CHAPTER I

THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT

By Will N. Harben

Author of “Gilbert Neal” “Abner Daniel” “The Georgians” “Ann Boyd” etc.

New York and London: Harper Brothers Publishers

M C M I X

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TO

MABELLE

PART I

CHAPTER I

|YOUNG Doctor Dearing sat in the little church at an open window through

which he had a partial view of that portion of old Stafford which

stretched out desultorily toward the east. Immediately in front was a

common fairly well covered with grass and weeds, except at the pawed and

beaten spot where the public hitched its riding-horses, and beyond stood

rows of old-fashioned residences of brick and stone, interspersed with

a few modern frame cottages which, in gaudy paint, thrust themselves

nearer the street than their more stately neighbors.

It was a Sunday morning, and the smile of a balmy spring day lay over

every visible object, filling the ambient air with a translucent message

that no human mind could interpret. It was as though an infinite God

were speaking to eyes and ears too coarsely fashioned to fully see and

hear.

The whole was conducive to the doctor's feeling of restfulness and

content and good-will to every human being. He liked the young minister

who was seated in the high-backed rosewood chair behind the white

pulpit, holding a massive Bible on his slender knees, a look of

consecration to a sacred cause in his brown eyes. There was an assuring

augury that spoke well for the youth of the town in the spectacle of the

choir--the young men in their best clothes, and the young women in their

flower-like dresses and plumed and ribboned hats.

His gaze was drawn perforce to the face of the young organist, who sat

staring listlessly over the top of her hymn-book. She had a face and

form of rare beauty and grace. Her features were most regular; her skin

clear; her eyes were large, long-lashed, dreamy, and of the color of

violets. Her hair was a living mass of silken bronze.

“She looks tired and worried,” was Dearing's half-professional comment.

“Perhaps her mother is worse, and she sat up last night. Poor Dora! she

has certainly had a lot to contend with since her father died. I'll wait

for her after church and ask about her mother.”

The service over, he made his way through the throng down the aisle

toward the door. He was quite popular, and there was many a hand to

shake and many a warm greeting to respond to, but he finally succeeded

in reaching a point in the shaded church-yard which Dora Barry would

pass on her way home, and there he waited.

For some unaccountable reason she was almost the last to leave the

church, and the congregation had well-nigh dispersed when he saw her

coming. He noticed that she kept her glance on the ground, and that her

step was slow and languid; he was all but sure, too, that he heard her

sigh, and he saw her firm round breast heave tremulously as she neared

him.

“Good-morning, Dora,” he said, cheerily; and she started as, for the

first time, she noticed his presence.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a flush forcing itself into the pallor of her

really exquisite face. “I thought--that is, I didn't expect to--to see

you here, and, and--”

“I have been watching you this morning instead of the preacher,” he

said, with a boyish laugh, “and I made up my mind that I'll have to take

you in hand. You are burning the candle at both ends, and there is a

fire-cracker in the middle. What is the use of being your family doctor

if I let you get down sick, when I can prevent it by raking you over the

coals? How is your mother? You had to be up last night--I can see it by

the streaks under your eyes.”

“No, I wasn't up,” the girl answered. The color had receded from her

cheeks, and the abstracted expression which he had noticed in the church

began to repossess her wondrous eyes. “She is not quite well yet, but

she did not call me at all through the night. Your last prescription did

her good; it soothed her pain, and she rested better.”

“Well, I'm going to walk home with you and stop in and see her, to make

sure,” he answered, still lightly. “If you don't look out you will be

down yourself. Two sick persons in a family of two wouldn't be any

fun.” She made no response; her eyes had a far-off look in their shadowy

depths, and as he walked along beside her he eyed her profile curiously.

“Well, I declare, Dora,” he said, half jestingly, “you don't seem

overjoyed to have a fellow's company. Of course, I'm not a ladies' man,

and--”

“Forgive me, Wynn.” She looked up anxiously, and her lip trembled as she

suppressed another sigh. “It wasn't that I didn't want you to come. You

know better than to accuse me of such a thing. I have always considered

you the best, kindest, and truest friend I have.”

“I was only joking,” he responded, touched by the undoubted sincerity

of her tone and manner; “but, really, I don't like to see my little

neighbor looking so glum, and I am going to stop in and see how your

mother is. If she needs a trained nurse I'll get one, or come over and

look after her myself.”

They had reached the cottage where Dora lived. It was small, and stood

in a diminutive but rather pretty flower-garden on a short, little used

street immediately behind Dearing's home. And when he had opened the

sagging gate in the white paling fence, she preceded him into the low,

vine-grown porch, and narrow, box-like hallway, from which she led him

into the parlor, the room opposite to the chamber of the sick woman.

“Sit down, won't you?” Dora said, in a weary tone, as she began to

unfasten her hat. “I'll tell her you are here.”

He took a seat in the bowed window of the plainly furnished room, and

she brought a palm-leaf fan to him. “I'm sure my mother won't keep you

waiting long.” And with the look of abstraction deepening on her mobile

face, she turned away.

A neat matting made of green and brown straw covered the floor, on which

were placed rugs made of scraps of silk of various colors artistically

blended. A carved rosewood table with a white marble top stood in the

centre of the room, and on it rested a plush-covered photograph-album,

a glass lamp with a fluted and knotched paper shade on a frame of wire,

and a vase of freshly cut flowers. Between the two front windows, which,

like their fellows, were draped in white lace curtains of the cheapest

quality, stood Dora's piano--a small, square instrument with sloping

octagonal legs and lyre-shaped pedal-support. Against the wall near by

leaned a time-worn easel, on which lay some torn and ragged sketches,

a besmeared palette, and a handful of stubby, paint-filled brushes. The

ceiling overhead was made of planks and painted light blue; the walls

were plastered and whitewashed and ornamented by some really good family

portraits in oil which had been done by Dora's deceased father, who had

been the town's only artist. A Seth Thomas clock presided over a crude

mantelpiece which was bare of any other ornament. The deep chimney was

filled with pine-tops and cones, the uneven bricks of the hearth were

whitewashed.

Dearing heard the girl's returning step in the hallway, and then she

looked in on him.

“She is sitting up,” Dora announced. “She wants you to come to her.”

As he entered the room across the hall Dora turned toward the kitchen

in the rear, and he found himself facing her mother, a thin, gaunt woman

about fifty years of age, who sat in a low rocking-chair near her bed,

the latter orderly arranged under a spotlessly white coverlet and great

snowy pillows.

“This is not a professional visit, Mrs. Barry.” He smiled as he bent to

take her thin, nervous hand, the fingers of which were aimlessly picking

at the fringe on the arm of the chair. “Dora was headed for home, and

so was I. The truth is, I am not half so much worried about you as I am

about her. Your color is coming back fast enough, and you have no fever.

You are all right, but she looks upset and nervous. It may be due to

her highly artistic temperament, which is a thing medicine can't easily

reach. Do you know if her appetite is good?”

“Really I haven't noticed about that particularly,” the woman answered,

in a plaintive tone. “You see, since I got down I haven't been about the

dining-room at all. She has waited on me instead of me on her.”

“Well, you'll be all right in a day or so,” Dearing said, his brows

drawn thoughtfully, “and then you can take charge of her. She declares,

though, that her health is tip-top.”

The old patient folded her thin, blue-veined hands tightly for a moment,

and twisted them spasmodically together; then suddenly she fixed her

sharp, gray eyes anxiously on the young man's face, and he saw that she

was deeply moved, for her lower lip was twitching.

“I have always felt that you are the one young man whom I could

trust--absolutely trust,” she said, falteringly. “Physicians are

supposed to keep certain matters to themselves, anyway, but even aside

from that, Wynn, it is hard to keep from speaking to you in a familiar

way, having seen you grow up from babyhood right under my eyes, so I

hope you will forgive me if--”

“Oh, I wouldn't have you quit calling me that for the world!” Dearing

flushed deeply and laughed. “I haven't grown a full beard yet to make me

look older and wiser than I am, as many young sawbones do. I hope I'll

always be simply Wynn Dearing to you, Mrs. Barry.”

She looked as admiringly and as proudly as a mother might at the strong,

smooth-shaved face, with its merry eyes of brown, firm chin and mouth,

and shock of thick, dark hair, and at the tall, muscular frame and limbs

in the neatly cut suit of brown.

“Yes, I can trust you,” she muttered, her voice growing husky, “and it

seems to me if I don't confide in some one, I may as well give up.”

“Why, what is the matter, Mrs. Barry?” Dearing inquired, now quite

grave.

“Oh, it is about Dora!” The old woman sighed. “Wynn, I may as well

confess it. My sickness is partly due to worry over her. It is not

because she is unwell either. It is something else. I am afraid she

has some--some secret trouble. You must not show that you suspect

anything--that would never do; but all is not as it should be with her.

Naturally she has as happy a disposition as any girl I ever knew. Her

art pupils adore her, and up to quite recently she used to laugh and

joke with them constantly; but she has altered--strangely altered. I

catch her sitting by herself at times with the saddest, most woebegone

expression on her face. When I try to worm it out of her, she attempts

to laugh it off; but she can't keep up the pretense, and it is not long

before she begins to droop again. Her room is there, you see; and as

the partition is thin, I often wake up in the dead of night and hear her

cautiously tiptoeing over the floor--first to the window and then back

to her bed, as though she were unable to sleep.”

“That is bad,” Dearing said, sympathetically, as Mrs. Barry paused and,

covering her wrinkled face with her hands, remained silent for a moment.

“I would like to ask you something,” the old woman continued,

hesitatingly--“something of a personal nature. I have no earthly right

to do such a thing, but I thought, you see, that it might help me decide

whether I am right in something I fear. Is it true that--that your uncle

has forbidden Fred Walton to visit your sister Margaret?”

Dearing shrugged his broad shoulders and contracted his heavy brows.

“I may as well tell you that he has, Mrs. Barry. I don't like to speak

against another young man, and one who has never harmed me in any way;

but I agree with my uncle that Fred is not exactly the kind of man I'd

like to have Madge make an intimate friend of. His general character is

not what it ought to be, and he seems to be going from bad to worse. He

still has plenty of friends and even sympathizers, who think Fred would

reform and settle down to business if his father were not quite so hard

on him. Madge is one of them. She has a sort of girlish faith in the

fellow, and the slightest word against him makes her mad.”

“Well, it is about Fred Walton that I want to speak to you,” Mrs. Barry

resumed, tremulously. “He has been coming to see Dora a good deal for

the last year. He passes by the gate often in the afternoon, and they

take long walks over the hills to the river. Sometimes he accompanies

her when she goes to sketch in the woods. And now and then she slips

out after dark, and won't say where she has been. You see, I am speaking

very frankly. I _have_ to, Wynn, for I am in great trouble--greater

than I ever thought could come to me at my time of life. My child is an

orphan, and there is no one, you see, to--to protect her. It is hard to

think that any man here at home could be so--so dishonorable, but they

all say he is reckless, and--well, if I must say it--I am afraid she

cares a great deal about him. I may be very wrong, and I hope I am, but

I am deeply troubled, and need not try to hide it.”

“I see how you feel,” Dearing said, his face hardening as he bit his

lip, and a fixed stare came into his eyes, “but I am sure you have

nothing very--very serious to fear. Dora may think she cares for him. He

seems to have a wonderful way with women, young and old. They all stand

by him and make excuses for his daredevil ways.”

“Well, I do hope I am wrong,” Mrs. Barry said, brightening a little. “It

has made me feel better to talk to you. We'll wait and see. As you say,

it may be only a fancy on Dora's part, and it may all come out right. I

have said more to you, Wynn, than I could have said to any one else in

the world. That shows how much confidence I place in you.”

“You can trust me, Mrs. Barry,” Dearing said, as he looked at his watch

and rose to go. “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

As he was leaving, Dora stood motionless at the window of her room,

hidden from his view by the curtains. She watched him as he passed out

of the yard and crossed the narrow street to reach the rear gate to his

own grounds.

“If he knew the truth he'd despise me!” she moaned, as she sank into a

chair and tensely clasped her little hands in her lap. “How can I bear

it? I'm so miserable--so very, very miserable!”

She rose, and went to her bureau, and took up a photograph of Fred

Walton; as she gazed at it her eyes filled and her lip quivered.

“Dear, dear Fred!” she said, fervently, “in spite of all the faults they

say you have, you are the best and truest friend a poor girl ever had.

If I'd only listened to your advice I'd never have been like this. Oh,

what will you think when you hear the truth--the awful, awful truth!”

She threw herself on her bed, and with her face covered she lay trying

to sob, trying to shed tears, but the founts of her agony were dry.

CHAPTER II

|DR. DEARING'S house was an old-fashioned structure built long before

the Civil War. It fronted on the main residential street of the town,

and was of red brick partly covered with clinging ivy. It had a colonial

veranda with the usual tall, fluted columns, which were painted white

and rested on square blocks of masonry. It had been the property of

several generations of Dearings more or less distinguished in the

history of the State, and since the death of the doctor's father, a

prosperous merchant, slave-holder, and planter, it had been in the

possession of the brother and sister, who, with an aged maternal uncle,

General Sylvester, now occupied it.

As Dearing entered the lower gate of the grounds he saw Kenneth Galt,

his next-door neighbor, crossing the lawn to reach his own house just

beyond a low hedge of well-trimmed boxwood. And hearing the clicking

of the iron gate-latch, Galt paused, turned, and advanced toward his

friend. He was a handsome man, tall, dark, well-built, about thirty-five

years of age, and with a strong, secretive face--the face of a man full

of nervous force and the never-satisfied hunger of ambition.

“You've been to church like a good little boy,” he laughed, as he paused

and stood cutting at the grass with his cane.

“Yes, and it is exactly where you ought to have been,” Dearing retorted,

with a smile. “If you would only listen to a few good sermons on the

right line you'd burn up that free-thought library of yours, and quit

thinking you know more than your good old Godfearing ancestors.”

“I simply couldn't sit and listen to such stuff with a straight face,”

Galt answered. “Goodness knows, I've tried it often enough. It really

seems an insult to a fellow's intelligence. I can't agree with you that

any man ought to try to think as his forefathers did. You don't in your

profession, why should a man do it in more vital matters? You don't

bleed your patients as doctors did fifty years ago, because you know

better. I believe in evolution of mind as well as of matter. We

are constantly advancing. Your old-time preacher, with all his good

intentions, is a stumbling-block to intelligence. You may listen to a

man who tells you your house is burning down over your head and urges

you to save your life, but if you don't believe him you wouldn't care to

have him pull you out by the heels on a cold night to convince you. But

you don't hear what I am saying!” Galt finished, with a short laugh. “I

am sowing my seed on stony ground. I've been in to see the General. I

have some important letters about the railroad that he and I are going

to get built one of these days. As a rule, he is more than eager to talk

about it, but he was certainly out of sorts just now. I have never seen

him so upset before. While I was talking to him he kept walking up and

down the room, and not hearing half I was saying. He is not well, is

he?”

“No, he really is not in the best of shape,” Dearing answered, with a

thoughtful shadow on his face; “but I think he will pull through all

right. I see him on the porch now. I'll walk on, and talk to him.”

As Dearing drew near the house General Sylvester, who was a tall,

slightly bent old man with long gray beard and hair, came down the steps

and walked across the grass to a rustic seat under a tree. He was about

to sit down, but seeing his nephew approaching he remained standing, a

gaunt hand held over his spectacled eyes to ward off the sunlight.

“I have been waiting for you,” he said, in a piping, irritable voice.

“Kenneth was in to talk business, but it seems to me that I'll never be

interested in such things any more. What's the use? I didn't want the

money for myself, anyway. I saw the others coming back from church some

time ago, and couldn't imagine what delayed you. I've had another row

with Madge, and this time it is serious--very, very serious.”

“Oh, _that's_ the trouble!” Dearing cried, and he attempted to laugh.

“Uncle Tom, in your old age you are just like a school-boy with his

first sweetheart. You are actually flirting with your own niece. You

and she bill and coo like doves, and then get cold as ice or as mad as

Tucker. What's wrong now?”

“Well, I think a young girl like she is ought to take the sound advice

of a man as old and experienced as I am, and she won't do it. That's

all--she won't do it, sir!”

“Of course she _ought_ to,” Dearing said, still inclined to jest, “but

you are wise enough to know that no woman ever took the advice of a man,

young or old. See here, uncle, I'll bet you haven't had your medicine

yet, and the dinner-bell will ring soon and you will have to wait

fifteen minutes before you shall taste a bite. You and I 'll quarrel if

you don't do as I tell you. Madge won't obey you, but you've got to get

down on your marrow-bones and follow my orders.”

“Oh, I'll take the blasted stuff in time!” the General fumed. “I don't

want to eat now, anyway. I tell you, I'm too mad to eat.”

“I suppose it is Fred Walton again,” Dearing said, resignedly.

“Who else could it be?” the old man burst out. “She tries to close my

eyes as to her doings with him; but I got it straight that he was out

driving with her last night while you were in the country.”

The face of the doctor clouded over. “You don't mean to say that--”

“I mean that he was afraid to drive up to the door like a gentleman, but

met her down-town and took her from there, and when they got back, long

after dark, he left her at Lizzie Sloan's, to keep us from getting on to

it. You know, folks will talk about a thing like that.”

Dearing's eyes flashed, and a touch of whiteness crept into his face,

but he said, pacifically: “Oh, there must be some mistake. I hardly

think Madge would--”

“But there _isn't_ any mistake, for she admitted it to me not ten

minutes ago, and just as good as told me it was none of my business

besides. Now, listen to me, my boy. I am an old man, but I am still in

the possession of my faculties, and I know what I am talking about. I

was in the bank yesterday, and had a talk with his father. He told me

frankly that he intended to cut the scamp off without a penny. He gave

the fellow a position of trust in the bank, but instead of behaving

himself properly, he started into gambling, speculating in futures, and

every reckless thing he could think of. He turned customers away, scared

off depositors, who don't like to leave their money in such hands, and

in many ways injured the business. Old Walton was so mad he could hardly

talk to me, and when I told him right out how I felt about my niece

going with him, he said he didn't blame me; that he wouldn't let such a

rascal go with a servant of his, much less the acknowledged belle of the

town, and a prospective heiress. Now, Wynn, this is what I have decided

to do. You know that I have made my will, leaving all I have in the

world to her.”

“And it is blamed bully of you, Uncle Tom,” Dearing said, laying his

hand on the old man's shoulder, which he could feel quivering with a

passion not good for even a younger man. “I am sure, neither of us is

worthy of the great interest you have always taken in us.”

“_You_ are, my boy. I am proud of _you_. You are already a shining light

in your profession, and will make all the money you'll ever need. But I

always have worried about Madge. I want to provide well for her, and

I haven't many years to live. Sometimes I think I may snuff out like a

candle without a moment's notice, so I don't intend to leave my affairs

in such a shape that Fred Walton will gloat over my demise and throw

away my savings. No, sir. I tell you if your sister does not agree to

give that scamp up inside of the next twenty-four hours, I will set my

effects aside for another purpose.”

