Mrs. Dawson reached home the next day about four o'clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Slogan was seated at her great cumbersome hand-made loom in the corner of the kitchen, weaving reddish brown jeans for Peter's clothing. Mrs. Lithicum and her husband were in paying a visit. The latter and Slogan were talking over a joint hog-killing they were going to have to save labor and expense. Peter had put a higher mental valuation on the labor saved than Lithicum. He had discovered, on a former occasion, that the arrangement had saved him some money, and that Ab had done all the work, such as directing the black hands and keeping the water just the proper temperature to remove the bristles without "setting" them.
"You see," Peter had remarked to his wife, "Ab works more'n I do; mebby it's beca'se he's a chawin' man—a smokin' man has to set down to smoke to do any good, while a chawin' man kin use both hands at any job, an' jest squirt when an' whar he wants to."
Peter went to a window, while Ab was watching the movement of the loom, and looked across the fields. Suddenly the others heard him utter an ejaculation of profound astonishment. The loom ceased its monotonous thumping, and all eyes turned on him.
"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Lithicum, her round, red face full of curiosity.
"I'll bet narry one o' you could make a good guess."
They knew him too well to expect information from him, so they all started for the window. Mrs. Lithicum reached it first. "As I'm alive!" she cried. "Mis' Dawson's got back. She's gettin' out uv a wagon down at 'er cabin."
"Well, I 'lowed she wouldn't always be gallivantin' about heer and yan," said the weaver, as she peered over the shoulder of her guest. "I reckon they've all got tired of 'er over thar an' sent 'er home."
Mrs. Lithicum followed the speaker back to the loom. "Well, I don't know but I'm a leetle grain sorry," she said.
"Sorry!" repeated the sister of the person under discussion. "I don't see what thar railly is to be sorry about."
Mrs. Lithicum looked as if she had got her foot into it, and she flushed, but she had her defence ready. "Well, you see, Mis' Slogan, she's tuck a most unaccountable dislike to Lizzie, an' a pusson like—well, somedothink her trouble has sorter turned 'er brain, an' the's no rail tellin' what quar notion may strike 'er."
"Do you think so, Mis' Lithicum?" Mrs. Slogan retained the big smooth shuttle in her hand and eyed the speaker anxiously, her eyelids quivering.
"To be downright plain, yes, I do. Mis' Slogan, ef sheisyore sister, an' I've thought many a time 'at ef I wus in yore place I wouldn't feel safe nuther. They say a pusson sometimes gits softenin' o' the brain frum hatin' folks an' livin' alone like she does. I'd be afeerd to leave the house open at night ef I wus you."
"Well!" suddenly broke in Peter, who was the only one remaining at the window. "You may have my overcoat an'"—after a pause—"my best Sunday shirt, too, ef she hain't loaded 'er bed in that wagon an' 's a-comin' this way as big as the side of a house. She's comin' back heer, Clariss, Lordy, Lordy!"
They all ran to the window again and stood breathlessly watching the oncoming wagon. "She's off 'er nut now, I know," said Peter. "I know 'er too well; she never would come back heer ef she wus in 'er right mind."
"Well, I don't want to meet 'er—that's one thing certain," cried Mrs. Lithicum in sudden terror. "She mought pounce upon me on Lizzie's account. I'm a-goin' home by the path through the cotton-patch. Good day to all uv you. Ef I was you-uns," she called back from the door, "I'd have 'er put up!"
Abner mutely followed her, and the Slogans were left to solve the problem for themselves. The wagon drew up at the door, and from their window they saw the little woman step down over the front wheel and direct the white driver—they could not hear her voice, but they read the signs of her hands—to put the few pieces of furniture on the porch. This done, the wagon clattered away, and Mrs. Dawson, with hanging head, came into the passage and went to her old room.
"What in the name o' goodness do you reckon she's goin' to do?" gasped Mrs. Slogan, quite pale and cold. "I'm nearly skeerd to death."
"She's got a faint idee 'at she's goin' to put up heer with us," answered Peter with considerable concern for a man of his phlegmatic temperament. "They say crazy folks jest natcherly drift back into the'r old ruts, an' the best way is to let 'em alone. Ef she kin feed 'erself we'll be in luck; some crazy folks jest gaum the'rselves from head to foot an' have to have constant attention."
"But you ain't a-goin' to let 'er stay, are you?" cried his wife.
Peter smiled grimly and went to the mantel-piece for his foul-smelling comforter. He also pulled down from a nail on the wall a dry stalk of tobacco and proceeded to crush and crumble some of the crisp leaves in his big palm.
"Me? I don't see 'at I've got a thing to say in the matter," he retorted, with a grimace that bore a slight resemblance to a smile. "You wus tellin' me jest t'other day 'at the lan' an' house wus in yore name an' her'n, an' 'at I had no right to put in. I reckon you'll have to manage 'er, Clariss."
Mrs. Slogan sank back on the bench of the loom, but she didn't set the thing in motion; she had an idea that the slightest sound might draw the attention of the bustling inmate of the room across the passage, and just then she was not prepared to exchange greetings.
Peter stood at the window, his head now enveloped in smoke, and kept peering out at the porch from which Mrs. Dawson was moving the various articles pertaining to her bed, such as slats, posts, railings, mattress, pillows, sheets, and coverings.
