Five years passed. Again it was summer. Mostyn with his wife and his only child, Richard, Jr., lived in the Mitchell mansion, which, save for a new coat of paint, was unchanged. Mostyn himself was considerably altered in appearance. There were deeper lines in his face; he was thinner, more given to nervousness and loss of sleep; his hair was turning gray; he had been told by his doctor that he worried too much and that he must check the tendency.
Things had not gone in his married life as the financier had wished. One of the most objectionable was the unexpected change in his father-in-law, who had lapsed quite abruptly into troublesome dotage. From a shrewd business man old Mitchell had become a querulous child, subject to fits of suspicion and violent outbursts of anger. At the most embarrassing moments he would totter into the bank, approach his son-in-law, and insist on talking over matters which he was quite incapable of seeing in a rational light. Mostyn had tried to deal with him firmly, only to bring down a torrent of half-wild threats as to what the old man would do in regard to certain investments the two held in common. Indeed, it was plain to many that Mitchell had formed an intuitive dislike for his son-in-law, which, somehow, was not lessened by his great love for his grandson.
Saunders became a genial sort of escape-valve for the old man's endless chatter and complaint, doing all in his power to pacify him, though it required no little time and energy.
One warm day in the present June Mitchell came to the bank, and, frowning angrily, he went into Mostyn's office, where his son-in-law sat absorbed over some intricate calculations in percentage.
"Huh!" he sniffed. "Your nigger porter told me you were too busy to see me. If he hadn't dodged I'd have hit the whelp with this cane, sir. Busy! I say busy! If it hadn't been for me and my money I'd like to know where you'd be to-day. I guess you wouldn't run long."
Flushing with combined anger and sensitive shame, Mostyn put his papers aside and rose.
"Sit down, and rest," he said. "Albert meant no harm. I told him that I had some important work to do and that I did not want to be disturbed just now; but, of course, I had no reference toyou."
"Oh, I know you didn't!" Mitchell sneered, his chin and white beard quivering. "I know what your plan is. I'm no fool. You are handling my means, and you are afraid I'll want to know what you have done with them. I'll have a statement by law—that's what I'll do."
"You reallymustbe reasonable," Mostyn said, helplessly. "Only last week I explained it all in detail in the presence of Saunders and Wright, and you were quite satisfied. You ought to know that we can't go over such matters every day. I assure you that everything is in good shape."
"Are yousure?That's what I want to know." The harsh expression in Mitchell's face was softening. "I—I get to worrying—I admit it. You and I used to get along all right, but you never consult me now as you used to do. I'm older than you are, but my judgment is sound. I'm not dead yet, and I won't be regarded that way."
"I know you are all right." Mostyn smiled pacifically. "Won't you take a seat?"
"No, I'm going back home. I don't like the way things are running there, either. Irene is never at home, it seems to me, and my grandson has nobody to look after him but that trifling nurse. Irene has gone to some fool reception to-day, and says she and Kitty are going to a dance at Buckton's country house to-night. You may call that right and proper, sir, but I don't. The way married couples live to-day is an outrage on common decency. If you had any backbone you'd make your wife behave herself. She is more of a belle, sir, right now than before you married her. She is crazy for excitement, and the whole poker-playing, wine-drinking set she goes with is on the road to perdition."
Laying his hand on the old man's arm gently, Mostyn led him toward the door. "Don't let it worry you," he said. "The boy is well and sound, and Irene means no harm. She has always loved society, and when we were married it was with the understanding that she should not be hampered."
"And that is right where you made the mistake of your life." Mitchell pulled back from the door. "The way you and she live is not natural. The Lord never intended it to be so. You know as well as I do that Irene used to have a silly sort of liking or fancy for Andy Buckton."
Mostyn nodded, his eyes averted. "Yes, yes, of course," he said, hesitatingly. "She told me all about it at the time, quite frankly."
"Well, you know, I presume, that his uncle left him a lot of money when he died the other day?"
"I heard something about it." Mostyn bit his lip in vexation, as he reached out for the doorknob and turned it cautiously.
"Well, it is true, and it has turned the fool's head; he is spending it like water. He is giving a big blow-out to-night, and it is all for your wife, sir—your wife."
Mostyn made no reply, though his face looked graver; the sharp-drawn lines about his mouth deepened.
"You heard what I said, didn't you?" Mitchell demanded.
"Yes, of course."
"Well, let me tell you one thing, and then you can do as you please about it. I am not going to take any hand in it. Irene has no respect for me or my opinion here lately. She gets mad the minute I say a word to her. Andy Buckton is as big a fool about her as he ever was. I got it straight, from a person who knows, that he makes no secret of it. And that isn't all, sir—that isn't all. Irene is just vain enough of her good looks to like it. Le'me tell you something, sir. This town is not Paris, and our country is not France, but that fast set Irene runs with is trying to think so. They read about the Four Hundred in New York, its scandals and divorces in high life, and think it is smart to imitate it. You seem to stay out of it, but what if you do? Are you going to sit like a knot on a log and have them say you made a loveless marriage for money, and—"
"Stop!" Mostyn flared out. "I won't stand it. You are going too far!"
