One morning a few days later Mostyn entered the bank and went directly to his office. He had been seated at his desk only a moment when Wright, the cashier, came in smiling suavely. There was a conscious flush on his face which extended into his bald pate, and his eyes were gleaming.
"I want to congratulate you," he said. "We've all been reading the account in the paper this morning. Of course, we've suspected it for some time, but didn't want to talk about it till it was announced."
"I haven't seen the article," Mostyn answered, in a tone of curbed irritation. "It was written by some woman society reporter. Miss Langley told me to look out for it. I think she furnished the information."
"Very likely," Wright answered. "Women like nothing better than a wedding in high life."
"Has Saunders come down yet?" the banker inquired.
"Yes, he is at his desk. He just got back from his farm this morning."
"Please tell him"—Mostyn deliberated—"tell him when he is fully at liberty that I'd like to see him."
A moment later Saunders opened the door and came in. A grave look was on his face, and he failed to respond to Mostyn's "Good morning." He paused, and stood leaning on the top of the desk, his glance averted.
"Wright says you wish to see me," he began.
"Yes, sit down; pull that chair up."
Saunders complied, his eyes on the floor.
"I suppose you've seen the morning paper?" Mostyn asked.
"You mean the—announcement of your—"
"Yes, of course."
"I saw the head-lines. I didn't read it through."
Silence crept between the two men. Mostyn touched a paper-weight with his slender, bloodless fingers, drew it toward him aimlessly, and then pushed it back.
"There is a matter," he began, awkwardly, "which I want to speak to you about. It is due you to know why I drew out that ten thousand dollars. It went to Marie Winship. If you are not satisfied with the collateral I can put up something else."
"It is all right." Saunders dropped the words frigidly. "I knew it was for her. The truth is, I supposed that little less would quiet her." "You, no doubt, consider me the champion idiot of the world." Mostyn essayed a smile, but it was a lifeless thing at best, and left his face more grimly masked than before. "However, it is all over now. She is satisfied, and agrees to quit hounding me from now on."
Saunders snapped his fingers impulsively, tossed his head, started to speak, but remained silent.
"Why did you—do that?" Mostyn demanded, yielding to irritation against his will.
"Oh, there is no use going into it," Saunders said, sharply, "but if you think ten thousand dollars will stop a creature of that stamp, your long experience with such women has not taught you much. She will dog you to the end of her days."
"I don't think so, Jarvis." Mostyn seldom used Saunders's Christian name, and it came out now in a tone of all but insistent conciliation. "By giving her the money just now I rendered her a peculiar service. She wanted it to save her brother from arrest and disgrace."
"And you think that will silence her permanently? Well, it won't. You will hear from her again, if I am any sort of judge."
"You take a gloomy view of it," Mostyn protested. "In fact, I don't exactly know how to make you out to-day. You seem different. Surely you don't oppose my—my marriage?"
"Not in the slightest. I have scarcely thought of it."
"Well, then, what is the matter?"
The sudden set silence after such a demand showed plainly that the question was well-timed. Mostyn repeated it less urgently, but he repeated it.
"I have just got back from my plantation"—Saunders glanced at the closed door furtively—"and while I was there I heard some slight gossip about your attentions to my little friend Dolly Drake. You know mountain people, Mostyn, usually make as much as possible of such things. The truth is, some have gone so far as to say that you andshewere likely to marry."
Mostyn's tanned skin faintly glowed. "They have no—no right to go so far as that," he stammered. "I was with her a good deal, for, as you know, she is very entertaining."
"No one knows it better," Saunders said, firmly. "She is the most courageous, beautiful, and brilliant creature I have ever met. More than that, she has long been the most wronged. She has her whole family, including her moonshining father, on her frail shoulders. It is because of these things that I am tempted to speak plainly about a certain—"
"Go on." Mostyn swallowed anxiously, for his partner had paused.
"I have no personal right to inquire into your conduct," Saunders continued, "but a certain thing has filled me with fear—fear for that poor child's happiness. I met her yesterday near her school, and the awful look in her face haunted me through the night. She had nothing to say, no questions to ask, but the dumb look of despair in her eyes could not be misread. I have known you a long time, Mostyn, and I can't remember your failing to make love to every pretty woman you have been thrown with. I hope I am mistaken this time—with all my soul, I do."
Mostyn turned in his revolving chair. He tried to meet the cold stare of his partner steadily. "Jarvis, I am in the deepest trouble that I ever faced."
"So it is true!" burst from Saunders's lips. "My God, it is true!"
"But don't misunderstand me." Mostyn laid an eager hand on the knee close to his own. "My reputation is so bad in your eyes that I must assure you that—that she is as pure as—"
"Stop!" Saunders shook the hand from his knee as if it were a coiled reptile. "You insult her even by mentioning such a thing. The man does not live who could tarnish her name. I have watched her since she was a little child. I know her as well as if she were my sister, and I respect her as much."
Mostyn was fiery red. "I will justify myself as far as possible," he blurted out, desperately. "You may not believe it, but as God is my Judge, I intended, when I left her, to rid myself of Marie Winship and go back and ask her to be my wife."
"I can well believe it, even of you"—Saunders breathed hard—"and I know what happened. You were not proof against other influences."
"That is it," Mostyn fairly groaned. "I am as weak as water. I have wronged that noble girl, but it really was not intentional. Knowing her has been the one solely uplifting influence of my life. While I was there I was sure I could be—be worthy of her, but now I know that I am not."
