As he walked rapidly away from the house in the direction of Main Street, he experienced a sudden sense of exaltation. Viola was not his sister! As suddenly came the reaction, and with it stark realization. Viola could never be anything to him except a sister.
As he turned into Main Street he espied the figure of a woman coming toward him from the direction of the public Square. She was perhaps a hundred yards farther down the street and was picking her way gingerly, mincingly, along the narrow path at the roadside. His mind was so fully occupied with thoughts of a most disturbing character that he paid no attention to her, except to note that she was dressed in black and that in holding her voluminous skirt well off the ground to avoid the mud-puddles, she revealed the bottom of a white, beruffled petticoat.
His meditations were interrupted and his interest suddenly aroused when he observed that she had stopped stock-still in the path. After a moment, she turned and walked rapidly, with scant regard for the puddles, in the direction from which she had come. Fifteen or twenty paces down the road, she came to what was undoubtedly a path or "short cut" through the wood. Into this she turned hastily and was lost to view among the trees and hazel-brush.
He had recognized her,—or rather he had divined who she was. He quickened his pace, bent upon overtaking her. Then, with the thrill of the hunter, he abruptly whirled and retraced his steps. With the backwoodsman's cunning he hastened over the ground he had already traversed, chuckling in anticipation of her surprise when she found him waiting for her at the other end of the "short cut."
He had noticed a path opening into the woods at a point almost opposite his own house, and naturally assumed that it was the one she was now pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His long legs carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted himself. He could hear her coming through the brush, although her figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the swish of branches as she thrust them aside.
She emerged, breathless, into a little open spot, not twenty feet away, and stopped to listen, looking back through the trees and underbrush to see if she was being followed. Her skirts were drawn up almost to the knees and pinched closely about her grey-stockinged legs. He gallantly turned away and pretended to be studying the house across the road. Presently he felt his ears burning; he turned to meet the onslaught of her scornful, convicting eyes.
She had not moved. Her hands, having released the petticoat, were clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes, peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black bonnet, smouldered with wrath,—and, if he could have read them better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay.
"Ah, there you are," he cried, lifting his hat. "I was wondering whether you would come out at this—"
"Can't you see I am trying to avoid you?" she demanded with extreme frigidity.
"I rather fancied you were," said he easily. "So I hurried back here to head you off. I trust you will not turn around and run the other way, now that I have almost trapped you. Because if you do, I shall catch up with you in ten jumps."
"I wish you would go away," she cried. "I don't want to see you,—or talk to you."
"Then why did you leave word for me to come to your house to see you?" he challenged. "I suspect you know by this time," she replied, significantly.
He hesitated, regarding her with some uneasiness. "What do you mean?" he fenced.
"Well, you surely know that it was my mother who wanted to see you, and not I," she said, almost insolently. "Are you going to keep me standing here in the mud and slush all day?"
"No, indeed," he said. "Please come out."
"Not until you go away."
"Why don't you want to talk to me? What have I done?"
"You know very well what you have done," she cried, hotly. "In the first place, I don't like you. You have made it very unpleasant for my mother,—who certainly has never done you any harm. In the second place, I resent your interference in my affairs. Wait! Do not interrupt me, please. Maybe you have not exactly interfered as yet, but you are determined to do so,—for the honour of the family, I suppose." She spoke scathingly. "I defy you,—and mother, too. I am not a child to be—"
"I must interrupt you," he exclaimed. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about."
"Don't lie," she cried, stamping her foot. "Give me credit for a little intelligence. Don't you suppose I know what mother wanted to see you about? There! I can see the guilty look in your eyes. You two have been putting your heads together, in spite of all the ill-will you bear each other, and there is no use in denying it. I am a naughty little girl and my big brother has been called in to put a stop to my foolishness. If you—What are you laughing at, Mr. Gwynne?" she broke off to demand furiously.
"I am laughing at you," he replied, succinctly. "You ARE like a little girl in a tantrum,—all over nothing at all. Little girls in tantrums are always amusing, but not always naughty. Permit me to assure you that your mother and I have not discussed your interesting affair with Mr. Lapelle. We talked of business mat—"
"Then," she cried, "how do you happen to know anything about Mr. Lapelle and me? Aha! You're not as clever as you think you are. That slipped out, didn't it? Now I know you were discussing my affairs and nothing else. Well, what is the verdict? What are you going to do to me? Lock me in my room, or tie me hand and foot, or—Please stay where you are. It is not necessary to come any nearer, Mr. Gwynne."
He continued his advance through the thicket, undeterred by the ominous light in her eyes. She stood her ground.
"I think we had better talk the matter over quietly,—Viola," he said, affecting sternness. "We can't stand here shouting at each other. It is possible we may never have another chance to converse freely. As a matter of fact, I do not intend to thrust myself upon you or your mother. That is understood, I hope. We have nothing in common and I daresay we can go our own ways without seriously inconveniencing one another. I want you to know, however, that I went to that house over there this afternoon because I thought you wanted to consult with me about something. I was prepared to help you, or to advise you, or to do anything you wanted me to do. You were not there. I felt at first that you had played me a rather shabby trick. Your mother,—my step-mother,—got me there under false pretences, solely for the purpose of straightening out a certain matter in connection with the—well, the future. She doubtless realized that I would not have come on her invitation, so she used you as a decoy. In any event, I am now glad that I saw her and talked matters over. It does not mean that we shall ever be friendly, but we at least understand each other. For your information I will state that your mother did not refer to the affair at Striker's, nor did I. I know all about it, however. I know that you went out there to meet Lapelle. You planned to run away with him and get married. I may add that it is a matter in which I have not the slightest interest. If you want to marry him, all well and good. Do so. I shall not offer any objection as a brother or as a counsellor. If you were to ask for my honest opinion, however, I should—"
"I am not asking for it," she cried, cuttingly.