“I'll see her and talk to her, Uncle Tom,” Dearing promised, gravely.

He had never seen the General so highly wrought up, nor heard such an

exasperated ring in his voice. “Now, you go take your medicine. Madge

will be sensible. She loves you, I know she does.”

“Well, remember what I've said,” the old soldier threw back as he turned

away.

Dearing waited till he had disappeared through the side entrance of the

house, and then he went up the front steps, crossed the wide veranda,

with its smooth, rain-beaten floor of ancient heart pine, and stood in

the great hall, straw hat in hand, looking about him.

“I'll see her at once,” he thought. “She must come to her senses. She is

driving uncle to his grave with worry over her silly conduct.”

“Oh, Madge!” he called out. His voice rang and echoed in the great

opening through which the walnut stairs and polished balustrade ascended

to the corridor and sleeping-rooms above, but there was no response.

Still holding his hat, with which he fanned his heated face in an

absent-minded, perturbed sort of way, Dearing went through all the

lower rooms--the parlor and library and adjoining study, and even the

dining-room and kitchen. The colored cook, old Aunt Diana, a former

slave of the family, in white apron and turbaned head, informed him that

his sister was in her room.

“I know she is, Marse Wynn, 'case she sent Lindy down fer some fresh

col' water not mo'n ten minutes ago.”

Back to the front hall Dearing went, and thence up the stairs to his

sister's room, adjoining his own. The door was ajar, but he stood on the

threshold and rapped softly.

“Come!” It was a sweet young voice, and belonged to a pretty girl

seventeen or eighteen years of age, who, as Dearing entered the room,

sat at a quaint mahogany writing-desk between two lace-curtained windows

through which a gentle breeze was blowing. She wore a becoming wrapper,

and her small feet were shod in dainty embroidered slippers. Her

abundant hair was quite dark, and her eyes very blue. She had been

writing, for on the page of tinted note-paper before her he saw an

unfinished sentence in the round, schoolgirl hand.

“I don't want to disturb you, Madge,” Dearing began, “but you will have

to stop anyway soon, and get ready for dinner.”

“I am not going down,” she told him, her glance falling to the rug at

her feet. “I had breakfast late, and I am not a bit hungry.”

“But that wouldn't be treating Uncle Tom quite right, you know,” Dearing

gently protested, as he took a seat on the broad window-sill, swung

his hat between his knees, and eyed her significantly. “You know how

childish he is getting, Madge. It really upsets him not to have you at

the table. He is old-fashioned, and was something of a beau when he was

a young man. Making a fine lady of you and paying court to you seems to

be about all the pleasure he gets in life. I know it must be tiresome,

but there are many things we--”

“He is _childish!_” Margaret exclaimed, her eyes flashing angrily,

“but I bore with it because I loved him, and because mother would have

approved it; but he is getting worse and worse. He wants me at his beck

and call every minute in the day, and even if I go out to see one of

my girl friends he either comes or sends one of the servants to see if

anything has happened. Then he--he--oh, there are a lot of things a girl

can't put up with!”

“You mean his opposition to the visits of a certain friend of yours?”

Dearing said, in a forced tone of indifference, as he glanced out at the

window. Although his eyes were still ostentatiously averted, he saw her

cautiously draw a blank sheet of paper over the lines she had written.

“Yes,” she said, “that is _one_ thing. Fred Walton is a friend of mine,

and for all I know his feelings may be hurt by what uncle has said and

done. I know Fred is wild and reckless, but he has a good side to him--a

side everybody can't see who doesn't know him intimately.”

Young as he was, Wynn Dearing was wise in the ways of the world, and he

well knew that a temperament and will like his sister's would never

be coerced. He decided to profit by the error in the method of his

blustering uncle.

“You have never heard _me_ abuse Fred,” he said, gently. “Many young

men who have wealthy parents are inclined to 'sow wild oats,' as the old

folks say; but really, Madge”--and he was smiling now--“for an honest,

inoffensive cereal, the 'wild oat' has to bear the burden of many a

tough young weed. Charity is said to cover a multitude of sins, but for

genuine selfsacrifice give me the old-fashioned, long-bearded wild oat,

in all its verdant and succulent--”

“Brother, I'm not in a mood for silliness!” the girl interrupted him,

quickly, and with an impatient flush.

“I'm not either, Madge.” He took one of his knees between his hands,

and drew it up toward him. “The fact is, I am worried--worried like

everything! I may not show it, but this thing has taken a deep hold on

me. Something has got to be done, and that right away. Young folks may

love each other, or _think_ they love each other, and if it does no harm

to any one _else_, why, all well and good. But if their love business is

causing suffering--yes, and positive bodily injury to another--then they

ought to stop and ponder.”

“You mean that Uncle Tom--”

“I mean this, Madge, and now I am talking to you as a physician--_his_

physician, too. The old man is actually so near the end of his

natural life that irritation like this is apt to undermine what little

constitution he has left. I've known old men to worry themselves into

softening of the brain over smaller things than this. You may not think

it would make much difference; but remember that if any act of yours and

Fred Walton's were to cause his death, even indirectly, you could never

outlive the reproach of your conscience. Uncle Tom is in a dangerous

condition: his heart-action is bad, and so are his kidneys. You are too

young a girl to take such a responsibility as that on your shoulders;

besides, Madge, I must say that Fred--it is my duty as a brother to

say--”

“You are going to abuse him; remember, you have not done it so far!”

Margaret broke in. “You won't gain by it, brother. The whole town has

talked of nothing lately but him and his faults, and I appreciated your

silence, and so does he. We were speaking about it only yesterday,

and he praised you for it. He said you were the truest, most perfect

gentleman he had ever known, that you knew human nature too well to

expect young men to be absolutely perfect, and that--”

“I wasn't going to say a word against his _honor_, Madge,” Dearing

interrupted her, gently; “but I am going to say this: if I were in _his_

place right now I'd feel that I could not conscientiously, or even quite

honorably, continue to pay attention to a young lady situated--well,

situated _just as you are_.”

“Why, what do you mean?” the girl asked, her lip quivering stubbornly.

“This, sister, and nothing else. We may say what we please about Fred's

good qualities, his sincerity, his--his devotion to you; his plans,

whatever they are; but a very disagreeable fact stands out like a black

splotch on the whole business, and that is simply this: Fred really has

failed to make good in the way a man ought to make good who aspires to

the hand of a girl like yourself. His father gave him a splendid chance

in the bank, but Fred's best friends admit that he hasn't profited by

it. Instead of attending to business and helping his old daddy--who,

harsh old skinflint though he is as to money matters, is a safe man in

any community--instead of doing what was expected of him, Fred--well, he

has turned his father against him, that's all. The old man swears he

is going to cut him off without a penny, and everybody in town knows he

means it; Fred doesn't dispute it himself. So, taking that along with

_the other thing_, I honestly can't see how he can talk of love and

marriage to a girl like you are.”

“What _other_ thing do you mean?” Margaret demanded, pale with

suppressed emotion.

“I mean the fact that his marriage to you would cause Uncle Tom to

disinherit you outright. A man might sink low enough to want to marry a

girl after he himself has been disinherited for his irregular conduct,

but no creature with a spark of manhood in him would let his act

impoverish the woman he loves. I have said nothing against him so far,

but when he knows what uncle has determined to do--when he is told that

if he persists--well”--Dealing's eyes were burning now with the fire

of genuine anger--“he'll have _me_ to reckon with, that's all--_me_,

Madge!”

Margaret stared at him for a moment, and then, with a piteous little

sob, she covered her face with her hands. “You are going to _tell_ him!”

she said, huskily. “Yes.” Dearing stood up and laid his hand on her

head. “I'm going to tell him, Madge, but it will be only for his own

good. In any case, he couldn't honorably ask you to marry him _now_, and

the delay--if he is willing to wait--won't do either of you any harm.

You are both young, and the world is before you. You can't realize it

now, Madge, but this very thing may be the making of him. If he loves

you as truly as he ought, this will be only a spur toward proving his

worthiness.”

“Brother, must you really--? oh, I can't--can't--” The girl stood

up, her cheeks wet with tears, and clasped her hands round his

neck appealingly. “You really must not! He is already in trouble.

Surely--surely--”

“There is no other way, Madge, but I'll not be rough; I pity the poor

chap too much for that.”

“When do you intend to--to see him?” She was sobbing again, her face

pressed against his shoulder.

“This evening, Madge, if I can find him at home. There is no other way.

Uncle and I are the only protectors you have, and he is too angry and

easily wrought up to be trusted with the matter. I'd better manage it;

but you know I'll be fair.”

The girl gazed fixedly at him for a moment, and then, in a storm of

tears, she threw herself oh her bed and hid her face in a pillow.

Glancing at her pityingly, and with moisture in his own eyes, Dearing

turned from the room.

“I am sorry for them both,” he muttered. “They are having hard luck, and

yet Fred Walton isn't, from any point of view, worthy of her; there are

no two ways about it. He has got himself into a terrible plight, and he

has no right to involve my sister. No, and he sha'n't!”

CHAPTER III

|THE greater part of the ensuing afternoon was spent by Dr. Dearing in

his musty little office on the ground-floor of a building in the central

square of the town which was devoted to lawyers' quarters, the rooms of

the sheriff of the county, and the council-chamber where the mayor held

his court. He received a few patients, made some examinations, wrote

several prescriptions, and, considering that it was Sunday, he felt that

he was fairly well occupied. His mind, however, was constantly on the

topic of the morning and the disagreeable task confronting him. Finally

he turned over the placard on the door till the word “out” was exposed

to view, and went home to supper. Here, however, he met only General

Sylvester, who, a dejected picture of offended loneliness, sat on the

veranda, a dry cigar between his lips.

“Where is Madge?” Dearing asked, half standing, half sitting on the

balustrade in front of the old gentleman, and assuming a casual tone

which was far from natural.

“She hasn't been down at all to-day,” the General answered, pettishly.

“I wouldn't send for her. She knew I wouldn't knuckle like that, but she

knows I always expect to walk with her Sunday afternoons, and she stayed

pouting in her room. She resents what has been said about that blackleg

gambler, and wants to show it as plainly as possible, so there won't be

any mistake between her view and mine. She knows I don't intend to leave

any property to her if she keeps this up, but she doesn't care a rap.

She's dead in love with the scamp, and, bad as he is, she glories in the

opportunity to show her contempt for me and all that pertains to me.

She can't toss _me_ about like a ball, my boy! This thing has got to end

right here and now, or I'll see my lawyer to-morrow and put something on

paper that may never be wiped out while I am alive.”

“Well, give her till to-morrow, then,” Dearing said, with strange,

suppressed calmness. “Her very sullenness now may be a sign that she is

about to give him up. I've talked to her, and, while I am not certain

what she'll do, I have an idea that she may respect your wishes and

abide by your judgment.”

“I don't think so,” the old man said, with an anxious look into the face

of his nephew; “that is, not so long as the rascal holds her to

whatever understanding they may have between them. When I was a young

man”--Sylvester clinched his fist and pounded his knee, as if to

emphasize his words--“things like this did not hang fire. A man who

could make no showing as to his being a proper suitor for a girl

under age was given orders from her family to desist in his harmful

attentions, and if he refused he was promptly dealt with--that's all:

_dealt_ with!”

“Nowadays it's different, Uncle Tom,” Dearing said, with the tone of an

older man. “Shooting or threatening to shoot about a young woman is sure

to cast a blight on her reputation, and there generally is some other

method to--”

“You learned that up among those Yankees!” the General said, alluding to

the period his nephew had spent in a New York medical college. “But I am

miserable enough as it is without wanting you to stain your hands with

blood and have us all brought into court to justify your course. He is a

coward, I'm sure; no man has any pride or backbone who will cling on to

a respectable family, under the pretext of being in love, when his own

people have cut him off. His mother belonged to a good family, but he

hasn't inherited any refinement of feeling from that side of the house.”

“I don't think, to do Fred _full_ justice,” Dearing gently urged, “that

he quite realizes the seriousness of your objections to him. I really

believe, when he is told of the step you are about to take, that he will

act sensibly. He has a good side to him when he is thoroughly himself,

and I am going to look him up after supper and lay the whole thing

fairly before him.”

“Does Margaret know you--” The General's voice failed to carry further.

“Yes; I've told her what I intend to do, and I think that is one reason

she has remained in her room. She is hard hit, Uncle Tom. Girls never

can understand things of this sort. Their sympathies always go with

the unfortunate, and Madge knows Fred is down, and that most people are

against him.”

“Well, I hope you will accomplish something,” General Sylvester said,

hopefully. “You can straighten it out if any one can. I can trust you,

Wynn, and I am proud of you--proud of you in every way. I never regret

the loss of the old order of things when I think of what you are and

what you are bound to become as a leader of young men of your period.”

“We are certainly sharp enough to pull the wool over kind old eyes like

yours, Uncle Tom.” Dearing laughed as he leaned forward and laid his

hand on the old man's shoulder. “In your day young blades boasted of

what they did under cover of the night, but we thank the darkness for

its shelter and don't talk of our acts. Why, you old-timers didn't know

the first principles of devilment! If it were not giving away

professional secrets, I'd tell you things that would make your hair

stand on end. You've heard me say I believe in the good old-time,

psalm-singing, God-fearing religion--well, I do. The longer I live the

more I think we need it. Look what modern thought has done for Kenneth

Galt. He has read so much on science and philosophy that he has reduced

us all--good, bad, and indifferent--to mere cosmic dust. According to

him, we are simply mud babies energized by planetary force, and living

on the pap of graft. Ask him to account for good spiritual impulses, and

he will--if he admits there are any--show you conclusively that good

conduct is the mere evolutionary result of communal self-interest; men

came to believe murder was wrong only because they didn't want their

_own_ throats cut.”

“I have always wondered what Kenneth _does_ believe,” Sylvester said,

with his first smile. “He certainly is an interesting man; and he's

rich, and growing more so.”

“Yes; he was well provided for at the start,” responded Dearing, “and he

has invested wisely.”

“I have seen him talking to Margaret several times of late,” Sylvester

remarked. “That is one thing that irritates me. I don't care a red cent

about his cranky religious views; they will take care of themselves, for

he is a straight, safe, and honorable man; and if this harum-scarum Fred

Walton had not been taking up so much of her time, why--”

“You old match-maker!” Dearing laughed. “I'm going to stir up Aunt Diana

and get something to eat. I am as hungry as a bear.”

While he and his uncle sat together at the long table in the big

dining-room, Dearing asked the cook if she had notified his sister that

supper was served.

“Yesser, Marse Wynn,” the woman answered over the coffee-tray she was

putting down, “I sent Lindy up dar to her room, and she say young miss

didn't want er bite. I reckon she sho' is sick. She haint tetch er

mouthful since 'er breakfast.”

“Well, let her alone,” Dearing said, as his eyes met the wavering glance

of his uncle across the table. “She will be all right in the morning.”

The gloomy meal over, the General strode back to the veranda, and Wynn

went up to his room. He did not light the gas, as he intended doing, for

it occurred to him that there was really no need for it, and he sat down

in the darkness. He could see one of the windows of Margaret's room in

the ell of the building, across the open court. A dim light was burning

there, and the curtains were drawn.

“Poor child!” he muttered; “that fellow has hit her hard. Women have

a wonderful amount of sympathy for him. It may be that Mrs. Barry

is correct in her fears, and that Dora may be in love with him, too.

Beautiful, trusting Dora--even _she_ is suffering on his account. Yes,

I must see him. There is no other way.” Dearing stood up and went to

his bureau to get a fresh handkerchief, and while his hand was fumbling

collars, cuffs, and neckties, it touched the cool, smooth handle of a

revolver. He picked it up and held it for a moment reflectively, and

then laid it down.

“No, I'll not go to see him even with the thought that I may have to

use force,” he said. “My mission in life is to _cure_ men, not to

spill their blood. They say he sometimes goes armed, and if we met on

that sort of level there might be trouble.”

He closed the drawer, stood for a moment looking at the light in the

window of Margaret's room, and then, shrugging his broad shoulders, he

turned away. He met no one on the stairs, but as he passed out at the

front door he saw the flare of his uncle's cigar and the wrinkled,

brooding face and gray head and beard at the end of the veranda. Going

down the wide brick walk, which was edged by rows of well-trimmed

boxwood, he descried, near the gate, a willowy figure in white. It was

Margaret. She looked up as he approached, and in the piteous lines of

her face he read her final desperate appeal.

“I thought you were in your room,” he said, in an effort at gentle

deception. “Madge, old girl, I'll have to take you in hand.” He passed

his fingers playfully under her cold chin. “You are on a direct road to

a thirty-day course of that very tonic you despised so much last

spring. No dinner to-day and no supper to-night. I don't get any fee

for doctoring you, but I'm going to keep you in good shape as an

advertisement, if for nothing else. I don't intend to have my patients

throwing it in my face that they won't believe in me until I cure my own

family.”

She did not return his smile, and drew back from his caress as if she

half resented it.

“Are you really going to see Fred?” she asked, falteringly, her eyes

fixed coldly, half fearfully, on his through the dim, vague starlight.

“Yes, Madge,” he answered, simply. “I've thought it over deliberately

and calmly, with no feeling of ill-will toward him, and I can't see my

duty in any other way.”

“To-night?” She breathed hard, her hand on her breast.

“Right away, sister; that is, if he is in town.”

She moved a little nearer to him. He saw the hand which started toward

his arm tremble, as it diverted its course to one of the palings of the

fence, which it clutched in visible desperation.

“Do you realize,” she asked, “that to--to tell him what Uncle Tom

intends to do in case he and I don't give each other up may insult him?

He is not a man to care about a girl's fortune; he hasn't shown that he

wants his father's money. He knows that I don't let such things weigh

with me. What you are now starting out to do may be the immediate cause

of--of our both _defying you!_”

“Oh, I see,” Dearing said. “Well, in that case I shall have done all

in my power to protect your interests. I'll tell you one thing, though,

Madge, little girl: the matter looks black enough as it stands; but,

really, if I felt that you were going absolutely penniless to a man who

has shown himself as reckless of his own interests as Fred Walton has,

I'd be blue in earnest, and--and I don't know that I'd be quite able to

restrain my temper if such a reckless spendthrift were to thrust himself

between you and your natural rights, boldly robbing you, blind as you

now are, of what you ought to have, and which later in life you

will sadly need. I am not a fighting man, but--well, he'd better not

interfere with your material interests, that's all.”

She shrank back before the force and suppressed fury in his face and

voice, and now, her last hope gone, she simply stared, speechless. He

had put his hand upon the iron latch of the gate when she caught his arm

and clung to it convulsively.

“Oh, brother, you don't know Fred as I do!” she wailed. “He has some

faults, I'll admit; but he is true and noble at heart. You see, I've

heard him talk in a confidential way and you haven't. The last time I

met him he almost cried in telling me of his troubles. He does try very

hard to please his father. You see, I am convinced that he has just

reached a sort of turning-point, and I am afraid this very thing may

make him more desperate.”