"Ah, I see you can be touched," the old man laughed, putting his hand on Mostyn's arm in his most senile mood. "I just wanted to set you thinking, that's all."
When Mitchell was gone the banker sat down at his work again, but he could not put his mind on it. He fumbled the papers nervously. His brows met in a troubled frown. "I can't stand any more of this," he thought. "He is driving me insane—the man does not live who could put up with it day after day."
Going to the door, he asked one of the clerks to send Saunders to him if he was quite disengaged. A moment later his partner entered. The last five years had served him well. He had never looked better. His skin was clear, his eyes bright, his movement calm and alert.
"Did you want to see me?" he asked.
"If you are not busy," Mostyn replied.
"Nothing to do just now," Saunders said, sitting down near the desk.
Mostyn gave him a troubled look. "The old man has just left," he said.
"I thought I recognized his voice," Saunders answered. "He has a way of talking quite loud of late."
There was a pause, during which Mostyn continued to stare with fluttering lashes; then he said:
"He is giving me a great deal of trouble, Saunders—a great deal."
"I see he is; in fact, all of us have noticed it."
"It is getting more and more serious," Mostyn sighed, heavily. "You see, it is not only here that he talks. He goes to the other banks and to the offices of the brokers and chatters like a child about our confidential affairs. I am afraid he will do us absolute financial injury. He is insanely suspicious, and there is no telling what report he may set afloat."
"I think most persons understand his condition," Saunders returned. "Delbridge does, I know. He goes to see Delbridge often. I see your predicament and sympathize with you. The old man has lost all his discretion, and you really cannot afford to confer with him."
"The trouble is, he has his legal rights," Mostyn said, tentatively, "and the slightest thing may turn him against me. There are shyster lawyers here who would not hesitate to advise him wrongly. They would get their fee, and that is all they would want. As I look at it the situation is serious, and growing worse."
"It is awkward, to say the least," Saunders admitted, "and I confess that I do not know what to advise."
"Well, that is all," Mostyn concluded. "I wanted to speak to you about it. He upsets me every time he comes in, and he is quite as troublesome at home, I assure you. I envy you, old chap, with your care-free life, spent half in the country. How is your plantation?"
"Fine—never had better crops." Saunders's eyes kindled with latent enthusiasm. "The weather has been just right this season. Run up and spend next Sunday with me. It will do you good. You stay in town too much."
Mostyn shrugged his shoulders. He sighed and bowed his head over his papers. "Not this season," he said, as if his thoughts were far away. Suddenly he cast a wavering glance at his partner, hesitated, and said:
"I have always wanted to go back up there, Saunders. That was one period of my life that is constantly before me. I may as well speak of it and be done with it. You always seemed to shirk the subject, and I have hesitated to mention it, but there is no one else I could question. The last time I heard of Dolly Drake she was still unmarried. Is there any likelihood of her marrying?"
Mostyn's eyes were downcast, and he failed to see the half-angry flush which was creeping over Saunders's face.
"I really can't say," he returned, coldly. "She is still teaching school, and is in the best of health; but, Mostyn, you have no right to think—to fancy that she has remained single because—"
"Oh, I don't!" the other sighed. "I'm not such a fool. She knows me too well by this time for that."
There was an awkward pause. Saunders, with eyes on the door, was rising. With an appealing look of detention in his worn face Mostyn also stood up. "I'd give a great deal to see her. I'd be glad even to see a picture of her. I wonder what she looks like now. She was scarcely more than a child when she and I—when we parted. I don't think there can be any harm in my being frank in these days when the wives of men make a jest of matrimonial love, and I confess freely that I have never been able to forget—"
"Don't tell me about it!" Saunders interrupted. "You have no right, Mostyn, even to think of her after—after what took place. But you ought to have sense enough, at any rate, to know that she wouldn't continue to care for you all these years. I see her now and then and talk to her. I am helping her build a new schoolhouse up there on some land I donated, and have had to consult her several times of late about the building-plans. She is more beautiful and brilliant than ever, though she still has cares enough. Her father doesn't make much of a living, and her brother George is engaged to one of the girls in the neighborhood and so cannot be counted on for help. Ann is a young lady now, and Dolly dresses her nicely at her own expense."
"Of course, I know that she has forgotten me," Mostyn said, with feeling. "I made the one great mistake of my life when I—you know what I mean, Saunders?"
"Yes, I know," Saunders answered, quickly, "but that is past and gone, Mostyn. The main harm you did was, perhaps, to kill her faith in men in general. I don't really think she will ever give her heart to any one. She seems farther from that sort of thing than any woman I ever met. She has had, I think, many suitors."
"Then from what you say I gather that she doesn't mention me?" Mostyn said, heavily. "She has no curiosity at all to know how—how my marriage terminated?"
"Howcouldshe have?" Saunders asked, frigidly. "We'd better not talk of it, Mostyn. I am sure she would not wholly approve of this conversation. But in justice to her I must insist that she isnotbroken-hearted by any means. She is as brave and cheerful as she ever was. Her character seems to have deepened and sweetened under the knowledge of the world which she acquired by her unfortunate experience with you."
When Saunders had left, Mostyn bowed his head on his desk.