"—I should advise you to get married in a more or less regular sort of way in your mother's home."
"Thank you for the advice," she said, curtly. "I shall get married when and where I please,—and to whom I please, Mr. Gwynne."
"In view of the fact that I am your brother, Viola, I would suggest that you call me Kenneth."
"I have no desire to claim you as a brother, or to recognize you as one," said she.
He smiled. "With all my heart I deplore the evil fate that makes you a sister of mine."
She was startled. "That—that doesn't sound very—pretty," she said, a trifle dashed.
"The God's truth, nevertheless. At any rate, so long as you have to be my sister, I rejoice in the fact that you are an extremely pretty one. It is a great relief. You might have turned out to be a scarecrow. I don't mind confessing that last night I said to myself, 'There is the most beautiful girl in all the world,' and I can't begin to tell you how shocked I was this morning when Striker informed me that you were my half-sister. He knocked a romantic dream into a cocked hat,—and—But even so, sister or no sister, Viola, you still remain beyond compare the loveliest girl I have ever seen."
There was something in his eyes that caused her own to waver,—something that by no account could be described as brotherly. She looked away, suddenly timid and confused. It was something she had seen in Barry Lapelle's eyes, and in the eyes of other ardent men. She was flustered and a little distressed.
"I—I—if you mean that," she said, nervously, "I suppose I—ought to feel flattered."
"Of course, I mean it,—but you need not feel flattered. Truth is no form of flattery."
She had recovered herself. "Who told you about Barry Lapelle and me?" she demanded.
"You mean about last night's adventure?" he countered, a trifle maliciously.
She coloured. "I suppose some one has—Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I sha'n't ask you to betray the sneak who—"
"Tut, tut, my dear Viola! You must not—"
"Don't call me your dear Viola!"
"Well, then, my dear sister,—surely you cannot expect me to address you as Miss Gwyn?" in mild surprise.
"Just plain Viola, if you must have a name for me."
"That's better," said he, approvingly.
"Whoever told you was a sneak," she said, wrathfully. She turned her face away, but not quickly enough to prevent his seeing her chin quiver slightly.
"At any rate, it was not your mother," he said. "I have Striker's permission to expose what you call his treachery. He thought it was his duty to tell me under the circumstances. And while I am about it, I may as well say that I think you conspired to take a pretty mean advantage of those good and faithful friends. You deceived them in a most outrageous manner. It wasn't very thoughtful or generous of you, Viola. You might have got them into very serious trouble with your mother,—who, I understand, holds the mortgage on their little farm and could make it extremely unpleasant for them if she felt so inclined."
She was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, her red lips slightly parted. She could not believe her ears. Why, he was actually scolding her! She was being reprimanded! He was calmly, deliberately reproving her, as if she were a mischievous child! Amazement deprived her momentarily of the power of speech.
"To be sure," he went on reflectively, "I can appreciate the extremities to which you were driven. The course of true love was not running very smoothly. No doubt your mother was behaving abominably. Mothers frequently do behave that way. This young man of yours may be,—and I devoutly hope he is,—a very worthy fellow, one to whom your mother ought to be proud and happy to see you married. In view of her stand in the matter, I will go so far as to say that you were probably doing the right thing in running away from home to be married. I think I mentioned to you last night that I am of a very romantic nature. Lord bless you, I have lain awake many a night envying the dauntless gentlemen of feudal days who bore their sweethearts away in gallant fashion pursued by ferocious fathers and a score or more of blood-thirsty henchmen. Ah, that was the way for me! With my lady fair seated in front of me upon the speeding palfrey, my body between her and the bullets and lances and bludgeons of countless pursuers! Zounds! Odds blood! Gadzooks! and so forth! Not any of this stealing away in the night for me! Ah, me! How different we are in these prosaic days! But, even so, if I were you, the next time I undertake to run away with the valiant Mr. Lapelle I should see to it that he does his part in the good old-fashioned way. And I should not drag such loyal, honest folk as Striker and his wife into the business and then ride merrily off, leaving them to pay the Piper."
His heart smote him as he saw her eyes fill with tears. He did not mistake them for tears of shame or contrition,—far from it, he knew they were born of speechless anger. He had hurt her sorely, even deliberately, and he was overcome by a sudden charge of compassion—and regret. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to say something,—anything,—to take away the sting of chastisement.
He was not surprised when she swept by him, her head high, her cheeks white with anger, her stormy eyes denying him even so much as a look of scorn. He stood aside, allowing her to pass, and remained motionless, gazing after her until she turned in at her own gate and was lost to view. He shook his head dubiously and sighed.
"Little Minda," he mused, under his breath. "You were my playmate once upon a time,—and now! Now what are you? A rascal's sweetheart, if all they say is true. Gad, how beautiful you are!" He was walking slowly through the path, his head bent, his eyes clouded with trouble. "And how you are hating me at this moment. What a devil's mess it all is!"
His eye fell upon something white lying at the edge of the path a few feet ahead. It was a neatly folded sheet of note paper. He stood looking down at it for a moment. She must have dropped it as she came through. It was clean and unsoiled. A message, perhaps, from Barry Lapelle, smuggled to her through the connivance of a friendly go-between,—the girl she had gone to visit, what was her name? He stooped to pick it up, but before his fingers touched it he straightened up and deliberately moved it with the toe of his boot to a less exposed place among the bushes, where he would have failed to see it in passing. Then he strode resolutely away without so much as a glance over his shoulder, and, coming to the open road, stepped briskly off in the direction of the public Square. His conscience would have rejoiced had he betrayed it by secreting himself among the bushes for a matter of five minutes,—quaint paradox, indeed!—for he would have seen her steal warily, anxiously into the thicket in search of the lost missive,—and he would have been further exalted by the little cry of relief that fell from her lips as she snatched it up and sped incontinently homeward, as if pursued by all the eyes in Christendom.