“If he is sincere,” Wynn retorted, “and is any sort of man, he will

be glad of being warned against impoverishing the girl he professes to

love. You leave it all to me, sister. I am not going to be harsh with

him. I don't really dislike him, and he has nothing against me.” From

the expression of utter despair in her eyes he knew that she intended

to resist no longer. She lowered her head to the top of the fence, and

without looking at him, she asked, in a smothered voice: “What time do

you think you will--will be back?”

“I can't tell, Madge. I may not find him at once, you know.”

“I shall wait up for you,” she gulped. “I couldn't close my eyes until I

see you and know what he says. Oh, brother, I am afraid--”

“Afraid of what?” he demanded, quickly.

“I hardly know how to express it.” She looked up, and on her cheeks lay

the damp traces of the tears she had wiped away on her sleeve. “But he

is desperate. I am actually afraid he may try to--to do himself harm.

It looked, the other evening, as if he were constantly on the point of

telling me something about some crisis or other in his affairs which

has just come up. He would start out as if about to make a disclosure of

some horrible kind, and then he would stop and say: 'But I can't worry

you by telling you everything. It won't help matters to talk about my

trouble.”

“Poor chap,” Dearing said. “I will not be hard on him, sister; I promise

you that. I may find him at church; he sometimes goes to take Dora

Barry.”

“Yes; they are good friends,” Margaret said. “That is one thing I admire

in him. She is poor, and doesn't receive much attention. Fred takes her

to places and goes to see her out of pure kindness of heart.”

“Well, I'm off,” Dearing said, as he turned to leave. “Now you go to

bed, young lady, and forget about this disagreeable mess for to-night,

anyway. It may be all for the best.”

CHAPTER IV

|LEAVING Madge mute and motionless at the gate, staring through the

starlight after him, Dearing strode down the street past the fine old

home of Kenneth Galt, which was set well back in spacious grounds on

the left. Along the way were old-fashioned houses in bad condition, old

buildings which had been modernized, and which stood on well-kept lawns,

and others which had no touch of antiquity. After a few minutes he

reached a plain two-story frame house which had once been white, but

now showed little trace of its original paint. It was the home of

Fred Walton's father, Stafford's well-to-do banker, money-lender,

“note-shaver,” and all-round speculator in stocks, bonds, and real

estate.

“Fred may be here,” Dearing reflected, as he paused at the ramshackle

gate and viewed the forbidding old house as it loomed up among the

trees, fifty yards from where he stood; “but he'd certainly be excusable

for seeking a more cheerful place to spend an evening, considering that

meddlesome stepmother of his.”

The parsimony of old Simon Walton could not have been better illustrated

than by the fact that not a ray of light showed itself in all the rooms

of the house. It was said of him that, fond of smoking though he was, he

never lighted his pipe without getting a match and tobacco from some one

else. At all events, he was at home. And as he went up the uneven brick

walk, Wynn saw him seated on the front porch without his coat.

He was tall, lank, and raw-boned, and though nearly seventy years of

age, his brown hair and short, scraggy whiskers were devoid of the

slightest touch of gray. He was a man who, though outwardly sound

of body, brain, and limb, was not without certain haunting fears of

dissolution. He had had a slight stroke of paralysis which had left a

numbness in his right side, and he was constantly trying to obey certain

directions Dearing had laid down on the day his clerks had found him

unable to rise from his desk in his bank. Dearing's skill had put him

on his feet again, and the young doctor had tried diplomatically to show

his patient that the cause of the trouble lay in an overworked brain too

sharply centred on a none too worthy purpose. But in this he had failed.

Old Simon would have believed in any lotion, any surgical operation, or

any medicine prescribed by Dearing, no matter how costly, for that was

in the young man's line; but he declined to listen to any hint--from

such a source, at least--that his mental watchfulness ought to be

curbed. He had won by his method, and that was ample proof of its

correctness. He had risen from between the plough-handles, he told Wynn

with a satirical laugh, and men who had advised him to think less of the

almighty dollar and more of his God were in their mountain hovels giving

away advice for others to live by. The wise fellows who had said in his

youth that he was “as close as the bark on a tree” and “too mean to

live” were now ready to beg at his feet for money to enable them to

purchase food for their families.

“Well, here you are at last!” he thundered, as Wynn approached through

the gloom. “And it's high time, I am here to say! It doesn't take a

man two hours to go to that bank and bring back a simple statement like

that. I want to know to a fraction of a cent, too, just how that thing

stands, and--”

“Well, you don't owe _me_ a penny, Mr. Walton.” Dearing laughed. “I only

wish you did.”

“Oh, I thought it was Fred!” old Simon ejaculated, not a little

chagrined by his lack of hospitality. “Me and him have had a little

quarrel over his way of doing things, and I was looking for him to bring

some papers from the bank. He went off with the key an hour ago, and

hasn't showed up yet. Have you seen anything of him?”

“No; in fact, that's what I dropped in for. I wanted to speak to him.”

“Then I reckon he's not at your house calling on Miss Margaret. I

thought he might be there, or gone to take that other girl, the daughter

of that old picture-painter, to meeting. I picked up a note from her

to him the other day, making some appointment or other. I might know he

wasn't at _your_ house, though, after the talk I had with the General.

Huh! your uncle needn't be mealy-mouthed with me about what he thinks of

the scamp! In my day and time a fellow of that stripe would be egged out

of the community he lived in. But the blamed fools here in Stafford say

Fred's pardonable to some extent because I've saved up a few cents. Huh!

I'll show them and I'll show him a thing or two before I am through!

I've given him a good education at a fine, high-priced college, and put

him in the bank in a place of trust, and he is treating it as if it was

a front seat at a circus. Huh! they all laugh and call him the 'Stafford

Prince'; they say he is a high-roller; that he's invented a cocktail,

and lets bank-notes go like leaves in a high wind. They needn't say

it is due to the little I've made, either, for there's yourself, for

instance. You had money and property left you, but it didn't make a

stark, staring idiot out of you. By gum! I never see you or hear of your

fine operations without wanting to cuff that fellow behind the ear and

kick him out into the street. Came to breakfast this morning with his

eyes all bunged up and swollen. There is one thing about him that is to

his credit, I'll admit, and that is he won't lie when you are looking

him smack dab in the face, and when I asked him if he had been playing

poker he acknowledged it. Think of that! A boy of _mine_--of Simon

Walton's--playing cards for whopping big stakes when I have toiled and

stinted and saved as I have to gain the little headway I've got.”

“Well, I see he is not here,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “Perhaps I can

find him up-town.”

“Don't hurry; set down,” and the gaunt man stood up and pointed to

another chair. “I clean forgot to be polite, I'm so worked up. Take a

chair--take a chair. I simply want to see what it feels like to sit and

talk to a decent man under thirty.”

“No, I thank you, Mr. Walton, I really can't stay,” and Dearing laid his

hand gently on the quivering shoulder of the old man. “But I want you to

remember my warning about that little trouble of yours. You must not let

things stir you up like this. You can't stand it, you know, as well as

some other men can.”

“Show me how to help it--show me how to _want_ to help it!” spluttered

the banker. “I don't want to keep my temper! I don't want to hold my

tongue! I wish the law of the land would let me take him, big as he is,

and thrash him on the streets before the very folks that call him, as

some have, an improvement on his stingy old daddy. Once I thought I had

him. Once I thought I'd caught him dickering with bank funds, and I had

started to have him put in limbo when he showed me I was wrong. That's

the kind of man I am! I put honesty above everything else, and I won't

hide dishonor, even in my own blood.”

“Well, I'm off,” Wynn Dearing said. “I see I only keep you going on the

very topic I have warned you against. Good-night.”

As the young doctor was approaching the gate he saw a figure in gray,

enveloped, as to head and shoulders, in an old cashmere shawl, emerge

from a clump of plum-trees near the fence. It was Fred Walton's

stepmother, a tall, thin woman of more than sixty years of age, and even

dim as the starlight was he noticed the hardness of her features as she

clutched the shawl under her chin and eagerly peered out from its folds.

“Oh, we have had a day of it, Dr. Dearing!” she said, familiarly, and

with a dry, forced laugh. “When you came in at the gate just now I made

the same mistake Simon did--I thought it was Fred, and hung back at the

side of the house to hear the row. I reckon the boy has decided he's

had enough tongue-lashing for one day, and don't intend to sleep here

to-night. I don't blame his father one bit,” she ran on, volubly, “and I

have the first one to meet who really does. Fred certainly keeps himself

in the public eye. There is hardly a day that some fresh report don't

crop out as to his scrapes. And the match-makers! Great goodness! They

have enough to keep ten towns the size of this busy. They are eager to

see now which Fred will tie to for life: your sister, with all her money

and fine old name, or that strip of a girl who paints and teaches for

a bare living. Some say she is daft about him, and that if your uncle

kicks him out he will settle on her. That's what folks say, you know.

The truth is, I live sort of out of the way, and don't hear all that is

going the rounds.”

“That is a matter I am not posted on, Mrs. Walton,” Dearing said, as he

opened the gate and politely raised his hat in parting. “I must hurry. I

only wanted to see Fred a minute.”

As he neared the central square of the town the rays of light from the

church where he had that morning attended service streamed across the

green, and he approached the little edifice, ascended the steps to the

vestibule, and cautiously peered in at the worshippers, wondering if by

any chance Fred Walton might be there as Dora Barry's escort. But no one

of the numerous backs turned toward him resembled Fred's, and his glance

moved on to the pulpit. The choir was in full view, facing the door, and

beside the keyboard of the organ sat the girl who played it. Was it the

shadows from the gas above her, or was the tense expression in her eyes

and the droop to the sweet young mouth due to some trouble even greater

than any he had yet surmised? He shuddered as he turned away and pursued

his walk toward the square. He would look for Walton at the bank, and

try to divest his mind of the disagreeable duty he had to perform;

but Dora's face continued to haunt him. The mute appeal of her white,

shapely hands patiently folded in her lap, the suggestion of utter

despair in her whole bearing, clung to him and wrung his manly heart.

She had been his playmate when she was a tiny girl and he an awkward boy

in his teens. He had loved her gentle old father, with his long hair and

high, poetic brow, and had believed for years that Dora had inherited

his genius. The artist had gone back to Paris to study, intending to

send for his wife and child when fortune smiled, as he was sure it

would. But he had died there, and was buried by his fellow-students of

the Latin Quarter. They had written the fact to the wife and orphan, but

that was all. It was his child who was in trouble, and Dearing's heart

ached with a dull, insistent pain.

There was a light in the bank; he saw its gleam through the

old-fashioned panes of glass in front, but it went out just as he drew

near the door, which he saw was slightly ajar. As he stood wondering, he

heard some one coming. It was Fred Walton; he was smoking, and the flare

of his cigar lighted up his dark, handsome face for a bare instant. He

was tall, well-built, and strong of physique.

“Hello! Is that you, Fred?” Dealing called out. There was a pause.

Walton seemed to shrink back into the darkness for a moment; then he

said:

“Yes. Who is it?”

“It is I, Fred--Wynn Dearing.”

“Oh, it is you!” Walton drew the heavy door to after him as he came

out and locked it. Then they stood together on the sidewalk in the faint

rays from a gaslight on the corner near by.

“Yes, I've been looking for you, Fred. I went to your house; your father

told me you might be here. Can't we go in the bank?”

Fred Walton stared. His face was rigid; beads of sweat stood on his brow

and cheeks; the cigar in his mouth shook.

“It is terribly hot in there,” he said, after a pause. “I was looking

over the books, and--almost fainted. I didn't think it worth while to

unscrew the rear windows, and not a breath of air is stirring in the

beastly hole.”

“We might walk on to my office; it is always cool. I never bother to

shut the windows, even before a rain.”

“Yes, if--if you wish it, Wynn; that is, if you wish to--to see me.”

“Yes, I want to talk to you, Fred.”

They walked side by side along the pavement. Walton had his hat off, and

was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Once his foot struck against

some object, and he almost fell. Something like an oath of impatience

escaped his lips as he drew himself up and caught the slow, deliberate

step of his companion.

Reaching the door of his office, Dearing unlocked it, pushed it open,

and they entered the little reception-room in the dark. The doctor

struck a match and lighted a lamp on a table, and pointed to a

rocking-chair. “Take a seat, Fred.” A cold smile which gave his face

almost a wry look lay on his firm mouth as he himself sat down near a

table on which lay some books and magazines. He had not removed his eyes

from his companion, who, hat in hand, was settling heavily into the big

chair. “I've got an unpleasant duty before me, Fred--darned unpleasant,

because we've been friends all our lives, and--”

“That's all right, Wynn, go ahead.”

“It is about you and my sister, Fred.”

“I was afraid it was that, Wynn,” the young man muttered. “The thought

came to me when I heard your voice in the dark just now. Well, nothing

you can say will surprise me. I am prepared for anything--for the

very worst; in fact, I am prepared to have Marga--pardon me, your

sister--send me word that she herself wishes to see no more of me.”

“I have no such message as _that_, Fred, but still it is my duty to lay

the facts before you just as they are; and I am going to do it, with the

hope, old man, that you'll be reasonable and--help me out.”

In a calm voice, full of sincerity and stern conviction, Dearing then

recounted all that had taken place between him and his uncle, ending

with: “I give you my word, Fred, and the opinion of a physician who

knows the case, that my uncle is not only likely to worry himself into

the grave over the matter, but that he will absolutely, and at once, cut

my sister out of her rightful inheritance.”

“But she--surely she herself will tell General Sylvester that she is

willing to--forget me, and--”

Dearing, without looking directly at the speaker, shook his head. “It

is only fair to her to say that she is not made that way, Fred. She

believes in you; nothing on earth will change her; she believes you are

the soul of honor, and is ready to throw my uncle's money into his face.

That's why I came to you--to _you_. I thought, and Uncle Tom did, too,

that under the circumstances you might, you see, rather than stand

between her and--”

Dearing went no further. He was interrupted by the look of agony which

had clutched the lineaments of the listener like the throes of death.

Walton's hands, outspread till the fingers looked like prongs of

hard wood, rose to his face and covered it. Dearing saw a shudder of

restrained emotion rise in the strong frame and quiver through it. A

sound like a sob issued from the bent form. Neither spoke for more than

a minute. The step of a passer-by rang sharply on the still night air.

The tones from Dora Barry's organ swelled out in the distance and rolled

toward them, followed by the singing of the choir. Suddenly Walton rose,

and leaned on the back of his chair.

“It is all up with me, Wynn!” he groaned, deeply. “After to-night you'll

never be troubled by me in any shape, form, or fashion. I wish I could

be man enough to make a clean breast of it all to you, but what's the

use? It wouldn't do any good or help the matter. You'll know to-morrow,

as all Stafford will. I'll say this, though: I am wholly unworthy of

your sister's confidence and respect. To have paid her such attentions,

situated as I am situated, was an insult. I have committed an offence

known so far to no one but myself, and which can never be pardoned. I

am at the end of my rope, old chap. If I could undo my act by ending my

wretched life, I'd do it to-night. I love your sister as sincerely as

a man ever loved a woman, but I have no earthly right to think of her,

much less to consider myself a suitor for her hand. When she knows

the truth--the whole wretched truth--she herself will turn from me in

disgust, and blush with shame at the thought of ever having encouraged

me. You have the right, as a man and her brother, to kick me for my

presumption. I can't go into details. I could not bear to see your face

as you hear it, but it will be in every one's mouth tomorrow.”

“Oh, Fred, surely you--” Dearing started to say, but, raising his hand,

Walton interrupted him.

“Never mind, Wynn. I have said enough. I have no right to send your

sister even a farewell message, certainly not to tell her what my

feeling for her is at this moment; but it will be best for the General

to rest assured, so you may give him my word that I'll never cross her

path again. I am going away to-night, never to be seen here any more. I

am not man enough to face this town after my conduct becomes public.

I was weak. I fell--that's all. I don't know what will become of me. I

blame no one but myself, certainly not my poor old father. You will not

see me again. Goodbye. I need not wish you well; you will do well.

You were marked by Fate from the start as one of the lucky, _uncursed_

ones.”

The doctor stood up and extended his hand to detain him, but Walton had

turned hastily away. Dearing heard his dragging feet in the corridor and

then on the sidewalk.

“Poor chap! It is something very, very serious,” he mused. “Nothing

but terrible trouble would work a man up like that. I wonder if--” He

started and shuddered. Mrs. Barry's pale, troubled face of the morning

came before him, then Dora's downcast attitude as he had seen her in

the choir only a few moments before. He started, and his blood ran cold

through his veins. Could it be possible--could any man sink low enough

to--? No; he would not even think of it, else he would regret not having

killed the man as he sat bowed before him. No, it wasn't that--the human

monster did not live who could pluck and stamp upon that beautiful and

helpless flower of maidenhood. He extinguished the lamp, went out into

the dark street, and closed his door. The congregation was leaving

the church as he reached it. Among the last to go was Dora. He fell

in behind her, but made no effort to catch her up. She had shown no

willingness to talk to him that morning, and he would not disturb her

now. Perhaps the girl was really in love with Walton, and had gleaned

some inkling of the young man's trouble. Yes, that would explain her

present depression. He walked behind her till she disappeared at the

cottage gate; then he turned and went homeward past Kenneth Galt's

grounds. He saw a spark of fire moving about under the trees to the

right of the gloomy-looking residence which to-night seemed devoid of

any light, and knew that Galt was there smoking alone, as was his habit

at that hour. Dearing put his hand out to the gate-latch. Perhaps a chat

with his philosophic friend would help clear his brain of the maddening

thoughts which surged about him, but he paused.

“No; Madge will be up waiting for me,” he reflected. “I may as well meet

her and let her know the worst. Poor girl, she'll have to be brave!”

He moved on to his own gate. There was no one on the veranda, as

was often the case in warm weather, but in a little pagoda-shaped

summer-house on the lawn he descried a white object. It stirred as the

hinges of the gate creaked, and he entered, It was Margaret, and she

came to him like a spirit across the grass.

“I told you I'd wait,” she reminded him, and her voice sounded strange

and even harsh in its guttural tendency. “I thought you'd never come.”

Through all that had passed between him and Fred Walton that night

Dealing's anger and resentment had been held in check by sympathy for

the man in his desperate plight and despair; but now, as he saw the

evidences of his sister's agony written all too plainly upon her young

being, his indignation kindled. The scoundrel, the coward, was running

away to keep from facing public opinion, yet was leaving this poor,

crushed girl to suffer in consequence of his conduct!

“You ought not to have waited,” he reproached her, in a tone she had

never heard him use. “Your being here now, looking like this, is an

acknowledgment that you actually _care_ for the cowardly cur--you, who

ought to--”

“Brother, stop!” The girl clutched his arms. She breathed hard against

his breast as she leaned close to him. “'The cowardly cur,' you

say--_you_, who have never abused him before.”

“I wonder now that I let him go with a whole bone in his body,” Dearing

retorted, raspingly. “I didn't realize what I was doing, or I--”

“Oh, what _do_ you mean?” Margaret interrupted, giving him a quick,

impatient shake. “You needn't come here trying to make me believe vile

slander. It is easy enough for lies to get circulated in a town noted

for its tattling busybodies.”