"If I had been the sort of man Saunders is, Dolly would have been my wife," he thought. "My wife! my wife! actually my wife!"
That afternoon when the bank was closed Mostyn went home. He walked for the sake of the exercise and with the hope of distracting his mind from the many matters which bore more or less heavily on his tired brain. As he approached the gate the sight of his little son playing on the lawn with a miniature tennis racket and ball gave him a thrill of delight. The boy was certainly beautiful. He had great brown eyes, rich golden hair, was sturdy, well built, and active for a child of only four years.
The father opened the gate softly, and when within the yard he hid himself behind the trunk of an oak and cautiously peered out, watching the little fellow toss the ball and make ineffectual efforts to hit it with the racket. Then Mostyn whistled softly, saw the boy drop his racket and look all round, his sweet face alert with eagerness. Mostyn whistled again, and then the child espied him and, with hands outstretched, came running, laughing and shouting gleefully.
"I see you, Daddy!" he cried. Whereupon Mostyn slipped around the tree out of sight, letting the amused child follow him. Round after round was made, and then, suddenly stooping down, the father caught the boy in his arms and raised him up. Pressing him fondly to his breast, he kissed the warm, flushed cheeks.
Till dusk he played with the child on the grass, pitching the ball and teaching the little fellow to hit it. Then Hilda, the mulatto nurse, came for her charge, and little Dick, with many expostulations, was taken away.
Going into the house, Mostyn met his father-in-law in the hall. The old man stopped him abruptly at the foot of the stairs.
"Did any mail come for me on the noon train?" he demanded, querulously, a light of suspicion in his eyes.
"Not that I know of," Mostyn answered. "It was not put on my desk, I am sure."
"Well, some of it goessomewhere," Mitchell complained. "I know I don't see it all. I've written letters that would have been answered by this time, and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody down there was tampering with it."
Seeing the utter hopelessness of bringing his father-in-law to reason by explanation or argument, Mostyn went on up-stairs. Noticing that the door of his wife's chamber, adjoining his own, was ajar, he pushed it open and went in. The room was brightly illuminated with electric light, and standing before a tall pier-glass he found his wife. She wore a costly evening gown of rare old lace and was trying on a pretty diamond necklace.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, indifferently, as she caught sight of him over her bare powdered shoulder. "I thought it was Cousin Kitty. She promised to be here early. If she is late we'll have to go without her. She is awfully slow. I saw you playing with Dick on the grass. He makes too much noise, screaming out like that, and you only make him worse cutting up with him as you do. Between you and that boy and father, with his constant, babyish complaints, I am driven to desperation."
Mostyn shrugged his shoulders wearily, and sat down in a chair at her quaint mahogany dressing-table. Irene had not changed materially, though a close observer, had the light been that of day, might have remarked that she was thinner and more nervous. Her eyes held a shadowy, unsatisfied expression, and her voice was keyed unnaturally high.
Noticing his unwonted silence, she put down her hand-mirror and eyed him with a slow look of irritation. "Of course, you are not going to-night," she said.
"Hardly," he smiled, satirically, "being quite uninvited."
"Well, you needn't say it inthattone," she answered. "You have only yourself to blame. You never accept such invitations, so how could you expect people to run after you with them?"
"I don't expect them to," he answered, tartly. "If they asked me I'd decline. I simply don't enjoy that sort of thing at all."
"Of course you don't," she laughed. "The last time you went to a ball you looked like an insane man pacing up and down all by yourself. Kitty said you asked her to dance and forgot all about it. Dick, your day is over."
"I wonder if yours ever will be," he sniffed. "I see no prospect of it. You are on the go night and day. You are killing yourself. It is as bad as the morphine habit with you. You love admiration more than any woman I ever saw."
She arched her neck before the glass and turned to him wearily. "Do you know what you'll do in another minute? You'll talk yourself into another one of your disgusting rages over my own private affairs. You are a business man and would not violate an ordinary business agreement, but you are constantly ignoring the positive compact between us."
"I didn't expect at the time to have you going so constantly with a man that—"
"Oh, you didn't?" she laughed, tantalizingly. "You were to have all sorts of outside freedom, but I was not. Well, you were mistaken, that's all. I know whom you are hinting at. You mean Andy Buckton. I'm going with him to-night. Why shouldn't I? He's got up the party for me. Dick, don't tell me that you are actually jealous. It would be too delicious for anything."
"I can't ask you not to go with the fellow," Mostyn answered, "considering the well-known habits of your limited set to lay down new laws of conduct, but you nor no other woman can form the slightest idea of what it costs a man's pride to have people say that his wife is constantly seen with a man who always has been in love with her."
An almost imperceptible gleam of delight flashed into Irene's eyes, and a tinge of real color struggled beneath the powder on her face.
"You don't mean, Dick, that he really, really loves me?" she said, lingeringly.
