my brain?” she laughed. “If I get rid of it too suddenly Cynthia may smell a mouse. I believe I'll wait a few days and then tell her I think my stroke was due to that new hair-restorer I'm using, an' promise to throw it away.” She paused at the steps and shuddered. “But am I not really a little off?” she mused. “Surely no woman in the full possession of her senses could have gone through all that, as if it were God's truth from beginning to end.”
Inside the hall, after she had softly shut the front door, she saw Cynthia standing on the threshold of her chamber.
“Did you see him, mother?” The question was hardly above a whisper.
“Oh yes, I saw him,” the old woman answered, frigidly. “I saw him.”
“What did he say, mother?” The girl's voice was low, tremulous, and halting.
“Oh, I don't know as he said much of anything, he was so set back by seeing me in this outfit instead of you in your best Sunday-go-to-meeting, with your valise in hand, ready to fly to the moon with him. He let me do most of the talking.” Mrs. Porter managed to stifle a chuckle of satisfaction, and the darkness hid her impulsive smile. “He seemed to be more reasonable, though, than most men would be in his condition. I don't think he was fully sober; he smoked like a steam-engine, dropping cigars and lighting fresh ones, as if they were his main-stay and support. He agreed with me, in a roundabout way, that it was a foolish thing for him to expect a respectable girl to run off in the dead of night with a man of his stamp, and he ended by saying for me to tell you that he was going away off somewhere and that he wouldn't bother you any more. He looked and acted like a thief caught on the spot with the goods in hand and was ready to promise anything to escape arrest and prosecution.”
“Well, you have had your way, mother,” Cynthia said, quietly; “I hope you will feel better satisfied now.”
“Oh, I will, I will—in fact, I feel some better already.” There was another incipient chuckle far down in Mrs. Porter's throat, but she coughed it away. “I really feel like I'm going to get well. I'll sleep like a log to-night. You'd better turn in yourself, daughter.”
“All right, mother—good-night.”
The next morning, shortly after breakfast, as Mrs. Porter was attending to some hens' nests in the barn-yard, Hillhouse crept out of the thicket just beyond the fence and approached her. He was quite pale and nervous, and bent his head and shoulders that the high staked-and-ridered rail-fence might hide him from the view of the house.
“I've been out here in the woods for an hour watching your back-door,” he said. “I was in hopes that I'd see Cynthia moving about in the diningroom or kitchen. You see, I don't know yet whether she went off last night or stayed. I haven't closed my eyes since I saw you.”
“Well, youhavegot it bad,” Mrs. Porter laughed, dryly, “and you needn't worry any more. I reckon I spilled ink all over my record in the Lamb's Book of Life, but I set in to succeed, and I worked it so fine that she let me go out and send him away for good and all.”
“Oh, Sister Porter, is that true?”
“It's a great deal truer than anything that passed my lips last night,” Mrs. Porter answered, crisply. “Brother Phillhouse, if I ever get forgiveness, there is one of the commandments that will have to be cut out of the list, for I certainly broke it all to smash. I had a separate lie stowed away in every pore of my skin last night, and they hung like cockle-burs to every hair of my head. I wish I was a Catholic.”
“A Catholic?” Hillhouse repeated, his eyes dancing in delight, his sallow skin taking on color.
“Yes, I'd sell our horses and cows and land, and give it to a priest, and tell him to wipe my soul clean with the proceeds. I feel happy, and I feel mean. Something tells me that I'd have made an expert woman thief—perhaps the greatest in the history of all nations.”
“What sort of fibs did you tell, Sister Porter?” Hillhouse was smiling unctuously and rubbing his long hands together.
“Well, I don't intend to tell you,” said the old woman; “besides, it would take a week. I spun the finest fabric of falsehood that was ever made. And I'm not done yet, for I've got to keep it up, and not let it lop off too suddenly.”
“Well, do you think there will be any living chance for me?” the preacher said.
“Yes, I do—that is, if you won't push matters too fast and will be patient. I have a plan now that you will like. Didn't you tell me you were going to preach two sermons this month at Cartersville?”
“Yes, I take Brother Johnston's place for two weeks while he goes off for his vacation.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Porter, “you know Nathan's brother George lives there. In fact, his wife and daughters belong to Mr. Johnston's church. George is a well-to-do lawyer, and his children dote on Cynthia; now I'm going to send her down there for a change.”
“Oh, that will be simply fine!” Hillhouse cried, his face aglow.
“Yes, and if you can't make hay while the sun shines down there, you'll deserve to fail. Cynthia has promised to give Floyd up, and he's agreed not to bother her any more. Now you slip back into the woods. I wouldn't have her see you here at this time of day for anything. When she gets her thinking apparatus to work she's going to do a lot of wondering, anyway.”