“I've had his own deliberate confession,” Dearing answered. “With his

head hanging in shame and his face covered he told me he was forced by

some dishonorable act to leave town, never to return. He didn't tell me

what he had done; he said he'd rather not go into it, but that it would

all be out to-morrow. Of his own accord he proposed to give you up, and

said I might tell Uncle Tom that he'd never see or write to you again.

Whatever it is, you ought to have sufficient pride to--”

Dealing stopped short. With a low moan Margaret was reeling toward him,

and, as he caught her to keep her from falling, he saw that she had

fainted. Lifting her up, Dearing bore her into the house and up the

stairs to her room. He laid her on her bed, glad that his uncle and the

servants had not noticed the accident. He sprinkled her face with water.

She opened her eyes as he bent over her in the darkness, and recognized

him.

“You are all right now, Madge, darling,” he said, huskily, as he fondly

kissed her. “Be calm and go to sleep. You must not suffer on account of

this man. He is absolutely unworthy of your regard, and that ought to

settle it, so far as you are concerned.”

Margaret sat up, and put her arms about her brother's neck.

“I was afraid the other day that something was wrong--that something

terrible was about to happen to him,” she sobbed. “He was awfully

gloomy. He seemed to be on the point of confiding in me every minute,

but couldn't get it out. You say you have no idea what it is?”

“No; but he says it will be public property to-morrow. Try to forget it.

You must call your pride to your aid. Uncle was right in his objections

to him, and you were wrong. I neglected my duty in not seeing him even

sooner than I did. Now, good-night.”

Leaving her with a kiss on her cold cheek, Dearing, choking down a lump

in his throat, went to his own room. The windows facing the south looked

out on Kenneth Galt's grounds, and Dearing could still see his friend's

cigar intermittently glowing as the student, philosopher, and successful

financier strode back and forth.

“Who knows? Kenneth may be right, after all,” Dearing mused, bitterly.

“At such moments as this one wonders if there really can be a God who

is justly ruling the universe. What has poor little Madge done, in her

gentle purity, to merit this crushing blow? It was her very trusting

innocence that brought it upon her.”

It was one of Dealing's habits to say his prayers at night on retiring,

and when he had disrobed he knelt by his bedside. But somehow the words

failed to come as readily as had been their wont; he was trying to pray

for the relief of his sister, but reason kept telling him that it was

a futile appeal. God had not hindered the approach of the calamity;

why should mere human appeal immediately lift it? So he said his “Amen”

sooner than usual, and with a brain hot over the memory of Walton's

looks and words, he rolled and tossed on a sleepless bed till far into

the night.

CHAPTER V

|WHEN Fred Walton left Dearing's office, he went along the street toward

his father's home. He walked slowly, absolute despair showing itself in

the droop of his powerful body, and in the helpless, animal glare of his

eyes. He had reached a point from which, the street being on a slight

elevation, he could see the old house in which he was born. He paused.

All about him was peace, stillness, and incongruous content. The town

clock, capping the brick stand-pipe of the waterworks, struck nine

solemn strokes, and he could feel the after-vibrations of the mellow

metal as the sound died away. He turned, leaving his home on the left,

and walked on aimlessly till the houses which bordered the way became

more scattered, and then he reached a bridge which spanned a little

river. A full moon was rising. Through the foliage of the near-by trees

it looked like a world of fire away off in space. Its red rays fell on

the swiftly rushing water, throwing on its surface a path of flaming

blood. He went out on the structure, and leaned against the iron

railing. Just beyond the end of the bridge rose a green-clad hill.

It had a high fence around it, and a wide gateway with a white,

crescent-shaped sign above it. It was the Stafford cemetery.

“Yes, I ought to see it once more before I go,” he said. “It will be

the last time--the very last; and surely, though I'll blush in her dead

presence, _thief_ as _I_ am, I ought to go.”

He crossed to the other side, and went into the gate of the enclosure.

Threading his way among the monuments, his brow reverently bared to the

solemn moonlight, he came to a square plot surrounded by an ivy-coated

brick wall with a granite coping. It contained several graves bearing

his name, but only one engaged his attention. He sat down on its

footstone, and, with his head still bare, he remained motionless for a

long time.

“She didn't know the son she used to be so proud of would ever come to

this,” he said, bitterly. “With all her hopes and prayers, she little

knew that I'd be an outcast--actually forced to flee from the law; she

little dreamed it would come to that when she used to talk of the great

and good things I was to do. Poor, dear, little mother! You'd rather

be dead than alive to-night. I wonder if it is _absolutely too late?_

Perhaps, far away, under a new name and among strangers, I may be able

to live differently. And if I could, she would know and be glad. Mother,

listen, dear!” A sob rose in him, and shook him from head to foot. “The

wrong I did was done when my brain was turned by liquor, and I did not

realize my danger till it was too late; I swear here--right here--to

you, dear little mother, that from this moment on I'll try to be better.

I may fail, but I'll try. I swear, too, that from this moment on I'll

bend every energy of my soul and body to the undoing of the thing of

which I am guilty.”

He stood up. Ten solemn strokes of the town clock rang out on the

profound stillness. The air was vibrant with a myriad insect voices from

the marshes along the river. Rays of lamplight shot across the shrubbery

between the shafts and the slabs of stone. They came from a window in

the cottage of the sexton of the cemetery. The lone visitor saw a shaggy

head of hair, a long, ragged beard the color of the clay beneath the

soil, and a rugged face, gashed and seamed by time. The old man was

smoking--placidly smoking. Even a humble digger of graves could be

content, while this young, vigorous soul was steeped in the dregs of

despair. Walton turned away, slowly retraced his steps to the outside,

crossed the river, and, careful to avoid meeting any one, he finally

came again to his father's house. It was dark.

“I might get in at a window and bring away a few things to wear,” he

reflected. “But no, I must not risk it. He might meet me face to

face and demand the truth. I'd have to tell him. Sharp of sight, and

suspicious as he now is, he would read it in my face, and order my

arrest. Yes, he would do it. He is my father, but he would do it.”

On he went, now headed for the square. Reaching the bank, the thought

occurred to him that, having a key, he would go in and write a note to

his father. A moment later he had locked himself within the stifling

place, and under a flaring gas-jet, and seated on the high office-stool

at a desk, he wrote as follows:

My Dear Father,--Surprised though you've never been at my numerous bad

acts, you will be now at what I am about to confess. For more than a

week I have been covering up a shortage in my account which amounts to

more than you can afford to lose without warning. I am five thousand

dollars behind, and am absolutely unable to replace it. I shall make no

excuses. Being your son gave me no right to the money, but taking it

at a time when I believed it would save me in a certain speculation in

futures, I told myself that I had the right, as your son and heir, to

borrow it. That I looked at it that way, and was half intoxicated at the

time the deed was committed, is all that I can say by way of palliation

of my offence.

You once said to me that if I ever did anything of this sort that you

would turn me over to the law exactly as you would any stranger, and

I understand you well enough to know that you will keep your word.

You would do it in your anger, even if you regretted it afterward; so,

father, I am leaving home to-night, never to return. Don't think I

am taking any more of your money, either, for I am not. I am leaving

without a penny. I don't know where I shall go, but I am starting out

into the world to try to begin life anew. You have always contended that

my hopes of inheriting your savings was the prime cause of my failure,

and that had I been forced to struggle for myself, as you had to do as

a young man, I should have known the true value of money. I believe you

are right, and to-night, as I am leaving, a certain hope comes to me

that maybe there is enough of your sterling energy in me to make a man

of me _eventually_. Perhaps it won't count much with you for me to say

that I am going to try to be straight and honorable from now on. You

never have had faith in my promises, but you have never seen me tried as

I shall be tried. I know how much I owe you to a cent, and as fast as I

earn money--if I _can_ earn any--it shall be sent back to you, and, if

I live, I shall wipe out the debt which now stands against me. I wish

I could put my arms round your neck to-night and beg your forgiveness

before I go, but you'd not trust me. In your fury over your loss you'd

not give me the chance I must have to redeem myself, and this is the

only way. But, oh, father, _do, do_ give me this last chance! For the

sake of my mother's memory, and your name, which I have tarnished, don't

try to hunt me down like a common thief! I want one more opportunity.

_Do, do_, give it to me! Good-bye.

Frederic.

Folding the sheets on which he had written, Walton put them into an

envelope and placed it on his father's desk. He was now ready to go, but

paused again.

“I can't write to Margaret,” he said. “I have promised not to. Her

brother will tell her enough, anyway, to make her ashamed that she ever

knew me; but there is poor Dora--my dear, trusting friend. I must not go

without a line to her.”

He seated himself again, and wrote as follows:

My Dear Little Friend,--You have said several times of late that you

feared I had some burden on my mind because I was not as cheerful as

I used to be. Well, your sharp, kindly eyes were reading a truth I

was trying to conceal. I have got myself into most serious trouble. I

haven't the heart to go into details over it; I need not, anyway, for

my father will let it out soon enough. Every tongue in old Stafford will

wag and clatter over the final finish of the town's daredevil to-morrow.

And it will pain you, too, for of all my friends, young as you are,

you were my soundest adviser. You used to say that I'd soon sow my wild

oats, and settle down and make a man of myself. You used to say, too,

that I'd finally win the girl who--but, disgraced as I am, I won't

mention her name.

I have lost her forever, dear Dora. She may have cared a little for me,

but she won't when she knows how low I've fallen. I am going far away

to try to hew out some sort of a new road. I may fail, as I have always

failed, but if I do, my failure will not be added to the list of my

shortcomings here in Stafford.

Now, dear Dora, forgive me for speaking of something concerning you. For

the last month, though I did not mention it, I have been afraid that all

was not going quite well with you, either. You almost admitted it once

when I caught you crying. You remember, it was the evening I met Kenneth

Galt and you in the wood back of your house--the evening your mother,

you remember, thought you had been out with me, and scolded us both. I

saw plainly that you did not want her to know you had met him, and so I

said nothing; but the thing has troubled me a great deal, I'll admit. I

really know nothing seriously against the man, but he has queer, almost

too modern, views in regard to love, and I think, dear Dora, that maybe

you have imbibed some of them. Secret association like that cannot be

best for a young girl, and so I feel that I can't go away without

just this little warning. He is a wealthy man of the world, and his

friendship with a sweet, pure girl like you are ought to be open and

aboveboard. You are rarely beautiful, dear Dora. Your painting shows

that you are a genius. You have a great future before you; don't spoil

it all by becoming too much interested in this man. It may appeal to

your romantic side to meet him like that, but it can't--simply _can't_

be best. Now, you will forgive your “big brother,” won't you? I may

never come back; I may never even write, but I shall often think

lovingly of you, dear friend. Good-bye.

When he had signed, sealed, and directed the letter, he put a stamp on

it and went out and closed the bank, pushing the key back into the room

through a crack beneath the shutter. He then slowly crossed the deserted

square to the post-office on the corner and deposited the letter. After

this he stood with his strong arms folded, looking about irresolutely.

In front of him lay the town's single line of horse-cars, which led to

the railway station half a mile distant. One of the cars stood in

front of him. It had made its last slow and jangling trip to meet the

nine-o'clock north-bound train. The track stretched out before him, the

worn bars gleaming like threads of silver in the moonlight. Casting one

other look about him, and heaving a deep sigh, he lowered his head and

started for the station.

“I think this is Jack Thomas' run,” he reflected. “If it is, he will

take me aboard.”

CHAPTER VI

REACHING the depot in the edge of the town where there were only

three or four cottages, a hotel of the lowest class, and a negro

dive masquerading as a restaurant, at which fried spring chicken, hot

biscuits, and a cup of coffee were advertised on a crude placard for

twenty-five cents, he met few signs of wakefulness. At a switch near a

water-tank with a dripping spout a watchman stood with a dingy lantern.

Walton moved over to him.

“South-bound freight on time?” he asked.

The man looked at him indifferently. “I heard her blow at the crossing,”

he answered. “There! can't you hear her rumble?”

“Who's the conductor?”

“Jack Thomas, if he didn't lay over at Red Hill to spend Sunday with his

folks.”

“I want to speak to him. Where will his cab stop?” The man had filled

his short pipe, and he took the globe off his lantern to light it. “The

engine will water here at the tank,” he said, gruffly. “The cab will

stop down near the tool-house on account of the length of the train--a

lot of empty fruit-cars going South.”

“All right; thank you.” Walton moved away, and leaned against a stack

of cross-ties near the tool-house. He could now quite clearly hear the

rumble of the coming train. There was a wide stretch of old cotton and

corn fields, now barren and out of use, between him and the train, and

across them presently shot the wavering gleam of the engine's headlight.

On it came, growing larger and steadier till it had passed him, and with

the harsh creaking of brakes on massive, groaning wheels the locomotive

came to a stop. The side door of the caboose was open. A man holding

a lantern lightly swung himself to the ground, and peered up at a

brake-man on the roof of the car.

“Unwind her, and run to the other end!” he ordered. “You needn't hang

around my cab all night. I haven't a drop to drink.”

“All right, Cap,” and, jumping from car to car on the foot-boards

overhead, the brakeman disappeared in the cloud of steam and smoke which

the locomotive was belching forth.

“Hello, Jack!” Walton came forward.

“Hello! Good Lord, Fred, what are you doing down here this time of

night? I thought you fellows had a game on every Sunday. I was just

wishing I had enough boodle ahead to lay over and walk away with some

Stafford coin. I want to get even for the last hold-up you blacklegs

gave me.”

“I'm dead broke, Jack, old man,” Walton said, avoiding the eyes of

his friend. “I want to get to Atlanta before the morning train, and I

wondered--”

“If I'd take you? Of course I will. I'm sorry to hear you are broke,

though, for we might pass the time with a game. It's down-grade,” he

laughed, impulsively; “we might turn old No. 12 over to the fireman, and

get the engineer and brakeman to come in and try a round.”

“I wouldn't trust myself with three railroad men,” Walton tried to jest,

“even if I hadn't sworn off.”

“What! again? Oh, that _is_ a joke!” Thomas laughed. “You Stafford chaps

say you swear off, then practice night and day, and stick it to the

first galoot that comes along. Oh, I am on!” There was a sound of

rushing water from the tank ahead. In the dim light in the locomotive

they could see the fireman on the tender astride of the swinging pipe.

“I'm glad you will take me along, Jack,” Walton replied. “I want to

get to Atlanta, and haven't a cent on earth. The truth is, I am in bad

shape.”

“I've heard you sing that song before,” the conductor replied, with an

incredulous smile. He raised his lantern till the yellow light fell on

Walton's face, and he stared in astonishment. “Why, really, you _do_

look kind o' bunged up. What's the matter, old chap?”

“I'm simply down and out, Jack, that's the sum and substance of it. I am

down and out. When do you start?”

“In a minute. I've got to run clean round the train and examine my

door-seals. Climb in. I'll swing on as we leave the yard. Make yourself

comfortable. Huh! you are done for, eh? That _is_ a joke!”

Climbing the iron step, Walton found himself in the caboose. It was

dimly lighted by a lamp in a curved tin holder on the wall over a

crude desk with pigeonholes. Here the conductor kept a pencil tied to

a string, and some yellow blanks for reports and telegrams. There was a

hard, smooth, backless bench near the door, and a narrow cot with wooden

sides and ends. On an inverted box stood a tin pitcher, a wash-basin,

and a cake of coarse yellow soap. On a hook hung a soiled towel; a pair

of blue overalls, a white shirt, and a tattered raincoat were suspended

at the sport of the wind and motion of the car on other hooks along the

wall.

There was a harsh, snarling sound as the hinged water-pipe was drawn up

on its chains; the clanging of a bell; the shriek of the locomotive's

whistle; a quickening succession of jerks, communicated from bumper

to bumper, and the train was off. Walton was glad to be alone with the

desolate pain that clutched him now with renewed force. He wanted no

human eye to witness his misery. Away off there, beyond the hills,

in its shroud of mystic moonlight, lay the town he now loved with a

yearning which all but tore his heart from his body. He was looking at

the old place for the last time unless, unless--and his blood ran cold

at the thought--unless he was brought back by the officers of the law to

answer for his crime. Yes, that might be his fate, after all. A city so

well policed as Atlanta would prove a poor hiding-place for a penniless

fugitive. A telegram from Stafford would put the authorities on the

alert, and escape would be impossible. And no sentimental reasons would

check prompt action on the part of old Simon Walton. In his rage

over the discovery of the unexpected loss of such a large amount of

ever-needed cash, he would balk at nothing. Of family pride he had

little--certainly not pride strong enough to make him a party to the

concealment of crime, even in his own blood.

“If I have to be the daddy of a thief,” Fred imagined his saying,

“I'd rather be the daddy of one under lock and key, where he could be

controlled like any other sort of maniac.”

Yes, he must make good his escape, the young man reflected; there was

no other way. Escape meant a chance, at least, for reformation and

atonement, and he must reform--he must atone.

The train was rounding a curve. A sudden and deeper pain shot through

him, for on a hill, in a grove not far off, he saw the roof, gables,

windows, and walls of a country house he well knew. It was there, at a

house-party, that he had been thrown for the first time with Margaret

Dearing and had learned to love her. His eyes were blinded by tears he

could not restrain as he tried to descry the exact spot among the trees

where he and she had sat that glorious morning in early autumn.

“God have mercy!” He leaned against the side of the car and groaned.

Even now she knew of his ruin. Her brother had already prepared her for

the news, which would spread through the town like wild-fire. She knew,

and her proud brow was burning under the shame of having trusted a

coward and a knave to the extent of having had her name coupled with

his. He stood in the centre of the car, swayed back and forth by its

ruthless motion. Those merciless wheels, grinding so close beneath,

would end it all. It would be an easy thing to swing himself under

the car door till he was over the rail and then let go--_let go!_ He

shuddered, and turned cold from head to foot.

There was a thumping overhead as some one leaped from the roof of the

car ahead to that of the caboose. There was a scraping of soles and

heels on the tin covering, a step on the iron ladder by the door, and

the conductor lunged into the car.

“Got on by the very skin of my teeth,” he said, with a merry oath. “We

are on the down-grade, and we started quick. But why don't you take a

seat?” He raised his lantern, and the rays fell full on Walton's pallid

face. “Say, old man, are you as hard hit as all that?”

“It couldn't be harder, Jack,” Walton said. “I am at the end of my

rope.”

“Well, I am sorry--I'm real sorry,” the conductor declared. “I'll tell

you what to do. It's a tough ride to Atlanta, along with our stops and

sidings and waits on through trains. There won't be a soul in the bunk

to-night. Throw off your things and crawl in.”

“But that's _your_ bed,” Walton protested, thoughtful, even in his

misery, of his friend's comfort.

“Not for to-night it isn't,” Thomas affirmed, as he hung up his lantern

and drew a stool to the desk. “I've got to be up till daybreak. Crawl

in, I tell you!” Walton sat down on the edge of the cot, a trembling

hand went to his necktie. In the rays of the yellow light he looked as

though he were about to faint.

