ONE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece and nephew sat on the front veranda to catch the cool breezes which swept across the town and stirred the foliage of the trees on the lawn. The old gentleman had been urging Margaret to go to the piano in the big parlor and sing for them, but she had persistently declined. Since Fred Walton's leaving, despite her evident efforts to appear unconcerned, she had not seemed to her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like herself, and they were constantly trying to divert her mind from the unpleasant matter.
At this juncture Kenneth Galt's carriage and pair of spirited blacks, driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down the street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the gateway to the gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the house, which was not very different from the Dearing home in size, period, and architecture.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” the General exclaimed, suddenly. “Galt is off to Atlanta, to see some more capitalists on our new railroad scheme. You may think lightly of it, my boy, but as sure as fate we are going to put that big trunk-line through—or, rather, Galt is. He thinks it is in good shape, and that is encouragement enough for me. He has handled my affairs ever since he hung out his shingle as a lawyer, and as he made money hand over hand for himself, he has for me too.”
“Yes, he has the keenest sense of values of any man in the State,” Wynn agreed. “He has the full confidence of his clients, and he is not afraid to back up his ideas with money; that is what makes a successful speculator. He will put the road through if any one can. Investors will listen to a man who has succeeded in everything he has attempted.”
The carriage was now leaving the house, and when it had regained the street and was about to pass, the General stood up and waved his handkerchief. The carriage paused at the gate, and the man under discussion sprang out, hat in hand, and hurried up the walk.
“I have only a minute to get to the 8.40 train,” he informed them, as he bowed to Margaret, and smiled cordially at Dearing.
Kenneth Galt was an interesting man from many points of view. His intimate friends liked him because, to them, he sometimes unbent and was himself; to strangers and mere acquaintances he was cold, formal, and almost painfully dignified. To his many clients he was seldom cordial or free, and never familiar. He had gleaned the idea somewhere, from his or some one else's experience, that no genuinely successful financier ever allowed himself to be taken lightly, so he never jested about his affairs nor encouraged it in others. He had set a high price upon himself and his chances of success in life, and he held to it the more tenaciously the higher he climbed. When approached for legal or financial advice his face was as immovable as granite, and when he gave an opinion it always had weight, for he was apt to be right. He was considered a man of wonderful ability and power among men. He couldn't have been a successful politician, for he could never have sufficiently lowered himself to the level of the common people, so it was fortunate for him that his ambition associated him with another and a more lucrative class. He was interesting as any human enigma could be which showed outward signs of hidden depth and strength. For an orthodox community like that of old Stafford, his iconoclastic views on some sacred subjects shocked many conservative individuals, but he was so firm in his philosophy and frank in his open expression of it, that he was forgiven where a weaker, less-important man would have been adversely criticized. He had convinced himself, or been convinced during the hours he had spent in his unique library, that there is no such thing as a soul or a soul's immortality, and he was proving, by his persistent effort to make the most of the present, that in the very renunciation of the dogma he had discovered the highest law of life.
“Well, you are off, I see,” the General said, “and I hope the parties will not only be there, but with their check-books wide open.”
“Yes, I'll see what can be done,” Galt answered, somewhat coldly, for it was against his policy to speak of business matters in any social group. “I happened to have the land deed you wanted in my pocket, General, and I thought I'd stop and hand it to you.”
“Oh yes, thank you,” Sylvester said. “I knew it was all right, but I want to keep all my papers which you don't have need for in my safe.”
“And how is Miss Margaret?” Galt now asked, as he turned the document over to its owner, and bent toward the wistful face of the young girl.
“Oh, I'm quite well, thank you,” she responded, forcing a smile. “You are a fortunate man, Mr. Galt. My uncle doesn't praise many people, but he can't say enough in your favor.”
“That's because he only knows thebusinessside of me,” Galt said, ceasing to smile, and drawing himself up.
“Well, I must be off. I see John lashing the air with his whip; he is my time-table.”
“Yes, you'd better not lose your train,” the General put in. “I don't want to be the cause of your missing that appointment. Get a rosebud for his buttonhole, Madge. It may bring us good luck.”
“Yes, I will.” The girl rose languidly. “There are some pretty ones near the gate.”
Galt gallantly assisted her down the steps, and, side by side, they moved along the wide brick walk. Dearing heard his uncle chuckling as the old man peered through the twilight at the couple, who now stood facing each other over a bush of choice roses.
“Mark my words, my boy,” he said, “we may have to wait awhile for it, but as sure as you and I are alive, that pair will some day be more closely related to each other than they are now.”
Dearing shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. “You don't think so?” the General pursued, with the eagerness of a child who has discovered a new toy. “They can't help it. He is much older than she is, but it would be an ideal match. The fellow is actually a great man. There is no curbing his ambition. He has accomplished wonders so far, and there is no telling what his particular genius will ripen into.”