"No, you are not!" Saunders cried. "You are not. The man does not live who is worthy of her. And you—you, with your past and that foul stench upon you, actually thought of mating with the purest—ugh! My God!"
Mostyn blinked; there was no trace of resentment in his manner, only cringing humiliation.
"What am I to do?" he faltered, helplessly.
"Do? Nothing! There is nothing you can do now. She will read the papers and know what to expect. It was not you she was in love with, anyway, Mostyn, but an ideal of her own in regard to you. I don't know her well enough to know how she will take it. She has had troubles all her life; this may crown them all; it may drag her down—break her fine spirit—killher. Who knows? You've made a great many successful deals, Mostyn, but this one recently closed for money, as a main consideration, was deliberately advised by the fiends of hell. You have sold your birthright, and if you succeed in your investment it will be because there is no God in the universe. Mark my prediction, the marriage you are making cannot possibly result in happiness—it cannot, because you'll never be able to wipe this other thing from your soul."
Mostyn shrank into his chair. "I wouldn't take this from any one else, Jarvis," he said, almost in a piteous whine. "You have got me down. I'm in no shape for any sort of resentment."
"You got yourself where you are," Saunders ran on, fiercely. "If I am indignant, I can't help it. I would give my right arm to help that poor child, and this powerlessness to act when her suffering is so great drives me to absolute frankness."
"What is the use to talk more of it?" Mostyn said, desperately. "We are getting nowhere."
"There is something else, and I must speak of it," Saunders said, more calmly. "I happen to know the character of Dolly's father perhaps better than you do, and I must tell you, Mostyn, that he is the most dangerous man I ever met. It is my duty to put you on your guard. There is bound to be more or less talk up there, for there are a great many meddlers, and Tom Drake is more than apt to hear of this thing. If he does, Mostyn, an army couldn't stop him. When he is wrought up he is insane. He will come down here and try to kill you. I am going back up there to-day, and if I can possibly prevent trouble I shall do it."
Mostyn had turned deathly pale. "Surely he would not compromise his daughter by such a—a step as that," he stammered.
"Few other men would, but Tom Drake is not like other men. I have seen him fairly froth at the mouth in a fight with three men as big as he was."
Mostyn's lips moved, but no sound issued. Without another word Saunders turned and walked away.
"Great God!" Mostyn whispered in agony, "whatamI?"
That afternoon, Miss Sally-Lou Wartrace, sister of the keeper of the store at the cross-roads, was at her brother's counter eagerly reading an Atlanta paper while he stood looking over her shoulder. She had passed well into spinsterhood, as was shown by the inward sinking of her cheeks, the downward tendency of the lines about her mouth, the traces of gray in her brown hair, and a general thinness and stiffness of frame.
"Well, well, well!" she chuckled, her small, bead-like eyes flashing up into her brother's face. "So all this time their high and mighty boarder was engaged to be married. Did you ever in all your life hear of bigger fools? Mrs. Drake has been so stuck up lately she'd hardly nod to common folks in the road. She never come right out and said so, but she actually thought he was settin' up to Dolly. Old Tom did, too."
"Yes, I think Tom was countin' on it purty strong," Wartrace said, smiling. "I've heard him brag about Mostyn's money and big interests many a time. He knowed his gal was purty an' smart, an' he didn't see no reason why Mostyn shouldn't want her, especially as he was about with her so much."
"That isit," the old maid answered; "Mostyn never lost a chance to tag on to her. Dolph, mark my words, thar's goin' to be no end o' talk. Why, didn't Ann just as good as tell me t'other day, on her way home from school, that she was goin' to a fine finishin'-school in Atlanta? You know Tom couldn't send 'er. Besides, when I spoke—as I acknowledge I did—about Dolly an' Mostyn, Ann grinned powerful knowin'-like an' never denied a thing. Even Ann's got a proud tilt to 'er, an' struts along like a young peacock. This here article will explode like a busted gun amongst 'em an' bring the whole bunch down a peg or two. Do you reckon they've got their paper yet?"
"Not yet," Wartrace answered. "The carrier has to go clean round by Spriggs's at the foot of the mountain 'fore he gits thar. He generally hits Tom's place about an hour by sun."
Miss Sally-Lou folded the paper and thrust it into the big pocket of her print skirt. "I am goin' over thar, Dolph," she said, with a rising smile. "I wouldn't miss it for a purty."
"You'd better keep out of it," the storekeeper mildly protested. "You know you have been mixed up in several fusses."
"I don't expect to have a thing to do with this un," was the eager reply. "But I would just like to see if they really are countin' on a man of that sort tyin' himself on to a lay-out of their stripe. Nobody in the valley believed Mr. Mostyn had any such intention. He was just killin' time an' amusin' hisse'f."
Leaving the store, Miss Sally-Lou strode briskly along the hot, dusty road toward Drake's. Every now and then a low giggle would escape her lips, and she would put her thin, gnarled fingers to her mouth as if to hide her smile from some observer. "John Webb wasn't tuck in by it, I'll bet," she mused. "He ain't nobody's fool. John's got a long, cool head on 'im, he has. He kin see through a mill-rock without lookin' in at the hole."
She found John near the front fence, lazily inspecting a row of beehives on a weather-beaten bench.
"Think they are goin' to swarm?" Miss Sally-Lou inquired, in her most seductive tone, as she unlatched the gate and entered.