“Hold on, wait!” Thomas chuckled. “I'll physic you all right.” He raised

the top of his desk and drew out a flask of whiskey. “It is actually the

smoothest article that ever slid down a human throat,” he laughed, as

he shook the flask and extended it to his guest. “Take a pull at it, and

you will have dreams of Paradise.”

“I don't care for it right now, Jack,” Walton returned. “I may ask for

it later. Whiskey always keeps me awake.”

“Well, I've got to sit up,” the conductor said, “so here's looking at

you. I've got the dandiest thirst that mortal ever owned. You've heard

about the feller who told the prohibitionist that he didn't want to get

rid of his. Well, I'm that way about mine. If a man went round paying

for thirsts, he couldn't buy mine for all the money in the State.

I've got it trained till it walks a chalk-line. I go without a drink

sometimes for days at a time, just so she will get good and ripe and

have a sort of clinging rasp on her. But no joking, old man, I don't

like your looks. I've seen you kind of blue before, but I never saw you

plumb flabbergasted like this. You say you are broke. I don't happen to

have anything in my pocket right now, but I reckon I could draw a little

pay in advance from our agent in Atlanta, and--”

“I don't want to borrow any money, Jack, thank you just the same,”

Walton said. “When I get to Atlanta I'll look around and see what will

turn up.” And, stifling a groan of despair, he sank back on the cot.

“All right, old man,” the conductor responded. “Now, go to sleep. You

need rest.” He turned the wick of the lamp down and pushed his lantern

into a corner, so that its light would not fall on the face of his

guest. Then he slid the bench to the open door, lighted his pipe, and

fell into a revery.

CHAPTER VII

|THE cot was hard and narrow, and it had sides of unpadded boards. For

hours Fred lay pretending to be asleep, that he might shirk the sheer

torture of conversation with his friend. Through partly closed eyelids

he watched the railroad man as he sat in the doorway looking out at the

rapidly shifting night view. When a station was reached the conductor

would spring up, and with his lantern swinging in his hand he would

descend to the ground and wave his light or call out an order to a

switchman or the man at the brakes. Then the creaking, mechanical

reptile would crawl along and speed away again. Several times the

miserable passenger dozed off into most delectable dreams. In them he

was always with Margaret in some fragrant spot among flowers, by flowing

streams, and in wondrous sunshine. Once he saw General Sylvester and his

grim old father in congenial converse together, while he and Margaret

stood hand in hand near by, and then his beautiful, haughty sweetheart

put her arms about the grizzled neck of the man who had never known

affection and kissed him. But she was fading away, as was the erect

old soldier, and the dreamer found himself before his father at the old

man's desk in the bank. And now Simon Walton's face was dark as night.

A ledger lay open before him. “Five thousand dollars of my hard-earned

money!” the old man shrieked. “And you deliberately stole it from my

vault! Thief! Thief! Thief!” Simon's lips continued to move, but no

sound save a dismal, mechanical rumbling issued. There was a long scream

of the steam-whistle, a thunderous bumping of cars one against another,

the rasping rattle of brake-chains, a glare of yellow light, and Fred

saw Thomas standing over him, his lantern's rays thrown downward.

“In the yard at last, old chap,” the conductor said, as he took his

lantern apart and blew out the flame, “but don't you get up. You haven't

had enough sleep, and it is only five o'clock. You didn't rest well in

that blamed bunk. You kept rolling and jabbering in your sleep. I've got

to run up-town, but the cab will stand right here on the side-track all

day, and you can leave it whenever you like. I'll be about the general

freight-office till noon, and if you want me, look me up.”

“All right. You are mighty good, Jack,” the wanderer said, appalled and

stupefied by his sudden awakening to the grim reality of his condition.

When the conductor had left, and unable, through sheer mental agony, to

go back to sleep, Walton crawled out of the bunk and stood up. His

legs, arms, and neck were stiff, and twinges of pain darted through his

muscles as he moved. Standing in the open door, he looked out over

the vast stretch of railway tracks. The gray light of dawn shrouded

everything. Over the tops of cars, heaps of old scrap-iron, blinking

vari-colored signal-lights, and bridges which spanned the tracks he saw

the spectre-like outlines of the State Capitol's drab dome, and farther

to the left the tall office-buildings in the centre of the city.

Just then a man came round the end of the car, and, with a start of

surprise, recognized him. It was a railway mail-carrier who had once

lived at Stafford. “Why, hello, Fred!” he cried, rubbing his eyes, for

he had just risen from his bed. “What are you doing down this way at

break of day?”

Walton hesitated; a tinge of color came into his pale face.

“Ran down for a trip with Jack Thomas,” he answered; “this is his cab.”

“Oh yes--I see. Where _is_ Jack?”

“Had to go up-town.”

“You haven't had your breakfast yet, I'll bet. Come on and take a snack

with me. There is a good all-night eating-house up by the Viaduct.”

“Thanks, I've got to hang around here for a while.”

“Well, so long!” the man said, with a backward look of perplexity, as he

moved away. “I'll see you uptown, I reckon.”

Walton stood down on the ground and looked about him; then he saw

something that drove him back into the car. It was a policeman in

uniform a hundred yards away. He seemed to emerge from the cattle-yard

on the left, and was walking along slowly, looking under cars and trying

their sliding doors. He would stoop to the cross-ties and peer carefully

at the trucks, and move on again to repeat the process at each car of

the long train, the engine of which was fired for leaving. Walton sank

to a seat on the cot; the man was searching for him. There would be no

escape. Presently a feeling of relief came to him in the reflection that

his fears were ungrounded, for his father, not having read the letter

he had left on his desk, could not yet know of his flight. The old man

never went to the bank earlier than eight in the morning, and it could

not now be later than five. Yes, the officer was looking for some one

else. The fugitive breathed more freely for a few minutes; then another

shock quickly followed the first. It was now plain--horribly plain. His

father, having sent him to the bank for a statement of his account the

evening before, had waited up for him, his impatience and suspicion

growing as the hours passed. Old Simon could not have slept while a

matter of that nature remained unsettled. He had waited, pacing the

floor of his room, till nine; till ten; till eleven; and then, full of

gravest alarm as to the safety of his funds, he had gone down to the

bank to ascertain the cause of the delay. In his mind's eye, Fred

saw the grim old financier as he stalked muttering through the silent

streets of the slumbering town. He saw him open the big door of the

bank, and heard his disappointed growl as he faced the darkness. Old

Simon, with fumbling hands, found and struck a match; then he groped his

way back to his office and lighted the gas. Fred saw him as he stared

round the room, and, with the gasp of an animal, pounced on the letter

he had written; he saw, as if he had been on the spot, the distorted,

terrified face of the bewildered old miser. Then what had he done? He

had gone quaking and whimpering to the home of the sheriff near by; he

had waked the officer by pounding on the door, and ordered the immediate

pursuit of his son as an absconding thief. The telegram had left

Stafford before midnight; it had passed the fugitive as he slept, and

the policeman now looking under the cars was only one of scores who were

bent upon hunting him down. Yes, it was all over. There was nothing left

now but to be taken back to Stafford, handcuffed as a common felon. He

crept to the car door and looked out. The policeman had paused in his

search, and was coming directly across to him. A feeling of odd and

almost soothing resignation came over the young man; at any rate, he

would not hide like a coward. He was guilty, and he would take his

punishment. So he sank upon the bench at the door and calmly eyed the

officer as he crossed the tracks, playfully swinging the polished club

which was strapped to his wrist.

“Good-morning!” the man said, looking up. “You are not the conductor of

this train, are you?”

“No,” Fred answered, wonderingly; “he's just gone up-town.”

The policeman swung his club. “Got a match in your pocket? I want to

smoke so bad I can taste it.”

Walton fumbled in his pocket and produced some matches, and, still

wondering, he reached over and put them into the extended hand. The man

in uniform was young, clear of skin and eye, and had a good face--a face

which Walton no longer dreaded, which, indeed, he felt that he could

like.

“Tough job I'm on now, you can bet your life,” the policeman said, as

he struck the match on the iron ladder of the car and applied it to a

half-smoked cigar.

“What sort of job is it?” Walton asked.

“Why, you see,” the man explained, “the railroads of the State have had

no end of trouble with hoboes here lately. The dirty tramps are forever

stealing rides. At this time of year they are as thick as flies on the

trucks, brakes, and bumpers. They fall off when they get to sleep, and

are killed; they break in the cars, and steal the freight; and a gang

of them have been known to throw rocks at the train-crew, and raise

hell generally. So, as a last resort, the roads determined to make cases

against every one that could be caught, and they are sending them up by

the hundreds, and for good long terms, too. They are never able to pay

the fines, you see, and they have to work it out in the coal-mines or

turpentine camps. Now and then a big mistake is made, of course; for

many a good man has been sent up for only trying to reach a place where

he could get honest employment. But the law is no respecter of persons.

Let a man without money to pay his fine be caught stealing a ride

through _this_ town, and nothing in God's world will save him. The

feathers of a jail-bird stick mighty tight, you know, and after one gets

out he never makes any headway.”

“They are not well treated, either, I have heard,” Walton put in.

“You bet they are not,” the policeman said, looking across the tracks.

“Gee! did you see that? I think I've got one now. I saw a fellow peep

out right over there.”

He darted off, club in hand, and Walton saw him disappear between two

cars, and heard his stern voice cry: “Come out of there, young man!

Don't make me crawl under after you! Come on, the game is up!”

Walton descended to the ground and crossed over to the policeman just as

a young man with a grimy face and tousled hair emerged from behind the

heavy wheels. He did not appear to be more than twenty years of age, and

his clothing, even to his hat and necktie, indicated that he was not an

ordinary tramp. He stared in a bewildered way at the blue coat, brass

buttons, and helmet-shaped hat.

“For God's sake, don't send me up, policeman!” he pleaded, in a piteous

tone. “I am out of money, and want to get through by way of New Orleans

to Oklahoma. I am out of work and trying to reach Gate City, where I can

get a job.”

“I've got nothing to do with that,” the policeman said, curtly. “I'm put

here to arrest you fellows--that's my duty, and I've caught you in the

act.”

“O God, have mercy!” Walton heard the boy muttering to himself. “I can't

stand it! I'd rather die, and be done with it!”

He looked at the officer again, and his lips seemed to be trying to

frame some further appeal, but, as if realizing the utter futility of

such a course, he simply hung his head and was silent.

Walton, who liked the boy's looks, suddenly felt a rebellious impulse

rise and struggle within him. It was the quality which, in spite of his

faults, had endeared him to his many friends.

“Look here, old man,” he said to the policeman, “law or no law, duty

or no duty, you can't take the responsibility of this thing on your

shoulders. I'm a fair judge of men, and I am sure it would be wrong to

send this boy up. You know he is only doing what you or I would do if

hard luck drove us to it. Say, old man, I'm dead broke myself, I haven't

a dollar in my pocket, and I am out of a job besides; but I've got a

good solid gold watch in my pocket, and if you will let him go I'll give

it to you.”

The officer wavered; he stared, speechless, for a moment, colored high,

then shrugged his shoulders.

“I reckon my duty _does_ allow me to sorter discriminate,” he faltered.

“I haven't seen the chap actually riding, either. But I won't take any

bribes--I wouldn't take one from _you_, anyway. You are about as white

a chap as I've run across in many a day, and I'm going to drop the dang

thing. God knows, I don't want your watch! But, say, don't get _me_ into

trouble. I've got a family to support, and I must hold my job. Get the

fellow out of the freight-yards before the town wakes up. There are cops

on our force who would drag him in by the heels. Car-grease like he's

got smeared all over him is a dead give-away. Say, young man, take a

fool's advice: get out on the country roads. You'll make it all right

among the farms.”

“You won't take the watch, then?” Fred held the timepiece toward him,

its golden chain swinging.

“No, I don't want it. But hurry up! Get him out of the yards!”

“Come on, and I'll show you the way,” Walton said to the boy, when the

officer had gone. And without a word, so overjoyed was he by the sudden

turn in his favor, the begrimed youth dumbly followed his rescuer across

the tracks to a quiet little street bordered by diminutive cottages.

On they trudged through street after street till, just as the first

rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds, they found the open

country before them. For miles and miles it stretched away to blue hills

in the vague, misty distance.

“I can make out all right now,” the boy said, with a grateful glance at

his rescuer, as they paused. “I don't want to take you farther out of

your way. God knows, I'll not forget your kindness till my dying day.

You don't know what you've saved me from. I'd have killed myself rather

than be sent up. I've heard what those places are like. If you will tell

me your name and where your home is, I'll write back to you.”

Walton's eyes met those of his companion. “Huh!” he said, gloomily,

“I'm as homeless as you are, my boy. The truth is, I don't know where

to turn, myself, and really the thought of parting with you, for some

reason or other, hurts me. I need a companion worse than I ever did in

my life. Say, will you let me go with you?”

“_Will_ I?” and the grimy face filled with emotion, the big brown eyes

glistened with unshed tears. “God knows, I'd rather have you than any

one else, and I certainly am lonely enough!” The blackened hand went out

and clasped Walton's, and, face to face, these new friends in adversity

stood and silently vowed fidelity. “What is your name?” Fred asked.

“Dick Warren,” the younger said. “I am from Kentucky--Louisville. I've

got no close kin, and no money. I was a telegraph operator in Memphis

till a month ago, but lost my job. Long-distance telephone is killing

my business. I heard of Gate City--they say it is booming. I want to go

there.”

“I'll join you,” Walton said. “I've heard of it, too. Those, new towns

are all right.”

“You didn't tell me your name,” Dick suggested.

“Oh, I forgot; why, it's Fred--it's Frederic Spencer.” He had given

the seldom-used part of his Christian name, that of his maternal

grandfather. “Some day I'll tell you all about myself, but not now--not

now. Are you hungry, Dick?”

The boy nodded slowly. It looked as if he were afraid that an admission

of the whole truth might further discommode his new friend. “A little

bit,” he said, “but I can make out for a while.”

“We'll try a farm-house farther on,” Walton said, with an appreciative

glance at the weary face before him. “I'll have to have a cup of coffee

or I'll drop in my tracks.”

The sun, now above the tree-tops, was beginning to beat fiercely upon

them, and threatening much in the way of heat and sultry temperature

later in the day. The activity of his mind and sympathies in behalf

of his companion had in a measure dulled Walton's sense of his

own condition, but as he trudged along by his companion the whole

circumstance of his flight and the far-reaching consequences of his act

came upon him anew. The agony within him now seemed to ooze from his

body like a material substance, clogging his utterance and shackling his

feet.

CHAPTER VIII

|THAT morning, about nine o'clock, old Simon Walton rode down to his

bank in the one-horse buggy of antiquated type which had come into his

possession years before in the foreclosure of a mortgage given by a poor

farmer, and which, with its rusty springs and uncouth appearance, was

quite in keeping with the character of its present owner.

The bookkeepers were busy at their special duties, and scarcely gave

him a glance over their ponderous ledgers as he came in at the front

and walked to his desk in the rear. Hanging up his old slouch hat, and

seating himself in his big revolving chair, his eyes fell on a stack

of letters addressed to him. Rapidly shifting them through his stiff

fingers, his attention was drawn to the only one which bore no stamp or

postmark. He recognized the writing, and as he held it frowningly before

him, his confidential clerk, Toby Lassiter, a colorless and bald young

man of medium height, sparse mutton-chop whiskers, and soft, shrinking

gray eyes, entered with a slip of paper.

“The cotton quotations you wanted, Mr. Walton,” he said, in the discreet

tone he used to the banker on all occasions, lest he might by accident

expose to other ears matters his cautious master wished to be kept

private.

“Oh yes.” Then, as Lassiter was softly slipping away: “But hold on,

Toby! Have you seen Fred this morning?”

“No, sir, he hasn't been around yet. In fact, Mr. Walton, I wanted to

ask you. Only three of us carry keys to the front door--you and me and

Fred; and when I was opening up this morning I found that somebody had

pushed one of them under the door.”

“Well, I've got _mine_,” old Simon said, with a slow, wondering stare.

“Oh, wait! this note is from him; maybe he--” The banker, with fumbling

fingers, tore open the envelope and began to read. The waiting clerk

heard him utter a gasp. It was followed by a low, subdued groan, and

looking like a corpse momentarily electrified into a semblance of life,

the old man rose to his feet, the half-read confession clutched in his

sinewy fingers.

“He's gone!” he gasped. “He's taken five thousand dollars of the bank's

funds, and made off!”

“Oh, Mr. Walton, do, _do_ be quiet!” Lassiter whispered, warningly, as

he laid his hands on the arms of his employer, and gently urged him to

sit down. The banker obeyed as an automaton might, his wrinkled face

beneath his shaggy eyebrows wildly distorted, his lips parted, showing

his yellow jagged teeth, his breath coming and going in spasmodic gasps.

Every hair on his head seemed to stand dry and harsh by itself as he ran

his prong-like fingers upward through the bushy mass.

“Five thousand--five thousand--five thousand!” he groaned; “the low,

ungrateful thief; and at a time when he knew it would hamper us and

maybe bring on a crash. Look y' here, Toby, and be quick about it! Run

and get the sheriff--if you can't find him fetch the deputy! Then see if

the telegraph office is open. I'll jail that scamp before night! I want

my money! I want my money! He's no son of mine! I gave him fair warning,

as you know, to let up in his damnable course, and he snapped his

card-flipping fingers in my face. Hurry up! He can't be far off; we'll

nab him before the day is over. Run!”

But the clerk lingered. “Mr. Walton,” he began, falteringly, “I

never have refused to obey your orders, but Fred ain't quite as bad

as--really, you oughtn't to handle the boy that way. He's been a good

friend to me, and I'd hate to think I'd stand by and see you take a step

like this, mad as you are, when if you'd only be calm a minute, surely

you'd realize--”

“Am I the head of this bank or _you?_” old Walton broke in, as he rose

and stood quivering and clinging with both hands to the back of his

unsteady chair. “Go and do as I tell you, or, by the God over our heads,

I'll send you about your business!”.

“All right, Mr. Walton,” the clerk yielded, “I'll do it!”

White as death could have made him, Lassiter passed out at a door on

the side of the building and gained the street without being seen by the

workers in the counting-room.

“Poor Fred!” he muttered. “He's too good at heart to be treated this

way, and he's not a _real_ thief, either. Folks have told him all his

life that he had a right to more of the old man's money than he was

getting, and he didn't think it was stealing.”

On a corner he saw Bill Johnston, the sheriff, a man about forty-five

years of age, who wore great heavy top-boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and

had sharp brown eyes and a waxed and twisted mustache. With considerable

reluctance, Toby went up to him.

“Mr. Walton wants to see you, Bill,” he said. “He's in his office in the

bank.”

“Well, I can't come for ten minutes yet, anyway,” the sheriff said, not

removing his steady gaze from a group of men round a mountain wagon in

a vacant lot across the street, where, on a high hoarding of planks,

glaring new circus bills were posted. “The boys are about to smell out a

keg of wild-cat whiskey in that gang of mossbacks. They may need me any

minute. Tell the old man I'll be along as soon as I can.”