“It may be as you say—in time,” Dearing answered, after a pause; “but I'm afraid it will be years before Madge forgets Fred Walton, and if he should take a notion to come back, as such fellows always do, sooner or later, why, we'd only have our trouble over again.”
“But he told you he was going, never to come back?” the old man said, with a touch of resentment even at the thought.
“Yes; he said positively that his conduct, whatever it was, would keep him from ever showing his face in Stafford again.”
“I have been wondering what he could have done,” General Sylvester said, musingly. “I dropped in on his father the other day for no other reason than that he might let out some hint of the situation, but he never said a word. A big change has certainly come over him. His face was haggard and almost bloodless, and his eyes had a queer, shifting look. I am sure he knows all about the affair, whatever it is.”
“Yes; Fred said the old man knew, and would tell it, but it seems he has not,” Dearing answered.
“Ashamed to let it be known, I guess,” Sylvester said.
Margaret and Galt had parted, the carriage was disappearing down the street, and the girl was slowly strolling back. At a bed of flowers about ten yards from them she paused and stood looking down. Just then a loud, strident voice reached them from the side of the house. It was from Mrs. Chumley, who had brought the General's laundry home, and with her great empty basket was making her way across the grass toward the front gate, accompanied by old Diana, the colored cook.
“Oh, but I know itistrue—every word of it!” The white woman had raised her voice exultantly. “I was right there at the girl's elbow, and heard Mrs. Barry accuse her of it. Dora admitted her ruin, and laid it to Fred Walton. Now, I reckon folks will know why he had to skip out by the light o' the moon without a bit of baggage.”
Instantly the two men were on their feet, Margaret's protection foremost in their minds. There was no doubt that she had heard, for she was standing facing the two women like a figure carved from stone.
“Excuse me, Miss Margaret, I didn't know you was there,” Mrs. Chumley said, as she walked on; “but it is the truth—the Lord knows it is the truth.”
“My God, the brutality of it!” the old man ejaculated. “To think it should come to her like that!”
“The scoundrel!” Dearing cried. “Now I understand fully, and if I had known the truth, I'd have—” But he went no further, for Margaret was slowly coming toward them. The grass she trod was wet with dew, and ordinarily she would have realized it, and lifted her skirt, but she now moved toward them like a somnambulist. At the bottom step her foot caught, and as they both sprang to her assistance she gave a forced, harsh laugh.
“How awkward I—I am!” she stammered. “I could never da—dance the minuet with you now, Uncle Tom. I gave Mr. Galt a pretty bud. He issucha flatterer—saying that I—saying that he—”
She suddenly pressed her hand to her head and reeled helplessly. The strong arm of her brother went round her, and her head sank upon his shoulder. His face was wrung and dark with blended fury and anxiety, his strong lip was quivering.
“No, she is not fainting!” He spoke to his uncle, but for her ears, with the intention of rousing her. “She is all right. Wake up, Madge! I'll slap your jaws, old girl, if you play 'possum with me. You may foolsomefolks, but not your family doctor.”
“No, I am not fainting. Who said I was?” and Margaret raised her head, and drew herself quite erect. “I—I am going in to sing for you.”
She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in his voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear. Uncle Tom wouldn't listen, anyway. He's simply daft about the new railroad, and couldn't hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at those damp shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room and change them at once!”
“Ididget them wet, didn't I?” the girl said, glancing down at her feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her brother stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight; then he went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was eager to take up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but Dearing's ears were closed to what he was saying.
“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it should come to her—to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful ideals!And he could deliberately desert her!He could look another man in the face and confess that he was without the courage to lift a woman up after he had knocked her down.”
Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the darkness before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary light in Mrs. Barry's cottage. It was from the window of Dora's room, and for an hour he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went out; then he rose, and began to undress.
AFEW days after the report of Dora Barry's fall had permeated Stafford from the town's centre to its scattering outskirts, and the beautiful girl's disgrace had been duly recorded as the now certain explanation of Fred Walton's flight, it came to his father's ears in a rather indirect manner. Old Simon was erroneously supposed to have learned the truth, even before it became town-talk; for it was vaguely whispered that the banker had been so moved by Mrs. Barry's personal appeal to him in behalf of her daughter that he had called in the sheriff with the intention of having his son held to honor by sheer force, but for some reason had refrained from taking action.
There are individuals in every community, too, who are bold enough to mention a delicate topic even to those most sensitively concerned, and as old Walton was going to the bank on the morning in question Bailey Thornton, a man of great size, who kept a grocery where the banker bought his supplies, essayed a jest as he passed the old man's morning cigar to him over the showcase. The bystanders thoroughly understood what was meant, as was evinced by the hearty laugh which went round, but the old man didn't.