"I think he does," Mostyn answered, bluntly. "He never got over your refusal to marry him. He shows it on every occasion. Everybody knows it, and that's what makes it so hard to—to put up with. I think I really have a right to ask the mother of my child to—"
"Don't begin that, Dick!" Irene commanded, sharply. "I have my rights, and you shall respect them. It is cowardly of you to always mention the boy in that way. I am not crazy about children, and I won't pretend to be. You know I did not want a child in the first place. I am not that sort. I want to have a good time. I like admiration. I like amusements. You men get the keenest sort of pleasure out of gambling in stocks and futures. All day long you are in a whirl of excitement. But you expect us women to stay at home and be as humdrum as hens in a chicken-house. You are to have your fun and come home and have us wives pet you and pamper you up for another day of delight. Dick, that may go all right with farmers' wives who haven't shoes to wear out to meeting, but it won't do for women with money oftheir ownto spend."
"I knewthatwould come," he flashed at her. "It always does crop up sooner or later."
"You are out of temper to-night, Dick," she retorted. "And it is simply because I am going with Andy Buckton. You needn't deny it."
"I don't like the gossip that is going around." Mostyn frowned and bit his mustache as he said this. "The people of Atlanta, as a whole, are moral, conservative citizens, and the doings of your small set are abhorrent to them."
"Myset!" Irene forced a harsh, mirthless laugh. "And for goodness' sake, what do they think ofyourset? You force me to say this, Dick. There is not a person in this city who has not heard of you and that unspeakable Winship woman."
Mostyn flinched beneath the gaze she bent on him. "That is a thing of the past, Irene, and you know it," he stammered, trying to keep his temper.
"I can consider it a thing of the past," she returned, coldly, "if I will take your word for it, just as you may or may not take my word for my conduct with Andy Buckton. Oh, I suppose it is nothing for a wife to see the knowing smiles that pass around when the gaudy creature shows up at the theater or ball-game accompanied by gamblers and bar-keepers. The brazen thing stares straight at me whenever I am near her."
Mostyn was now white with restrained fury. He stood up. "I will not go over all that again," he said. "The mistake I made was in ever owning up to the thing."
"Youhadto own up to it," Irene answered, bluntly. "I knew it when we were married, and I would not mention it now if you were not constantly nagging me about my actions. Dick, you will have to let me alone. I won't take advice from you."
He met her frank eyes with a shrinking stare. "I shall let you alone in the future," he faltered. "I see I have to. You are merciless. For the sake of the boy we must live in harmony. God knows we must!"
"All right," she laughed, coldly, "that is another agreement. Harmony is the word. Now, go away. Kitty is not coming. She may be going with some one else."
Mostyn went to his room across the hall. He bathed his bloodless face and hands and automatically brushed his hair before the glass, eying his features critically. "Can that actually be me?" he whispered to the grim reflection. "I look like a man of sixty. I'm as old and decrepit as—Jeff Henderson. Why did I think of him? Why am I constantly thinking of that old man, unless it is because he has predicted my ruin so confidently? He seems as sure of it as he is of the air he breathes. If evil thought bearing on a man can hurt him, as the mental scientists believe, Henderson's will eventually get me down. He would give his life to permanently injure me. So would Marie. She can't forgive me for ignoring her. She can't understand any more than I dowhyI ignore her."
There was a rap on the door. It was a servant to ask if he wanted his supper.
"Not now," he answered. "Keep it for me. I'll be in later."
He went down to the lawn, lighted a cigar, and began to smoke, striding nervously back and forth. A smart pair of horses hitched to a trap whirled into the carriage-drive and stopped in the porte-cochere. In the rays from the overhead lamp Mostyn saw Buckton alight and ascend the steps to the veranda. A half-smoked cigar cast into the shrubbery emitted a tiny shower of sparks. Mostyn saw the young man peering in at the window of the lighted drawing-room. He noted the spick-and-span appearance, the jaunty, satisfied air of expectancy, and his blood began to boil with rage.
"My God!" he groaned. "She may be falling in love with him—if she has notalwaysloved him, and he now knows it. She may have told him so. And when they are alone together, as they will be in a few minutes on the road, what more natural than that he should caress her? I would have done it with any man's wife if I had felt an inclination. I am the joke of the town and must bear it. I must stand by and let my wife and another man—"
Buckton was at the door speaking to the maid who had answered his ring.
"No; tell her, please, that I'll wait out here on the lawn." Mostyn remarked the note of curbed elation in the voice, and saw Buckton turn down the steps.
A match flared in the handsome face as another cigar was lighted. Fearing that he might have been seen from the drive, Mostyn was compelled to step forward and greet the man with the conventional unconcern he had been able to summon to his aid on former occasions.
"Hello," he heard himself saying, automatically, as he strode across the grass to the other smoker. "Fine evening for your shindig."
"Tiptop," Buckton said, with a sort of restraint Mostyn inwardly resented. "Couldn't have turned out better. Sorry you've cut out the giddy whirl, old man. As I passed your bank this morning I thought of asking you, but you have refused so many times that—"
"Oh no." Mostyn heartily despised the role he was playing. "I am no longer good at that sort of thing."
"Had your day, I see," Buckton laughed, significantly. "You certainly kept the pace, if all tales are true. The sort of thing we do these days must be tame by comparison."
"Oh, I don't know," Mostyn returned, with enforced carelessness. "Men are the same the world over. I have not yet had a chance to congratulate you on your recent good fortune."