Lassiter went back to the bank and gained his employer's presence

without attracting the attention of any of the clerks. He found the

shaggy head prone on the desk, the long arms hanging down at

either side. For a moment Toby thought the banker was a victim of

heart-failure, and stood stricken with horror. But he was reassured by a

low groan from the almost inert human mass.

“Good Lord,” he heard the banker praying, “scourge him! Don't heed his

cries and promises! He has lied to me, he'll lie to you!” Therewith

Simon raised his blearing eyes, now fixed and bloodshot in their

sockets.

“Well?” he growled, impatiently.

“Johnston is coming right away,” Lassiter said, and he approached the

old man and leaned over him. “Mr. Walton, once when you were very mad

with the other bank, you remember, and was about to take action against

them, I got your ear, and showed you that in a suit at court you'd

have to make certain showings of a private nature that would injure our

interests, and you admitted that I was right, and--and decided to let

the matter blow over. You've said several times since then that I was

right, and--”

“Well, what the devil has that got to do with _this?_” Walton thundered.

“I'll tell you, Mr. Walton--now wait one minute, just one minute,”

Lassiter urged: “you know how excitable depositors are. Don't you see if

the report goes out that you have actually turned Fred over to the law

for a big defalcation that folks will get the impression that you are in

a shaky condition? The other bank would make it appear ten times as bad

as it is, and we might have a frightful run on us. We are all right,

solid enough, the Lord knows, but money--_ready_ money--is hard to get.

There never has been a time when it would be as hard to stand under a

run as right now. We are getting ahead of the other bank, and they are

as mad as Tucker. They wouldn't want anything better than a chance like

this to--”

“You mean?--great God, Toby, you are right! It would ruin us--absolutely

wreck us! I see it--I see it as plain as day!”

There was a sound of heavy steps in the corridor outside.

“It is the sheriff,” Toby whispered, “but I didn't tell him what you

wanted. Don't act now, Mr. Walton; for God's sake, don't!”

“Tell him to wait a minute,” the banker panted. But it was too late; the

sheriff, with his usual lack of ceremony, was already pushing the door

open.

“Hello, old man!” Johnston said, and he came in with a swinging stride.

“I hope you are not scared about what I owe you; I'll get it up all

right. Money is owing to me, and--”

“No, it wasn't that--it wasn't that.” Walton's rigid face was forced

into a smile that fairly distorted it and set the observant officer

wondering. “The truth is, Johnston, I thought I needed your services,

but I find I'm mistaken. That's all, Johnston, I was mistaken. I've

decided to let it pass--to let it pass, you know.”

“All right, old man,” the sheriff replied, as his puzzled glance swept

the two disturbed faces before him. “I don't care just so you don't

garnishee my salary for what I owe you.”

Outside, as he joined a group of idlers on the corner, he remarked, with

a broad, knowing smile and a twinkle of the eye: “That old note-shaver

in there thinks he can fool me. He sent Toby Lassiter out just now as

white as a preacher's Sunday shirt to ask me to see him. I found him

looking like a staring idiot, and was informed that it was a false

alarm. False nothing! I'll give you boys a tip. I'll bet that gay and

festive Fred is up to some fresh devilment. You watch out and you'll

hear something drop, if I am any judge. I saw Fred last night headed for

the railroad. He didn't see me. I was hiding behind a fence, watching

him. I think he boarded a freight-train; I am not sure.”

CHAPTER IX

|AS was only natural in a town of the size of Stafford, the sudden

departure of Fred Walton, under circumstances no one seemed able

to explain, caused wide and growing comment. A railroad man who had

returned from Atlanta informed an eager cluster of idlers in the big

office of the main hotel of the place that Fred had been seen lurking

about the freight-yards in the city at early daylight, evidently trying

to avoid being seen. The report went out, too--and no less authority

accompanied it than the word of Fred's stepmother, who, admitting the

fact that she hated the young man, could not be charged with originating

a direct lie--that Fred had gone without “a thread to wear,” except what

he had on when leaving. The town did not need to be told that in that

detail alone lay ample evidence of the gravity of the case, even if

it were not said--on good authority, too--that old Simon Walton,

immediately on discovering the flight, had called in Bill Johnston

to consult with him. Had he taken away _money?_ That was the question

designedly put by Walton's business rivals, and that was the question

which one and all declared the old man and Toby Lassiter had promptly

denied. No, it was something else; that was quite plain.

Mrs. Barry heard the news at the fence the next afternoon from the

voluble tongue of a poor washerwoman, a Mrs. Chumley, who, since the

downfall of her only daughter, and the handsome girl's adoption of

a life of prostitution in Augusta, had lived on alone in a cottage

adjoining Mrs. Barry's, and who, as she cleansed the linen of her

neighbors for a living, besmirched their characters as her only

available solace. She was fond of hinting darkly that if disgrace had

come to her family by _discovery_, it hovered--ready to drop at any

minute--over the heads of people not a bit better, and who were far too

stuck-up for their own safety.

“You certainly ought to be glad the scamp's gone,” she remarked to

Mrs. Barry, as she leaned her bare, crinkled arms on the fence when she

unctuously told the news. “I never liked to see him hanging round Dora.

A body would see him one day over there at that big fine house with Miss

Margaret, whose high-priced ruffles I've got in the tub right now, and

the next bending his head to enter your lowly door. Things as wide apart

as them two naturally are won't hitch, neighbor, that's all--they won't

hitch.”

“Yes, I'm glad he's gone,” Mrs. Barry admitted, with the indiscretion

most persons had under the plausible eye and guiding tone of the gossip.

“Dora says he had a kind heart, and that she's sorry for him in all

his ups and downs; but, as you say, no good could come of their being

together so much, at least, and it is better to have it end.”

“The postman left a letter for you-all this morning, didn't he?” was a

question Mrs. Chumley had evidently been holding in reserve.

“No, there wasn't anything. Dora went out to the fence to see if he had

any mail, but he didn't.”

“Huh, that's strange!” Mrs. Chumley's purposely averted glance came

back to the wrinkled face of her neighbor, and remained fixed there in

a direct and probing stare. “That's queer, for I certainly saw him hand

her a letter over the fence as plain as I see that tub of suds. I saw

her reading it, too.”

“You must be mistaken.” Mrs. Barry's face had changed. There were

splotches of pallor in her gaunt cheeks.

“No, I couldn't be. I don't make mistakes in things of that sort--not of

_that_ sort.”

Mrs. Barry was silent. She was forced to admit that if any pair of

earthly eyes could detect a hidden thing those eyes were now eagerly

blinking under the sinister brows before her. As she stared into the

reddish, freckled face, certain long-subdued fears rose within her. She

felt faint, and had a sensation as if all visible objects were whirling

around her. Then she became anchored by something in the gossip's glance

which, had she has been less afraid, she would have taken as direct

insult. It was as if the washerwoman were saying: “Well, you know I can

sympathize with you. I have been through it all.”

“She came back in the house after the postman had gone on,” Mrs. Barry

faltered, “and told me there wasn't any letter.”

The poor woman felt that her defence, if defence it might be called,

was falling on wilfully closed ears, and again she was conscious of that

rocking, floating sensation. The round, red visage of the washerwoman

seemed to recede from her; there was a sound as of roaring water in

her ears. But through it all the insistent voice of her tormentor beat

into her consciousness.

“If she didn't show it to you, she _hid_ it; I'm dead sure of that. She

_hid_ it. I have been watching your girl, Mrs. Barry, for several weeks,

and I'm free to say that something has gone wrong with her. A body can

see it in the drooping way she has in moving about. The day you sent her

over for the salt I thought, on my soul, she'd drop in her tracks before

she left the kitchen. Maybe the letter was to tell her where the scamp

was going, or--or--well, there could be lots a fellow like that might

say at such a time. But I'll be bound, he was putting her off. They all

do. It is man-nature.”

“I am sure she didn't _get_ any letter,” Mrs. Barry said, and she now

tore herself away, conscious of her overwhelming disadvantage in the

adroit woman's hands.

“Well, you'll find out I'm right,” was the shot which struck her in the

back as she turned the corner of the cottage. “If you don't believe me,

you can ask the postman; there he is--coming down the street right now.”

But Mrs. Barry did not pause. She went into the house and closed her

door. She stood in the middle of the room like a creature deprived of

animation. Through the parted curtains of an open window she heard the

washerwoman call out to the man in uniform:

“I just had a bet up with Mrs. Barry, Sim Carter! She must think I'm

blind. I told her you left a letter at her house this morning, and she

says she never saw hair nor hide of it.”

“It is there all right,” the man laughed. “I gave it to Miss Dora.”

“That's what I told her. I say, Sim Carter, have they heard anything

more yet about--” But the postman was gone.

Through the window, by stooping and peering forth, Mrs. Barry could see

him crossing the street to the next house. With a heart as heavy as

lead she went into the parlor; Dora was not there. She passed on to the

kitchen; no one was there, either. There was something incongruous

in the contented aspect of the fat, gray cat lying and purring in the

sunlight on the door-sill. Bliss like that under the coat of a mere dumb

brute when she had this to bear--this lurking, insinuating, maddening

thing, which had been creeping slowly upon her night and day until it

had assumed the shape and size of a monster of mental and spiritual

torture.

She went on to Dora's room, where she found the girl seated on her bed.

The great, long-lashed, somnolent eyes, over the exquisite beauty of

which men and women had marvelled, were red as from weeping. She gave

her mother, as the old woman stood in the doorway, a weary, despondent

glance, and then, half startled, looked down. Mrs. Barry saw the charred

remains of a sheet of writing-paper in the open fireplace, and a fresh

pang darted through her.

“Did you need me, mother?” Dora inquired, softly, in the musical voice

so many had admired, and which to-day sounded sweeter, more appealing,

than ever before.

“Mrs. Chumley says you got a letter from the postman this morning,” Mrs.

Barry said, tremblingly.

The girl seemed to hesitate just an instant; then she nodded, mutely.

“Who was it from, daughter?”

“Mother, I don't want to say--even to you. I have reasons why--”

“It was from Fred Walton! You need not deny it.”

Dora made no protest; she simply dropped her eyes to her lap, and sat

motionless.

“You knew he had left, didn't you?”

“Yes, mother. I knew he was gone.”

“And while the whole town is wondering why he went, you know, I

suppose?”

“I don't feel that I have the right to talk about it, mother.”

“Well, I sha'n't urge you!” And the older woman shambled away, now

bearing doubts which were heavier and more maddening than ever.

“Something's wrong--very, very wrong--or she wouldn't droop like that,”

she said. “Oh, God have mercy, I'm actually afraid to question my own

child! I am afraid to even do that!”

The sun went down, the night came on; workingmen, women, and children

passed along on their homeward way from the cotton and woolen mills,

carrying their dinner-pails. The very cheerfulness of their faces,

lightness of step, and merry jesting with one another sent shafts of

misery to the heart of the brooding woman. When she had put the supper

on the table she went to the daughter's room and told her it was ready.

“Some of your art pupils came to the gate just now, didn't they?” she

inquired.

“Yes,” the girl answered. “Sally and Mary Hill wanted to know if I'd go

sketching with them to the swamp to-morrow afternoon.”

“And are you going?”

“I told them I'd let them know in the morning.” Dora was at her place at

the side of the table, and she felt her mother's despondent gaze turned

on her.

“You told them you'd let them know! Why, don't you know already? I

thought you liked to go out that way. Some of your best studies were

made at the swamp.”

“I was feeling so badly,” the girl sighed, “that I didn't have the heart

to promise. I can never work to any advantage if I am not in the mood

for it.”

“Oh! _that_ is it!” They both sat down. “You ought to fight against

languor at this time of the year. I never let an ache or pain keep me

from work. Sometimes merely being busy seems to help one. Your father

used to stick at his easel as long as the light would hold out. He

used to say the time would come when the whole world would admire your

painting, and you really _are_ improving.”

Dora sighed, but said nothing.

Mrs. Barry passed her a cup of coffee. “Here, drink this down while it

is hot,” she advised. “I made it strong. It will do you good.”

“Thank you, mother, you are very kind to me.” Dora drank some of the

coffee, and daintily munched a piece of buttered toast. In the afternoon

light, which fell through a western window, Mrs. Barry saw a deeply

troubled look on the wan face--a certain nervous twitching of the

tapering fingers.

Presently Dora pushed back her chair and rose.

“I don't care for anything else,” she said, avoiding her mother's eyes.

“But you haven't eaten anything at all,” Mrs. Barry protested,

anxiously.

“I can't eat--I simply can't,” Dora said, with strange and desperate

frankness. “I'm too miserable. Oh, mother, mother, pity me! pity me!”

Mrs. Barry sat motionless, her head, with its scant hair, now supported

by her two sinewy hands. She saw her daughter turn away, and, with

dragging feet, go on to her bedroom.

“God, have mercy!” she moaned. “She's as good as admitted it. What else

could she have meant? Oh, God, what else--what else? She must know what

I am afraid of. Oh, my baby!--my poor, poor baby!”

She rose from her untasted meal and followed her child, not noticing,

in the gathering dusk, that Mrs. Chumley had entered the outer door,

and was treading softly and with bated breath in her wake. She found the

girl standing at a window, dumb and pale, looking out into the yard.

“You must tell me everything, daughter,” Mrs. Barry said. “I can't sleep

to-night unless you do. I am afraid I am going mad. Tell me, tell me!”

“Oh, mother, mother, how can I?”

“You are ruined!” Mrs. Barry groaned. “Tell me I am right--you are

ruined!”

With a cry, Dora turned and threw herself on the bed, and with her face

hidden in a pillow she burst into dry sobs.

“Make her tell you the whole thing,” Mrs. Chumley spoke up, as she stood

in the doorway. “Have it out of her, and be done with it; that's the

course I took.”

Mrs. Barry turned upon her, but no anger or resentment over the

intrusion stirred the dregs of her despair. A faint shock came to her

with the thought that now all Stafford would know the truth, but it

was followed by the realization that, after all, concealment would not

lessen in any degree the horror of the disaster.

“Come away!” she heard herself imploring the gossip. “Let her alone!

I won't have folks bothering her. She's got enough to bear as it is,

without having people prying. Come away, come away!”

Mrs. Chumley suffered herself to be led to the outer door.

“All right. I came over to return the cup of sugar you lent me; I left

it in the kitchen. I am much obliged, and I'm as sorry for you as one

woman could be for another. Good-night.”

Mrs. Barry went to the supper-table, and, as it was growing dark, she

lighted a lamp. She proceeded to wash and dry and put away the dishes.

No one would have suspected that such a deadening blow had been dealt

her to have looked in on her at this moment, as she moved dumbly about

the room, her head and face hidden by the gingham sunbonnet she had

put on. It was a badge of humility--a thing she vaguely fancied hid her

maternal shame from eyes which she already felt prying.

Her task finished, she stood for a moment hesitatingly; then she blew

out the lamp and crept softly to the door of her daughter's room.

Bending her head, she listened at the keyhole. No sound came to her

ears, and she softly lifted the latch and went in. Dora still lay on the

bed, her arms clutching the pillow, her face out of view in the darkened

room.

“Darling, I haven't come to scold you, don't think that,” the old woman

said, most tenderly, as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her

daughter's tear-damp hand. “This calamity has fallen on both of us, just

as the death of your dear father did so far away from home, and just as

many other hard things have come to us. I shall stand by you through it

all. It is not the first time a poor young girl has been misled. Nothing

is left for us but to do our duty to the best of our ability in the

sight of Heaven. I shall not press you to tell me a thing, either. My

knowing particulars wouldn't better matters at all. It is done, and that

is enough. Now, go to sleep, baby girl, and don't give way to despair.

Good-night.”

Dora sat up, extended her arms, and for a moment the two remained

locked in a tight, sobbing embrace. Neither spoke after that. Tenderly

releasing her daughter's twining arms, Mrs. Barry went out and softly

closed the door. In her own room, in utter darkness, she undressed.

Before retiring, and with the sunbonnet still on her head, she knelt

beside a chair in the room and started to pray, but somehow the needed

words failed to come. Prayer is born in hope in some sort of faith, at

least, but this lone widow, brave as her front appeared, had neither.

“Oh, Edwin!” she suddenly cried out, “she was your idol, your little

pet; you used to say, as she sat on your knee in the firelight at night,

that she was born to be lucky and happy. You said her beauty, genius,

and gentleness would draw the world to her feet. You hoped all that for

her, Edwin, and yet there she is bowed down in the greatest shame and

sorrow that can fall to a young girl's lot. On the day you left never to

return, you told me of the great Virginia family from which she was

descended, and said that some day we'd be grandparents of children that

would make us proud. Poor, dear Edwin!--that was only one of your pretty

dreams--_our_ grandchild, if God lets it come, won't even have a name of

its own, and may bear this curse through a long life to its grave. Oh,

Edwin!--my gentle, loving husband--you are here by my side to-night,

aren't you? You are here putting your dear spirit arms about me, trying

to comfort me, and you will help her, too, dear husband, as you are

helping me. Hold up the sweet, stricken child. Fill her dark life with

your own unrealized dreams. Give her something--_anything_ to help her

bear her burden! That's my prayer to you, Edwin--to you, and to God!”

She went to her bed and threw herself down. Tears welled up in her, but

she forced them back, and, dry-eyed and still, she lay with her wrinkled

face near to the wall.

CHAPTER X

|ONE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece and nephew

sat on the front veranda to catch the cool breezes which swept across

the town and stirred the foliage of the trees on the lawn. The old

gentleman had been urging Margaret to go to the piano in the big

parlor and sing for them, but she had persistently declined. Since Fred

Walton's leaving, despite her evident efforts to appear unconcerned,

she had not seemed to her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like

herself, and they were constantly trying to divert her mind from the

unpleasant matter.

At this juncture Kenneth Galt's carriage and pair of spirited blacks,

driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down the

street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the gateway to the

gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the house, which was not

very different from the Dearing home in size, period, and architecture.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” the General exclaimed, suddenly. “Galt is

off to Atlanta, to see some more capitalists on our new railroad scheme.

You may think lightly of it, my boy, but as sure as fate we are going to

put that big trunk-line through--or, rather, Galt is. He thinks it is in

good shape, and that is encouragement enough for me. He has handled my

affairs ever since he hung out his shingle as a lawyer, and as he made

money hand over hand for himself, he has for me too.”

“Yes, he has the keenest sense of values of any man in the State,” Wynn

agreed. “He has the full confidence of his clients, and he is not

afraid to back up his ideas with money; that is what makes a successful

speculator. He will put the road through if any one can. Investors will

listen to a man who has succeeded in everything he has attempted.”

The carriage was now leaving the house, and when it had regained

the street and was about to pass, the General stood up and waved

his handkerchief. The carriage paused at the gate, and the man under

discussion sprang out, hat in hand, and hurried up the walk.

“I have only a minute to get to the 8.40 train,” he informed them, as he

bowed to Margaret, and smiled cordially at Dearing.