“Don't be hard on the boy, Mr. Walton,” Thornton added, and he smiled broadly enough to explain any ordinary innuendo. “Remember your own young days. I'll bet Fred came by it honestly. The whole town knows the truth; there is no good in trying to hide it. Tell him it is all right, and make him come back home.”
Old Simon grunted and walked on, flushing under the irritating chorus of laughter which followed him out of the store. “Come by it honestly!” he repeated. “What could the meddling fool mean?The whole town knows the truth!”
He fell to quivering, and almost came to a dead halt in the street. Surely the circumstance of the bank's loss was not leaking out, after all his caution? He decided that he would at once sound Toby Lassiter. Perhaps Fred had confided in others. The bare chance of the shortage being known and used against him by the rival bank alarmed him. In fancy he saw the report growing and spreading through the town and country till an army of half-crazed depositors, egged on by his enemies, was clamoring at the door, and demanding funds which had been put out on collateral security, and could not be drawn in at a moment's notice.
As he was passing along the corridor by the counting-room, where, beyond the green wire grating, the bookkeepers were at work, he caught Lassiter's glance, and with a wild glare in his eyes he nodded peremptorily toward the rear. He had just hung up his old slouch hat and seated himself in his chair when the clerk joined him, a look of wonder in his mild eyes.
“Say, Toby, sit down—no, shut the door!” Simon ordered; and when the clerk had obeyed and taken a chair near the desk, the banker leaned toward him.
“I want to know,” he panted, “if the report is out about Fred's shortage?”
“Why, no, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said, astonished in his turn; “that is, not to my knowledge. I haven't heard a word that would indicate such a thing. In fact, they all seem so busy with—” But Lassiter colored deeply, and suddenly checked himself.
“Well,somethingis in the wind, I know,” Simon went on, his lip quivering. “It may be that Thornton only had reference to the boy's general extravagance, or he may have heard false reports about my own bringing-up; but I am not sure, Toby, but that the thing we are trying to hide is out.” Thereupon old Simon, his anxious eyes fixed on the face of his clerk, recounted in detail all that the grocer had said, and exactly how it had come up.
“Oh, I see!” Lassiter exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “He didn't refer tothe money, Mr. Walton. He meant—” It was loyalty to his absent friend which again checked the conscientious Toby, who was trying to reconcile two adverse duties, and now sat twirling his thumbs in visible embarrassment.
“You see what?” old Simon demanded, fiercely. “Don't you begin shifting here and there, and keeping things from me. I want to know what's took place, and Iwill!You and I have always got on harmoniously, but I don't like your shillyshallying whenever that boy's name is mentioned. The other day, when I sent for the sheriff—well, you happened to be right in stopping methat time, I'll admit, but I want to know what you think Bailey Thornton meant by what he said. Do you know?”
The clerk looked down. His face was quite grave and rigid.
“Mr. Walton,” he faltered, “I don't like to carry tales about matters which don't concern me, and when a nasty report gets in the air I try to keep from having anything to do with it.”
“I'm talking to you aboutbusinessnow!” Old Simon raised his voice to a shrill cry, which, had it not stranded in his throat, would have reached the adjoining room.
“The report touches on my affairs here in this house, and if you don't tell me, if you don't aid me with whatever knowledge you may have run across, you can draw your pay and quit.”
Lassiter saw the utter futility of remaining silent longer, and with a desperate look on his face he answered: “I didn't want to make the poor boy's case any worse, Mr. Walton, and so I hoped it would turn out untrue before it got to you; but they say the girl admits the whole thing. The minister of the church where she plays the organ told me it was true.”
“Girl? What girl?” the banker gasped. “Why do you take all day to get at a thing?”
Then, as Lassiter told the story which was on every tongue, old Simon stared, his mouth falling open and his unlighted cigar seesawing between his jagged stumps of teeth.
“So you are plumb sure it wasn't the money that Thornton was talking about!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief.
“Yes, I am sure of that, Mr. Walton. They have been so full of chatter about the girl that not a word has been said about money, although some think you actually furnished the ready cash for him to get away on.” The two sat silent for several minutes; then, shaking his tousled head and shrugging his gaunt shoulders in his faded black alpaca coat, the banker said, with grim finality of tone: “He's a bad egg, Toby. That fellow is rotten to the core. This last discovery really helps us hide the other matter, but the two of them put together will wipe his name off the slate of this town forever. He'll never dare to show his face here again. He might have tried to get around me and live down the shortage, but I reckon both things coming to a head at once kind o' broke his courage, and he decided to skedaddle. I have no pity for the girl neither—not a smidgin; a woman that would give in to a scamp like him don't deserve any man's pity. Say, Toby, I'm a peculiar in some ways: as long as I felt that I owed something to that boy as his father his doings kind o' lay on my mind, but he has plumb cancelled that obligation. I can get along without worry over him if he is put clean out of my calculations, so after this I don't want no human being to mention his name to me. I'll let 'em know that they can't joke with me about it on the street. I want you to go this minute to Bailey Thornton's store and ask him for my account up to date. Then I'll send him my check, and do my trading with Pete Longley. He will be trotting in to apologize, but keep him away from me. Huh! he can't sneer at me as I walk along the public highways of this town; his account with us isn't worth ten cents a month, and he's shaky, anyway. I wish I'd hit him in the mouth as he stood there gloating over his dirty joke!”