"Wouldn't be a bit surprised," the bachelor returned, as he automatically touched his slouch hat. "It is time. We had fresh honey last year long 'fore this."
"Has Dolly got home from school?" was the next question.
"Yes'm," Webb answered. "She come in a minute ago. She may be lyin' down. She ain't as well as common; she looks sorter peaked; I told 'er she'd better take a tonic o' some sort. She's stickin' too close over them books; she needs exercise, an' plenty of it."
"I hate to bother her if she ain't up an' about"—Miss Wartrace had the air of a maiden lady who had as soon chat with a bachelor as feast upon any sort of gossip—"but I'm makin' me a new lawn waist, Mr. John, an' I want to ask Dolly if she'd put big or little buttons on. She has such good taste an' knows what the style is."
"By all means git therightsort, Miss Sally-Lou," Webb jested. "If they are as big as mule-shoes, or as little as gnats' eyes, stick 'em on."
"You are a great tease," the spinster smirked. "You always have some joke agin us poor women. You make a lot of fun, but you like to see us look our best, I'll bound you."
John's freckled face bore vague evidence of denial, but he said nothing. He moved toward the farthest hive and bent down as if to inspect the tiny entrance.
"Well, I'll run in a minute," she said. "Watch out an' don't git stung."
"If I do it will be by abee," said the philosopher to himself, "an' not by no woman o'thatstripe. Lord, folks advise me to set up to that critter! She'd talk a deef man to death. He'd kill hisse'f makin' signs to 'er to stop."
The visitor ascended the steps, crossed the porch, and, without rapping at the door, entered the sitting-room where she found Dolly, Ann, and her mother together. Mrs. Drake was patching a sheet at the window; Ann, sulky and obstinate, was trying to do an example on a slate; and Dolly stood over her, a dark, wearied expression on her face.
"Hello, folkses!" Miss Sally-Lou greeted them, playfully. "How do y-all come on?"
When she had taken a chair she mentioned the waist she was making, and as Dolly gave her opinion in regard to the buttons she eyed the girl studiously. She remarked the dark rings around the beautiful eyes, the nervous, almost quavering voice. "She hain't heard yet," the caller decided. "But she may suspicion something is wrong. Maybe he hain't writ to her since he went back—the scamp! He ought to be licked good an' strong."
"What are you fixing up so for, Miss Sally-Lou?" Ann wanted to know, a bubble of amusement in her young eyes and voice. "Are you going to get married?"
"Listen to her," Miss Wartrace tittered, quite unobservant of Ann's sarcasm. "The idea of a child of that age constantly thinking of marrying."
At this juncture John Webb came in and approached his sister. He had not removed his hat, but, catching Dolly's reproving glance, he snatched it off and stood whipping his thigh with it.
"You wanted to know about them bees," he said. "They don't intend to swarm to-day, so you needn't bother any longer about it."
"I was just laughin' at Ann, Mr. John." Miss Sally-Lou raised her voice tentatively, that she might rivet his attention. "Young as she is, I never see 'er without havin' 'er ax some question or other about me or somebody else marryin'."
"It's jest the woman croppin' out in 'er," Webb drawled, with unconscious humor. "Looks like marryin' is a woman's aim the same as keepin' out of it ought to be a man's."
"You needn't judge others by yourself," was the unoffended retort. "Plenty of men know the value of a good wife, if you don't."
Mrs. Drake seemed not to have heard these give-and-take platitudes. She raised her sheet to the level of her eyes and creased the hem of it with her needle-pricked fingers. "What sort o' cloth are you goin' to use in your waist?" she asked.
"White lawn," said Sally-Lou. "I got a rale good grade in a remnant in town yesterday at a bargain. It was a little dirty at the edges, but I'm goin' to trim them off."
"I'd make it plain, if I was you," Mrs. Drake advised. "At your age an' mine it doesn't look well to fix up fancy."
"Humph! I don't know as you an' me are so nigh the same—"
The final word was caught up by an impulsive snicker, which Webb muffled under his hat.
"Oh, I don't mean to say that I am notsomeolder," Mrs. Drake floundered. "Bein' as you are unmarried, it wouldn't be polite for me with as old children as I got to—"
"Oh, I'm not mad about it!" Miss Sally-Lou declared, hastily. "I know I'm not as young as Dolly an' her crowd o' girls."
The spinster now frowned resentfully. Nothing could have angered her more than such an allusion made in the presence of the amused bachelor. She nursed her fury in silence for a moment, only to become more set in the grim purpose of her present visit.
"Huh, wait till I git through with 'em!" she thought; then, as if merely to change a disagreeable subject for a happier one, she turned directly to Dolly.
"What do you hear from Mr. Mostyn?" she asked, in quite a tone of indifference.
There was marked hesitation on the part of Dolly, but Ann was more prompt. Her slate and pencil rattled as she dropped them in her lap. "He hasn't written a word," she said, staring eagerly, as if the visitor might help solve a problem which had absorbed her far more than the example on which she was now working.
"You don't say!" Miss Sally-Lou's eyes fired straight gleams at Dolly, as if Dolly herself had made the astounding revelation. "Why, I thought you an' him was powerful thick. Well, well, I reckon he told you all thar was to tell before he left. Young men usually are proud o' things like that, an' can't hold 'em in. Well, I hope he will be happy. I don't wish him no harm if heishigh up in the world an' rich. I know I was awfully surprised when I read it in to-day's paper." She thrust a steady hand into her pocket, pushing her right foot well forward to give the rustling sheet better egress. There was silence in the room. Webb glanced at his sister and at Ann. No one, save the tormentor, noticed Dolly, who, pale as death, a groping in her eyes, and lips parted, stood behind her sister's chair.
