Dr. Lash came a little earlier than he was expected. The wound was not really a fatal one, he said, but if Miss Harriet had not been so attentive and skilful in keeping the cut closed, the man would have bled to death.
Westerfelt dropped to sleep, and when he awoke it was night. A lamp, the light of which was softened by a pink shade, stood on a sewing-machine near the fireplace. At first he could not recall what had happened nor where he was, and he felt very weak and sleepy. After awhile, however, he became conscious of the fact that he was not alone. A slight figure was moving silently about the room, now at the fireplace, again at a table where some lint, bandages, and phials had been left. The figure approached his bed cautiously. It was Harriet Floyd. When she saw that he was awake, she started to move away, but he detained her.
"I'm a lot of trouble for a new boarder," he said, smiling. "This is my first day, and yet I've turned your house into a fortification and a hospital."
"You are not a bit of trouble; the doctor said let you sleep as much as possible."
"I don't need sleep; I've been hurt worse than this before."
She put her hand on his brow. "It'll make you feverish to talk, Mr. Westerfelt; go to sleep."
"Did they jail Wambush?"
"Yes."
"Toughest customer I ever tackled." He laughed, dryly.
She made no reply. She went to the fire and began stirring the contents of a three-legged pot on the coals. To see her better, he turned over on his side. The bed slats creaked.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, running to him, "you'll break the stitches, and bleed again. Don't move that way."
He raised the blanket and looked down at his wound.
"I reckon they are holding all right, though Ididfeel a little twinge."
"You have not had any dinner or supper," she went on. "Dr. Lash said if you wanted anything I might give you some gruel and milk. I've made it, and it is keeping warm at the fire. Will you take some?"
"No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast. Then I'll set up at the table and eat a square meal; somehow, I'm not hungry. Wambush objected mightily to being jailed, didn't he?"
"You ought not to wait till breakfast," she said, looking at the fire; "you'd better let me give you some of this gruel."
"All right; you are the doctor."
She dipped up some of the gruel in a bowl, and, adding some milk to it, came back to him. But she was confronted by a difficulty. He could not eat gruel and milk from a spoon while lying on his back. He saw this, and put his hands on either side of him and started to sit up.
"Oh, don't!" she cried, setting the bowl on the floor and gently pushing him back on his pillow; "you must not!"
He laughed. "Just like a woman. You surely don't think I'm going to lie here for a week, like a sick cat, for such a little scratch. I've lost some blood, that's all." And before she could prevent it, he had drawn himself up and was smiling broadly.
"I can't look after sick folks," she said, in despair. "The doctor will blame me."
"I heard him say if you hadn't held my cut so well I'd have bled to death."
"Anybody else could have done it."
"Nobody else didn't."
"Do you want the gruel? Take it quick, and lie down again; you'll lose strength sitting up."
"You'll have to feed me," he said, opening his mouth. "I'm too blamed weak to sit up without propping with my hands, and they don't seem very good supports. Look how that one is wobbling."
She sat down on the edge of the bed, and without a word placed the bowl in her lap and her arm round him. Then neither spoke as she filled the spoon and held it to his lips. She felt him trying to steady his arms to keep his weight from her.
"It's really good," he said, as she filled the spoon the second time, "I had no idea I was so hungry; you say you made it?"
"Yes; there now, I'll have to wipe your chin; you ought not to talk when you are eating."
For several minutes neither spoke. He finished the bowl of gruel and lay down again.
"I feel as mean as a dog," he said, as she rose and drew the cover over him; "here I am being nursed by the very fellow's sweetheart I tried my level best to do up."
She turned and placed the bowl on the table, and then went to the fire.
"I heard you were his girl last night," he went on. "Well, I'm glad I didn't kill him. I wouldn't have tried in anything but self-defence, for even if he did use a gun and knife, when I had none, he's got bulldog pluck, and plenty of it. Do you know, I felt like mashing the head of that sheriff for beating him like he did."
She sat down before the fire, but soon rose again. "If I stay here," she said, abruptly, and rather sharply, "you'll keep talking, and not sleep at all. I'm going into the next room—the parlor. If you want anything, call me and I'll come."
A few minutes after she left him he fell asleep. She put a piece of wood on the fire in the next room and sat down before it. She had left the door of his room ajar, and a ray of light from his lamp fell across the dark carpet and dimly illuminated the room. The hours passed slowly. No one in the house was astir. No sound came from the outside save the dismal barking of a dog down the road. She was fatigued and almost asleep, when she was suddenly roused by a far-off shout.
"Whoopee! Whoopee!"