"She's as busy as a hoss's tail in fly-time," he observed. "Oh, Lawsy mercy!"
This last ejaculation came out with such startled emphasis that his wife let her mouth fall open as she waited for him to explain. But Peter only stretched his neck towards the window, holding his pipe behind him to keep from setting fire to the curtain.
"Oh, Peter, what is it?"
"She hain't fetched a sign of a thing to cook with," he replied. "I kinder thought I heerd a clatter in that wagon as it driv' off; she's give 'er coffee-pot an' fryin'-pan an' dishes to the feller that fetched 'er over heer an' moved 'er things. She intends to eat with us."
Mrs. Slogan wrung her hands. "Something jest has to be done," she said, "an' the Lord knows I don't know what it is. Do you reckon she's dangerous, Peter?"
"She's yore sister, Clariss," he chuckled, in spite of the gravity of the situation, "an' I'd hate to be in yore re'ch ef you wus to lose any more uv yore mind. As it is, you—"
"I wish you'd shet up!" broke in his wife; "this ain't no time fer foolishness."
Then they drew their chairs up to the fireplace and sat down. They could still hear the old woman moving about, setting things to rights in her room. Suddenly there was a great clatter of falling slats. The bed had come down.
"She can't put that thing up by 'erself" suggested Peter. "Go in an' he'p 'er."
"I'll do no sech a thing; do you reckon I want 'er to scratch my eyes out? Huh! She hates me like a rattlesnake, an' has jest come heer so she kin devil me to death. I see it now. She seed she wusn't worryin' me much over thar in 'er ol' cabin, an' she's jest bent on gittin' nigher."
"I reckon that's jest yore—yore conscience a-talkin'," opined Slogan. "Thar's no gittin' round it, Clariss, you did sorter rub it in when Sally wus alive. I often used to wonder how the old creetur managed to put up with it; you kept ding-dongin' at 'er frum mornin' to night. Ef she's cracked, yo're purty apt to have it read out to you frum the Book o' Judgment."
Mrs. Slogan must have felt the truth of this accusation, for she voiced no denial. The room across the passage suddenly became quiet. It was evident that the bed was up; as a further evidence of this, Mrs. Dawson was seen to go out to the wood-pile and fill her apron with chips and return with them.
"She's got located," remarked Slogan. "She's a-goin' to set in now an' make 'erse'f comfortable."
"She'll burn the house down over our heads," whined Mrs. Slogan. "Oh, Peter, I'm not satisfied! I'm anything but."
The sun went down and night came on. Mrs. Slogan began to prepare supper, casting, the while, frequent glances at the door opening on the passage. Peter smoked pipe after pipe without being able to come to any definite conclusion as to how to surmount the difficulty. Suddenly he looked over his shoulder and tapped the heel of his shoe with his pipe.
"You'd better cook enough fer three," was what he said, "an' make more coffee. Ef she don't he'p us drink it, we'll need it to keep us company through the night. I know in reason 'at you won't close yore eyes till—till we see some way out of the difficulty."
"Peter Slogan," said his wife, in a whisper, as she laid the table-cloth down in a chair and leaned over him, "you skeer the life out o' me when you talk that away. I never seed you look like you minded anything before."
"I'm glad I show some'n'," he grinned, struggling back into his old sardonic mood. "I 'lowed I'd got too hardened to feer man, God, ha'nt, ur devil. Well, Idon'tkeer overly much about havin' a crazy creetur' so nigh me, an' I ain't a-goin' to, ef I kin see any way out of it. We ain't a thousand miles from the State asylum."
Mrs. Slogan moved noiselessly as she unfolded the cloth and spread it. She put the coffee on the table and poured the floating grounds from the top into a tin cup.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," she proposed, timidly. "I'll fix 'er some supper on that piece o' plank thar, an' a big cup o' coffee sweetened jest like she used to like it, ef—" She hesitated.
"Ef what? Out with it!"
"Ef you'll take it in thar whar she's at."
Peter deliberated and cleared his throat.
"She'syoresister," he got out, finally, "an' the last time I went to 'er cabin she wouldn't listen to me no more 'n ef I wus a rat a-squeakin'. You see, a feller's sorter expected to—"
"I don't keer ef sheismy sister, I ain't a-goin' in thar, an' that settles it. I declare I'd be ashamed to call myse'f a man ef I wus afeerd uv a weakly, bent-over old woman like she is."
Peter stirred uneasily in his chair.
"I don't keer about holdin' no talk with 'er—ur startin' 'er off by the sight o' me—but I'll go thar—I see 'er door ain't shet—an' I'll put the grub whar she'll see it."
"Well, that'll do," agreed Mrs. Slogan. "Feedin' 'er ain't a-goin' to make 'er any wuss, an' it mought have a quietin' effect."
Peter took the improvised tray when it was brought to him and went out with it, returning in a moment.
"I ketched 'er a-lookin' right at me," he said, "an' so I jest walked bold-faced in an' put the stuff on a table in front of 'er. She looked down in the fire an' didn't speak, an' I didn't nuther. She didn't look one bit dangerous. Now that I've seed 'er, I reckon I'll sleep some. I'm dem glad I did. Ef you'll jest take a peep at 'er you'll feel better."