KENNETH GALT came back from Atlanta at the end of the week. John Dilk drove down, and brought him up from the station at dusk. Galt had just alighted at his front steps, and the carriage had gone round the house toward the stables in the rear, when he saw Margaret Dearing among the flowers on the lawn adjoining. Through an open window, in the glow of gas-light, he could see the supper-table waiting for him, and knew that his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, had all in readiness for his evening meal. He knew, too, that she was most particular about having his favorite dishes served while they were hot, and yet he could not resist the temptation to exchange greetings with this fair young girl whose genial friendship and interest in his affairs had always appealed to him. The prospects were very bright for success in his plan of building a railway from Stafford to the sea, and he was still young enough to want to warm himself in the smile of the girl's approval.
“Oh, you are back!” she said, cordially, as he strode across the grass, and lightly vaulted over the row of boxwood which divided the two properties. “Uncle Tom will be delighted.”
“Yes, and I am very tired,” he answered. He paused and shook her hand, experiencing a decided shock as he noticed the unexpected pallor of her face and the dark splotches beneath her eyes. “I was on my feet all morning in Atlanta. I made a speech to-day at a luncheon, and then had to ride up on a slow train.”
“And the railroad is almost a certainty?” she asked, forcing a wan smile. “You are about to have your dream realized?”
“Almost,” he answered, modestly. “I think we may count on most of the subscribers for the stock throughout the South, and the farmers who have agreed to donate the right of way through their lands still seem enthusiastic. The only thing we lack is the support of a certain group of New York capitalists who are to put up the bulk of the funds and are now considering our final proposition. If they should go in the road would be a certainty.”
“My uncle is sure they can be counted on,” the girl went on, sympathetically. “He declares no one but you could have won the confidence of all those prim, old-fashioned ladies and pious elders, who have never been willing to invest their savings before.”
Galt shrugged his shoulders and drew back somewhat into his habitual mantle of reserve. “If wedoput it through,” he said, “they won't regret it. Thorough confidence in an enterprise like this is necessary, of course, and I am glad they trust me.”
“All Stafford was reading the articles in the Atlanta papers yesterday about it,” Margaret said. “Uncle says when it is settled beyond a doubt the town will give a torch-light procession in your honor.”
“There were many inaccuracies in the papers,” he informed her, as he stood wondering over her evident dejection. “Did you read the articles?”
“Did I? Twice—once for myself and again for Uncle. I am sure he had already been over them, but, like the child he is, he wanted to hear the glorious news coming from the lips of some one else. I didn't like the pictures of you, though—not a bit.”
“You didn't? Why?”
“Because they don't do you justice; they were so harsh and fierce. They made your mouth look—what shall I say?—cruel?—yes, cruel and utterly heartless. And we all know you are not so. Wynn says you have the greatest fondness for children of any man he knows, and surely that is a sign of a good heart.”
“There is one thing I amnowshowing an extravagant fondness for,” Galt said, with a cynical laugh, “and that is, hearing you sound praises that aren't deserved. So I am going to tear myself away from them and run in to supper.”
“Poor girl!” he mused, as he walked away. “She looks pale and troubled, and talks as if she were trying to hide something. She has altered, even in the last week. I wonder if she really cared for Fred Walton? Who knows? Women often like unworthy men. God knows, I ought to understand that.”
After supper Galt went up to his sumptuous quarters on the floor above, and, lighting a cigar, he threw himself into an easy-chair and began to smoke.
“Yes, I must see her to-night,” he said, almost aloud. “I can't wait longer. It has been more than a month now, and not a line from her. I am winning the fight of my life, and I want to see her glorious face light up as I tell her about it. She is the sweetest, dearest girl in the world. Her great dreamy eyes haunt me night and day. I love her, God knows I do. But it mustn't get out yet—not yet; not, at least, till my road is built. We have a right to our secret, the sweetest that ever a love-mad pair held between them. She trusts me, and for the present no one need dream of our intimacy. The last time I saw her the little darling had all sorts of fears in her dear little head, but such fancies are only natural. I'll kiss them away, once she is nestling in my arms. The dear little thing is jealous—actually jealous—of my success. She said once that she believed I would desert her if it would serve my ambition to do so. She doesn't know me. She has a wonderful brain, but she reads me wrongly.”