It seemed to come from the road leading down from the loftiest mountain peak. She held her breath and listened.
"Whoopee! Whoopee!" It was nearer. Then she heard the steady tramp of horses' hoofs. She rose and went to the window, moving softly, that her ear might not lose any of the sounds. She raised the window cautiously and looked out. The moon was shining brightly, and down the street beyond the livery-stable she saw a body of horsemen.
"Great Heavens!" she exclaimed; "it's the 'Whitecaps'!"
She drew back behind the curtains as the horsemen rode up to the hotel and stopped. There were twenty or more, and each wore a white cap, a white mask, and a white sheet over the body.
"Thar's whar the scrimmage tuck place," explained some one in a muffled voice, and a white figure pointed to the spot where Westerfelt and Wambush had fought. "We must hurry an' take 'im out, an' have it over."
Harriet Floyd heard some one breathing behind her. It was Westerfelt. His elbow touched her as he leaned towards the window and peered out. "Oh, it's you!" she cried. "Go back to bed, you—"
He did not seem to hear her. The moonlight fell on his face. It was ghastly pale. He suddenly drew back beside her to keep from being observed by the men outside. His lips moved, but they made no sound.
"Go back to bed," she repeated. She put out her hand and touched him, but she did not look at him, being unable to resist the fascination of the sight in the street.
"What do they want?" he whispered. He put his hand on an old-fashioned what-not behind him, and the shells and ornaments on it began to rattle.
"I don't know," she said; "don't let 'em see you; you couldn't do anything against so many. They are a band sworn to protect one another."
"His friends?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Ah, I see." He glanced at the two doors, one opening into the hall, the other into his room, and then he swayed and clutched the curtain.
She caught his arm and braced him up. "Oh, youmustgo lie down; you'll—"
A noise outside drew her back to the window. The band was crossing the street to the jail.
"What are they going to do?" He steadied himself, resting his hand on her shoulder, and looked through a pane above her head.
"To take Toot out."
"An' then he'll lead them, won't he?"
"I don't know! I reckon so—oh, I can't tell!" She faced him for an instant, a look of helpless indecision in her eyes; then she turned again to the window.
"I'll go slip on my coat," he said. "I—I'm cold. I'd better get ready. You see, he may want to—call me out. I wish I had a gun—or something."
She made no answer, and he went into his room. He turned up the lamp, but quickly lowered it again. He found his coat on a chair and put it on. He wondered if he were actually afraid. Surely he had never felt so before; perhaps his mind was not right—his wound and all his mental trouble had affected his nerves, and then a genuine thrill of horror went over him. Might not this be the particular form of punishment Providence had singled out for the murderer of Sally Dawson—might it not be the grewsome, belated answer to her mother's prayer?
Just then Harriet entered the room softly and turned his light down still lower.
"Stay back here," she said, her tone almost a command.
"Why?"
"If they get Toot out, it would be just like him to try to— You—you are not strong enough to get out of their way. Oh, I don't know what to do!" She went back to the window in the next room. He followed her, and stood by her side.
The white figures had dismounted at the jail. They paused at the gate a moment, then filed into the yard and stood at the door. The leader rapped on it loudly.
"Hello in thar, Tarpley Brown, show yorese'f!" he cried.
There was a silence for a moment. In the moonlight the body of men looked like a snowdrift against the jail. The same voice spoke again:
"Don't you keep us waitin' long, nuther, Tarp. You kin know what sort we are by our grave-clothes ef you'll take the trouble to peep out o' the winder."
"What do you-uns want?" It was the quavering voice of the jailer, from the wing of the house occupied by him and his family.
His voice roused a sleeping infant, and it began to cry. The cry was smothered by some one's hand over the child's mouth.
"You know what we-uns want," answered the leader. "We come after Toot Wambush; turn 'im out, ef you know what's good fer you."
"Gentlemen, I'm a sworn officer of the law, I—"
"Drap that! Open that cell door, ur we'll put daylight through you."
This was followed by the low, pleading voice of the jailer's wife, begging her husband to comply with the demand, and the wailing of two or three children.
"Wait, then!" yielded the jailer. Westerfelt heard a door slam and chains clank and rattle on the wooden floor; a bolt was slid back, the front door opened, and the white drift parted to receive a dark form.
"Whar's my hoss?" doggedly asked Toot Wambush.
"Out thar hitched to the fence," answered the leader.
"You-uns was a hell of a time comin'," retorted Wambush.
"Had to git together; most uv us never even heerd uv yore capture tell a hour by sun. Huh, you'd better thank yore stars we re'ched you when we did."