"Well, I won't close my two eyes," affirmed his wife. "I hain't seed 'er, nur I don't intend to, ef I kin git out of it."
When supper was ready they softly moved their chairs to their places and sat down. Mrs. Slogan didn't eat heartily, but Peter's appetite seemed normal. They had finished eating, Peter had secured his toothpick from the broom, and they had moved back to the fireplace, when they heard a stealthy step on the passage floor near the door. The bolt was turned, the door shutter creaked and moved a few inches. A hand came in sight, and something wrapped in brown paper was tossed into the centre of the room. Then the steps receded, and they heard the widow resume her chair.
Peter rose curiously and picked up the parcel, and bringing it to the fire opened it. Its contents were a pair of woollen socks and a pair of stockings of the same material. On the first had been worked a big red letter "P" and on the other a capital "C."
"Did you ever?" gasped Mrs. Slogan. "I don't believe she's a bit more crazy 'n I am."
"I never 'lowed she wus," said Peter, with a laugh. "I jest thought she mought be harder to manage 'an you, that's all."
"Sister's gone an' had a change o' heart!" declared Mrs. Slogan, ignoring his joke. "Nothin' else could a-made 'er come back an' give us these things. I heerd they had a big revival over thar. Oh, Lordy, I do feel so relieved!"
"Well, I reckon we mought as well go in an' pay 'er our respects an' git started," grumbled Peter. "I'm not a-goin' to tote 'er meals about, I'll tell you that. Slavery day is over."
"No, we'll jest let 'er alone," Mrs. Slogan beamed; "she'll know we mean all right by the supper, an' I reckon she'll move up 'er cheer in the mornin'; ef she don't, I'll blow the field-horn."
Peter lighted another pipe. "I wonder," said he, "how long it'll be 'fore you an' her 'll be clawin' agin. Religion ur no religion, crazy ur no crazy, women is jest the same."
When Westerfelt went to bed that night after his talk with Mrs. Bradley about the conversion of Mrs. Dawson, it was with a certain lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirits that he had not experienced for a long time. He did not know exactly how his new feeling would show itself in regard to Harriet, but he believed he might, in time, cease to look upon her love for Wambush as such an unpardonable offence. "Surely," he argued, "if Mrs. Dawson can forgive me for all I have done, I ought to pardon the girl I love for what she did before she knew me."
These were admirable intentions, but he was counting on a depth of nature that was not his either by inheritance or cultivation. The inflammable material was still bound up in his breast, and it needed but one spark to fire it. What he was struggling against had come down to him from a long line of ancestors, men who would rather have died than brook the thought of a rival, especially in an inferior; men who would have spurned the love of their hearts if it were stained with falsehood under any circumstances, and when, as it was in Westerfelt's case, the provocation was not only deceit, but ardent love for such a man—ah, there was the rub!
The next morning he watched Bates's office from the stable till he saw the lawyer come down the street and enter. He waited awhile longer, for he saw Bates go out to the wood-pile and return with an armful of wood. Presently blue smoke began to rise from the chimney, and Westerfelt went over and rapped on the door.
"Come in!" Bates called out. Westerfelt found him with his back to the door, sitting over the fire, a leather-bound tome in his lap.
"Hello!" he cried, seeing who it was; "pull up a seat."
Westerfelt drew a rickety chair from beneath a dusty desk and sat down.
"Did you get home all right?" he asked.
"Yes." Bates closed his book, leaving his forefinger in it for a book-mark; he removed his foot from the side of the chimney and cleared his throat. "Miss Harriet asked me to fetch her home early; dang it! I believe she would a-stayed longer, but she was sorry for me."
"Sorry for you—why?"
"Because she couldn't see it my way, I reckon."
"Did she—refuse you?"
Bates threw his book on a table. "Do I look like a man that's goin' to marry the prettiest and the best girl in the world? Westerfelt, I didn't sleep a wink last night."
"That's bad."
"Looky' heer, don't give me any shenanigan; you knowed what she'd do for me. You knowed mighty well."
"Me?"
"Yes, dad burn it; you know she loves you."
"What are you talking about?"
"If you don't know it you are a numskull. She intimated to me that she loved some feller, but that she never intended to marry anybody. I'm no fool. I know who she meant. Look here!" Bates suddenly rose to his feet. His face was both white and red in splotches. He grasped the back of his chair with both his hands and leaned on it. "I've heard o' your doings over the mountain. She hain't no kin to me, but I'll tell you one thing right now, Westerfelt, she's a good girl, an' if you trifle with her feelings you'll have me to whip ur get a licking yorese'f. I'm talking straight now, man to man."
Westerfelt rose, and the two men stood side by side, each staring into the other's face.
"Don't be a fool," said Westerfelt, after a slight pause; "don't meddle with what don't concern you," and he turned and left the room. He had never allowed a man to threaten him in that sort of way, but he was in no frame of mind to quarrel. Besides, there was something in the lawyer's defence of Harriet that made him like the fellow.