"Thanks, old man." Buckton puffed his smoke into the still moonlight. "It certainly was a lift to me. I was never cut out for business, and I was at the end of my row. I confess I am not complaining now. I am just at the age to know how to spend money."
The talk languished. Both men seemed suddenly burthened by obtrusive self-consciousness. Buckton twisted his mustache nervously and flicked at the ashless tip of his cigar, glancing toward the house. "Oh, I quite forgot to deliver Miss Kitty's message to Irene—to Mrs. Mostyn, I should say. She was to drive out with us, but at the last minute Dr. Regan found that he could get off and asked her to go in his car."
"Arranged between them," Mostyn thought, darkly. "I know the trick. Regan doesn't care a rap for Kitty. It is part of the game, and I am the tool."
"I understand you have a new car yourself," Mostyn said, aloud.
"Yes, and experts tell me that it is the best in town. I'll run around and take you out some day. But I really care more for horses. It may be due to my Virginia blood. I wouldn't swap this pair for all the cars in town. For a trip like this to-night horses come handy. There are some rough places between here and my home."
"It does away with the chauffeur," Mostyn said, inwardly, as his tongue lay dead in his mouth. He glanced toward the open doorway. "Irene may be ready," he remarked, moving toward the house.
"Yes, I see her coming down the stairs," answered Buckton, dropping his cigar, a look of boyish eagerness capturing his face. "I'll run on and help her with her wraps. So long, old man."
Mostyn made some inarticulate response of no import in particular, and dropped back, allowing Buckton to stride on to the veranda, his hat jauntily swinging at his side. Irene was now in the doorway, poised like a picture in a frame.
Slinking farther away beneath the trees and behind shrubbery, Mostyn heard the greetings between the two, and saw them shaking hands, standing face to face. Irene looked so young, so different from the calculating woman who had just asserted her financial and marital rights in her chamber. No wonder that her escort was fascinated when she had so long been withheld from him! Mostyn told himself that he well knew the "stolen-sweets" sensation. He peered above a clump of boxwood like a thief, upon grounds to which he was unaccustomed, and watched them as they got into the trap. Irene's rippling laugh, and Buckton's satisfied response as he tucked the robes about her, seemed things of Satanic design. They were off. The restive pair, with high-reined, arching necks, trotted down the drive to the street, and a moment later were out of sight.
Mostyn went into the house, back to the desolate dining-room, and sat down in his chair at the head of the table. The maid who came to receive his order and turn on a fuller light had a look in her eyes which indicated that she was aware of his mood. He would have resented it had he dared, but it was only one of many things which had of late grated on him but could not be prevented.
"Has Mr. Mitchell had his supper?" Mostyn asked, applying himself reluctantly to the simple repast before him.
"Yes, sir, and gone up to his room," the girl answered. "He is out of sorts to-day. I have never seen him so troublesome. He has threatened to discharge us all."
"Don't mind him." Mostyn's voice sounded to him as if uttered by some tongue other than his own. He half fancied that the maid, for reasons peculiar to her class, had a sort of contempt for him. She, as well as the other servants, no doubt thought of him as having married for money, Mitchell's fortune being so much larger than his own diminished and ever-lessening capital.
Supper over, he went back to the veranda. Should he go to the club, as he sometimes did to pass an evening? He had a feeling against it. He did not care for cards or drinking, and they were the chief amusements indulged in by the habitual loungers about the rooms. There might be some summer play on at one of the theaters, but as a rule they were very poor at that season of the year, and he knew he had a frame of mind which could not be diverted. At this juncture he became conscious of something of an almost startling nature. It was an undefinable, even maternal feeling that he ought to stay with his child. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled at the sheer absurdity of the idea, yet it clung to him persistently. He tried to analyze it; it eluded analysis. It had haunted him before, and the time had always been when Irene was away. Was it some strange psychic sympathy or bond of blood between his motherless offspring and himself? Was his guilty soul whispering to him that he was responsible for the deserted human bud, and that he, man though he was, should give it the care and love denied it?
Obeying an impulse he could not put down, he turned into the house and softly ascended the stairs. The door of the nursery was open. A low-turned light was burning in a night-lamp on the bureau. The nurse was below eating with the other servants. He was alone and unobserved. The child was asleep in its little white bed, and he crept forward and looked down upon it. The night being warm, little Richard was not covered, and, with his shapely legs and fair breast exposed, he lay asleep. There was a suggestion of a smile on the beautiful face, the pink lips were parted, the dainty fingers were clutched as if holding some dream-object tight in their clasp.
With a sigh that was almost audible the father turned away. At the door he glanced back, having noted the intense warmth of the room. The nurse, as many of her tropical race are apt to do, had forgotten to ventilate the chamber. The two windows were closed. Angrily he crept across the carpeted floor and noiselessly raised the sashes as high as they would go, feeling the fresh air stream in. With a parting glance at the sleeper he withdrew.