The band filed out of the gate and mounted their horses. Toot Wambush was a little in advance of the others. He suddenly turned his horse towards the hotel.
Westerfelt instinctively drew back behind the curtain, Harriet caught his arm and clung to it.
"Go to your room!" she whispered. "You'd better; you must not stay here." He seemed not to hear; he leaned forward and peered again through the window. The leader and Wambush had just reined their horses in at the edge of the sidewalk.
"Come on, Toot; whar you gwine?" asked the leader.
"I want to take that feller with us; I'll never budge 'thout him, you kin bet your bottom dollar on that."
"He's bad hurt—'bout ter die; don't be a fool!"
"Huh! Doc Lash sent me word he was safe. I didn't hurt 'im; but he did me; he damaged my feelings, and I want to pay 'im fer it. Are you fellers goin' back on me?"
"Not this chicken," a voice muttered, and a white form whipped his horse over to Wambush's. "I'm with you," said another. Then there was a clamor of voices, and all the gang gathered round Wambush. He chuckled and swore softly. "That's the stuff!" he said. "Them's Cohutta men a-talkin'; you kin bet yore sweet life."
Harriet turned to Westerfelt. "They are drinking," she said. "Haven't you got a pistol?"
"No."
"You stay here then; don't let them see you; I'm going up-stairs and speak to Toot from the veranda. It's the only chance. Sh!"
She did not wait for a reply, but opened the door noiselessly and went out into the hall. He heard the rustle of her skirts as she went up the stairs. A moment later the door leading to the veranda on the floor above opened with a creak, and she appeared over the heads of the band.
"Toot! Toot Wambush!" she called out in a clear, steady voice. "I want to speak to you!"
Wambush, in a spirit of bravado, had just ridden on to the veranda, and could hear nothing above the thunderous clatter of his horse's hoofs on the floor.
"Here, thar, you jail-bird, yore wanted!" cried out the leader. "Stop that infernal racket!"
"What is it?" asked Wambush, riding back among his fellows.
"Toot Wambush!" Harriet repeated.
He looked up at her. "What do you want?" he asked, doggedly, after gazing up at her steadily for a moment.
"Get away as fast as you can," she replied. "His wound has broke again. He's bleeding to death!"
"Well, that's certainly good news!" Wambush did not move.
"You'd better go," she urged. "It will be wilful murder. You made the attack. He was unarmed, and you used a pistol and a knife. Do you want to be hung?"
He sat on his horse silent and motionless, his face upraised in the full moonlight. There was no sound except the champing of bits, the creaking of saddles.
"Come on, Toot," urged the leader in a low tone. "You've settled yore man's hash; what more do you want? We've got you out o' jail, now let us put you whar you'll be safe from the law."
Wambush had not taken his eyes from the girl. He now spoke as if his words were meant for her only.
"If I go," he said, "will you come? Will you follow me? You know I'm not a-goin' to leave 'thout you, Harriet."
It seemed to Westerfelt that she hesitated before speaking, and at that moment a realization of what she had become to him and what she doubtless was to Wambush came upon him with such stunning force that he forgot even his peril in contemplating what seemed almost as bad as death.
"This is no time nor place to speak of such things," he heard the girl say, finally. "Go this minute and save yourself while you can."
"Hold on, Harriet!" Wambush cried out, as she was moving away. Westerfelt could no longer see her, and then he heard her close the door and start down-stairs.
"Come on, Toot"—the leader whipped his horse up against that of Wambush.
Some of the others had already started away.
Toot did not move. He was still looking at the spot where Harriet Floyd had stood.
"It simply means the halter, you blamed fool!"
Wambush stared into the mask of the speaker, and then reluctantly rode away.
When Harriet returned she found Westerfelt lying face downward on the floor. In his fall he had unconsciously clutched and torn down the curtain, and like a shroud it lay over him. She was trying to raise him, when the door opened and her mother appeared.
"What's the matter, Harriet?"
"He has fainted—I don't know, he may be dead. Look, mother!"
Mrs. Floyd raised Westerfelt's head and turned his face upward.
"No, he's still breathing." She opened his shirt hastily. "His wound has not broken; we must get him to bed again. How did he happen to be here?"
"He got up as soon as the Whitecaps came; I couldn't persuade him to go back."
"We must carry him to the bed," said Mrs. Floyd. As they started to raise him, Westerfelt opened his eyes, took a long breath, and sat up. Without a word he rose to his feet, and between them was supported back to his bed.
"His feet are like ice," said Mrs. Floyd, as she tucked the blankets round him. "Why did you let him stand there?"