He was about to cross the street to the stable when he saw Harriet come out of the hotel and trip along the sidewalk towards the store. She wore no hat or bonnet, but held a handkerchief over her head to protect her face from the sun. He was sure she saw him, but she did not show any sign of recognition. He kept on his way, but when she had disappeared in the store he hesitated, then stopped, recrossed the street, and turned into the store after her. She was standing on the grocery side, tapping the counter with a coin. Martin Worthy was behind the counter, weighing a package of soda for her. She flushed red and then paled a little as Westerfelt entered and held out his hand.
"It's a pretty day," he said. "I'd like to take you to drive after dinner, if you will go with me. I hated like smoke to miss that ride yesterday."
She shook hands with him and then turned to Worthy, who was tying the package with a piece of twine drawn from a ball in a holder at the ceiling. Westerfelt was afraid she was going to ignore his invitation wholly, but she looked round presently and smiled faintly.
"I shall be glad to go," she answered. "Any one else going?"
"No; that is, not that I know of."
She leaned over to give Worthy the money, and waited for the change without glancing again at Westerfelt.
She took her parcel and started to leave. "Then I shall come about two o'clock?" he said, going with her to the door.
She nodded. "Very well; I'll be ready," and he stood aside for her to pass.
She walked briskly back to the hotel and into the kitchen, where her mother was at work.
"Did you get it?" Mrs. Floyd asked.
"Yes, and there's the change." Harriet put down the package and dropped some pieces of silver into a goblet on the table.
"What's the matter?" Mrs. Floyd was kneading dough in a great wooden tray, and she looked at Harriet over her shoulder.
"Nothing."
"I know thereis." Mrs. Floyd turned and began rubbing the dough from her fingers as a woman puts on a kid glove.
"Mr. Westerfelt has asked me to drive with him after dinner," said the girl. "That's all."
"Harriet!" Mrs. Floyd's eyes sparkled with excitement as she sprinkled some flour over her dough and began to roll the mass back and forth. "I reckon you will acknowledgenowthat I know something about young men. If you had refused to go with Bascom Bates yesterday, Mr. Westerfelt would have had no respect for you; as it is, he couldn't wait twenty-four hours to see you. For all you do, don't let him see too plain that you care for him. Mind what I say!"
Westerfelt was impatient for two o'clock to arrive. It was one when he left Bradley's after dinner. He went to the stable and ordered Jake to get out his horse and buggy. He would call for her at once; he could not wait any longer. He felt a sort of sinking sensation at his heart as Jake gave him the whip and reins, and he was actually trembling when he stopped at the hotel. Harriet came out on the veranda above and told him she would be down at once. She did not keep him waiting long, and when she came down, prettily flushed and neatly attired, his heart bounded and his pulse quickened. Had she been a queen he could not have felt more respect for her than he did as he stood shielding her skirt from the wheels and helped her get seated. He was just about to get in himself when an old man came down the sidewalk from Worthy's store, headed for the buggy. It was old John Wambush with a basket of eggs on his arm.
"Howdy' do," he said, nodding to them both. "Miss Harriet, is yore ma needin' any more eggs now? I diskivered another nest this mornin', an' 'lowed she mought be able to use 'em. She's about the only one in the place 'at ever has cash to pay fer produce."
"I don't know, Mr. Wambush," Harriet replied, politely. "She is in the house; you might go in and see her."
The old man shifted his basket to his other arm and hesitated. Westerfelt got into the buggy and took up the reins.
"I reckon, Miss Harriet, you hain't heerd frum Toot sence I seed you?"
"No, Mr. Wambush." Westerfelt was not looking at her as she spoke, and the saddest part of it lay in the fact that he was trying to save her from what he imagined must be a very embarrassing situation. "No, he has not written me."
"Well"—the old man turned—"as fur as I'm concerned, I'm not one bit afeerd that he'll not be able to take keer o' hisse'f, but his mammy is pestered mighty nigh to death about 'im."
Just then Mrs. Floyd came out on the porch and threw a kiss at Harriet. The act and its accompanying smile reminded Westerfelt of the deception the old lady had played on Bates, and that added weight to the vague convictions once more alive in his brain. Mrs. Floyd's smile implied a certain confidence in his credulity and pliability that was galling to his proud spirit.
His horse was mettlesome, and Westerfelt drove rapidly over a good road which ran along the foot of the mountain. The day was fine, the scenery glorious, but he was oblivious of their charm. His agony had never been so great. He kept his eyes on his horse; his face was set, his glance hard. Once he turned upon her, maddened by the sweet, half-confiding ring in her voice when she asked him why he was so quiet, but the memory of his promise never to reproach her again stopped him. With that came a sudden reckless determination to rid himself of the whole thing by going away, at least temporarily, and then he remembered that he really had some business affairs to attend to in Atlanta.
"I am going away awhile, Miss Harriet," he told her.
"You are, really?"
"Yes; I'm needed down in Atlanta for a while. I reckon I'll get back in a few weeks."
He saw her face change, but he did not read it correctly. At that moment he could not have persuaded himself that she cared very much one way or the other. Surely a girl who had, scarcely six weeks before, sobbed in old Wambush's arms about her love for his son could not feel anything deeply pertaining to another man whom she had known such a short time.
"Let's go back," he proposed, suddenly, and almost brutally. "I reckon we've gone far enough. Night comes on mighty quick here in the valley."
She raised her eyes to his in a half-frightened glance, and said:
"Yes; let's go back."