As a matter of fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words, "You know the result." Then she went on to say that, all things considered, she was now quite sure she could never, never consent to make another attempt.
"I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to marry you, I am sure she will give in and all will be well." At the end she said: "For the present, Barry dear, I think you had better not come to the house. She feels very bitter toward you after last night. We can see each other at Effie's and other places. After all, she has had a great sorrow and she is so very unhappy that I ought not to hurt her in any way if I can help it. I love you, but I also love her. Please be kind and reasonable, dear, and do not think I am losing heart. I am just as determined as ever. Nothing can change me. You believe that, don't you, Barry dear? I know how impulsive you are and how set in your ways. Sometimes you really frighten me but I know it is because you love me so much. You must not do anything rash. It would spoil everything. I do wish you would stay away from that awful place down by the river. Mother would feel differently toward you, I know, if you were not there so much. She knows the men play cards there for money and drink and swear. I believe you will keep your promise never to touch a drop of whiskey after we are married, but when I told her that she only laughed at me. By this time you must know that my brother has come to Lafayette. He arrived this morning. He knows nothing about what happened last night but I am afraid mother will tell him when she sees him to-day. It would not surprise me if they bury the hatchet and join hands and try to make a good little girl out of me. I think he is quite a prim young man. He spent the night at Striker's and I saw him there. I must say he is good-looking. He is so good-looking that nobody would ever suspect that he is related to me." She signed herself, "Your loving and devoted and loyal Viola."
She had been unable to get the letter to him that day, and for a very good reason. Her messenger, Effie Wardlow's young brother, reached the tavern just in time to see Barry emerge, quite tipsy and in a vile temper, arguing loudly with Jack Trentman and Syd Budd, the town's most notorious gamblers.
The three men went off toward the ferry. The lad very sensibly decided this was no time to deliver a love letter to Mr. Lapelle, so forthwith returned it to the sender, who, after listening bleakly to a somewhat harrowing description of her lover's unsteady legs and the direction in which they carried him, departed for home fully convinced that something dreadful was going to happen to Barry and that she would be to blame for it.
Halfway home she decided that her mother was equally if not more to blame than she, and, upon catching sight of her lordly, self-satisfied brother, acquitted herself of ALL responsibility and charged everything to her meddling relatives. Her encounter with the exasperating Kenneth, however, served to throw a new and most unwelcome light upon the situation. It WAS a shabby trick to play upon the Strikers. She had not thought of it before. And how she hated him for making her think of it!
The first thing she did upon returning to the house with the recovered letter was to proceed to the kitchen, where, after reading it over again, she consigned it to the flames. She was very glad it had not been delivered to Barry. The part of it referring to the "place down by the river" would have to be treated with a great deal more firmness and decision. That was something she would have to speak very plainly about.
By this time she had reached the conclusion that Barry was to blame for THAT, and that nothing more terrible could happen to him than a severe headache,—an ailment to which he was accustomed and which he treated very lightly in excusing himself when she took him to task for his jolly lapses. "All red-blooded fellows take a little too much once in a while," he had said, more than once.
Rachel Gwyn was seated at the parlor window when Viola entered the house. She was there ten or fifteen minutes later when her daughter came downstairs.
"May I have a word with you, mother?" said the girl, from the doorway, after waiting a moment for her mother to take some notice of her presence.
She spoke in a very stiff and formal manner, for there had been no attempt on the part of either to make peace since the trying experiences of early morning. Viola had sulked all day, while her mother preserved a stony silence that remained unbroken up to the time she expressed a desire to be alone with Kenneth when he called.
Apparently Mrs. Gwyn did not hear Viola's question. The girl advanced a few steps into the room and stopped again to regard the motionless, unresponsive figure at the window. Mrs. Gwyn's elbow was on the sill, her chin resting in the hand. Apparently she was deaf to all sound inside the room.
A wave of pity swept over Viola. All in an instant her rancour took flight and in its place came a longing to steal over and throw her arms about those bent shoulders and whisper words of remorse. Desolation hung over that silent, thinking figure. Viola's heart swelled with renewed anger toward Kenneth Gwynne.
What had he said or done to wound this stony, indomitable mother of hers?
The room was cold. The fire had died down; only the huge backlog showed splotches of red against the charred black; in front of it were the faintly smoking ashes of a once sprightly blaze. She shivered, and then, moved by a sudden impulse, strode softly over and took down from its peg beside the fireplace the huge turkey wing used in blowing the embers to life. She was vigorously fanning the backlog when a sound from behind indicated that her mother had risen from the chair. She smiled as she glanced over her shoulder.
Her mother was standing with one of her hands pressed tightly to her eyes. Her lips were moving.
"He is Robert—Robert himself," she was murmuring. "As like as two peas. I was afraid he might be—would be—" The words trailed off into a mumble, for she had lowered her hand and was staring in dull surprise at Viola.
"What is it, mother?" cried the girl, alarmed by the other's expression. "What were you saying?"
After a moment her mother said, quite calmly: "Oh, it's you, is it? When did you get home?"
"A few minutes ago. How cold it is! The fire is almost out. Shall I get some kindling and start it up?"
"Yes. I don't know how I came to let it go down."
When Viola returned from the kitchen with the fagots and a bunch of shavings, the older woman was standing in front of the fireplace staring moodily down at the ashes. She moved to one side while her daughter laid the kindling and placed three or four sticks of firewood upon the heap. Not a word was spoken until after Viola had fanned a tiny flame out of the embers and lighted the shavings with a spill.