"It wasn't her fault, Mrs. Floyd," explained Westerfelt, with chattering teeth. "I knew they meant trouble, and thought I ought to be ready."
"You ought to have stayed in bed." Her eyes followed Harriet to the fireplace. "No, daughter," she said, "go lie down; I'll stay here."
"I'd rather neither of you would sit up on my account," protested Westerfelt; "I'm all right; I'll sleep like a log till breakfast. I don't want to be such a bother."
"You ain't a bit of trouble," replied Mrs. Floyd, in a tone that was almost tender. "We are only glad to be able to help. When I saw that cowardly scamp draw his pistol and knife on you, I could 'a' killed him. I've often told Harriet—"
"Mother, Mr. Westerfelt doesn't care to hear anything about him." Harriet turned from the fire and abruptly left the room. Mrs. Floyd did not finish what she had started to say. Westerfelt looked at her questioningly and then closed his eyes. She went to the fireplace and laid a stick of wood across the andirons, and then sat down and hooded her head with a shawl.
When Westerfelt awoke it was early dawn. The outlines of the room and the different objects in it were indistinct. At the foot of his bed he noticed something which resembled a heap of clothing on a chair. He looked at it steadily, wondering if it could be part of the strange dreams which had beset him in sleep. As the room gradually became lighter, he saw that it was a woman. Mrs. Floyd, he thought—but no, the figure was slighter. It was Harriet. She had taken her mother's place just before daybreak. Her head hung down, but she was not asleep. Presently she looked up, and catching his eyes, rose and came to him.
"How do you feel now?" She touched his forehead with her soft, cool hand.
"I'm all right; I'll be up to breakfast."
"No, you won't; you must not; it would kill you."
"Pshaw! That pin-scratch?" He playfully struck his breast near the wound. "He'd have to cut deeper and rip wider to do me up."
She stifled a cry and caught his hand.
"You must not be so foolish." She started to turn away, but his fingers closed over hers.
"I'm sorry. I'll mind what you say, because you've been so good to me. It seems mighty queer—Toot Wambush's girl takin' care of the very man he tried to wipe off of the face of creation. No wonder he—"
She twisted her hand from his clasp. "Why do you sayI'm his girl?"
"Because they all do, I reckon; ain't you? Last night I heard him ask you to follow him."
"You never heard me say I would, did you?"
"No, but—"
"Well, then!" She went to the fireplace. He could not see her, but heard her stirring the fire with a poker, and wondered if her movement was that of anger or agitation, For several minutes neither of them spoke; then she came to him suddenly.
"I forgot," she said; "here's a newspaper and a letter. Will Washburn left them for you." She gave them to him and went to the window and raised the shade, flooding the room with the soft yellowing light from the east. Then she resumed her seat at the fire.
He opened his letter. The handwriting was very crude, and he did not remember having seen it before. Looking at the bottom of the last page, he saw that it was signed by Sue Dawson—Sally Dawson's mother. It was not dated, and began without heading of any kind. It ran thus:
"So you left this place fur new pastures. But I Will be sworn you went off cause you could not see the sun ashinin on my Childs grave nor meet her old broke down mother face to face. I have wanted to meet you ever since she died, but I helt in. The reason I sent you word not to come to the Funeral was cause I knowed ef I saw you thar I would jump right up before the people and drag you with yore yaller Pumpkin face full of gilt right up to her Box an make you look at yore work. It was not out of respect fur yore feelings that I did not, nuther, fur I dont respect you as much as I do a decent egg-suckin dog, but I was afraid folks would suspicion the pore Child's secret, the secret that me an you an nobody else knows, that she took her own life to git out of the misery you put her in. She did not want them to know, an they shall not; besides, thar are Folks in this cussed Settlement mean enough to begrudge her the grave Lot she has becase of what she was driv to.
"Thar is one thing I want you to stop. I dont want you to hire Peter Slogan with Blood money, nur nobody else, to haul wood fur me. I knowed you did send a load, fur he is too lazy to think of anybody but hisself without thar was money in it. I accused him of it after I had toted the last Stick back to yore land whar he got it. He tried to deny it, but I saw the lie in his face an shamed it. Dont you bother about me. I will live a powerful sight longer than you want me to before I am through with You. You will never forgit how Sally died, ef you did not look at her pore little face in death nur help the neighbors fill her grave up.