Descending the stairs, he went out on the lawn again. Even that scrap of Nature's realm had a tendency to soothe his snarled sensibilities. It might have been the dew which was rising and cooling his feet, or the pale, blinking stars, the sedative rays of which seemed to penetrate to his seething brain. He remembered John Leach's sermon that day in the mountains at the cross-roads store. The fellow had found something. He had found the way of the life spiritual, and it had come to him through sin, suffering, humiliation, and final self-immolation. Mostyn recalled the resolutions he had made under the influence of the man's compelling eloquence; he recalled the breaking of the resolutions. He thought of Dolly Drake, and groaned in actual pain of body and soul. He told himself that he had then deliberately trampled under foot his last spiritual opportunity. "Dolly Drake, Dolly Drake!" the words, unuttered though they were by lips which he felt were too profane for such use, seemed to float like notes of accusing music. Saunders had said she was more beautiful than ever. She might have been his but for his weakness. Perhaps she still thought of him now and then. If she could know of this unconquerable despair, she would pity him. How sweet such pity as hers would be! A sob struggled up within him and threatened to burst; he felt the sharp pain of suppression in his breast. It was as if his soul was urging his too-callous body to weep. Dolly was as unobtainable as the heaven of the tramp preacher's vision. For Mostyn only protracted evil was now available, and that was sickening to his very thought.
He wondered, seeing that it was now ten o'clock, if he could go to sleep. In deep sleep he would be able to forget. He decided to try. He went up to his room, and, aided only by the moonlight, which fell through the windows, he undressed and threw himself down on his bed. For an hour he was wakeful. He was just becoming drowsy when he heard voices in the nursery across the hall. He recognized the sharp, scolding voice of the nurse, and the timid reply of the child. Rising, Mostyn went to the open door of the nursery and looked in.
"What is it?" he asked.
"He is begging to go to your bed," the woman answered, peevishly. "You've spoiled him, Mr. Mostyn. He wants to do it every night. He is getting worse and worse."
A thrill of delight, yearning delight, passed over the father. He stood silent for a moment, ashamed to have even the black servant suspect what he so keenly desired.
"Daddy, Dick wants you," a voice soft, tremulous, and unspeakably appealing came from the little bed.
"Hush, and go to sleep!" the nurse called out. "You are a bad boy, keeping us awake like this."
"No, let him come," Mostyn said, in a voice which was husky, and shook against his will. "Come, Dick!"
The little white-robed form slid eagerly from the bed and fairly ran to the arms which were hungrily outstretched. With the soft body against his breast, a confident arm about his neck, the father bore him to his room and put him down on the back side of the wide bed.
"Now you will sleep, won't you?" he said, his voice exultantly tender.
"Yes, Daddy." Dick stretched his pretty legs out straight. Silence filled the room; the mystic rays of moonlight falling in at the window seemed to bring with them the despondent murmur of the city outside. The deep, fragrant breathing of the child soon showed that he was asleep. Cautiously Mostyn propped himself up on his elbow and looked into the placid face. "He has my brow," he mused, bitterly; "my hands; my ears; my long ringers, with their curving nails; my slender ankles and high-instepped feet; and, my God! he has my telltale sensual lips. Here am I in the throes of a hell produced by infinite laws. What is to prevent him—the helpless replica of myself—from taking the way I took? The edge of the alluring abyss will crumble under his blind tread as it crumbled under mine, and this—this—this cloying horror which is on me to-night may be my gift to him—for whose sake I would die—yes, die!"
Silently Mostyn left the bed and took a seat on the broad sill of one of the windows overlooking the lawn.
"What will be the end?" he asked himself. "It can't go on like this. I am not man enough to stand it. If I were not afraid of death, I would—no, I wouldn't"—he glanced at the bed—"I am responsible for his being here. He is the flower of my corruption. God may desert him, but I won't. I will protect him, love him, pity him, care for him to the end."
A cold drop fell on his hand and trickled through his fingers. He was weeping.
Saunders spent the end of that week on his plantation in the mountains. On Saturday morning he dropped in at Drake's to see Dolly. John Webb came to the door in response to his rap. He was quite unchanged. Even the clothes he was wearing had the same look as those he wore five years before.
"She ain't here," he said. "I seed 'er, with some books an' papers under 'er arm, headed for the schoolhouse just after breakfast. I reckon she's got some examples to work or compositions to write. They are fixin' for a' exhibition of some sort for the last Friday in this month. Dolly writes a big part o' the stuff the scholars read in public, an' you bet some of it is tiptop. When she is in a good humor she can compose a' article that will make a dog laugh. She is out o' sorts to-day."
"Oh, is that so?" Saunders was moving toward the gate. "Has anything gone wrong?"
"She is bothered about George," Webb answered. "It is first one thing and then another with her. George's crop is a failure this year and he is up to his neck in debt. On top o' that he wants to get married. You know him an' Ida Benson are crazy to get tied, and it was to come off in the fall, but George won't be able to buy a new shirt, to say nothin' of a whole outfit. The boy is awful downhearted, and so is his gal. Dolly busted out an' cried last night while George was a-talkin'. She says Ida will be the makin' of the boy, but they can't stir a peg as it is, for they hain't got a dollar betwixt 'em."
"Well, I'll walk by the schoolhouse and see if Dolly is there," Saunders remarked. "It is on my way home."
As he drew near the little building at the roadside he noticed that the front door was open, and, peering in, he saw Dolly at her desk. She was not at work; indeed, she seemed quite preoccupied with her thoughts, for she was staring fixedly at an open window, a troubled frown on her sweet face. She heard Saunders's step at the door, and, seeing him enter, she began to smile.