He turned his horse, and for fifteen minutes they drove along in silence. There was now absolutely no pity in his heart. The vast black problem of his own tortured love seemed to be soaking into him from the very air about him.
He broke the silence.
"So you refused Bates?"
She looked at him again. "How did you know that?"
He laughed bitterly.
"He told me so; he's another fool."
"Mr. Westerfelt!"
"I beg your pardon," he amended, quickly; "but any man is a fool to be simply crazy about a woman, and he is."
He saw her raise her little shapely hand to her twitching mouth and experienced one instant's throbbing desire to catch it and hold it and beg her to have mercy on him and help him throw off the hellish despair that rested on him. It was a significant fact that she said nothing to protract the conversation on the line of Bates's proposal. To her the proposal and rejection of a king by her would have found no place in her thoughts, facing the incomprehensible mood of the man she loved. It was growing dark when they reached the hotel. As he aided her to alight he gave her his hand. "It's good-bye for a while, anyway," he said.
She started; her hand was heavy and cold. She caught her breath. "When are you going, Mr. Westerfelt?"
"In the morning after breakfast, by the hack to Darley."
That was all. She lowered her head and passed into the house. In the hall she met her mother.
"Great goodness, dear!" exclaimed the old woman; "what on earth did you run away from him so sudden for?"
Harriet pushed past her into the parlor and stood fumbling with the buttons of her cloak.
"Answer me, daughter," pursued Mrs. Floyd; "what did—"
"Oh, God! don't bother me, mother," cried Harriet.
Mrs. Floyd held her breath as she drew her daughter down on a sofa and stared into her face.
"What's the matter, daughter?Dotell me."
"He's going away," said Harriet. "Oh, mother, I don't know what ails him! I never saw anybody act as he did. He had little to say, and when he spoke it looked as if he was mad with me. Oh, mother, sometimes I think he loves me, and then again—"
"Hedoeslove you," declared Mrs. Floyd. "I hid behind the curtains in the parlor and watched him on the sly while he was waiting for you to come down. I never saw a man show love plainer; he kept looking up at your window, and his face fairly shone when you come out. You can't fool me. He's in love, but he's trying to overcome it for—for some reason or other. High-spirited men do that way, sometimes. Men don't like to give up their liberty and settle down. But he'll come to time, you see if he don't."
Harriet stood up and started to the door. "Where are you going?" asked her mother.
"Up-stairs," sighed Harriet. "Mother, can you do without my help at supper? I want to lie down and be alone."
"Of course; I won't need you; everything is attended to, and Hettie come while you was away. She fairly danced when she heard you had gone to drive with Mr. Westerfelt. She hopes you will speak to him about Toot. She's heard from him. He wants to come back home and marry her, if Mr. Westerfelt can be persuaded to withdraw the charges. Do you think he would, daughter?"
"Oh, I don't know, mother!" Harriet slowly ascended the stairs to her room, and Mrs. Floyd sat down in the darkening parlor to devise some scheme; she finally concluded that Harriet was too much in love to manage her own affairs, and that she would take them in hand.
"He loves her, that's certain," she mused, "and he is a man who can be managed if he is worked just right." She had evidently arrived at an idea as to what should be done in the emergency, for she put on her cloak and hat and went up to Harriet's room. The girl sat near the bed, her head bent over to a pillow.
"Daughter," Mrs. Floyd said, laying her hand on Harriet's head, "you stay here, and don't come down-stairs to-night for all you do. I'm not going to have people see you looking like that. It will set 'em to talking, after you've been to ride with Mr. Westerfelt. Stay here; I'll have Hettie fetch you something to eat."
Harriet did not look up or reply, and Mrs. Floyd descended to the street.
Westerfelt was in the yard back of the stable. He had just started home when he saw a muffled figure enter the front door, and heard Mrs. Floyd asking Washburn if he were in.
"Here I am," he called out; and he approached her as she waited at the door.
"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Westerfelt," she said. "Can you walk back a piece with me?"
"Yes," he replied. "I'm going up to Bradley's to supper."
Outside it was dark; only the lights from the fire in the store and the big lamp on a post in front of the hotel pierced the gloom. A few yards from the stable she turned and faced him.
"Do you intend to kill my child?" she asked, harshly.
"What do you mean?" he answered.
"I mean that you will literally kill her—that's exactly what I mean. You've treated her worse than a brute. What did you do to her this evening? Tell me; I want to know. I have never seen her act so before."
He stopped, leaned against a fence, and stared at her.
"I've done nothing; I—"
"I know better. She fell in a dead faint as soon as she got to her room. I undressed her an' put 'er to bed; but something is wrong. She is out of her head, but she keeps moaning about you, and saying you are going away. Are you?"
"I thought of it, but I won't. I'll stay if—if you think I ought. I'll do anything, Mrs. Floyd—anything you wish."
"Well, don't go off. She'll not live a week if you do. Spare her—she is all I have left on earth. Think, think how she has suffered. She has not been well since the night she fainted in the blacksmith's shop an' lay so long on the cold ground—that was all for your sake, too."
"I know that, Mrs. Floyd," he said. "I'll stay. Tell her that—tell her I'm coming to see her. Can I see her to-night?"
The old woman hesitated.