"Is there something in the paper about him?" Ann cried, eagerly.
"Oh yes, nearly a column on the society page," was the studied reply. "The cat's out o' the bag. He's goin' to get married."
"Oh, Dolly!" Ann clapped her hands and leaned eagerly toward her ghastly sister. "Do you reckon he went and told it? I know; he just couldn't keep it—he is so much in love. Oh, Dolly, tell 'em about it. Here you are keeping it so close, while he is sticking it into a paper for everybody to read. I never could see any reason for you to be so awful secret, anyway. It has been all I could do to—"
"What's the child talkin' about?" The caller's eyes gleamed in guarded delight as she unfolded the paper and spread it out on her knee. "Accordin' tothisaccount, he is marryin' the richest an' most popular woman in the State. I reckon everybody that reads society news has heard about Irene Mitchell."
"Irene Mitchell!" Ann gasped, rising in her chair, her slate and pencil sliding to the floor. "That isn't so. It isn't so, is it, Dolly? Why, what ails—" The half-scream was not finished. Dolly was reeling as if about to fall, her little hands pressed helplessly to her face. John Webb sprang quickly to her side. He threw his arm about her.
"Dry up all that!" he yelled, furiously. "Dry up, I say! She's sick."
Feeling his support, Dolly revived a little, and he led her out into the hall and saw her go slowly up the stairs to her room. As for Mrs. Drake and Ann, they had pounced on the paper and had it spread out before their wide-open eyes. Sally-Lou was now on her feet. She had gone to the door, seen Dolly's wilting form disappear at the head of the stairs, and was now breathlessly feasting on the bewildered chagrin of the stunned mother and daughter.
Ann finished reading sooner than her mother. Pale and indignant, she turned to the caller. She had opened her mouth when John Webb promptly covered it with his red paw. "Come out o' here!" he ordered, sharply. "You go up-stairs an' 'tend to Dolly. She ain't well. She's been ailin' off an' on for a week. You school-children have deviled the life out of the poor thing. What are you all talkin' about, anyway? Mostyn told me an' Dolly all about him an' that woman. We knowed all along that he was goin' to git married, but it was a sort o' secret betwixt us three."
Astounded, and warningly pinched on the arm, Ann, with a lingering backward look, left the room and reluctantly climbed the stairs.
"You'll have to excuse me, Miss Sally-Lou, here's your paper," Mrs. Drake was slowly recovering discretion. "I'll have to see about Dolly. John's right, she ain't well—she ain't—oh, my Lord, I don't know what to make of it!"
"I see sheissort o' upset," Miss Sally-Lou said, "an I don't wonder. I oughtn't to have sprung it so sudden-like. I'll tell you all good day. I'll have to run along. If thar's anything I kin do for Dolly just let me know. I'm a good hand about a sick-bed, an' I know how to give medicine. If Dolly gets worse, send word to me, an' I'll step right over. This may go hard with her. You know I think that idle scamp might 'a' had better to do than—"
But Mrs. Drake, obeying her brother's imperative nod, was moving toward the stairs. Sally-Lou and Webb were left together. Her glance fell before the fiercest glare she had ever seen shoot from a masculine eye, and yet Webb's freckled face was valiantly digging up a smile.
"I see whatyouthought," he laughed. "You went an' thought Dolly was in love with that town dude. Shucks, she seed through 'im from the fust throw out o' the box. She liked to chat with 'im now an' then, but la, me! if you women are so dead bent on splicin' folks why don't you keep your eyes open? Listen to me, an' see if I ain't right. You watch an' see if Dolly an' Warren Wilks—"
"Pshaw!" Miss Sally-Lou sniffed. "Dolly will never give Warren a second thought—notnow,nohow. She's got 'er sights up, an' she'll never lower 'em ag'in."
Webb, almost outwitted, stood on the edge of the porch and watched the spinster trip down the walk. She glanced over her shoulder coquettishly. "You are losin' all your gallantways, Mr. John," she simpered. "You don't even open the gate for visitin' ladies here lately."
"I greased that latch t'other day," he answered, laconically. "It works as easy as the trigger of a mouse-trap. I don't know as I ever was a woman's jumpin'rjack. I ain't one o' the fellers that fan flies off'n 'em at meetin'. If they draw flies an' gnats that's the'r lookout, not mine."
Alone in her room, Dolly stood at a window, her distraught eyes on the placid fields lying between the house and the mountains. She was still pale. The tips of her fingers clung to the narrow mullions as if for support. She seemed scarcely to breathe. Her beautiful lips were drawn tight; her shapely chin had a piteous quiver.
"Oh, that was it!" she moaned. "I understand it now. He was engaged to her all the time, but wouldn't tell me. He got tired of us here and went back to her. I'll never see him again—never, never, never!"
The bed, with its snowy coverlet and great downy pillows, invited her. She was about to throw herself upon it, but her pride, pierced to the quick, rebelled. "I sha'n't cry!" she said. "He is marrying for her money. I sha'n't weep over it. He lied to me—tome!He said something was wrong with his business and when that was settled he would write. He was just trifling, passing time away this summer as he did three years ago, and I—I—silly little gump—actually kissed him. I trusted him as I trust—as ItrustedGod. I even confided father's secret to him. I loved him with my whole soul, and all the time he was comparing me to her."