"I met my brother out there in the grove," said she, rising and brushing the wood dust from her hands.
"Yes?"
"I thought maybe you and he had been discussing Barry Lapelle and me and what happened last night, so I started to give him a piece of my mind," said Viola, crimsoning.
A faint smile played about the corners of Mrs. Gwyn's lips. "I can well imagine his astonishment," she said, drily.
"He knew all about it, even if he did not get it from you, mother," said the girl, darkly. "Phin Striker told him everything."
"Everybody in town will know about it before the week is out," said the mother, a touch of bitterness in her voice. "I would have given all I possess if it could have been kept from Kenneth Gwynne. Salt in an open sore, that's what it is, Viola. It smarts, oh, how it smarts."
Viola, ignorant of the true cause of her mother's pain, snapped her fingers disdainfully.
"That's how much I care for his opinion, one way or the other. I wouldn't let him worry me if I were you, mother. Let him think what he pleases. It's nothing to us. I guess we can get along very well without his good opinion or his good will or anything else. And I will not allow him to interfere in my affairs. I told him so in plain words out there awhile ago. He comes here and the very first thing he does is to—"
"He will think what he pleases, my child," broke in her mother; "so do not flatter yourself that he will be affected by your opinion of him. We will not discuss him, if you please. We have come to an understanding on certain matters, and that is all that is necessary to tell you about our interview. He will go his own way and we will go ours. There need be no conflict between us."
Viola frowned dubiously. "It is all very well for you to take that attitude, mother. But I am not in the same position. He is my half-brother. It is going to be very awkward. He is nothing to you,—and people will understand if you ignore him,—but it—it isn't quite the same with me. Can't you see?"
"Certainly," admitted Mrs. Gwyn without hesitation. "You and he have a perfect right to be friendly. It would not be right for me to stand between you if you decide to—"
"But I do not want to be friendly with him," cried the girl, adding, with a toss of her head,—"and I guess he realizes it by this time. But people know that we had the same father. They will think it strange if—if we have nothing to do with each other. Oh, it's terribly upsetting, isn't it?"
"What did he say to you out there?"
"He was abominable! Officious, sarcastic, insolent,—"
"In plain words, he gave you a good talking to," interrupted Mrs. Gwyn, rather grimly.
"He said some things I can never forgive."
"About you and Barry?"
"Well,—not so much about me and Barry as about the way I—Oh, you needn't smile, mother. He isn't going to make any fuss about Barry. He told me in plain words that he did not care whether I married him or not,—or ran away with him, for that matter. You will not get much support from him, let me tell you. And now I have something I want to say to you. We may as well have it out now as any other time. I am going to marry Barry Lapelle." There was a ring of defiance in her voice.
Rachel Gwyn looked at her steadily for a moment before responding to this out-and-out challenge.
"I think it would be only fair of you," she began, levelly, "to tell Mr. Lapelle just what he may expect in case he marries you. Tell him for me that you will never receive a penny or an inch of land when I die. I shall cut you off completely. Tell him that. It may make some difference in his calculations."
Viola flared. "You have no right to insinuate that he wants to marry me for your money or your lands. He wants me for myself,—he wants me because he loves me."
"I grant you that," said Mrs. Gwyn, nodding her head slowly, "He would be a fool not to want you—now. You are young and you are very pretty. But after he has been married a few years and you have become an old song to him, he will feel differently about money and lands. I know Mr. Lapelle and his stripe. He wants you now for yourself, but when you are thirty years old he will want you for something entirely different. At any rate, you should make it plain to him that he will get nothing but you,—absolutely nothing but you. Men of his kind do not love long. They love violently—but not long. Idle, improvident men, such as he is, are able to crowd a whole lot of love into a very short space of time. That is because they have nothing much else to do. They run through with love as they run through with money,—quickly. The man who wastes money will also waste love. And when he has wasted all his love, Barry Lapelle will still want money to waste. Be good enough to make him understand that he will never have a dollar of my money to waste,—never, my child, even though his wife were starving to death."
Viola stared at her mother incredulously, her face paling. "You mean—you mean you would let me starve,—your own daughter? I—why, mother, I can't believe you would be so—"
"I mean it," said Rachel Gwyn, compressing her lips.
"Then," cried Viola, hotly, "you are the most unnatural, cruel mother that ever—"
"Stop! You will not find me a cruel and inhuman mother when you come creeping back to my door after Barry Lapelle has cast you off. I am only asking you to tell him what he may expect from me. And I am trying hard to convince you of what you may expect from him. There's the end of it. I have nothing more to say."
"But I have something more to say," cried the girl. "I shall tell him all you have said, and I shall marry him in spite of everything. I am not afraid of starving. I don't want a penny of father's money. He did not choose to give it to me; he gave half of all he possessed to his son by another woman, he ignored me, he cut me off as if I were a—"
"Be careful, my child," warned Rachel Gwyn, her eyes narrowing. "I cannot permit you to question his acts or his motives. He did what he thought was best,—and we—I mean you and I—must abide by his decision."
"I am not questioning your husband's act," said Viola, stubbornly. "I am questioning my FATHER'S act."
Mrs. Gwyn started. For a second or two her eyes wavered and then fell. One corner of her mouth worked curiously. Then, without a word, she turned away from the girl and left the room.
Viola, greatly offended, heard her ascend the stairs and close a door; then her slow, heavy tread on the boards above. Suddenly the girl's anger melted. The tears rushed to her eyes.