The hours went by. The old grandfather clock in the hall below struck nine and then ten, and he rose and slipped down the stairs into the grounds below. Stafford was a town which went early to bed as a rule, and Galt found a vast stillness all about him out under the mystically shimmering stars. Softly treading the grass and furtively looking about, he went down to a gate near his stables, passed through and closed it without sound. Again looking up the little street cautiously, he went on till he reached the rear gate of Mrs. Barry's cottage. Going in, he walked through the widow's vegetable garden till he stood behind the little coal-and-wood house not ten feet from the open window of Dora's room. Here he paused, holding his breath in suspense. There was a light in the room as from a low-burning gas-jet at the bureau in the corner, and against the white window-curtain he saw the shadow of some one bowed over a table. The outlines of the silhouette were familiar, and they, set his heart to beating rapidly. Picking up some small particles of coal, he shot them at the window from his closed hand with the nail of his thumb. Sometimes they would fall short of the mark, but now and then one would strike the glass and produce a faint clicking sound. The trick was successful, as it had been before. The crouching shadow straightened up, the distinct profile of Dora's face appeared for an instant, and then lost its exquisite outlines in a blur of black which elongated itself upward as the girl rose to her feet. The curtain was drawn, and Dora, fully dressed, peered out. Stepping into open view, Galt signalled with his hand for her to come out. He saw her shake her head excitedly and stand motionless.
He signalled again and again, showing his impatience by the growing rapidity of his gestures and the impassioned movement of his mute lips. He heard her sigh, and then she nodded resignedly and retreated into the room. Her light went out. She was coming; he knew she would join him if her mother was asleep. And yet that sigh! What could it mean from her who had always come so joyfully, so full of love and faith? Ah, he had it! The gentle girl, not having seen him for several weeks, was genuinely jealous of the weighty affairs which had recently absorbed so much of his attention. All the uproar over his prospective success in the papers, the graphic accounts of his high position, had made her fancy, in her artistic sensitiveness, that circumstances were separating them. Ah, yes, that was it! But he would set her right on that score, as he always had done. He would convince her that their sweet secret was their own, and assure her that it need not be long now before they could announce their love to the world. Where could he look for a better or a truer mate? The secret of their present, and perhaps imprudent, intimacy would never be known. But for the time being, of course, he could not think of marryingany one. Much depended, right now, on his remaining exactly as he was—the suave bachelor whom certain prim and accurate maiden ladies had intrusted with the management of their finances, and reserved a right to decide, as members of some churches do in the cases of their unmarried pastors, what manner of woman their paragon was to choose, if any, as his partner in life. They would be unanimous in their verdict against the artist's beautiful daughter, not being able to see her worth and charm as he could see them. And to announce at the present crisis that he had chosen such a wife would certainly be inadvisable. He had become their idol, and his judgment told him he must retain their good-will in all things—at least, till he was independent of their support.
There was a low, creaking sound from the rusty hinges of the rear door of the cottage, followed by profound stillness, and he knew she had paused on the steps to see if her mother would wake. Then he breathed in vast relief, for he saw her coming. She had thrown a light shawl over her head, and as she passed from under the intervening arbor of grape-vines and the moonlight fell upon her partly exposed face, he was struck by its pallor, and by the desperate gleam in the eyes so steadily fixed on him.
“Thank God, I see you at last, darling!” he exclaimed, passionately, as he held out his arms. But to his amazement she drew back, warding off his embrace with a hand that was firm, strong, and cold as ice.
“You must go—you must never come again!” she said, in a voice filled with suffering.
The little wood-house was between them and the cottage, and some tall trees bordering the little street threw a shadow over them.
“But, darling, what's the matter?” he cried. “What has changed you so remarkably? Why, little girl—”
“Do you mean, you haven't—haven'theard?” She clutched the shawl under her marble-like chin and stared at him, her pretty lips parted and quivering piteously.
“Heard what?” he asked. “I have heard nothing—certainly nobadnews. I've been away for a week, and only came home this evening.”
She lowered her head, and stood silent and motionless. He put his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her.
“Tell me,” he urged, groping for an explanation of her agitation, “is your mother ill again? Is she worse?”
“No, it isn't that—God knows even that would be a blessing. Kenneth, I'm ruined!”
“You don't mean?—youcan'tmean?—” He stood aghast before her, quivering now from head to foot.
“Yes, there is no doubt of it. Mother suspected it, and was so miserable that I had to admit the truth. It almost drove her crazy. She was talking to me about it when that meddlesome woman, Mrs. Chumley, came in and overheard it. She lost no time in spreading the report broadcast over town. Everybody has known it for several days.”