"John Westerfelt, you killed my Child as deliberately as ef you had choked the life out of her with yore Bare hands. You hung after her night and Day, even after she had been cautioned that you was fickle, an then when you got her whole soul an hart you deliberately left her an begun flyin around Liz Lithicum. I know yore sort. It is the runnin after a thing that amuses you, an as soon as you get it you turn agin it an spurn it under foot an laugh at it when it strugles in pain. Lawsy me. God Almighty dont inflict good men with that Disease, but you will have it nawin at yore Hart tel you run across some huzzy that will rule you her way. Beware, John Westerfelt, you will want to marry before long; you are a lonely, selfish Man, an you will want a wife an childern to keep you company an make you forget yore evil ways, but it is my constant prayer that you will never git one that loves you. I am prayin for that very thing and I believe it will come. John Westerfelt, I am yore Enemy—I am that ef it drags me into the Scorchin flames of hell.
He refolded the letter, put it with quivering fingers back into its envelope, and then opened the newspaper and held it before his eyes. There was a clatter of dishes and pans in the back part of the house. A negro woman was out in the wood-yard, picking up chips and singing a low camp-meeting hymn. Now and then some one would tramp over the resounding floor, through the hall to the dining-room.
Harriet went to the door and closed it. Then she turned to him. The paper had slipped from his fingers and lay across his breast.
"What shall I get for your breakfast?" she asked. She moved round on the other side of the bed, wondering if it was the yellow morning light or his physical weakness that gave his face such a depressed, ghastly look.
"What did you say?" He stared at her absently.
"What would you like for breakfast?"
He looked towards his coat that hung on the foot of his bed.
"Don't bother about me; I'm going to get up."
"No, you must not." She caught his wrist. "Look how you are quivering; you ought not to have tried to read."
He raised the paper again, but it shook so that its rustling might have been heard across the room. She took it from him, and laid it on a chair by the bed. She looked away; the corners of his mouth were drawn down piteously and his lips were twitching.
"Please hand me my coat," he said.
"You are not going to get up?" She sat down on the bed and put her hand on his brow. Her face was soft and pleading. It held a sweetness, a womanly strength he longed to lean upon.
He caught her hand and held it nervously.
"I don't believe I've got a single friend on earth," he said. "I don't deserve any; I'm a bad man."
"Don't talk that way," she replied. There was something in his plaintive tone that seemed to touch her deeply, for she took his hand in both of hers and pressed it.
"I don't want to die, for your sake," he said, "for if I was to go under, it would be awkward for your—your friend. He might really have to swing for it."
She released his hand suddenly, a pained look in her face. "Did you want to put your letter in your coat pocket?" she asked.
"Yes."
She took the coat from a chair, gave it to him, and then went back to the fireplace. He thrust his hand into the pocket and took out Sally Dawson's last letter, and put it and her mother's into the same envelope. As he was putting them away he found in the same pocket a folded sheet of paper. He opened it. It was a letter from John Wambush to his son Toot. Then Westerfelt remembered the paper Harriet had picked up and given him in the street after the fight. Hardly knowing why he did so, he read it. It was as follows:
"DEAR TOOT,—Me an yore mother is miserable about you. We have prayed for yore reform day and night, but the Lord seems to have turned a deef ear to our petitions. We hardly ever see you now an we are afraid you are goin to git into serious trouble. We want you to give up moonshinin, quit drinkin an settle down. We both think if you would jest git you a good wife you would act better. I wish you would go an marry that girl at the hotel—you know who I mean. I am as sorry for her as I ever was for anybody, for she dont think you love her much. She told me all about it the night the revenue men give you sech a close shave. I was standin on the hotel porch when you driv the wagon up with the whiskey barrel on it an I heerd them a-lopin along the road after you. I thought it was all up with you for I knowed they could go faster than you. Then I seed her run out on the back porch an help you roll the whiskey in the kitchen an close the door. An when the officers com up you was a-settin on the empty wagon talkin to her as if nothin had happened. I heard all the lies she told em about seein another wagon go whizzin down the road an I thought it was a great pity for her to do it, but she was doin it for a man she loved an I wouldent hold that agin her. A woman that loves as hard as she does would do a sight wuss than that if it was necessary. After you loaded the whiskey back on the wagon and got away to the woods, I went round an told her what I had seed an she bust out cryin an throwed her arms round my neck an said she loved you better than she did her own life an that she never would love any other man as long as breeth was in her body. Son, that night she come as nigh beggin me to git you to marry her as a proud girl could, an when I left I promised her I would talk to you about it. She's a good girl, Toot, and it would make a man of you to marry her. I like her mighty well an so does yore mother. Please do come out home soon. It looks like a pity for you to be away so much when it worries yore ma like it does.