"Oh, what a beast I was to hurt her like that," she murmured, forgetting the harsh, unfeeling words that had aroused her ire, thinking only of the wonder and pain that had lurked in her mother's eyes,—the wonder and pain of a whipped dog. "The only person in all the world who has ever really loved me,—poor, poor old mother." She stared through her tears at the flames, a little pucker of uncertainty clouding her brow. "I am sure Barry never, never can love me as she does, or be as kind and good to me," she mused. "I wonder—I wonder if what she says is true about men. I wish he had not gone to drinking to-day. But I suppose the poor boy really couldn't help it. He hates so to be disappointed."
Later on, at supper, she abruptly asked:
"Mother, how old is Kenneth?"
They had spoken not more than a dozen words to each other since sitting down to table, which was set, as usual, in the kitchen. Both were thoughtful;—one of them was contrite.
Rachel Gwyn, started out of a profound reverie, gave her daughter a sharp, inquiring look before answering.
"I do not know. Twenty-five or six, I suppose."
"Did you know his mother?"
"Yes," after a perceptible pause.
"How long after she died were you and father married?"
"Your father had been a widower nearly two years when we were married," said Rachel, steadily.
"Why doesn't Kenneth spell his name as we do?"
"Gwyn is the way it was spelled a great many years ago, and it is the correct way, according to your father. It was his father, I believe, who added the last two letters,—I do not know why, unless it was supposed to be more elegant."
"It seems strange that he should spell it one way and his own son another," ventured the girl, unsatisfied.
"Kenneth was brought up to spell it in the new-fangled way, I guess," was Rachel Gwyn's reply. "You need not ask me questions about the family, Viola. Your father never spoke of them. I am afraid he was not on good terms with them. He was a strange man. He kept things to himself. I do not recollect ever hearing him mention his first wife or his son or any other member of his family in,—well, in twenty years or more."
"I should think you would have been a little bit curious. I know I should."
"I knew all that was necessary for me to know," said Rachel, somewhat brusquely.
"Can't you tell me something more about father's people?" persisted the girl.
"I only know that they lived in Baltimore. They never came west. Your father was about twenty years old when he left home and came to Kentucky. That is all I know, so do not ask any more questions."
"He never acted like a backwoodsman," said Viola. "He did not talk like one or—"
"He was an educated man. He came of a good family."
"And you are different from the women we used to see down the river. Goodness, I was proud of you and father. There isn't a woman in this town who—"
"I was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and lived there till I was nearly twenty," interrupted Mrs. Gwyn, calmly. "I taught school for two years after my father died. My mother did not long survive him. After her death I came west with my brother and his wife and a dozen other men and women. We lived in a settlement on the Ohio River for several years. My brother was killed by the Indians. His widow took their two small children and went back to Salem to live. I have never heard from her. We did not like each other. I was glad to have her go."
"Where did you first meet father?"
She regretted the question the instant the words were out of her mouth. The look of pain,—almost of pleading,—in her mother's eyes caused her to reproach herself.
"Forgive me, mother," she cried. "I did not stop to think. I know how it hurts you to talk about him, and I should have—"
"Be good enough to remember in the future," said Rachel Gwyn, sternly, her eyes now cold and forbidding. She arose and stalked to the kitchen window, where she stood for a long time looking out into the gathering darkness.
"Clear the table, Hattie," said Viola, presently. "We are through."
Then she walked over to her mother and timidly laid an arm across her shoulder.
"I am sorry, mother," she said.
To this Mrs. Gwyn did not reply. She merely observed: "We have had very little sleep in the last six and thirty hours. Come to bed, child."
As was her custom, Rachel Gwyn herself saw to the locking and bolting of the doors and window shutters at the front of the house. To-night Viola, instead of Hattie, followed the tall black figure from door to window, carrying the lighted candle. They stood together, side by side, in the open front door for a few moments, peering at the fence of trees across the road.
Off in the distance some one was whistling a doleful tune. The spring wind blowing in their faces was fresh and moist, a soft wind laden with the smell of earth. A clumsy hound came slouching around the corner of the little porch and, wagging his tail, stopped below them; the light shone down into his big, glistening eyes. Viola spoke to him softly. He wagged his tail more briskly.
Rachel had turned her head and was looking toward the house that was to be Kenneth's home. Its outlines could be made out among the trees to the right, squat and lonely in a setting less black than itself.
"Before long there will be lights in the windows again," she was saying, more to herself than to Viola. "A haunted house. Haunted by a living, mortal ghost. Eh?" she cried out, sharply, turning to Viola.
"I did not speak, mother."
A look of awe came to Rachel's eyes.
"I was sure I heard—" she began, and then, after a short pause, laughed throatily. "I guess it was the wind. Come in. I want to lock the door."
Viola was a long time in going to sleep. It seemed to her as she lay there, staring wide awake, that everything in the world was unsettled and topsy-turvy. Nothing could ever be right again. What with the fiasco of the night just gone, the appearance of the mysterious brother, the counterbalancing of resolve and remorse within her troubled self, the report of Barry's lapse from rectitude, her mother's astounding sophistry, her tired brain was in such a whirl as never was.
There was a new pain in her breast that was not of thwarted desires nor of rancour toward this smug, insolent brother who had come upon the scene. It hurt her to think that up to this night she had known so little, ay, almost nothing, about her own mother's life. For the first time, she heard of Salem, of her mother's people and her occupation, of the journey westward, of the uncle who was killed by the Indians and the wife who turned back; of unknown cousins to whom she was also unknown. There was pain in the discovery that her mother was almost a stranger to her.
Kenneth remained at the tavern for a month. He did not go near the house of his step-mother. He saw her once walking along the main street, and followed her with his eyes until she disappeared into a store. A friendly citizen took occasion to inform him that it was the "fust time" he had seen her on the street in a coon's age.