“Oh, my God!” Galt pronounced the words in his throat. This thing, of all unexpected things, had burst upon him at the very crisis of his triumph, and it would ruin him—there was no denying that; it would ruin him! In his fancy he saw his hitherto irreproachable character torn to shreds by the men and women who, till now, had stood behind him. The dream of his life might be carried out some day, but not by a man of his stamp. He groaned aloud. For the moment it was impossible for him to show sympathy where sympathy most belonged. He stood as a man stands who loves life, and yet has been condemned to death. Love and the capacity for self-sacrifice in Kenneth Galt were best nourished by hope and happiness, and of these things he was now bereft.
“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best of it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of each other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I won't act the part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling—”
“Say ofyou?” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned your name. Not a soul—not even my mother—dreams that I ever met you in secret. You are the last human being on earth that would be—be accused. Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering deaths rather than drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I know full well what such an exposure would mean to you.”
A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of relief seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by horror now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned—you say—You—didn't tell your mother—that I—?”
“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me when we last met that even a bare report of our engage—our love for each other right now would harm your plans. Do you think that I'd let a horror like this come up against you? Even if you declared it was true, I'd say it was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They declare it was Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly. I've told them it wasn't—told them and told them, but they won't believe me. They may think what they please, but they sha'n't say it wasyou!”
“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's magnanimity to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A storm of incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in the coign of immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the sweet, stricken creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer derision of the escape she was offering him, and for one blind instant he actually believed in his own manhood.
“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his, and, although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and tenderly kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a scamp like Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with yours? Never! I want you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I succeeded with my paltry enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come here to-morrow and we'll be married, as we ought to have been months and months ago. Now, go to bed, and let me see roses on your pretty cheeks in the morning.”
“You are speaking without thought—without knowledge of yourself.” The girl sighed as she drew away from his embrace and forcibly put down his detaining hands. “You see, I know you, Kenneth, better than you know yourself. You love me in a way, I am sure; but when it was all over, and you'd paid the debt you think you owe me, you'd blame me for being the blight to your prospects that I would be. Listen! What is done is done. Because I am disgraced is no reason you should be. You are a man whose ambition is his life. Married to me, and hampered by the name I now bear, you'd not only fail in your present enterprise, but you would be held down to the end of life. Oh, I know you so well—so very well! The praise and adulation of the prominent men and women whose friendship you have are the very life-blood of your being. I've known you had this weakness for a long time, but I had to bear with it as a natural shortcoming.”
“How absurdly you talk!” he cried out, in dull, crushed admiration for such logic in one so young and frail. “But I assure you, Dora, I'll not listen to such silly stuff for a minute. You are going to be my wife. Do you hear me?—my wife! We will let the blamed railroad go. I'll tell General Sylvester in the morning that we are off for our honeymoon. Of course he'll drop me like a hot potato, but he may do it for all I care. You are more to me, darling, than he and all the trunk-lines in the world. Yes, I am coming for you to-morrow—to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock! Remember that—at three, sharp, and I'll—I'll bring a—a preacher and—everything necessary.”
“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Dora said, firmly. “You think at this moment that you have the courage to do what you propose, but, Kenneth, youhaven't—you simply haven't! I know you better than you know yourself. You will not come to-morrownor any other day!I'll never see you again, nor do I want to. I had a kind of love for you that only a woman could understand; you have had quite another sort for me. You think yours is still alive, but it died of paltry fear, stifled by avarice; mine was a girlish dream. I am awake now. Leave me, and don't approach me again. I swear to you that your secret is safe.”
She moved away. He tried to stop her; but, with a warning finger on her lips, she eluded his grasp, and hurried into the house.
BRAVE, very brave, and sweet and noble!” he said to himself, as he walked back toward the gate of his grounds; “but she certainly sha'n't have her way. I'm not low enough for that, thank God! She is the only creature I ever loved or could love, and she is mine by all the laws of heaven and earth. She looked like a young goddess as she stood there with that fire in her suffering face, and calmly consigned herself to disgrace and oblivion that my sordid schemes might prosper. I am not poor. I can make a living somehow, somewhere, if not in this sleepy old town; and with her always by my side, why—” Across the lawn he saw a light in a window of the Dearing house. It was in General Sylvester's room. The old gentleman retired earlier than this as a rule, and Galt told himself that his being up now was due to the almost child-like joy over the encouraging condition of their joint enterprise. He saw the old soldier's shadow as it flitted across the window, and knew that he was walking about, as was his habit under stress of excitement.