"No, she's—she's in bed; but I'll tell her what you said, though. It will do her good. I'm glad I came to see you. I knew you loved her; you couldn't help it. She has been so good to you, and no woman ever loved a man more. When you are married you will both be happy. You'll wonder then how you could be so silly."
"I know I have been a fool." He took her hand and pressed it, almost affectionately. "Take care of her, Mrs. Floyd; don't let her be sick."
She turned to leave him. "She'll be well in the morning, I hope; don't worry. She will get all right when she's had a rest and a night's sleep. Now, let me walk on alone; the people talk so much in this place."
He stopped behind a clump of sycamore bushes and watched her disappear in the gloom. He saw her when she went through the light at the store, and again as she passed under the lamp at the hotel. He followed slowly. He passed the hotel and looked into the wide hall, but saw no one.
A lane led from the street to an open lot behind the hotel. He remembered that Harriet's room looked out that way, and, hardly knowing why he did so, he walked down the lane till he could see her window. There was a light in the room. For several minutes he stood gazing at the window, feeling his feet sink into the marshy soil. He wondered how he could pass the long hours of the night without speaking to her. He had just resolved that he would go to the hotel and implore Mrs. Floyd to let him see Harriet if only for a moment, when he noticed a shadow on the wall of the room. It looked like some one sitting at a table. He decided that it must be Mrs. Floyd watching by Harriet's bed, and in imagination he saw the girl lying there white and unconscious. Suddenly, however, the shadow disappeared. The figure rose into the light and crossed the room. It was Harriet. She wore the same gown she had worn an hour before. She stood for a moment in the light, as if placing something on the mantel-piece, and then resumed her seat at the table. The shadow was on the wall again. He looked at it steadily for twenty minutes. His feet had sunk deeper into the loam and felt wet and cold. Slowly he trudged back through the lane. Mrs. Floyd had lied to him. The girl was not ill. At the street corner he stopped. For an instant he was tempted to go to the hotel and ask Mrs. Floyd if he could see Harriet for a moment, that he might catch her in another lie, and then and there face her in it, but he felt too sick at heart. Harriet had not swooned. Mrs. Floyd had not undressed her and put her to bed. She had made up the story to excite his sympathy and gain a point. He groaned as he started on towards Bradley's. Mrs. Floyd had tried to get Bates to marry the girl, and now was attempting the same thing with him. And why?
At the gate of Bradley's house he stopped. Through the window he saw Luke and his wife at supper. They had not waited for him. He would not go in. He could not eat or talk to them. He wanted to be alone to decide what course to pursue. He crossed the road and plunged into the densest part of a pine forest. He came to a heap of pine-needles that the wind had massed together, and sank down on it, hugged his knees to his breast, and groaned. He wanted to tell his whole story to some one—any one who would listen and advise him. He could not decide for himself—his power of reasoning was gone. Suddenly he rose to his feet and started up the mountain. Taking a short cut, he reached the Hawkbill road, and, with rapid, swinging strides, began to climb the mountain.
As he got higher among the craggy peaks, that rose sombre and majestic in the moonlight, the air grew more rarified and his breath came short.
He could see the few lights of the village scattered here and there in the dark valley, and hear the clangor of the cast-iron bell at the little church. It was prayer-meeting night.
After a while he left the main road, and without any reason at all for so doing, he plunged into the tangle of laurel, rhododendron bushes, vines, and briers. The soles of his shoes had become slick on the pine-needles and heather, and he slipped and fell several times, but he rose and struggled on. Then he saw the bare brown cliff of a great canyon over the tops of the trees, and suddenly realizing the distance he had come he turned and walked homeward.
He found the Bradley house wrapped in darkness. He could hear Luke snoring out to the gate. He went round the house to the back door. It was unlocked, and he slipped in and gained his own room. Without undressing he threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep, but the attempt was vain. He lay awake all night, and when dawn broke he had not yet decided whether he was going away or not. He really believed he was losing his mind, but he did not care. He rose and sat at his window. The sky along the eastern horizon was turning pale, and the chickens were crowing and flapping their wings. He heard Bradley lustily clearing his throat as he got out of bed. Later he heard him in the kitchen making a fire. Westerfelt knew he would go out to the barn-yard to feed and water his cattle and horses, and he wanted to avoid him and his cheery morning greeting. Buttoning his coat round his neck, he tip-toed from his room across the passage and went down the street to the stable.
One of the big sliding-doors had been pushed aside, and in the back yard he saw Jake washing a buggy, and heard Washburn in one of the rear stalls, rattling his currycomb and brush together as he groomed a horse. He went into the office. The outer door was closed, and it would have been dark there, but for Washburn's lighted lantern which hung on a peg over the desk. He sat down at the desk and tried anew to think. Presently he decided that he would go to Atlanta, and that he would write a note to Mrs. Floyd, telling her of his change of plans. He took up a sheet of paper and began the note, but was interrupted by Washburn's step outside. He crumpled the paper in his hand, quickly thrust it into his pocket, and pretended to be looking over the pages of the ledger which lay open on the desk.
"Hello!" Washburn stood in the doorway. "I didn't know you wus heer. Anything gone wrong?"
"No; why?"
"It's a little early fer you, that's all." Washburn dropped his brush and currycomb under the desk, and, full of concern, stood looking down at him.