"She ain't like most women," he vouchsafed. "Never comes down town unless she's got some reason to. Most of 'em never stay to home unless they've got a derned good reason to, setch as sickness, or the washin' and ironin', or it's rainin' pitchforks. She's a mighty queer woman, Rachel Gwyn is. How air you an' her makin' out these days, Kenneth?"
"Oh, fair to middlin'," replied the young man, dropping into the vernacular.
"I didn't know but what ye'd patched things up sorter," said the citizen, invitingly.
"There is nothing to patch up," said Kenneth.
"Well, I guess it ain't any of my business, anyhow," remarked the other, cheerfully.
The business of taking over the property, signing the necessary papers, renewing an agreement with the man who farmed his land on the Wea, taking account of all live-stock and other chattels, occupied his time for the better part of a fortnight. He spent two days and a night at the little farmhouse, listening with ever increasing satisfaction to the enthusiastic prophecies of the farmer, a stout individual named Jones whose faith in the new land was surpassed only by his ability to till it. Even out here on his own farm Kenneth was unable to escape the unwelcome influence of Rachel Carter. Mr. Jones magnanimously admitted that she was responsible for all of the latest conveniences about the place and characterized her as a "woman with a head on her shoulders, you bet."
He confessed: "Why, dodgast it, she stopped by here a couple o' weeks ago an' jest naturally raised hell with me because my wife's goin' to have another baby. She sez, sorter sharp-like, 'The only way to make a farm pay is to stock it with somethin' besides children.' That made me a leetle mad, so I up an' sez back to her: 'I wouldn't swap my seven children fer all the hogs an' cattle in the state o' Indianny.' So she sez, kind o' grinnin', 'Well, I'll bet your wife would jump at the chance to trade your NEXT seven children, sight onseen, fer a new pair o' shoes er that bonnet she's been wantin' ever sence she got married.' That sorter mixed me up. I couldn't make out jest what she was drivin' at. Must ha' been nine o'clock that night when it come to me all of a sudden. So I woke Sue up an' told her what Rachel Gwyn said to me, an', by gosh, Sue saw through it quicker'n a flash. 'You bet I would,' sez she. 'I'd swap the next HUNDRED.' Then she kinder groaned an' said, 'I guess maybe I'd better make it the next ninety-nine.' Well, sir, that sot me to thinkin', an' the more I thought, the more I realized what a lot o' common sense that mother-in-law o' your'n has got. She—"
"You mean my step-mother, Jones."
"They say it amounts to the same thing in most families," said the ready Mr. Jones, and continued to expatiate upon the remarkable qualities of Rachel Gwyn.
Kenneth found it difficult to think of the woman as Rachel Gwyn. To him, she was unalterably Rachel Carter. Time and again he caught himself up barely in time to avoid using the unknown name in the presence of others. The possibility that he might some day inadvertently blurt it out in conversation with Viola caused him a great deal of uneasiness and concern. He realized that he would have to be on his guard all of the time.
There seemed to be no immediate prospect of such a calamity, however. Since the memorable encounter in the thicket he had not had an opportunity to speak to the girl. For reasons of her own she purposely avoided him, there could be no doubt about that. On more than one occasion she deliberately had crossed a street to escape meeting him face to face, and there was the one especially irritating instance when, finding herself hard put, she had been obliged to turn squarely in her tracks and hurry back in the direction from which she came. This would have been laughable to Kenneth but for the distressing fact that it was even more laughable to others. Several men and women, witnessing the manoeuvre, had sniggered gleefully,—one of the men going so far as to slap his leg and roar: "Well, by gosh, did you ever see anything like that?" His ejaculation, like that of a town-crier, being audible for a hundred feet or more, had one gratifying result. It caused Viola to turn and transfix the offender with a stare so haughty that he abruptly diverted his attention to the upper north-east corner of the court-house, where, fortunately for him, a pair of pigeons had just alighted and were engaged in the interesting pastime of bowing to each other.
A week or so after his return from the farm Kenneth saw her riding off on horseback with two other young women and a youth named Hayes. She passed within ten feet of him but did not deign to notice him, although her companions bowed somewhat eagerly. This was an occasion when he felt justified in swearing softly under his breath—and also to make a resolve—to write her a very polite and formal letter in which he would ask her pardon for presuming to suggest, as a brother, that she was making a perfect fool of herself, and that people were laughing "fit to kill" over her actions. It goes without saying that he thought better of it and never wrote the letter.
She was a graceful and accomplished horsewoman. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she cantered down the street, sitting the spirited sorrel mare with all the ease and confidence of a practised rider. Her habit was of very dark blue, with huge puffed sleeves and a high lace collar. She wore a top-hat of black, a long blue veil trailing down her back. He heartily agreed with the laconic bystander who remarked that she was "purtier than most pictures."
Later on, urged by a spirit of restlessness, he ordered Zachariah to saddle his horse and bring him around to the front of the tavern, where he mounted and set out for a ride up the Wild Cat road. Two or three miles above town he met Hayes and the two young women returning. The look of consternation that passed among them did not escape him. He smiled a trifle maliciously as he rode on, for now he knew what had become of the missing member of the party.
Half a mile farther on he came upon Viola and Barry Lapelle, riding slowly side by side through the narrow lane. He drew off to one side to allow them to pass, doffing his beaver ceremoniously.
Lapelle's friendly greeting did not surprise him, for the two had seen a great deal of each other, and at no time had there been anything in the lover's manner to indicate that Viola had confided to him the story of the meeting in the thicket. But he was profoundly astonished when the girl favoured him with a warm, gay smile and cried out a cheery "How do you do, Kenneth!"
More than that, she drew rein and added to his amazement by shaking her finger reproachfully at him, saying:
"Where on earth have you been keeping yourself? I have not laid eyes on you for more than a week."