"Yore affectionate father,
Westerfelt folded the letter deliberately, and then in a sudden spasm of jealous despair he crumpled it in his hand. He turned his head on the side and pressed down his pillow that he might see Harriet as she sat by the fire. The red firelight shone in her face. She looked tired and troubled.
"Poor girl!" he murmured. "Poor girl! Oh, God, have mercy on me! She loves him—she loves him!"
She looked up and caught his eyes. "Did you want anything?" she asked.
He gave the letter to her. "Burn it, please. I wish I had not read it."
She took it to the fire. The light of the blazing paper flashed on the walls, and then went out.
He remained so silent that she thought he was sleeping, but when she rose to leave the room she caught his glance, so full of dumb misery that her heart sank. She went to her mother in the kitchen. Mrs. Floyd was polishing a pile of knives and forks, and did not look up until Harriet spoke.
"Mother," she said, "I am afraid something has gone wrong with Mr. Westerfelt."
"What do you mean?" asked the old lady in alarm.
"I don't know, but he got a letter this morning, and after he read it he seemed changed and out of heart. He gave it to me to burn, and I never saw such a desperate look on a human face. I know it was the letter, because before he read it he was so—so different."
"Well," said Mrs. Floyd, "it may be only some business matter that's troubling him. Men have all sorts of things to worry about. As for me, I've made a discovery, Harriet, at least I think I have."
"Why, mother!"
Mrs. Floyd put the knives and forks into the knife-box.
"Hettie Fergusson was here just now," she said.
"This early!" exclaimed Harriet, incredulously. "Why, mother, where did she spend the night?"
"At home; that's the curious part about it; she has walked all that three miles since daylight, if she didn't get up before and start through the dark. I never could understand that girl. All the time she was working here she puzzled me. She was so absent-minded, and would jump and scream almost when the door would open. I am glad we didn't need her help any longer. Sometimes I wish she had never come to the hotel."
Harriet stared wonderingly at her mother; then she said:
"Did she want to help us again?"
Mrs. Floyd laughed significantly.
"That's what she pretended she wanted, but she didn't have no more idea of working here than I have of flying through the air at this minute. Harriet, she is dead crazy in love with Toot Wambush. That is the truth about it."
"Why, mother, I can't believe it!" cried Harriet, her brow wrinkling in perplexity. "He hardly ever went with her or talked to her."
"He took her out home with him in a buggy six or seven times to my knowledge," declared Mrs. Floyd, "and there's no telling how often he saw her at home. He is awfully thick with her father. I never was fooled in a woman; she is in love with him, and right now she is worried to death about him. She couldn't hide her anxiety, and asked a good many round-about questions about where he was gone to, and if we knew whether the sheriff was hunting for him now, and if we thought Mr. Westerfelt would prosecute him."
Harriet laughed. "Well, I never dreamt there was a thing between those two. When he asked her to go with him in his buggy out home, I thought it was because she lived on the road to his father's, and that he just did it to accommodate her, and—"
"Oh, I've no doubt that is whathedid it for, darling, but she was falling in love with him all the time, and now that he is in trouble, she can't hide it. Do you know her conduct this morning has set me to thinking? The night you and I spent over at Joe Long's I heard Wambush came very near being arrested with a barrel of whiskey he was taking to town, and that he managed to throw the officers off his track while he was talking to Hettie in our back yard. Do you know it ain't a bit unlikely that she helped him play that trick somehow? They say he was laughing down at the store after that about how he gave them the slip. I'll bet she helped him."
"If she is in love with him she did, I reckon," returned Harriet, wisely. "I wish he was in love with her. He is getting entirely too troublesome."
"He'll never care a snap for her as long as you are alive," retorted the old lady. "I'm sorry now that I ever let you go with him so much. He seems to be getting more and more determined to make you marry him whether or no. He is jealous of Mr. Westerfelt." Mrs. Floyd lowered her voice. "If he hadn't been, he wouldn't have fought him as he did. That is at the bottom of it, daughter, and now that he is a regular outlaw I am awfully uneasy. If I ever get a chance, I'm going to convince him that it is useless for him to worry you as he does. I'd rather see you in your grave than married to a man like that."
It was a week before John Westerfelt was strong enough to leave his room in the hotel. Inflammation of his wound had set in, and at one time his condition was thought to be quite critical.
One day Luke Bradley came in his buggy to drive him out to his house.
"Marthy won't heer to a refusal," he said. "She's powerful' troubled. She 'lowed ef we'd 'a' made you stay with us you'd not 'a' been apt to 'a' met Wambush that day, an' 'a' been laid up like this. She's jest dyin' to git to cook things fer you an' doctor you up."