Far across the sunlit meadows on the gradual slope of a rise she saw her father and George cutting and raking hay. How odd it seemed for them to be so calmly working toward the future feeding of mere horses and cattle when to her life itself seemed killed to its germ. There was a step on the stairs. The door was thrown open, and her sister rushed in.
"Oh, Dolly!" Ann cried, her begrimed fingers clutching at Dolly's arm, "what does it mean? Is it so? Do you think he really is going to—"
"Oh, go away, go away,pleasego away!" the older pleaded. "Don't talk to me now—not now!"
"But I want to know—Imustknow!" Ann ran on, hysterically, her young, piping voice rising higher and higher. "I can't stand it, Dolly. Ever since you told me about you and him I have thought about Atlanta and your beautiful home down there and the things I was going to do. Oh, I thought—I thought it was actually settled, but if—if the paper tells the truth—Why don't you talk? What has got into you all at once? Surely—surely he wouldn't—surely you wouldn't have gone out to meet him as late at night as you did and let him—you know, sister, I saw him holding you tight and—"
Dolly turned like an automaton suddenly animated. She laid her hands on her sister's shoulders and bore down fiercely. She shook her so violently from side to side that Ann's plaited hair swung like a rope in a storm.
"Don't tell that to a soul!" Dolly panted. "You must not—don'tdareto! You promised you wouldn't. Sometime I will explain, but not now—not now. I'm losing my mind. Go away and leave me."
"I really believe you think the paper is telling the truth," Ann moaned. "Youmustthink so, or you wouldn't look this way and beg me not to tell. Oh, I can't stand it!"
For a breathless moment Ann stood staring at her dumb-lipped sister, and then, tottering to the bed, she threw herself upon it, burying her face in a pillow. Sob after sob escaped her, but Dolly paid no heed. Her lifeless stare on the mountain view, she stood like a creature entranced.
The sun went down. Like a bleeding ball it hung over the mountain's crest, throwing red rays into the valley. A slow step was heard on the stair, the sliding of a dry hand on the balustrade. Mrs. Drake opened the door and advanced to Dolly.
"You mustn't take on this way," she began. "I want you to be sensible and strong. Thar is plenty of fish in the sea. I sort o' thought Mr. Mostyn was talking too much to you for it to be exactly right, but you always had such a level head—more level than I ever had—that I thought you could take care of yourself."
"Mother, please leave me alone for to-day, anyway," Dolly pleaded. "I—I'm not a fool. Take Ann down-stairs. I—I can't stand that noise. It makes me desperate. I hardly know what to do or say."
"I just asked her to tell me the truth." Ann sat up, holding her pillow in her lap as for comfort, her eyes red with rubbing. "But she won't say a word, when all this time I've been counting on—"
"Well, I'm going down and see about supper," Dolly said, desperately. "Father and George have stopped work and they will be hungry."
Her mother tried to detain her, but she went straight down the stairs. Mrs. Drake crept stealthily to the door, peered after her daughter, and then, heaving a sigh, she stood before the girl on the bed.
"Now," she said, grimly, "out with it! Tell me all you know about this thing—every single thing!"
"But, mother"—Ann's eyes fell—"I promised-"
"It don't make no difference what you promised," Mrs. Drake blurted out. "This ain't no time for secrets under this roof. I want the facts. If you don't tell me I'll get your pa to whip you."
Half an hour later, as Tom Drake trudged across the old wheat-field back of the barn, his scythe on his shoulder, he met his wife at the outer fence of the cow-lot. There she stood as still and silent as a detached post.
"Whar's your bucket?" he asked, thinking she had come to milk the cow, which was one of her evening duties.
"I'm goin' to let it go over to-night," she faltered. Then she laid a stiff hand on her husband's sweat-damp sleeve. "Tom Drake," she gulped, "I'm afraid me an' you are facin' the greatest trouble we've ever had."
"What's wrong now?" he asked, swift visions of moonshine stills, armed officers, and grim court officials flashing before him.
Haltingly she explained the situation. He bore it stolidly till, in a rasping whisper, she concluded with the information forced from Ann. She told him of the low whistle in the moonlight at their daughter's window, of Dolly's cautious exit from the house, of the tender embrace on the lawn. Drake turned his tortured face away. She expected a storm of fury, but no words came from his ghastly lips.
"Now, Tom," she half wailed, "youmustbe sensible. This is a family secret. For once in your life you've got to keep your temper till we can see our way clear. After all, goin' out that way to meet 'im don't actually prove that our girl is bad; you know it don't. Young folks these days—"
"Don't tellmewhat it meant!" He bent fiercely toward her. "I know. I've heard a lot about that whelp's sly conduct. No bigger blackguard ever laid a trap for a helpless girl. Oh no, I won't do nothin'. I wouldn't touch 'im. When I meet 'im I'll take off my hat an' bow low an' hope his lordship is well. I'm just a mountain dirt-eater, I am. Nobody ever heard of a Drake killin' snakes. A Drake will let one coil itse'f round his baby an' not take it off. We are jest scabs—weare!"