"You caught me," she laughed, impulsively. "I was having one of my silly fits of blues. I am glad you came in. You always make me ashamed of my despondency."
"You are freer from it than any human being I ever saw," he declared, as he shook hands with her. "I seldom have the blues; but if I did, one thought of your wonderful patience would knock them higher than a kite."
She laughed merrily, her eyes twinkling, the warm color flushing her face, as was always the case when she was animated. "I suppose it is generally due to one's point of view," she said. "When it concerns myself I can manage very well, but if it is any one else—"
"A dear brother, for instance," Saunders put in, sympathetically, "and his laudable desire to marry a worthy girl."
She looked at him steadily in mild surprise. "I see you know," she nodded. "I suppose half the county are sorry for that pair. George does try so hard, and yet everything the poor boy touches goes the wrong way. It is not his fault. He is young and inexperienced and so full of hope. He is so downhearted to-day that he wouldn't go to work. He got a letter from Cross & Mayhew last night. You know they advanced him his supplies for this season and took a mortgage on his crop as security. It seems that they sent a man out here the other day to see how he was getting on. The man reported the condition of George's crop, and they wrote him that they would not credit him for his supplies next season. That was the last straw. I found him actually crying down at the barn. He had gone into the stall where his horse was feeding and had his arms around the animal's neck. Mr. Saunders, you can't imagine my feelings. I love my brother with all my heart. I offered to help him with part of my wages, but he was too proud to accept a cent. That letter from Cross & Mayhew humiliated him beyond description. It bowed him down; young as he is, he is actually crushed. He is coming here this morning to talk to me. He wants to go West with the hope that he may get started there and come back for Ida. I can't bear to have him go—I simply can't stand it. I want him to stay here at home. It is the place for them both."
"I think so, too," Saunders said, sympathetically. "There is no better spot on earth for a young farmer."
"I am glad you agree with me"—Dolly brightened a little—"and if you should get a chance I wish you would advise him to stay. You have wonderful influence, with both him and my father."
"I didn't know that," Saunders said, modestly.
Dolly smiled, a far-off expression in her deep eyes. "They think you are the best and wisest man in the world. And as for Ann, do you know you did me a wonderful favor in regard to her?"
"You surprise me." Saunders flushed red. "I didn't know that I had ever—I don't remember-"
"No, I'm sure you don't, and I didn't mention it, but I'm going to tell you now, for I am very, very grateful. You know, perhaps, that Ann used to care a good deal for that reckless fellow Abe Westbrook?"
"Yes, I remember seeing them together frequently," Saunders answered.
"Well, he became more and more dissipated and so bold and ill-bred that he even came to see her when he was intoxicated. I was afraid to call father's attention to it for two reasons—first, father's temper, and then the fear I had that Ann might elope with the fellow. So I had to be very, very cautious. I tried talking to Ann, but it went in at one ear and out at the other. Nothing I said had the slightest effect on her. Then she got to meeting him at different places away from home, and I was almost crazy. Then you, as you always have done, came to my aid."
"I? Why, Dolly, I am sure that I have never—"
"You don't remember it"—Dolly's voice shook, and a delicate glow suffused her face—"but I'll remind you. You recall the picnic over the mountain last spring?"
"The day you didn't go," Saunders nodded. "I remember looking for you everywhere."
"Well, that day, when all the girls felt so highly honored by your presence, and you were so nice to them, you paid a good deal of attention to Ann, asking her to drive home with you."
"Of course I remember that," Saunders said; "I enjoyed the drive very much."
"It wasn't anything you said, exactly," Dolly went on, "but you may remember that Abe was drinking that day and misbehaved badly before every one, even when they were all eating lunch together. Ann told me all about it. She came to my bed away in the night and waked me. She told me she had made up her mind never to see Westbrook again. In contrasting him with you she saw what a failure he was. She said she had never before so plainly seen her danger. She saw the look of disgust in your face while Abe was acting so badly, and your failure to refer to the incident on the way home impressed her. That happening completely turned her round, opened her eyes, and already she has stopped thinking of him."
Saunders was modestly trying to formulate some protest when, looking toward the door, Dolly suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, there is George now! Don't leave," for Saunders was rising. "I can see him at home."
"I must be going, anyway," Saunders said, rather nervously, "but if you will let me I'd like to take you for a drive this afternoon. We could pass the new schoolhouse and see how it is coming on."
"I'll be glad to go," Dolly answered. "I understand the men are making fine progress."
Seeing Saunders coming out, George stepped aside just outside the door to let him pass, and they met face to face. The banker's sympathies were deeply touched by the dejected mien of the courageous young man, whom he had always liked.
"Hello, George," he greeted him, cordially. "Your sister tells me you are thinking of pulling up stakes and moving West."
"Yes, I think it is about the best thing for me, now, Mr. Saunders," George answered, gloomily. "I've given this thing a fair test. Perhaps out there among strangers I may have a change of luck. I can't make it go here. I'm a drawback to myself and everybody else. Even Dolly is upset by my troubles, and when she gives up things are bad, sure enough. You can't imagine how a fellow feels in my fix."