"I'll go and stay a day, anyway," promised Westerfelt. He glanced at Harriet Floyd, who stood behind the curtains looking out of the window. "I don't need any finer treatment than I've had, Luke. Miss Harriet's been better than a sister to me. She saved my life the other night, too. If she hadn't interfered that gang would have nabbed me as sure as preaching, and I was unarmed and too weak to stand rough handling."
Harriet came from the window. She took the roll of blankets that Bradley had brought and held one of them before the fire.
"It's chilly out to-day," she said. "You'd better wrap him up well, Mr. Bradley."
Bradley did not reply. He heard a noise outside, and went out hastily to see if his horse was standing where he had left him. Westerfelt dragged himself from his chair and stood in front of the fire. He had grown thinner during his confinement, and his clothes hung loosely on him.
"You have been good to me," he repeated, in a low tone, "and I wish I could do something to pay you back." She said nothing. She bent over and felt the blanket to see if it were scorching, and then turned the other side to the fire.
"Mrs. Bradley is a fine nurse," she said, presently. "She'll take good care of you. Besides, she has a better claim on you than we—mother and I—have; she has known you longer."
"I'll tell you the truth," he answered, after studying her face for a moment in silence. "I'd really be willing to get hurt over again for an excuse to live here like I have. I am the loneliest man that was ever born—lonely is no name for it. In the dead hours of the night I suffer agonies—you see, I am not a good sleeper. I have been as near insanity as any man that ever lived out of an asylum. But I have been mighty nearly free from all that since you began to nurse me. I wish to God it could go on forever—forever, do you understand?—but it can't—it can't. I have my troubles and you have yours—that is," he added, quickly, as she shot a sudden glance of inquiry at him, "I reckon you have troubles, most girls do."
"Yes, I have my troubles, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, simply. "Sometimes I think I cannot bear mine, but I do."
He said nothing, but his eyes were upon her almost with a look of fear. Was she about to tell him frankly of her love for Wambush?
She rolled up one of the blankets and put it on the rug in front of the fire, and held up another to be warmed. He thought he had never seen a face so full of sweet, suffering tenderness. His heart bounded suddenly with a thought so full of joy that he could hardly breathe. She had driven the outlaw from her heart and already loved him; she had learned to love him since he had been there. He could see it, feel it in her every tender word and act, and he—God knew he loved her—loved her with his whole wearied soul. Then the thought of her appeal to old John Wambush and the lies she had told that night to save her lover struck him like a blow in the face, and he felt himself turning cold all over in the embrace of utter despair. "No, no, no!" he said, in his heart, "she's not for me! I could never forget that—never! I've always felt that the woman I loved must never have loved before, and Wambush—ugh!"
She raised her great eyes to his in the mellow firelight, and then, as if puzzled by his expression, calmly studied his face.
"You are not going back to that room over the stable, are you?" she questioned.
"Yes, to-morrow night."
"Don't do it—it is not comfortable; it is awfully roomy and bare and cold."
"Oh, I am used to that. Many a time I've slept out in the open air on a frosty night, with nothing round me but a blanket."
"You could occupy this room whenever it suited you; it is seldom used. I heard mother say yesterday that she wished you would."
"I'd better stay there," he answered, moved again by her irresistible solicitude, and that other thing in her tone to which he had laid claim and hugged to his bruised heart. He felt an almost uncontrollable desire to raise her in his arms, to unbosom his anguish to her, and propose that they both fight their battles of forgetfulness side by side, but he shrank from it. The thought of Wambush was again upon him like some rasping soul-irritant.
"No, no; I'm going back to the stable," he said, fiercely. "I will not stay here any longer—not a day longer!"
He saw her start, and then she put down the blanket and stood up. "I do not understand you at all, sometimes" she faltered, "not at all."
"But I understand you, God knows," he returned, bitterly. "Harriet, little, suffering, wronged woman, I know something about you. I know what has been worrying you so much since I came here."
She started and an awful look crept into her face.
"Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, do you?"
"Yes, I know it—that's enough now; let's agree never again to speak of it. I don't want to talk about it, and I reckon you don't. Anyway, it can't be helped."
"No, it can't be helped." Her lips began to twitch and quiver, and her eyes went down.
"I understand it all now," she added. "And I don't blame you. I told mother yesterday that I thought you might suspect—"
"Your mother knows then?"
"Yes, of course," raising her eyes in surprise.