"Tom, for God's sake—"
"Look here, woman—you lay the weight of a hair in front o' me an' that devil—that rovin' mad dog—an' I'll kill you as I would a stingin' gnat! I won't bed with no woman with that sort o' pride. You've got to stand by me. I'll kill 'im if it takes twenty years. I'll keep my nose to his track like a bloodhound till I look in his eye, an' then, if he had a thousand lives, I'd take every one of 'em with a grin, an' foller 'im to hell for more."
Leaving her with her head on the top rail of the fence, stunned, wordless, he strode away in the dusk. Looking up presently, she saw him standing at the well, in the full light from the kitchen doorway. He seemed to be looking in at Dolly, who, with her back to him, was at work over the stove. The next instant he was gone.
It was eight o'clock. Jarvis Saunders alighted from the train at Ridgeville, finding his horse hitched to a rack according to the instructions he had left with his overseer. Mounting, he started homeward in a brisk canter through the clear moonlight. He was soon in the main road, and exhilarated by the crisp mountain air, after a sweltering ride in the dusty train. He had reached the boundary fence of Drake's farm when he thought he heard some one crying out. He reined in and listened.
"Oh, father, please, please wait!" It was Dolly's voice, and it came from the more darkly shaded part of the road in front of her father's house. Urging his mount forward, Saunders was met by Drake on a plunging horse which he was violently whipping into action.
"What is the matter?" Saunders cried out; but with an oath of fury Drake flew past. He was hatless, coatless, and held something clutched in his hand other than the bridle-rein. Fairly astounded and not knowing what to do, Saunders remained in the road for a moment, then the sound of a low sob in the direction from whence Drake had come reminded him of Dolly's nearness, and he guided his horse forward. Suddenly in the corner of a rail fence, her face covered with her hands, he saw Dolly. Springing to the ground, he advanced to her.
"Dolly," he said, "what is it—what is wrong?"
She uncovered her face, stood staring at him helplessly. She raised her hand and pointed after her father, but, though she tried to speak, she seemed unable to utter a word.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asked. "For God's sake, tell me if there is. I want to help you."
"Yes, yes," she managed to articulate, "I know—and you are very kind, but—"
"You were trying to stop your father," he said. "Would you like for me—"
"You couldn't; he would kill you; he has his pistol; he doesn't know what he is doing."
"I think I know—I think I can guess—he is going to Atlanta."
Dolly nodded mechanically, her mouth open. "Oh, he is making an awful mistake, Mr. Saunders! He wouldn't let me explain. Ann told mother that I went out late one night to meet—meet Mr. Mostyn when he whistled. It was not Mr. Mostyn. It was Tobe Barnett, who came to warn me of father's danger of arrest by the officers. I can tell you—I can trust you, Mr. Saunders. Father is connected with some moonshiners, who—"
"I know it," Saunders broke in. "Now, listen to me, Dolly; this thing shall go no further if I can help it. He wants to catch the southbound train. I am going to stop him."
"No, no!" Dolly sprang forward, desperately clutching his arm. "He will shoot you."
"Imustdo it!" Saunders caught both her hands in his and pressed them. "You must let me—I have never been able to help you in any way, and I have always wanted to. I'd give my life to—to be of service to you to-night. I feel this thing, little friend. I must do something—I simply must!"
"I don't know what to say or do." Dolly clung to his hands desperately. She raised them spasmodically and unconsciously pressed them against her throbbing breast. "Oh, Mr. Saunders, it is so—so awful to be suspected of being bad when I—when I—"
"When you are the purest, sweetest child that ever breathed," he cried, fiercely. "They sha'n't start gossip about you." He dropped her hands and turned his horse round quickly. "I'll overtake him and stop him." He glanced at his watch. "I have no time to lose. I must go. Be brave, Dolly. It will come out right—itmust!" He swung himself into his saddle; she clung to his foot which he was trying to put into the stirrup.
"He will kill you, too," she sobbed, "and I'll havethaton my head also. Oh, Mr. Saunders—"
Gently he drew his foot from her clutch. There was a look in his eyes which she never forgot to the end of her life. "Excuse me, but I must hurry," he said. "He is on a fast horse, and the train may be on time. He must not get aboard. He mustn't, Dolly—good-by."
Away he dashed at full speed, bent to the mane of his mount like a chased Indian on the plains. Once he looked back, seeing the patient little figure standing like a mile-stone at the roadside. On he sped, tasting the dust pounded into the air by Drake's horse, and feeling the grit between his teeth. No one was in sight. The lights of the farmhouses on the road moved backward like ships in a fog. Suddenly, some distance ahead, he saw a rider dismounting. It was Drake, who now stooped down to pick up something he had dropped. As he did so he saw the pursuing horse, and, quickly springing into his saddle, was off again.
"Hold! Hold!" Saunders shouted.
"Hold—hell!" rippled back on the moonlight. "Bother me an' I'll put a ball in you. Back, I tell you!"
"Stop, Drake!" Saunders cried, without lessening his speed.
The only reply the pursued man made was the furious lashing of his horse. An ominous sound now fell on Saunders's ears. It was the whistle of a locomotive in the deep cut across the fields.
An oath of disappointment from Drake showed he had divined its full portent. It was now merely a question of speed. The race went on. The houses on the outer edge of the village flew past as if blown by a hurricane. Children in the yards looked up and cheered what they took for sport on the part of rollicking mountain riders. Saunders saw that he was gaining, and he urged his horse to even greater speed. He drew so close that the nose of his mount was lashed by the tail of Drake's horse.
"Stop a minute—just a minute!" Saunders pleaded. "I must see you."