Utterly confounded by this unexpected attack, Kenneth stammered: "Why, I—er—I have been very busy." Not laid eyes on him, indeed! What was her game? "Now that I come to think of it," he went on, recovering himself, "it is fully a week since I've seen you. Don't you ever come down town, Viola?"
"Every day," she said, coolly. "We just happen never to see each other, that's all. I am glad to have had this little glimpse of you, Kenneth, even though it is away out here in the woods."
There was no mistaking the underlying significance of these words. They contained the thinly veiled implication that he had followed for the purpose of spying upon her.
"Better turn around and ride back with us, Kenny," said Barry, politely but not graciously.
"I am on my way up to the Wild Cat to see a man on business," said Kenneth, lamely.
"Kenny?" repeated Viola, puckering her brow.
"Where have I heard that name before? I seem to remember—oh, as if it were a thousand years ago. Do they call you Kenny for short?"
"It grew up with me," he replied. "Ever since I can remember, my folks—"
He broke off in the middle of the sentence, confronted by a disconcerting thought. Could it be possible that somewhere in Viola's brain,—or rather in Minda's baby brain,—that familiar name had stamped itself? Why not? If it had been impressed upon his own baby brain, why not in a less degree upon hers? He made a pretence of stooping far over to adjust a corner of his saddle blanket. Straightening up, he went on:
"Any name is better than what the boys used to call me at school. I was known by the elegant name of Piggy, due to an appetite over which I seemed to have no control. Well, I must be getting along. Good day to you."
He lifted his hat and rode off. He had gone not more than twenty rods when he heard a masculine shout from behind: turning, he discovered that the couple were still standing where he had left them. Lapelle called out:
"Your sister wants to have a word with you."
She rode swiftly up to where he was waiting.
"I just want to let you know that I intend to tell mother about meeting Barry out here to-day," she said, unsmilingly. "I shall not tell her that we planned it in advance, however. We did plan it, so if you want to run and tell her yourself, you may do so. It will make no—"
"Is that all you wanted to say to me, Viola?" he interrupted.
For a moment she faced him rebelliously, hot words on her lips. Then a surprising change came over her. Her eyes quailed under the justifiable scorn in his. She hung her head.
"No," she said, miserably. "I thought it was all, but it isn't. I want to say that I am sorry I said what I did."
He watched the scarlet flood sweep over her cheeks and then as swiftly fade. It was abject surrender, and yet he had no thrill of triumph.
"It's—it's all right, Viola," he stammered, awkwardly. "Don't think anything more about it. We will consider it unsaid."
"No, we'll not," she said, looking up. "We will just let it stand as another black mark against me. I am getting a lot of them lately. But I AM sorry, Kenneth. Will you try to forget it?"
He shook his head. "Never! Forgetting the bitter would mean that I would also have to give up the sweet," said he, gallantly. "And you have given me something very sweet to remember."
She received this with a wondering, hesitating little smile.
"I never dreamed that brothers could say such nice things to their sisters," she said, and he was aware of a deep, questioning look in her eyes. "They usually say them to other men's sisters."
"Ah, but no other fellow happens to have you as a sister," he returned, fatuously. She laughed aloud at this, perhaps a little uncertainly.
"Bless me!" he exclaimed. "It sounds good to hear you laugh like that,—such a jolly, friendly sort of laugh."
"I must be going now," she said, biting her lip. "Good-bye,—Kenny." A faint frown clouded her brow after she had uttered the name. "I must ask mother if she remembers hearing father speak of you as Kenny."
"Say, Viola," came an impatient shout from Barry Lapelle, "are you going to take all day?"
It was plain to be seen that the young man was out of temper. There was a sharp, domineering note of command in his voice. Viola straightened up in her saddle and sent a surprised, resentful look at the speaker. Kenneth could not repress a chuckle.
"Better hurry along," he said, grimly, "or he'll take your head off. Lord, we are going to have a storm. I see a thundercloud gathering just below the rim of Barry's hat. If you—"
"Please keep your precious wit to yourself," she flamed, but with all her show of righteous indignation she could not hide from him the chagrin and mortification that lurked in her tell-tale eyes.
She rode off in high dudgeon, and he was left to curse his ill-timed jest. What a blundering fool he had been! Her first, timid little advance,—and he had met it with boorish, clownish wit! A scurvy jest, indeed! She was justified in despising him.
If Viola had turned her proud head a few moments later, she would have beheld an amazing spectacle: her supposedly smug and impeccable brother riding away at break-neck speed down the soggy lane, regardless of overhanging branches and flying mud, fleeing in wrath from the scene of his discontent.
Dusk was falling when he rode slowly into the town again. He had reached a decision during that lonely ride. He would not remain in Lafayette. He foresaw misery and unhappiness for himself if he stayed there,—for, be it here declared, he was in love with Viola Gwyn. No, worse than that, he was in love with Minda Carter,—and therein lay all the bitterness that filled his soul. He could never have her. Even though she cast off the ardent Lapelle, still he could not have her for his own. The bars were up, and it was now beyond his power to lower them. And so, with this resolve firmly fixed in his mind, he gave himself up to a strange sort of despair.
After supper at the tavern, he set out for a solitary stroll about the town before going to bed. He took stock of himself. No later than that morning he had come to a decision to open an office and engage in the practice of Law in Lafayette. He had made many friends during his brief stay in the place, and from all sides he had been encouraged to "hang out his shingle" and "grow up with the town." He liked the people, he had faith in the town, he possessed all the confidence and courage of youth. The local members of the bar, including the judge and justices, seriously urged him to establish himself there—there was room for him,—the town needed such men as he,—indeed, one of the leading lawyers had offered to take him into partnership, an opportunity not to be despised, in view of this man's state-wide reputation as a lawyer and orator, and who was already being spoken of for high honours in the councils of state and nation.