For a moment they were silent. Westerfelt leaned against the mantel-piece; he had never felt such utter despair. It was like being slowly tortured to death to hear her speaking so frankly of the thing which he had never been able to contemplate with calmness.
"So you see now that I'd better go back to the stable, don't you?" he asked, gloomily.
"I suppose so," she said. "I suppose you mean that—" but she was unable to formulate what lay in her confused mind. Besides, Luke Bradley was coming in. They heard his heavy tread on the veranda.
"Well, come on, John, ef you are ready," he called out. "That blamed nag o' mine won't stand still a minute."
When Westerfelt had been driven away, and Harriet had watched him out of sight down the road, she came back to the fire and sat down in the chair Westerfelt had used during his convalescence. She kept her eyes fixed on the coals till her mother entered the room.
"I reckon he thought funny that I didn't come in to tell him good-bye," she said, with a knowing little laugh; "but I'll be bound he was glad I didn't. Even Mr. Bradley had the good sense to go outside."
"Mother, what are you talking about?"
"You know mighty well what I mean," returned Mrs. Floyd, with a smile. "I know Mr. Westerfelt is dead in love with you, and goodness knows you couldn't fool me about how you feel if you tried. I was a girl once."
"Mother," said Harriet, "I never want you to mention him to me again," and she put her hands over her face and began to cry softly.
"Why, what is the matter, dear?" the old woman sat down near her daughter, now alarmed by her conduct. Harriet stared her mother in the face. "He knows all about it, mother—he knows I am not your child, that nobody knows where I came from. Oh, mother, I can't stand it—I simply cannot. I wanted him to know, and yet when he told me he knew, it nearly killed me."
Mrs. Floyd turned pale. "There must be some mistake," she said; "no one here knows it—and only one or two up in Tennessee."
"There is no mistake," sighed the girl. "He told me the other day that he had relatives in Tennessee. Oh, mother, more people know it than you think. I have always felt that they knew. So many have noticed that you and I do not look alike."
Mrs. Floyd's eyes were moist and her face was wrung with sympathy. She put her arms around the girl and drew her to her breast. "I ought never to have told you," she said; "but the lawyers knew it, and when your papa's estate was wound up it had to be told to a few. I thought you would soon forget it, but you have never stopped thinking about it. You are entirely too sensitive, too—"
"Mother, you don't know anything about it," said Harriet. "When you told me I was not your child I actually prayed to die. It has been the only real trouble I ever had. I never see poor, worthless people without thinking that I may be closely related to them, and since Mr. Westerfelt has been here and told me about his aristocratic relatives and his old family, I have been more unhappy than ever. I was going to tell him some day, but he saved me the trouble."
"I can't imagine how he knew it," gave in Mrs. Floyd, thoughtfully. "Perhaps he has had some dealings with our lawyers, though they promised not to speak of it. I thought when we moved down here among strangers you'd quit troubling about that. You know you are as good as anybody else, so what is the good of worrying? You make me very unhappy, Harriet. I feel almost as if I did wrong to bring you up. But you know I love you just the same as if you was my own child, don't you?"
"Yes, and I love you as if you were my own mother. I love you more, too, when I am in trouble, though I reckon I don't show it; but, mother, I am dying to know something about my own flesh and blood. I'd rather know that my blood was good than have all the wealth of the earth. You have let enough out to show me that I must have had very, very poor parents."
"I simply said that when they left you at my house you had on rather cheap clothing, but you know that was just after the war, when nobody could dress their children much."
"But they deserted me," said Harriet; "they could not have been very honorable. I reckon Mr. Westerfelt knows all about it."
"Well, he won't think any the less of you if he does," said Mrs. Floyd. "He looks like a born gentleman to me. You will never see a man like him turning against a girl for something she can't help. You ought not to say your parents were not honorable; they may have left you, thinking it would be best for you. We were considered pretty well off then."
Harriet made no reply for several minutes, and then she said:
"I think Mr. Westerfelt is the best man I ever knew, but he must be like his father some, and he told me that his father, who was a captain in the army, refused to ever see his daughter again who married the son of his overseer. She moved to Texas, and died out there. Mother, the legitimate daughter of an overseer would stand higher in any Southern community than—" At this point a sob broke in her voice, and the girl could go no further. Mrs. Floyd rose and kissed her on the cheek. "I see," she said, "that as long as you keep talking about this you will search and search for something to worry about. I'm glad Mr. Westerfelt knows about it, though, for he would have to be told some day, and now he knows what to count on. I'll bet you anything he keeps on loving you, and—"
"Oh, mother," broke in Harriet, "I don't think he lo—cares that much for me; I really do not."