Then, without lessening his gait, Drake turned half round in his saddle and pointed his revolver. Saunders heard the click of the hammer as it was cocked. Drake's demoniacal face in the white light had the greenish luster of a corpse—a corpse waking to life and grim purpose. "Fall back or I'll kill you!" he swore from frothing lips. "I know what you want; you want to take up for that dirty son of a—"
"No, no; you are mistaken. I don't. Wait—stop!"
They were now entering the open space between the station and the hotel. The train, with grinding brakes and escaping steam, was slowing up. Drake took aim over his shoulder. He fired. Saunders knew he was not hit. Frightened by the flash in his eyes, his horse reared up and almost threw him off behind. This delayed him for a moment, and Drake galloped on till he was close to the last car of the train. Saunders saw him throw the bridle-rein over the neck of his horse and spring down. The next instant Saunders was by his side and also on the ground. Again Drake raised his revolver, but Saunders was too quick for him. With a sudden blow he knocked the weapon from the other's grasp. It spun and flashed in the moonlight and fell in the weeds several yards away. Then Drake began to fumble in the pocket of his trousers for his knife. But again the younger man got the advantage. With the bound of a panther he had embraced and pinioned the arms of his antagonist to his sides. Back and forth they swung and pounded, Drake swearing, spitting, and trying even to bite. The locomotive whistled. It was off again. Seeing this, Drake swung himself free and made a break for the end car, but Saunders was at his heels; and, throwing out his hand, he grasped the runner's arm and violently threw him around. Again they were face to face. Again Saunders pinioned his arms. Drake was helpless. He struggled with all his strength, but it was unequal to that of his determined captor.
"You'vegotto listen to me, Drake!" Saunders said, fiercely. "You've got plenty of time to settle with that man if you insist on it, but you've got to hear me!"
"Well, let me loose then, damn you!" Drake panted. "Le' me loose!"
"All right, I'll let you loose." Saunders released him, and they stood facing each other, both out of breath. "I'm your friend, Tom Drake—and you know it," Saunders gasped. "I'm your daughter's friend, too. I'm sufficiently interested in her not to let you soil her good name as you are trying to do to-night. She is innocent, I tell you, and you are a coward to—"
"You say—you say—"
Several by-standers at the ticket-office and hotel, attracted by the combat, were approaching.
"Go back!" Saunders held up his hand warningly. "This is no affair of yours. I want to speak to him in private. Leave us alone."
The men halted, stared dubiously, and finally, seeing that the quarrel was over, they went back whence they had come. "Let's step over here," Saunders proposed; and he led the way to the railway blacksmith's shop, now closed and unlighted. In the shadow of its smoky wall they faced each other again.
"You said—" Drake began, "you said—"
"I said she was innocent of the foul charge you are making against her," Saunders said, sharply. "You are a crazy man, Drake. You tried to kill me back there, although I am bent on befriending you and your daughter. She is as sweet and pure as the angels in heaven."
"I—I know more than you do. Ann said—"
"Yes, I know what the child said," Saunders retorted. "And if you had been the right sort of a father you would not have acted on such slight evidence. Dolly is in this plight simply because she saved you—"
"Savedme?What the hell—"
"Yes, she saved you from arrest and imprisonment as a moonshiner. The whistle Ann heard was not a signal from Mostyn. It was Tobe Barnett, who had come to warn her of your danger. She did meet Mostyn that night, but it was by accident, and not appointment. Dolly could have explained it all to Ann, but she did not want the child to know of your connection with that gang. Now you've got the whole thing, Drake."
The mountaineer stared, his mouth open; the sinews of his face were drawn into distortion.
"You say—you tell me—you say—"
"That's the whole thing," Saunders said. "Now let's go home. Dolly deserves a humble apology from you—you ought to get down on your knees to her and beg her to forgive you. I know of no other woman like her in this world—none, none, anywhere. She has my admiration, my respect, my reverence."
"But—but"—Drake's dead face began to kindle—"Ann said she saw that dirty scamp actually holdin' her in his arms an' kissin' 'er. She said that Dolly made no denial of it, an' now, accordin' to the papers, he's goin' to marry a woman in Atlanta."
Saunders's glance sought the ground, his eyes went aimlessly to the two horses nibbling grass near by.
"Ah, ha, I see that floors you!" Drake flared out. "You admit that the low-lived scamp did take advantage of our confidence, an'—"
"You've got to face that part of it as I would do if she were my child," Saunders answered. "Listen to me, Drake. Mostyn is not a whit better or worse than many other men of his class. He has been fast and reckless, but when he met Dolly he met the first pure and elevating influence of his life. I am in his confidence. He told me the whole story. He determined that he would win her love and make her his wife. When he left here it was with the firm resolution of being wholly true to her. Now, I can only say that on his return home he found himself in a situation which would have taken more strength of character to get out of than he had. You cannot afford to attack him. Such a thing would reflect on your brave daughter, and you have no right to do it, no matter how you feel about it. From now on you've got to consider her feelings. If she cares for—for him, and—and—is depressed by the newspaper reports, that is all the more reason for your sympathy and support. Surely you can realize what she has escaped. As that man's wife her life would have been hell on earth. He is wholly unworthy of her. If she were my—sister, I'd rather see her dead than married to him."
Drake stood with hanging head. He stepped slowly to his horse and grasped the rein. Saunders went a few feet to the right, searched on the ground a moment and picked up the revolver. Returning, he extended it to its owner.