“Poor old man!” Galt, now in his own grounds, leaned against the wall of a rustic summer-house. A thought had struck him like a blow from the dark. What would Sylvester say when he was told the truth? Galt saw the look of sheer, helpless incredulity on the high-bred, war-scarred face as the revelation was made, and watched it glow and flame into that of anger, contempt, and bitter disappointment. The mere confession of wrong-doing he might accept as frankly as it was offered, but that the young man should allow such a mishap to drag his own proud name into the mire and wreck the greatest enterprise that had ever blessed a down-trodden community—well, he couldn't have believed such a thing possible.
Heavily laden now with the fires of a purer passion burning low under the shadow of his impending ruin, Kenneth Galt dragged himself slowly along the walk toward his house. He was turning the corner to enter at the front when he saw a carriage and pair at the gate. The moon had gone under a thin cloud and the view was vague, but surely they were his own horses, and the man on the driver's seat certainly looked like John Dilk. Wonderingly, Galt went down to the gate. The negro was fast asleep; his massive head had fallen forward, and the hands which held the reins were inert. The gate rattled as Galt touched the iron latch, and the man woke and looked about him.
“Oh, is dat you, Marse Kenneth?” he asked, sleepily. “Yes,” Galt answered, rather sharply. “What are you doing with the horses out at this time of night?”
“Oh! oh! Le' me see, suh!” The negro's wits were evidently scattered. “I sw'ar I dunno, Marse Kenneth. Bless my soul, you jump on me so sudden dat I can't, ter save my life, tell you—Oh yes, now I know, suh! Why, ain't you seed de Gineral since you got home, Marse Kenneth?”
“Why, no. Does he want me?”
“Yasser, yasser, he sho' do,” the negro answered, now thoroughly himself. “He been searchin' fer you high and low, Marse Kenneth. He went all thoo yo' house. He got some'n 'portant ter tell you. He ordered me ter hurry an' get out de team, an' have it raidy fer you'n him. He just run in his house er minute ago. Dar he is comin' now. He's dat excited an' worried about not findin' you he can't hardly hold in.”
General Sylvester, as he stepped from the veranda, recognized Galt, and hurried toward him, pulling out his watch and looking at it in the doubtful light.
“Great heavens!” he cried, “we haven't a minute to lose. You've only got twenty minutes to catch the 11.10 North-bound train! Run up and get your bag! I saw it there, still unpacked, and you needn't waste a minute. I've glorious, glorious news from New York—a wire from Alberts, Wise & Co. They have got the right men for our deal, and with dead loads of money. They are ripe for the thing, and the brokers wire that if you can be there day after to-morrow morning you can close it. They say if you are not there then that the money may be diverted to other deals, and they advise all possible haste. So hurry. You must not miss the train. Everything depends on it. Run, get the bag! John,youget it! Quick!”
“No, I'll—I'll do it!” Galt gasped. “Wait, I'll be down in—in a minute!”
“Then hurry. We can talk on the way to the station. My boy, we are simply going to land it! The blessings of the widows and orphans, whose property is going to bound up in value, will be on your plucky young head. Hurry up!”
Galt moved away, as weak in action as a machine run by a spring of such delicacy that it could be broken by the breath of an insect or the fall of an atom. It struck him as ridiculous that he should be going for his bag if he did not intend to use it; and to confess even now that he couldn't make the trip would seem queer and cowardly, for he ought to have explained at once. Ascending the stairs, he reached his room. He turned up the gas, and his image in the big pier-glass between the two end windows looked like that of a dead man energized by electricity. There lay the bag by the bed, the black letters “K. G.,” on the end, blandly staring at him. Galt looked at it, and then back to his reflection in the mirror.
“My God!” he cried out, suddenly, “if I go to-night I'll be deserting her forever, and she will have read me rightly! She would keep the secret; no human power could wrench it from her. She would keep it; and I—I, who have led her to her ruin, would be deserting her as only a coward could! I am beneath contempt. And yet what am I to do? I am what I am—what the damnable forces within me and my ancestors have made me. Napoleon loved, and put aside and cast down for his ambition, and have I not the same right for mine? I am not an emperor, but my ambition, such as it is, is as sweet to me as his was to him. As she says—as the gentle wilting flower says—I'd be miserable,even with her, under the wreckage of all these hopes. She knows me; child though she is, she is my superior in many things. She knows that the loss of this thing—now that I've tasted the maddening cup of success, now that the poison of fame and public approval is rioting in my blood—would damn me forever! Accidents of this sort have ruinedweakmen.Strongmen have lived to smile back upon such happenings as the inevitable consequence of the meeting of flame and powder, and have gone to their graves without remorse. I've known such men. I've heard them say that no matter how heavily nature may scourge the conscience of man for theft, for murder, for any other misdeed, it yet deals lightly with this particular offence. And why? Because there can be no charge of deliberation in an act to which passionate youth is led by the very sunshine and music of heaven. And yet I'll lose her. Great God,I'll actually lose her!I can never look into her sweet face again, or kiss the dear lips ever whispering their vows of undying faith until hell opened her eyes to—to my frailty. No, no, I can't desert her; I can't—I simply can't! Iwanther! Iwanther. With all my soul, Iwanther!” There was a step in the hall below, and General Sylvester's excited old voice rose and rang querulously through the still space below:
“In the name of Heaven, what's the matter?” he cried. “Come on! You may miss the train as it is!Come on!”