Kenneth Galt was an interesting man from many points of view. His

intimate friends liked him because, to them, he sometimes unbent and was

himself; to strangers and mere acquaintances he was cold, formal, and

almost painfully dignified. To his many clients he was seldom cordial or

free, and never familiar. He had gleaned the idea somewhere, from his or

some one else's experience, that no genuinely successful financier

ever allowed himself to be taken lightly, so he never jested about

his affairs nor encouraged it in others. He had set a high price upon

himself and his chances of success in life, and he held to it the

more tenaciously the higher he climbed. When approached for legal or

financial advice his face was as immovable as granite, and when he gave

an opinion it always had weight, for he was apt to be right. He was

considered a man of wonderful ability and power among men. He couldn't

have been a successful politician, for he could never have sufficiently

lowered himself to the level of the common people, so it was fortunate

for him that his ambition associated him with another and a more

lucrative class. He was interesting as any human enigma could be which

showed outward signs of hidden depth and strength. For an orthodox

community like that of old Stafford, his iconoclastic views on some

sacred subjects shocked many conservative individuals, but he was so

firm in his philosophy and frank in his open expression of it, that

he was forgiven where a weaker, less-important man would have been

adversely criticized. He had convinced himself, or been convinced during

the hours he had spent in his unique library, that there is no such

thing as a soul or a soul's immortality, and he was proving, by his

persistent effort to make the most of the present, that in the very

renunciation of the dogma he had discovered the highest law of life.

“Well, you are off, I see,” the General said, “and I hope the parties

will not only be there, but with their check-books wide open.”

“Yes, I'll see what can be done,” Galt answered, somewhat coldly, for it

was against his policy to speak of business matters in any social group.

“I happened to have the land deed you wanted in my pocket, General, and

I thought I'd stop and hand it to you.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” Sylvester said. “I knew it was all right, but I

want to keep all my papers which you don't have need for in my safe.”

“And how is Miss Margaret?” Galt now asked, as he turned the document

over to its owner, and bent toward the wistful face of the young girl.

“Oh, I'm quite well, thank you,” she responded, forcing a smile. “You

are a fortunate man, Mr. Galt. My uncle doesn't praise many people, but

he can't say enough in your favor.”

“That's because he only knows the _business_ side of me,” Galt said,

ceasing to smile, and drawing himself up.

“Well, I must be off. I see John lashing the air with his whip; he is my

time-table.”

“Yes, you'd better not lose your train,” the General put in. “I don't

want to be the cause of your missing that appointment. Get a rosebud for

his buttonhole, Madge. It may bring us good luck.”

“Yes, I will.” The girl rose languidly. “There are some pretty ones near

the gate.”

Galt gallantly assisted her down the steps, and, side by side, they

moved along the wide brick walk. Dearing heard his uncle chuckling as

the old man peered through the twilight at the couple, who now stood

facing each other over a bush of choice roses.

“Mark my words, my boy,” he said, “we may have to wait awhile for it,

but as sure as you and I are alive, that pair will some day be more

closely related to each other than they are now.”

Dearing shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. “You don't think

so?” the General pursued, with the eagerness of a child who has

discovered a new toy. “They can't help it. He is much older than she

is, but it would be an ideal match. The fellow is actually a great man.

There is no curbing his ambition. He has accomplished wonders so far,

and there is no telling what his particular genius will ripen into.”

“It may be as you say--_in time_,” Dearing answered, after a pause; “but

I'm afraid it will be years before Madge forgets Fred Walton, and if he

should take a notion to come back, as such fellows always do, sooner or

later, why, we'd only have our trouble over again.”

“But he told you he was going, never to come back?” the old man said,

with a touch of resentment even at the thought.

“Yes; he said positively that his conduct, whatever it was, would keep

him from ever showing his face in Stafford again.”

“I have been wondering what he could have done,” General Sylvester said,

musingly. “I dropped in on his father the other day for no other reason

than that he might let out some hint of the situation, but he never said

a word. A big change has certainly come over him. His face was haggard

and almost bloodless, and his eyes had a queer, shifting look. I am sure

he knows all about the affair, whatever it is.”

“Yes; Fred said the old man knew, and would tell it, but it seems he has

not,” Dearing answered.

“Ashamed to let it be known, I guess,” Sylvester said.

Margaret and Galt had parted, the carriage was disappearing down the

street, and the girl was slowly strolling back. At a bed of flowers

about ten yards from them she paused and stood looking down. Just then

a loud, strident voice reached them from the side of the house. It was

from Mrs. Chumley, who had brought the General's laundry home, and with

her great empty basket was making her way across the grass toward the

front gate, accompanied by old Diana, the colored cook.

“Oh, but I know it _is_ true--every word of it!” The white woman had

raised her voice exultantly. “I was right there at the girl's elbow, and

heard Mrs. Barry accuse her of it. Dora admitted her ruin, and laid it

to Fred Walton. Now, I reckon folks will know why he had to skip out by

the light o' the moon without a bit of baggage.”

Instantly the two men were on their feet, Margaret's protection foremost

in their minds. There was no doubt that she had heard, for she was

standing facing the two women like a figure carved from stone.

“Excuse me, Miss Margaret, I didn't know you was there,” Mrs. Chumley

said, as she walked on; “but it is the truth--the Lord knows it is the

truth.”

“My God, the brutality of it!” the old man ejaculated. “To think it

should come to her like that!”

“The scoundrel!” Dearing cried. “Now I understand fully, and if I had

known the truth, I'd have--” But he went no further, for Margaret was

slowly coming toward them. The grass she trod was wet with dew, and

ordinarily she would have realized it, and lifted her skirt, but she

now moved toward them like a somnambulist. At the bottom step her foot

caught, and as they both sprang to her assistance she gave a forced,

harsh laugh.

“How awkward I--I am!” she stammered. “I could never da--dance the

minuet with you now, Uncle Tom. I gave Mr. Galt a pretty bud. He is

_such_ a flatterer--saying that I--saying that he--”

She suddenly pressed her hand to her head and reeled helplessly. The

strong arm of her brother went round her, and her head sank upon his

shoulder. His face was wrung and dark with blended fury and anxiety, his

strong lip was quivering.

“No, she is not fainting!” He spoke to his uncle, but for her ears, with

the intention of rousing her. “She is all right. Wake up, Madge! I'll

slap your jaws, old girl, if you play 'possum with me. You may fool

_some_ folks, but not your family doctor.”

“No, I am not fainting. Who said I was?” and Margaret raised her head,

and drew herself quite erect. “I--I am going in to sing for you.”

She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in his

voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear. Uncle

Tom wouldn't listen, anyway. He's simply daft about the new railroad,

and couldn't hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at those damp

shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room and change them at

once!”

“I _did_ get them wet, didn't I?” the girl said, glancing down at her

feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her brother

stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight; then he

went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was eager to take

up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but Dearing's ears

were closed to what he was saying.

“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it should

come to her--to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful ideals! _And

he could deliberately desert her!_ He could look another man in the face

and confess that he was without the courage to lift a woman up after he

had knocked her down.”

Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the darkness

before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary light in Mrs.

Barry's cottage. It was from the window of Dora's room, and for an hour

he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went out; then he

rose, and began to undress.

CHAPTER XI

|A FEW days after the report of Dora Barry's fall had permeated Stafford

from the town's centre to its scattering outskirts, and the beautiful

girl's disgrace had been duly recorded as the now certain explanation of

Fred Walton's flight, it came to his father's ears in a rather indirect

manner. Old Simon was erroneously supposed to have learned the truth,

even before it became town-talk; for it was vaguely whispered that

the banker had been so moved by Mrs. Barry's personal appeal to him

in behalf of her daughter that he had called in the sheriff with the

intention of having his son held to honor by sheer force, but for some

reason had refrained from taking action.

There are individuals in every community, too, who are bold enough to

mention a delicate topic even to those most sensitively concerned, and

as old Walton was going to the bank on the morning in question Bailey

Thornton, a man of great size, who kept a grocery where the banker

bought his supplies, essayed a jest as he passed the old man's morning

cigar to him over the showcase. The bystanders thoroughly understood

what was meant, as was evinced by the hearty laugh which went round, but

the old man didn't.

“Don't be hard on the boy, Mr. Walton,” Thornton added, and he smiled

broadly enough to explain any ordinary innuendo. “Remember your own

young days. I'll bet Fred came by it honestly. The whole town knows the

truth; there is no good in trying to hide it. Tell him it is all right,

and make him come back home.”

Old Simon grunted and walked on, flushing under the irritating chorus of

laughter which followed him out of the store. “Come by it honestly!” he

repeated. “What could the meddling fool mean? _The whole town knows the

truth!_”

He fell to quivering, and almost came to a dead halt in the street.

Surely the circumstance of the bank's loss was not leaking out, after

all his caution? He decided that he would at once sound Toby Lassiter.

Perhaps Fred had confided in others. The bare chance of the shortage

being known and used against him by the rival bank alarmed him. In fancy

he saw the report growing and spreading through the town and country

till an army of half-crazed depositors, egged on by his enemies, was

clamoring at the door, and demanding funds which had been put out on

collateral security, and could not be drawn in at a moment's notice.

As he was passing along the corridor by the counting-room, where,

beyond the green wire grating, the bookkeepers were at work, he

caught Lassiter's glance, and with a wild glare in his eyes he nodded

peremptorily toward the rear. He had just hung up his old slouch hat and

seated himself in his chair when the clerk joined him, a look of wonder

in his mild eyes.

“Say, Toby, sit down--no, shut the door!” Simon ordered; and when the

clerk had obeyed and taken a chair near the desk, the banker leaned

toward him.

“I want to know,” he panted, “if the report is out about Fred's

shortage?”

“Why, no, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said, astonished in his turn; “that is,

not to my knowledge. I haven't heard a word that would indicate such

a thing. In fact, they all seem so busy with--” But Lassiter colored

deeply, and suddenly checked himself.

“Well, _something_ is in the wind, I know,” Simon went on, his lip

quivering. “It may be that Thornton only had reference to the boy's

general extravagance, or he may have heard false reports about my own

bringing-up; but I am not sure, Toby, but that the thing we are trying

to hide is out.” Thereupon old Simon, his anxious eyes fixed on the

face of his clerk, recounted in detail all that the grocer had said, and

exactly how it had come up.

“Oh, I see!” Lassiter exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “He didn't refer

to _the money_, Mr. Walton. He meant--” It was loyalty to his absent

friend which again checked the conscientious Toby, who was trying to

reconcile two adverse duties, and now sat twirling his thumbs in visible

embarrassment.

“You see what?” old Simon demanded, fiercely. “Don't you begin shifting

here and there, and keeping things from me. I want to know what's took

place, and I _will!_ You and I have always got on harmoniously, but I

don't like your shillyshallying whenever that boy's name is mentioned.

The other day, when I sent for the sheriff--well, you happened to be

right in stopping me _that time_, I'll admit, but I want to know what

you think Bailey Thornton meant by what he said. Do you know?”

The clerk looked down. His face was quite grave and rigid.

“Mr. Walton,” he faltered, “I don't like to carry tales about matters

which don't concern me, and when a nasty report gets in the air I try to

keep from having anything to do with it.”

“I'm talking to you about _business_ now!” Old Simon raised his voice

to a shrill cry, which, had it not stranded in his throat, would have

reached the adjoining room.

“The report touches on my affairs here in this house, and if you don't

tell me, if you don't aid me with whatever knowledge you may have run

across, you can draw your pay and quit.”

Lassiter saw the utter futility of remaining silent longer, and with a

desperate look on his face he answered: “I didn't want to make the

poor boy's case any worse, Mr. Walton, and so I hoped it would turn

out untrue before it got to you; but they say the girl admits the whole

thing. The minister of the church where she plays the organ told me it

was true.”

“Girl? What girl?” the banker gasped. “Why do you take all day to get at

a thing?”

Then, as Lassiter told the story which was on every tongue, old Simon

stared, his mouth falling open and his unlighted cigar seesawing between

his jagged stumps of teeth.

“So you are plumb sure it wasn't the money that Thornton was talking

about!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief.

“Yes, I am sure of that, Mr. Walton. They have been so full of chatter

about the girl that not a word has been said about money, although some

think you actually furnished the ready cash for him to get away on.” The

two sat silent for several minutes; then, shaking his tousled head and

shrugging his gaunt shoulders in his faded black alpaca coat, the banker

said, with grim finality of tone: “He's a bad egg, Toby. That fellow is

rotten to the core. This last discovery really helps us hide the other

matter, but the two of them put together will wipe his name off the

slate of this town forever. He'll never dare to show his face here

again. He might have tried to get around me and live down the shortage,

but I reckon both things coming to a head at once kind o' broke his

courage, and he decided to skedaddle. I have no pity for the girl

neither--not a smidgin; a woman that would give in to a scamp like him

don't deserve any man's pity. Say, Toby, I'm a peculiar in some ways:

as long as I felt that I owed something to that boy as his father

his doings kind o' lay on my mind, but he has plumb cancelled that

obligation. I can get along without worry over him if he is put clean

out of my calculations, so after this I don't want no human being to

mention his name to me. I'll let 'em know that they can't joke with

me about it on the street. I want you to go this minute to Bailey

Thornton's store and ask him for my account up to date. Then I'll send

him my check, and do my trading with Pete Longley. He will be trotting

in to apologize, but keep him away from me. Huh! he can't sneer at me as

I walk along the public highways of this town; his account with us isn't

worth ten cents a month, and he's shaky, anyway. I wish I'd hit him in

the mouth as he stood there gloating over his dirty joke!”

CHAPTER XII

|KENNETH GALT came back from Atlanta at the end of the week. John Dilk

drove down, and brought him up from the station at dusk. Galt had just

alighted at his front steps, and the carriage had gone round the house

toward the stables in the rear, when he saw Margaret Dearing among the

flowers on the lawn adjoining. Through an open window, in the glow of

gas-light, he could see the supper-table waiting for him, and knew that

his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, had all in readiness for his evening meal.

He knew, too, that she was most particular about having his favorite

dishes served while they were hot, and yet he could not resist the

temptation to exchange greetings with this fair young girl whose genial

friendship and interest in his affairs had always appealed to him. The

prospects were very bright for success in his plan of building a railway

from Stafford to the sea, and he was still young enough to want to warm

himself in the smile of the girl's approval.

“Oh, you are back!” she said, cordially, as he strode across the grass,

and lightly vaulted over the row of boxwood which divided the two

properties. “Uncle Tom will be delighted.”

“Yes, and I am very tired,” he answered. He paused and shook her hand,

experiencing a decided shock as he noticed the unexpected pallor of

her face and the dark splotches beneath her eyes. “I was on my feet all

morning in Atlanta. I made a speech to-day at a luncheon, and then had

to ride up on a slow train.”

“And the railroad is almost a certainty?” she asked, forcing a wan

smile. “You are about to have your dream realized?”

“Almost,” he answered, modestly. “I think we may count on most of the

subscribers for the stock throughout the South, and the farmers who

have agreed to donate the right of way through their lands still seem

enthusiastic. The only thing we lack is the support of a certain group

of New York capitalists who are to put up the bulk of the funds and are

now considering our final proposition. If they should go in the road

would be a certainty.”

“My uncle is sure they can be counted on,” the girl went on,

sympathetically. “He declares no one but you could have won the

confidence of all those prim, old-fashioned ladies and pious elders, who

have never been willing to invest their savings before.”

Galt shrugged his shoulders and drew back somewhat into his habitual

mantle of reserve. “If we _do_ put it through,” he said, “they won't

regret it. Thorough confidence in an enterprise like this is necessary,

of course, and I am glad they trust me.”

“All Stafford was reading the articles in the Atlanta papers yesterday

about it,” Margaret said. “Uncle says when it is settled beyond a doubt

the town will give a torch-light procession in your honor.”

“There were many inaccuracies in the papers,” he informed her, as he

stood wondering over her evident dejection. “Did you read the articles?”

“Did I? Twice--once for myself and again for Uncle. I am sure he had

already been over them, but, like the child he is, he wanted to hear the

glorious news coming from the lips of some one else. I didn't like the

pictures of you, though--not a bit.”

“You didn't? Why?”

“Because they don't do you justice; they were so harsh and fierce. They

made your mouth look--what shall I say?--cruel?--yes, cruel and utterly

heartless. And we all know you are not so. Wynn says you have the

greatest fondness for children of any man he knows, and surely that is a

sign of a good heart.”

“There is one thing I am _now_ showing an extravagant fondness for,”

Galt said, with a cynical laugh, “and that is, hearing you sound praises

that aren't deserved. So I am going to tear myself away from them and

run in to supper.”

“Poor girl!” he mused, as he walked away. “She looks pale and troubled,

and talks as if she were trying to hide something. She has altered,

even in the last week. I wonder if she really cared for Fred Walton? Who

knows? Women often like unworthy men. God knows, I ought to understand

that.”

After supper Galt went up to his sumptuous quarters on the floor above,

and, lighting a cigar, he threw himself into an easy-chair and began to

smoke.

“Yes, I must see her to-night,” he said, almost aloud. “I can't wait

longer. It has been more than a month now, and not a line from her. I am

winning the fight of my life, and I want to see her glorious face light

up as I tell her about it. She is the sweetest, dearest girl in the

world. Her great dreamy eyes haunt me night and day. I love her, God

knows I do. But it mustn't get out yet--not yet; not, at least, till my

road is built. We have a right to our secret, the sweetest that ever a

love-mad pair held between them. She trusts me, and for the present

no one need dream of our intimacy. The last time I saw her the little

darling had all sorts of fears in her dear little head, but such fancies

are only natural. I'll kiss them away, once she is nestling in my arms.

The dear little thing is jealous--actually jealous--of my success. She

said once that she believed I would desert her if it would serve my

ambition to do so. She doesn't know me. She has a wonderful brain, but

she reads me wrongly.”

The hours went by. The old grandfather clock in the hall below struck

nine and then ten, and he rose and slipped down the stairs into the

grounds below. Stafford was a town which went early to bed as a rule,

and Galt found a vast stillness all about him out under the mystically

shimmering stars. Softly treading the grass and furtively looking about,

he went down to a gate near his stables, passed through and closed it

without sound. Again looking up the little street cautiously, he went

on till he reached the rear gate of Mrs. Barry's cottage. Going in, he

walked through the widow's vegetable garden till he stood behind the

little coal-and-wood house not ten feet from the open window of Dora's

room. Here he paused, holding his breath in suspense. There was a light

in the room as from a low-burning gas-jet at the bureau in the corner,

and against the white window-curtain he saw the shadow of some one bowed

over a table. The outlines of the silhouette were familiar, and they,

set his heart to beating rapidly. Picking up some small particles of

coal, he shot them at the window from his closed hand with the nail of

his thumb. Sometimes they would fall short of the mark, but now and then

one would strike the glass and produce a faint clicking sound. The trick

was successful, as it had been before. The crouching shadow straightened

up, the distinct profile of Dora's face appeared for an instant, and

then lost its exquisite outlines in a blur of black which elongated

itself upward as the girl rose to her feet. The curtain was drawn, and

Dora, fully dressed, peered out. Stepping into open view, Galt signalled

with his hand for her to come out. He saw her shake her head excitedly

and stand motionless.