"I think I can, George." Glancing back, Saunders noted that Dolly was looking straight at them. He put his hand on the young man's shoulder and let it rest there gently while he went on: "Still, George, I would not advise you to leave home. You see, here you are surrounded by old friends and relatives. Among total strangers the fight for success would be even harder, and I am afraid you'd be homesick for these old mountains. I have met a good many who have come back after a trial at farming out there. They all say this country is as good as any."
"But I am actually at the end of my rope." George's voice shook afresh, and the shadow about his eyes deepened. "Has Dolly told you about Cross & Mayhew?"
"Yes, and I'm sorry you ever got in with them. George, they are nothing more nor less than licensed thieves. Have you ever calculated how much they make out of you?"
"Oh, I know their profit is big," George sighed, "but men of my stamp have to go to them when they need a stake to pull through on."
"I have figured on their method," Saunders said, "and I am quite sure that they get as their part fully half of the earnings of their customers. It may interest you to know, George, that our bank lends that firm money at only seven or eight per cent., which they turn over to you at no less than fifty."
"I see," George sighed; "the poor man has the bag to hold. Money makes money."
"I have a plan in my head, George"—Saunders was somewhat embarrassed, and looked away from the dejected face before him—"which, it seems to me, might help both you and me in a certain way."
"What is that?" George stared, wonderingly, his fine lips quivering.
"To begin with, George, I think that your bad crop this season is due largely to the poor land you rented. I noticed it early in the year and was afraid you'd not accomplish much."
"It was all I could get," George said. "I tried all around, but every other small farm either was to be worked by the owner or was rented already. It was root hog or die with me, Mr. Saunders."
"You have seen the Warner farm, haven't you?" the banker inquired.
"You bet I have!" George responded. "It is the prettiest small place in this valley."
"Well, I bought it the other day for two thousand dollars," Saunders said. "Warner owed me some money, and I had to take the farm to secure myself. Things like that often come up in a bank, you know."
"Well, you are safe in it, Mr. Saunders," George said. "You never could lose in a deal like that. It has a good house on it, and every foot of the land is rich. It has a fine strip of woodland, too."
"I really have no use for the place," Saunders went on, more awkwardly. "If it adjoined my plantation I would like it better, but it is too far away for my manager to see it often. I want to sell it, and it struck me that if you could be persuaded to give up this Western idea maybe you could take it off my hands at what it cost me."
"I? huh! Thatisa joke, Mr. Saunders," George laughed. "If farms were going at ten cents apiece I couldn't buy a pig-track in a free mud-hole."
"I wouldn't require the money down," Saunders went on, still clumsily. "In fact, I could give you all the time you wanted to pay for it. I know you are going to succeed—I know it as well as I know anything; and you ought to own your own place. I am willing to advance money for your supplies—and some to get married on, too. You and your sweetheart could be very snug in that little house."
George stared like a man waking from a perplexing dream. His toil-hardened, sun-browned hands were visibly quivering, his mouth was open, his lower lip twitching.
"Youcan'tmean it—youcan'tbe in earnest!" he gasped, leaning heavily against the door-jamb, actually pale with excitement.
"Yes, I mean it, George." Saunders put his hand on the broad shoulder again. "And I hope you will take me up. You will be doing me a favor, you see. I lend money every day to men I don't trust half as much as I do you."
At this juncture Dolly hurried down the aisle, a look of fresh anxiety on her face. "What is the matter, George?" she asked, eying her brother in surprise. "What has happened?"
Falteringly and with all but sobs of elation, George explained Saunders's proposition. "Did you ever in your life think of such a thing?" he cried. "Dolly, I'm going to take him up. If he is willing to risk me I'll take him up. I'll work my fingers to the bone rather than see him lose a cent. I'm going to take him up—I tell you, Sis, I'm going to take him up!"
Dolly said nothing. A glow of boundless delight suffused her face, rendering her unspeakably beautiful. Her eyes had a depth Saunders had never beheld before. He saw her round breast quiver and expand in tense agitation. She put her arm about her brother's neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then, without a word, her hand on her lips as if to suppress a rising sob, she turned back into the schoolhouse and, with head down, went to her desk, where she sat with her back to the door.
"She's gone off to cry," George chuckled. "She's that way. She never gives up in trouble, but when she is plumb happy like she is now she can't hold in. Look, I told you so—she's wiping her eyes, dear, dear old girl. Now, I'm going to run over and tell Ida. Lord, Lord, Mr. Saunders, she'll be tickled to death! Just this morning I told her I was going away. Good-by; God bless you!"
When George was gone Saunders stood at the door and wistfully looked in at Dolly. An impulse that was almost overpowering drew him to her, but he put it aside.
"She wants to be alone," he reflected. "If I went now, feeling like this, I'd say something I ought not to say and be sorry I imposed on her at such a time. No, I will have to wait. I have waited all these years, and I can wait longer. To win I could wait to the end of time."
Turning, he strode into the wood. Deeper and deeper he plunged, headed toward the mountain, feeling the cooling shade of the mighty trees, whose branches met and interlaced overhead. Reaching a mossy bank near a limpid stream, he threw himself down and gave himself up to reveries.