Drake took it silently, and clumsily thrust it into his pocket. He hesitated; he gulped, swallowed, then said, huskily:
"You are my friend, Saunders. I've had some that I depended on in a pinch, but you've done me a big favor to-night. I'll never git forgiveness for tryin' to shoot you—never—never in this world."
"That is all right." Saunders extended his hand, and the other clasped it firmly.
A man with a polished club tied to his wrist was striding toward them. It was the village marshal, Alf Floyd. Drake eyed him helplessly.
"Let me talk to him," Saunders said, under his breath. "You ride on home. Leave him to me. This must not get out."
"What's the trouble here?" the officer asked, arriving just as Drake rode away.
Saunders laughed carelessly as he reached for the bridle of his grazing horse. "It means that I got the best of Tom Drake. He bet me a dollar he could catch that train and get aboard. He would have done it, too, if I hadn't caught him around the waist at the last minute and swung him back. He didn't like it much, but he is all right now."
"Somebody said they heard a pistol-shot," the officer said.
"An accident," Saunders replied. "Drake dropped it—horse jerked it from his hand. I suppose we may have violated an ordinance in racing in town, and if so I'm willing to pay the fine. I'm responsible."
"Thereisan ordinance," the marshal said, "but I won't make a case out o' this."
"All right, Alf; thanks. How goes it?"
"Oh, so-so. How is it in the city?"
"Hot and dusty." Saunders mounted deliberately. "Good night, Alf; I must get out home and eat something."
A few minutes later as Saunders was slowly riding past Drake's front gate he noticed a figure on the inside of the yard close to the fence. It was Dolly. She opened the gate and came out. He reined in and, hat in hand, sprang to the ground. Her head was covered with a thin white shawl held beneath her chin, and her pale face showed between the folds as pure and patient as a suffering nun's. He saw that she was trying to speak, but was unable to do so.
"What is it, Dolly?" he faltered. "I suppose your father got back?"
"Yes." It was a bare labial whisper. She nodded; she put her cold hand into his great, warm eager one, and he held it as tenderly as if it had been a dying sparrow.
"I am glad I happened to reach him," he said, in an effort to relieve her embarrassment. "We had it nip and tuck," he added, lightly. "My lungs are lined with dust."
He felt her fingers and palm faintly flutter.
"Oh, oh, Mr. Saunders!" she gulped. "I can never, never thank you enough. I met him down the road just now. He actually cried. I have never seen him give way before."
Saunders stared helplessly. He knew not what to say. In the moonlight he saw tears like drops of dew rise in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks.
"You must not cry," he managed to say. "Don't break down, Dolly; you have been so brave all along."
She released the shawl beneath her chin and began to fumble in her pocket for her handkerchief. Seeing she was unable to find it, he took out his own, and while he still held her hand with his left he tenderly dried her tears. Suddenly she clasped his hand with both of hers.
"I suppose you know everything—" she faltered. "How silly I have been to think—to imagine that Mr. Mostyn really meant—" A great sob struggled up within her and broke on her lips.
"I knowthis, Dolly." His face hardened to the appearance of stone in the white light from the sky. "I know that from this moment on you must never give him another thought."
"You don't understand a woman's feelings," she returned, in the saddest of intonations. "I know what you say is right and true, but—it is like this; he seems to have—died! I think of him only as dead, and a woman with a heart cannot at a moment's notice put her dead out of mind. I can't, somehow, blame him. You see, I think I understand him. He is not going to be happy, and I'm afraid I'll never be able to forget that fact. He was trying to get right. I saw his struggle. I did not fully know what it meant when we parted, but I see it all now. I thought I could help him, but it is too late—too late; and oh, that is the terrible part! I feel somewhat like a mother must feel who sees a son, hopelessly wrong, taken from her sight forever. Oh, I pity him, pity him, pity him!"
"Nevertheless, you must try to put him wholly out of your mind and heart," Saunders urged. "You deserve happiness, and this thing must not kill your chances for it. Time will help."
"Isn't it queer?" she sighed; "but in moments of deepest sorrow we don't want Time, God, or anything else to take our grief away. Really, I feel to-night like an invisible thing crushed out of its body and left intact to float forever in pitiless space."
He led her to the gate and opened it. "You must not indulge such weird thoughts," he said, his features set in a mask of tense inner pain. "You must go to bed and try to sleep."
"Sleep!" she laughed, harshly. "I'll have to wake. The happy chickens, ducks, turkeys, and twittering, chirping birds will rouse me at sun-up. I must teach to-morrow. I must answer questions about grammar, history, geography, and arithmetic. I must correct compositions, write on a blackboard with chalk, point to dots on maps, scold little ones, reprove big ones, talk to parents, and through it allthink, think, think!I am Dolly Drake. Do you know, Mr. Saunders, the queerest thing to me in all the world is that I am Dolly Drake? Sometimes I pronounce the name in wonder, as if I had never heard it before. I seem to have been a thousand persons in former periods."
"Dolly, listen." Saunders bent till his face was close to hers. "I am your friend. I shall be true to you forever and ever. From now on nothing else on earth can be of so much importance to me as your welfare. To help you shall be my constant aim."
"I know it, dear, sweet friend." The words bubbled from a swelling sob. "And oh, it is sweet and comforting at a time like this! Don't—don't stop me." And therewith she raised his hand, pressed her lips upon it, and turned quickly away.