“One second, General!” Galt cried out. “Wait!” He had not yet decided, he told himself, and yet his cold hand had clutched the handle of his bag. He lifted it up, swung it by his side, and, stepping out into the corridor, peered over the balustrade down the stairs.
“We can't wait, man!” the General shouted from the walk outside. “Hurry!”
“All right, I'm ready!” and Galt strode rapidly down the stairs, sliding his hand on the walnut railing.
“Why, what is the matter with you?” Sylvester peered at him anxiously in the moonlight as he emerged from the doorway. “You look white and worried. You've done too much in Atlanta, with all those receptions and banquets. Let's call a halt on the social end of the business till we have clinched the thing good and tight. Put this New York deal through, and we can dance and sing and cut the pigeon-wing as much as we please. But you will pull it through, my boy, my prince of promoters, with that wonderful say-little air you have. You are the man to make that crowd of Yankees think we are grantingthemfavors instead ofaskingfor them. If you don't miss connection and get there on time, you will win as sure as you are a foot high.”
The General was pushing him into the carriage, and John Dilk, with whip poised in the air, and a tight, wide-awake grip on the reins showed readiness for his best speed record.
“Now, John,” Sylvester cried, “miss that train, and I'll break every bone in your black hide!”
The negro laughed good-naturedly. It was exactly the sort of command he loved to get from the old man who had done him a hundred services.
“You watch me, Marse Gineral,” he said, with a chuckle; “but you better keep yo' mouf closed. Ef you don't, dis hoss in de lead will fill it wid clay. He's de beatenes' animal ter fling mud I ever driv.”
On they sped, cutting the warm, still air into a sharp, steady current against them. The General babbled on enthusiastically, but Galt failed to catch half he was saying. To all outward appearances, he was being hurtled on to triumph; in reality, he was leaving the just-filled grave of his manhood. Before his humiliated sight stood a wonderful face written full of knowledge of himself—a knowledge more penetrating than that of the world-wise men who bowed before his prowess; a face, the beauty and tenderness of which were ever to remain stamped on his memory; a face wrung by a storm of agony, contempt, and—martyrdom! And he was striking it! The pleading eyes, scornful nose, quivering, drooping mouth were receiving the brunt of all his physical force! He knew the cost, and was going to abide by it. A believer in the eternal existence of the human soul might have paused, but Galt had always contended that nothing lay beyond a man's short material life. And that being his view, how could he suffer material glories like these to slip through his fingers for the sake of a mere principle—a transient dream of the senses? Yes, yes; and yet the pain, the crushing agony, the maddened thing within him which all but tempted him to clutch the chattering old tempter at his side by the neck and hurl him to the earth!
And yet he nodded and said he was glad that the General had been so thoughtful as to telephone the station-agent to secure the drawing-room on the Pullman.
“We must not do things by halves,” the old soldier crowed. “The man who is to have his own private car as the president of the great S. R. and M. must not be seen, even by a negro porter, crawling into an upper berth. Your plan of living high in order to be on a high level is fine business policy. You haven't spared expense in Atlanta; you mustn't in New York, either. Dine 'em, wine 'em; throw wads of cash at the servants—do anything! They know who the Gaits of Charleston and Savannah were before the War: let 'em see that the old blood is still alive.”
They had been at the station only a minute when the train arrived. John Dilk brushed by the porter at the step of the long sleeper, and proudly bore his master's bag into the drawing-room. There was a hurried shaking of hands between Galt and the General, and the train smoothly rolled away.
Alone in the luxurious compartment, Galt sank down. The obsequious porter stood awaiting orders, but the passenger scarcely saw him or heard what he was saying. Galt was now fairly stupefied by the magnitude of his crime. It flashed upon him as actually an incredible thing—his leaving Dora with so much to bear!
He had taught her that their love, like that of their favorite English novelist, had lifted them above mere conventional rules and ceremonies, and rendered them a law unto themselves. But the awakening had come. She had seen him in the garish light with which Truth had pierced his outer crust and revealed his quaking, cringing soul. She would despise him, the very murmuring of the ponderous wheels beneath him told him that, and from now on he must avoid her. To offer her financial aid in her coming trial would only be adding insult to injury, knowing her as he knew her; so even that must be omitted—even that, while he was accepting the price of her misery.