"Thought I'd come down before breakfast" said Westerfelt. "How was business yesterday?"
"Good; nearly everything out, and it wus most all cash—very little booked."
"Wash?"
"Yes, sir."
"How much did I agree to pay you by the month?"
"Thirty dollars." Washburn glanced at the open ledger. "Have I made any mistake?"
"No, but—but I've been making you do all the work. It isn't fair. Credit yourself with forty dollars a month from the start and keep it up."
Washburn flushed. "I'm mighty much obliged, Mr. Westerfelt. I wusn't complainin' as it wus."
"I know it, but you are a good fellow; I'm going to trust the whole business to you. Your judgment's as good as mine; do the best you can. I'm going down to Atlanta for a few days—I don't know for how long, but I will write you from there."
"I'll do the best I can, Mr. Westerfelt, you kin be shore of that."
After breakfast, at Bradley's, Westerfelt went into his room and hastily packed his valise and told Alf to take it to the stable and put it into the hack going that morning to the station. Mrs. Bradley came to him in the entry.
"John Westerfelt, what's got into you?" she asked, looking at him with concern. "Shorely you are not goin' off."
"To Atlanta for a few days on business, that's all," he said; "I'll write back from there."
She looked at him curiously, as if not quite satisfied with his explanation. "Well, hurry back," she said. "Me 'n' Luke'll miss you mightily."
"Tell Luke good-bye for me," he called back from the gate, and she nodded to him from the hall, but he could not hear what she said. As he approached the stable, he saw the hack waiting for him at the door. Budd Ridly sat on the driver's seat.
"Time we wus off," he remarked to Westerfelt. "It takes peert drivin' to catch the two-forty, south-bound."
"That's a fact," said Washburn, coming from the stable, "but I'll bet you'll have to wait a few minutes, anyway." He was looking back in the direction from whence Westerfelt had come. "I saw Miss Harriet come out o' the hotel jest after you passed; it looks to me like she's trying to overtake you."
Westerfelt turned and saw Harriet about a hundred yards away. "Maybe she is," he said. "I'll go meet her."
She paused when she saw him approaching, and he noticed that she looked greatly troubled and was quite pale.
"I must see you, Mr. Westerfelt," she said, a catch in her voice. "I came right at once so you wouldn't get left. Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, mother has just told me what she said to you last night. I don't know what she did it for—I reckon she thought she was acting right—but I cannot help her in deception of any kind. I was not sick last night."
"I knew you were not," he said, and then he could think of nothing else to say.
"But mother said she told you I was, and that she left the impression on your mind that it was because you were going off. That is not true, Mr. Westerfelt. I cannot presume to dictate to you about what you ought to do. Besides, it really seems a sensible thing for you to go. She said you promised not to leave, but I can't have it that way."
Something in the very firmness of her renunciation of him added weights to his sinking spirits.
"You think it would be best for me to go?" he managed to articulate. "Oh, do you, Harriet?"
"Yes, I do," she said, emphatically, after a little pause in which she looked down at the ground. "I am only a girl, a poor weak girl, and then—" raising her fine eyes steadily to his face—"I havemypride, too, you see, and it has never been so wounded before. If—if I had not loved you as I have this would have been over between us long ago. And then I excused you because you were sick and unjustly persecuted, but you are well now, Mr. Westerfelt—well enough to know what's right and just to a defenceless girl."
There was now not a trace of color in his face, and he felt as if he were turning to stone. He found himself absolutely unable to meet her words with any of his own, but he had never been so completely her slave.
"You must answer me one question plainly," she continued, "and I want the truth. Will you, Mr. Westerfelt?"
"If I can I will, Harriet."
"On your honor?"
"Yes, on my honor."
"Were you not leaving simply to—to get away from the—(oh, I don't know how to say it)—the—because you did not want to be near me?"
He shrank back; how was he to reply to such a pointed question?
"On your word of honor, Mr. Westerfelt!"
There was nothing for him to do but answer in the affirmative, but it fired him with a desire to justify himself. "But it was not because I don't love you, Harriet. On the other hand, it was because I do—so much that the whole thing is simply driving me crazy. As God is my judge, I worship you—I love you as no man ever loved a woman before. But when I remember—"
"I know what you are going to say," her lip curling in scorn, "and I want to help you forget my misfortune. Perhaps you will when I tell you that my feeling for you is dying a natural death, and it is dying because I no longer respect you as I did."
"Oh, God! don't—don'tsay that, Harriet!"
"But I'm only telling you the truth. I would not marry you—not if you were the only man on earth—not if you were worth your weight in gold—not if you got down on your knees and asked me a thousand times."
"You would not, Harriet?"
"Why should I? A girl wants a husband she can lean on and go to in every trouble she has. You wouldn't fill the bill, Mr. Westerfelt. Good gracious, no!"
She turned back towards the hotel, and like a man with his intelligence shaken from him by a superior force, he tried to keep at her side. In silence they reached the steps of the hotel.
"You'll miss that hack if you don't hurry," she said. "Besides, you've acted as if this was a pest-house ever since mother and I nursed you here and I made such a fool of myself."