All this was very gratifying to the young stranger. He was flattered by the unmistakable sincerity of these new friends. And he was in a position to weather the customary paucity of clients for an indefinite period, a condition resulting to but few young men starting out for themselves in the practice of law. He was comfortably well-off in the matter of worldly goods, not only through his recently acquired possessions, but as the result of a substantial legacy that had come to him on the death of his grandmother. He had received his mother's full share of the Blythe estate, a no inconsiderable fortune in lands and money.
And now everything was changed. He would have to give up his plan to settle in Lafayette, and so, as he strolled gloomily about the illy-lighted town, he was casting about for the next best place to locate. The incomprehensible and incredible had come to pass. He had fallen in love with Viola Gwyn at first sight, that stormy night at Striker's. The discovery that she was his own half-sister had, of course, deluded his senses—temporarily, but now he realized that the strange, primitive instincts of man had not been deceived and would not be denied.
His blood had known the truth from the instant he first laid eyes upon the lovely stranger. Since that first night there had been revelations. First of all, Viola was the flesh and blood of an evil woman, and that woman his mortal foe. Notwithstanding her own innocence and purity, it was inconceivable that he should ever think of taking her to himself as wife. Secondly, he was charged with a double secret that must forever stand between him and her: the truth about her mother and the truth about herself.
There was but one thing left for him to do,—go away. He loved her. He would grow to love her a thousand-fold more if he remained near her, if he saw her day by day. These past few days had brought despair and jealousy to him, but what would the future bring? Misery! No, he would have to go. He would wind up his affairs at once and put longing and temptation as far behind him as possible. There was the town of Louisville. From all reports it was a prosperous, growing town, advantageously situated on the River Ohio. Crawfordsville was too near. He would have to go farther, much farther away than that,—perhaps back to the old home town.
"What cruel foul luck!" he groaned, aloud.
His wanderings had carried him through dark, winding cow-paths and lanes to within a stone's throw of Jack Trentman's shanty, standing alone like the pariah it was, on the steep bank of the river near the ferry. Back in a clump of sugar trees it seemed to hide, as if shrinking from the accusing eye of every good and honest man. Kenneth had stopped at the edge of the little grove and was gazing fiercely at the two lighted windows of the "shanty." He was thinking of Barry Lapelle as he muttered the words, thinking of the foul luck that seemed almost certain to deliver Viola into his soiled and lawless hands. The fierceness of his gaze was due to the knowledge that Lapelle was now inside Trentman's notorious shanty and perhaps gambling.
This evening, as on two or three earlier occasions, he had been urged by Barry to come down to the shanty and try his luck at poker. He had steadfastly declined these invitations. Trentman's place was known far and wide as a haven into which "cleaned out" river gamblers sailed in the hope of recovering at least enough of their fortunes to enable them to return to more productive fields down the reaches of the big river. These whilom, undaunted rascals, like birds of passage, stayed but a short time in the new town of Lafayette. They came up the river with sadly depleted purses, confident of "easy pickings" among the vainglorious amateurs, and be it said in behalf of their astuteness, they seldom if ever boarded the south-bound boats as poor as when they came.
In due time they invariably returned again to what they called among themselves "the happy hunting-ground." The stories of big "winnings" and big "losings" were rife among the people of the town. More than one adventurous citizen or farmer had been "wiped out," with no possible chance of ever recovering from his losses. It was common talk that Barry Lapelle was "fresh fish" for these birds of prey. He possessed the gambling instinct but lacked the gambler's wiles. He was reckless where they were cool. They "stripped" him far oftener than he won from them, but it was these infrequent winnings that encouraged him. He believed that some day he would make a big "killing"; the thought of that was ever before him, beckoning him on like the dancing will-o'-the-wisp. He took no note of the fact that these bland gentlemen could pocket their losings as well as their winnings. It was part of their trade to suffer loss. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose, so they throve on uncertainty.
Not so with Barry, or others of his kind. They could only afford to win. It was no uncommon experience for the skilled river gambler to be penniless; it was all in the day's work. It did not hurt him to lose, for the morrow was ahead. But it was different with his victims. The morrow was not and never could be the same; when they were "cleaned out" it meant desolation. They went down under the weight and never came up, while the real gambler, in similar case, scraped his sparse resources together and blithely began all over again,—a smiling loser and a smiling winner. Full purse or empty, he was always the same. Rich to-day, poor to-morrow,—all the same to him. Philosopher, rascal, soldier, knave,—but never the craven,—and you have the Mississippi gambler.
Barry, after coming in from his ride with Viola, had "tipped the jug" rather liberally. He kept a demi-john of whiskey in his room at the tavern, and to its contents all the "afflicted" were welcome. It could not be said of him that he was the principal consumer, for, except under unusual circumstances, he was a fairly abstemious man. As he himself declared, he drank sparingly except when his "soul was tried." The fact that he had taken several copious draughts of the fiery Mononga-Durkee immediately upon his return was an indication that his soul was tried, and what so reasonable as to assume that it had been tried by Viola.
In a different frame of mine, Kenneth might have accepted this as a most gratifying augury. But, being without hope himself, he took no comfort in Barry's gloom. What would he not give to be in the roisterer's boots instead of his own?
The spoken lament had barely passed his lips when the wheel of fate took a new and unexpected turn, bringing his dolorous meditations to a sudden halt and subsequently upsetting all his plans.
He thought he was alone in the gloom until he was startled by the sound of a man's voice almost at his elbow.
"Evenin', Mr. Gwynne."