"Harriet, if you do not consent to be my wife I don't know what I shall do. I want you—I want you. I love you, I can't do without you. That's God's truth. If I hesitated it was only because I was driven crazy with—"
"It's a great pity about your love," she sneered; her eyes flashed, and she snapped her fingers in his face, her breast rising and falling in agitation. "Sweethearts may be hard to find, and husbands, too, but I wouldn't marry you—you who have no more gentlemanly instincts than to blame a girl for what happened when she was a helpless little baby."
"What—what do you mean by that, Harriet?" he questioned, his eyes opening wide. "I have never—"
"You told me—or, at least, you showed it mighty plain—" she broke in, "that it was because I was a foundling and never knew who my real parents were that you have such a contempt for me."
"Harriet, as God is my judge, I don't know what you're talking about. You have never mentioned such a thing to me before."
"Oh yes, I did," she was studying his startled face curiously, "or rather you told me you knew about it—that you had heard of it."
"But I had never heard of it—I never dreamed of it till this minute. Besides that would not make a particle of difference to me. It would only make me love you more—itdoesmake me love you more."
Her face clouded over with perplexity. Somebody was coining down the sidewalk, and she led him into the parlor.
"Why, Mr. Westerfelt," she began again, "I—I don't know what to make of you. It was one day when you were sick here, just after you asked me to burn a letter you had got. I remember it distinctly."
He started. "I was not alluding to that," he said.
"Then what were you speaking of?"
"Of Wambush, and all the rest. Oh, Harriet, I've tried so hard to forget him and overcome my—"
"What about him? Answer me; what about him?"
"The letter I asked you to burn was not for me. It was from old Wambush to Toot. In it he mentioned you, and how you helped Toot hide that whiskey, and how you confessed your love and cried in the old man's arms."
"Mr. Westerfelt, are youcrazy? Are you a raving maniac? I never did anything like that. Toot Wambush was writing about Hettie Fergusson. She is his sweetheart; she helped him hide the barrel of whiskey in the kitchen. Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, was that what you've been thinking all this time?"
A great joy had illuminated his face, and he grasped her hands and clung to them.
"Harriet, I see it all now; can you ever forgive me?"
She did not answer, but hearing her mother's step in the hall she called out, while she tightened her little fingers over his, "Mother, come in here; come quick!"
"What is it, darling?" asked the old woman, anxiously, as she entered the room.
"Oh, mother, he thought I was Hettie; he thought I loved Toot Wambush; he says he doesn't care about the other thing one bit."
"Well, I didn't see how he could," said Mrs. Floyd. "I didn't, really."
"She hasn't said she will forgive me for thinking she was in love with Wambush, and making such a fool of myself on account of the mistake," said Westerfelt. "I wish you'd help me out, Mrs. Floyd."
"I may not forgive you for thinking I could love such a man," answered Harriet, "but I don't blame you a bit for the way you acted. I reckon that was just jealousy, and that showed he cared for me; don't you think so, mother?"
"Yes, daughter, I always have believed that Mr. Westerfelt loved you. And if I had had the management of this thing there wouldn't have been such a long misunderstanding. Mr. Westerfelt, Hettie Fergusson is out in the kitchen, just crazy to know if you will withdraw the charges against Toot so that he can come back home."
"I wouldn't prosecute that man," laughed Westerfelt, "not if he'd killed my best friend. Tell her that, Mrs. Floyd."
"Well, she'll be crazy to hear it, and I'll go tell her." She went into the hall and quickly returned. "Will Washburn is in front and wants to speak to you," she said. But Washburn came to the door himself, an anxious look on his face.
"The hack's still waitin' fer you, Mr. Westerfelt," he said. "What must I do about it?"
"Tell Ridly to go on without me," laughed Westerfelt. "And—Wash!" he added. "Take all the money out of the cash drawer and go get blind drunk. Shoot off all the guns you can find, and set the stable on fire. Wash, shake hands! I'm the luckiest fellow on God's green earth."
Washburn was not dense, and he reddened as it occurred to him that his reply ought to voice some sort of congratulations.
"Ef I'm any jedge o' human natur' yo're both lucky," he stammered. "Mr. Westerfelt is about the squarest man I ever struck an' would fight a circular saw bare-handed, an' Miss Harriet, I'll sw'ar I jest can't think o' nothin' good enough to say about you, except ef you hadn't a-been all wool an' a yard wide Mr. Westerfelt wouldn't a-been so crazy about you." Washburn laughed out suddenly, and added, "Some time I'll tell you about how he used to do at night when he couldn't sleep, especially after Bas' Bates got to cuttin' his patchin', an' buyin' paper collars an' neckties."
After Washburn had left they sat together on the sofa for several minutes in silence. The pause was broken by Harriet.
"I've been trying to make out what God meant by making us go through all this—you through all your ups and downs, and me mine. Don't you reckon it was so that He could make us feel just like we do now?"
He nodded, but there was a lump of happiness in his throat that kept him from speaking.
"Well, I do," she said. "I used to think He hadn't treated me fair, but I thank Him with all my heart forallof it—allof it. I wouldn't alter a thing. I believe you love me, and I can't think of anything else I could want. I believe you loved me even when you thought I loved Toot Wambush, and if you did then, I know you will now when I tell you I never loved any other man but you, and never even allowed any other man even hold my hand."