He signalled again and again, showing his impatience by the growing

rapidity of his gestures and the impassioned movement of his mute lips.

He heard her sigh, and then she nodded resignedly and retreated into the

room. Her light went out. She was coming; he knew she would join him if

her mother was asleep. And yet that sigh! What could it mean from her

who had always come so joyfully, so full of love and faith? Ah, he

had it! The gentle girl, not having seen him for several weeks, was

genuinely jealous of the weighty affairs which had recently absorbed so

much of his attention. All the uproar over his prospective success in

the papers, the graphic accounts of his high position, had made her

fancy, in her artistic sensitiveness, that circumstances were separating

them. Ah, yes, that was it! But he would set her right on that score,

as he always had done. He would convince her that their sweet secret was

their own, and assure her that it need not be long now before they could

announce their love to the world. Where could he look for a better or a

truer mate? The secret of their present, and perhaps imprudent, intimacy

would never be known. But for the time being, of course, he could not

think of marrying _any one_. Much depended, right now, on his remaining

exactly as he was--the suave bachelor whom certain prim and accurate

maiden ladies had intrusted with the management of their finances, and

reserved a right to decide, as members of some churches do in the cases

of their unmarried pastors, what manner of woman their paragon was to

choose, if any, as his partner in life. They would be unanimous in their

verdict against the artist's beautiful daughter, not being able to see

her worth and charm as he could see them. And to announce at the present

crisis that he had chosen such a wife would certainly be inadvisable.

He had become their idol, and his judgment told him he must retain their

good-will in all things--at least, till he was independent of their

support.

There was a low, creaking sound from the rusty hinges of the rear door

of the cottage, followed by profound stillness, and he knew she had

paused on the steps to see if her mother would wake. Then he breathed

in vast relief, for he saw her coming. She had thrown a light shawl

over her head, and as she passed from under the intervening arbor of

grape-vines and the moonlight fell upon her partly exposed face, he was

struck by its pallor, and by the desperate gleam in the eyes so steadily

fixed on him.

“Thank God, I see you at last, darling!” he exclaimed, passionately, as

he held out his arms. But to his amazement she drew back, warding off

his embrace with a hand that was firm, strong, and cold as ice.

“You must go--you must never come again!” she said, in a voice filled

with suffering.

The little wood-house was between them and the cottage, and some tall

trees bordering the little street threw a shadow over them.

“But, darling, what's the matter?” he cried. “What has changed you so

remarkably? Why, little girl--”

“Do you mean, you haven't--haven't _heard?_” She clutched the shawl

under her marble-like chin and stared at him, her pretty lips parted and

quivering piteously.

“Heard what?” he asked. “I have heard nothing--certainly no _bad_ news.

I've been away for a week, and only came home this evening.”

She lowered her head, and stood silent and motionless. He put his hand

on her shoulder and gently shook her.

“Tell me,” he urged, groping for an explanation of her agitation, “is

your mother ill again? Is she worse?”

“No, it isn't that--God knows even that would be a blessing. Kenneth,

I'm ruined!”

“You don't mean?--you _can't_ mean?--” He stood aghast before her,

quivering now from head to foot.

“Yes, there is no doubt of it. Mother suspected it, and was so miserable

that I had to admit the truth. It almost drove her crazy. She was

talking to me about it when that meddlesome woman, Mrs. Chumley, came

in and overheard it. She lost no time in spreading the report broadcast

over town. Everybody has known it for several days.”

“Oh, my God!” Galt pronounced the words in his throat. This thing, of

all unexpected things, had burst upon him at the very crisis of his

triumph, and it would ruin him--there was no denying that; it would ruin

him! In his fancy he saw his hitherto irreproachable character torn to

shreds by the men and women who, till now, had stood behind him. The

dream of his life might be carried out some day, but not by a man of

his stamp. He groaned aloud. For the moment it was impossible for him to

show sympathy where sympathy most belonged. He stood as a man stands who

loves life, and yet has been condemned to death. Love and the capacity

for self-sacrifice in Kenneth Galt were best nourished by hope and

happiness, and of these things he was now bereft.

“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best of

it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of each

other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I won't act the

part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling--”

“Say of _you?_” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned your

name. Not a soul--_not even my mother_--dreams that I ever met you in

secret. You are the last human being on earth that would be--be accused.

Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering deaths rather than

drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I know full well what

such an exposure would mean to you.”

A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of relief

seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by horror

now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned--you

say--You--didn't tell your mother--that I--?”

“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me when we

last met that even a bare report of our engage--our love for each other

right now would harm your plans. Do you think that I'd let a horror like

this come up against you? Even if you declared it was true, I'd say it

was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They declare it was

Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly. I've told them it

wasn't--told them and told them, but they won't believe me. They may

think what they please, but they sha'n't say it was _you!_”

“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that

reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's magnanimity

to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A storm of

incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in the coign of

immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the sweet, stricken

creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer derision of the escape

she was offering him, and for one blind instant he actually believed in

his own manhood.

“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his, and,

although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and tenderly

kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a scamp like

Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with yours? Never! I want

you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I succeeded with my paltry

enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come here to-morrow and we'll be

married, as we ought to have been months and months ago. Now, go to bed,

and let me see roses on your pretty cheeks in the morning.”

“You are speaking without thought--without knowledge of yourself.” The

girl sighed as she drew away from his embrace and forcibly put down his

detaining hands. “You see, I know you, Kenneth, better than you know

yourself. You love me in a way, I am sure; but when it was all over, and

you'd paid the debt you think you owe me, you'd blame me for being the

blight to your prospects that I would be. Listen! What is done is done.

Because I am disgraced is no reason you should be. You are a man whose

ambition is his life. Married to me, and hampered by the name I now

bear, you'd not only fail in your present enterprise, but you would be

held down to the end of life. Oh, I know you so well--so very well! The

praise and adulation of the prominent men and women whose friendship

you have are the very life-blood of your being. I've known you had

this weakness for a long time, but I had to bear with it as a natural

shortcoming.”

“How absurdly you talk!” he cried out, in dull, crushed admiration for

such logic in one so young and frail. “But I assure you, Dora, I'll not

listen to such silly stuff for a minute. You are going to be my wife.

Do you hear me?--my wife! We will let the blamed railroad go. I'll tell

General Sylvester in the morning that we are off for our honeymoon. Of

course he'll drop me like a hot potato, but he may do it for all I care.

You are more to me, darling, than he and all the trunk-lines in the

world. Yes, I am coming for you to-morrow--to-morrow afternoon at three

o'clock! Remember that--at three, sharp, and I'll--I'll bring a--a

preacher and--everything necessary.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Dora said, firmly. “You think at this

moment that you have the courage to do what you propose, but, Kenneth,

you _haven't_--you simply haven't! I know you better than you know

yourself. You will not come to-morrow _nor any other day!_ I'll never

see you again, nor do I want to. I had a kind of love for you that only

a woman could understand; you have had quite another sort for me. You

think yours is still alive, but it died of paltry fear, stifled by

avarice; mine was a girlish dream. I am awake now. Leave me, and don't

approach me again. I swear to you that your secret is safe.”

She moved away. He tried to stop her; but, with a warning finger on her

lips, she eluded his grasp, and hurried into the house.

CHAPTER XIII

|BRAVE, very brave, and sweet and noble!” he said to himself, as he

walked back toward the gate of his grounds; “but she certainly sha'n't

have her way. I'm not low enough for that, thank God! She is the only

creature I ever loved or could love, and she is mine by all the laws

of heaven and earth. She looked like a young goddess as she stood there

with that fire in her suffering face, and calmly consigned herself to

disgrace and oblivion that my sordid schemes might prosper. I am not

poor. I can make a living somehow, somewhere, if not in this sleepy old

town; and with her always by my side, why--” Across the lawn he saw a

light in a window of the Dearing house. It was in General Sylvester's

room. The old gentleman retired earlier than this as a rule, and Galt

told himself that his being up now was due to the almost child-like joy

over the encouraging condition of their joint enterprise. He saw the old

soldier's shadow as it flitted across the window, and knew that he was

walking about, as was his habit under stress of excitement.

“Poor old man!” Galt, now in his own grounds, leaned against the wall

of a rustic summer-house. A thought had struck him like a blow from the

dark. What would Sylvester say when he was told the truth? Galt saw the

look of sheer, helpless incredulity on the high-bred, war-scarred face

as the revelation was made, and watched it glow and flame into that

of anger, contempt, and bitter disappointment. The mere confession of

wrong-doing he might accept as frankly as it was offered, but that the

young man should allow such a mishap to drag his own proud name into

the mire and wreck the greatest enterprise that had ever blessed a

down-trodden community--well, he couldn't have believed such a thing

possible.

Heavily laden now with the fires of a purer passion burning low under

the shadow of his impending ruin, Kenneth Galt dragged himself slowly

along the walk toward his house. He was turning the corner to enter at

the front when he saw a carriage and pair at the gate. The moon had gone

under a thin cloud and the view was vague, but surely they were his

own horses, and the man on the driver's seat certainly looked like

John Dilk. Wonderingly, Galt went down to the gate. The negro was fast

asleep; his massive head had fallen forward, and the hands which held

the reins were inert. The gate rattled as Galt touched the iron latch,

and the man woke and looked about him.

“Oh, is dat you, Marse Kenneth?” he asked, sleepily. “Yes,” Galt

answered, rather sharply. “What are you doing with the horses out at

this time of night?”

“Oh! oh! Le' me see, suh!” The negro's wits were evidently scattered.

“I sw'ar I dunno, Marse Kenneth. Bless my soul, you jump on me so sudden

dat I can't, ter save my life, tell you--Oh yes, now I know, suh! Why,

ain't you seed de Gineral since you got home, Marse Kenneth?”

“Why, no. Does he want me?”

“Yasser, yasser, he sho' do,” the negro answered, now thoroughly

himself. “He been searchin' fer you high and low, Marse Kenneth. He went

all thoo yo' house. He got some'n 'portant ter tell you. He ordered me

ter hurry an' get out de team, an' have it raidy fer you'n him. He just

run in his house er minute ago. Dar he is comin' now. He's dat excited

an' worried about not findin' you he can't hardly hold in.”

General Sylvester, as he stepped from the veranda, recognized Galt,

and hurried toward him, pulling out his watch and looking at it in the

doubtful light.

“Great heavens!” he cried, “we haven't a minute to lose. You've only got

twenty minutes to catch the 11.10 North-bound train! Run up and get your

bag! I saw it there, still unpacked, and you needn't waste a minute.

I've glorious, glorious news from New York--a wire from Alberts, Wise

& Co. They have got the right men for our deal, and with dead loads of

money. They are ripe for the thing, and the brokers wire that if you can

be there day after to-morrow morning you can close it. They say if you

are not there then that the money may be diverted to other deals, and

they advise all possible haste. So hurry. You must not miss the train.

Everything depends on it. Run, get the bag! John, _you_ get it! Quick!”

“No, I'll--I'll do it!” Galt gasped. “Wait, I'll be down in--in a

minute!”

“Then hurry. We can talk on the way to the station. My boy, we are

simply going to land it! The blessings of the widows and orphans, whose

property is going to bound up in value, will be on your plucky young

head. Hurry up!”

Galt moved away, as weak in action as a machine run by a spring of such

delicacy that it could be broken by the breath of an insect or the fall

of an atom. It struck him as ridiculous that he should be going for

his bag if he did not intend to use it; and to confess even now that he

couldn't make the trip would seem queer and cowardly, for he ought to

have explained at once. Ascending the stairs, he reached his room. He

turned up the gas, and his image in the big pier-glass between the two

end windows looked like that of a dead man energized by electricity.

There lay the bag by the bed, the black letters “K. G.,” on the

end, blandly staring at him. Galt looked at it, and then back to his

reflection in the mirror.

“My God!” he cried out, suddenly, “if I go to-night I'll be deserting

her forever, and she will have read me rightly! She would keep the

secret; no human power could wrench it from her. She would keep it; and

I--I, who have led her to her ruin, would be deserting her as only a

coward could! I am beneath contempt. And yet what am I to do? I am what

I am--what the damnable forces within me and my ancestors have made me.

Napoleon loved, and put aside and cast down for his ambition, and have I

not the same right for mine? I am not an emperor, but my ambition,

such as it is, is as sweet to me as his was to him. As she says--as the

gentle wilting flower says--I'd be miserable, _even with her_, under the

wreckage of all these hopes. She knows me; child though she is, she is

my superior in many things. She knows that the loss of this thing--now

that I've tasted the maddening cup of success, now that the poison of

fame and public approval is rioting in my blood--would damn me forever!

Accidents of this sort have ruined _weak_ men. _Strong_ men have lived

to smile back upon such happenings as the inevitable consequence of

the meeting of flame and powder, and have gone to their graves without

remorse. I've known such men. I've heard them say that no matter how

heavily nature may scourge the conscience of man for theft, for murder,

for any other misdeed, it yet deals lightly with this particular

offence. And why? Because there can be no charge of deliberation in an

act to which passionate youth is led by the very sunshine and music of

heaven. And yet I'll lose her. Great God, _I'll actually lose her!_ I

can never look into her sweet face again, or kiss the dear lips ever

whispering their vows of undying faith until hell opened her eyes to--to

my frailty. No, no, I can't desert her; I can't--I simply can't! I

_want_ her! I _want_ her. With all my soul, I _want_ her!” There was a

step in the hall below, and General Sylvester's excited old voice rose

and rang querulously through the still space below:

“In the name of Heaven, what's the matter?” he cried. “Come on! You may

miss the train as it is! _Come on!_”

“One second, General!” Galt cried out. “Wait!” He had not yet decided,

he told himself, and yet his cold hand had clutched the handle of his

bag. He lifted it up, swung it by his side, and, stepping out into the

corridor, peered over the balustrade down the stairs.

“We can't wait, man!” the General shouted from the walk outside.

“Hurry!”

“All right, I'm ready!” and Galt strode rapidly down the stairs, sliding

his hand on the walnut railing.

“Why, what is the matter with you?” Sylvester peered at him anxiously

in the moonlight as he emerged from the doorway. “You look white and

worried. You've done too much in Atlanta, with all those receptions and

banquets. Let's call a halt on the social end of the business till we

have clinched the thing good and tight. Put this New York deal through,

and we can dance and sing and cut the pigeon-wing as much as we please.

But you will pull it through, my boy, my prince of promoters, with that

wonderful say-little air you have. You are the man to make that crowd

of Yankees think we are granting _them_ favors instead of _asking_ for

them. If you don't miss connection and get there on time, you will win

as sure as you are a foot high.”

The General was pushing him into the carriage, and John Dilk, with whip

poised in the air, and a tight, wide-awake grip on the reins showed

readiness for his best speed record.

“Now, John,” Sylvester cried, “miss that train, and I'll break every

bone in your black hide!”

The negro laughed good-naturedly. It was exactly the sort of command he

loved to get from the old man who had done him a hundred services.

“You watch me, Marse Gineral,” he said, with a chuckle; “but you better

keep yo' mouf closed. Ef you don't, dis hoss in de lead will fill it wid

clay. He's de beatenes' animal ter fling mud I ever driv.”

On they sped, cutting the warm, still air into a sharp, steady current

against them. The General babbled on enthusiastically, but Galt failed

to catch half he was saying. To all outward appearances, he was being

hurtled on to triumph; in reality, he was leaving the just-filled grave

of his manhood. Before his humiliated sight stood a wonderful face

written full of knowledge of himself--a knowledge more penetrating than

that of the world-wise men who bowed before his prowess; a face, the

beauty and tenderness of which were ever to remain stamped on his

memory; a face wrung by a storm of agony, contempt, and--martyrdom!

And he was striking it! The pleading eyes, scornful nose, quivering,

drooping mouth were receiving the brunt of all his physical force! He

knew the cost, and was going to abide by it. A believer in the eternal

existence of the human soul might have paused, but Galt had always

contended that nothing lay beyond a man's short material life. And that

being his view, how could he suffer material glories like these to slip

through his fingers for the sake of a mere principle--a transient dream

of the senses? Yes, yes; and yet the pain, the crushing agony, the

maddened thing within him which all but tempted him to clutch the

chattering old tempter at his side by the neck and hurl him to the

earth!

And yet he nodded and said he was glad that the General had been so

thoughtful as to telephone the station-agent to secure the drawing-room

on the Pullman.

“We must not do things by halves,” the old soldier crowed. “The man who

is to have his own private car as the president of the great S. R. and

M. must not be seen, even by a negro porter, crawling into an upper

berth. Your plan of living high in order to be on a high level is fine

business policy. You haven't spared expense in Atlanta; you mustn't

in New York, either. Dine 'em, wine 'em; throw wads of cash at the

servants--do anything! They know who the Gaits of Charleston and

Savannah were before the War: let 'em see that the old blood is still

alive.”

They had been at the station only a minute when the train arrived. John

Dilk brushed by the porter at the step of the long sleeper, and proudly

bore his master's bag into the drawing-room. There was a hurried shaking

of hands between Galt and the General, and the train smoothly rolled

away.

Alone in the luxurious compartment, Galt sank down. The obsequious

porter stood awaiting orders, but the passenger scarcely saw him or

heard what he was saying. Galt was now fairly stupefied by the magnitude

of his crime. It flashed upon him as actually an incredible thing--his

leaving Dora with so much to bear!

He had taught her that their love, like that of their favorite English

novelist, had lifted them above mere conventional rules and ceremonies,

and rendered them a law unto themselves. But the awakening had come. She

had seen him in the garish light with which Truth had pierced his outer

crust and revealed his quaking, cringing soul. She would despise him,

the very murmuring of the ponderous wheels beneath him told him that,

and from now on he must avoid her. To offer her financial aid in her

coming trial would only be adding insult to injury, knowing her as

he knew her; so even that must be omitted--even that, while he was

accepting the price of her misery.

CHAPTER XIV

|THE morning sun beat fiercely down on Fred Walton and his new friend as

they trudged along the dusty road. The pangs of hunger had seized them,

and no way seemed open to obtain food short of begging it at one of the

farmhouses which they were passing, and that Fred shrank from doing.

“If I could have stopped in Atlanta long enough to have sold my watch

we could have paid our way for awhile,” he told his companion, “but I

thought we ought to be on the move.”

“Yes, of course,” the younger agreed, with a slow, doubtful look into

the other's face. “Will you tell me--I give you my word you can trust

me,” he went on--“if you have any reason, except for my sake, in getting

away from the city?”

“Yes, I have, Dick,” Walton replied. “I may as well admit it. I am in a

pretty tight place. Things are done by telegraph these days, and I don't

feel entirely safe, even here in the country.”

“Ah, I'm sorry, Fred!” the boy declared. “You have been so good to me

that it doesn't look right for anybody to be running you down like a

common--”

“Thief!” Walton supplied the word in a tone of bitterness. “That's

exactly what some would call it. But you mustn't be afraid of me, Dick.

I went wrong, and lost a good home and many friends by it. I've lost

something else, too, Dick--_some one_ else whom I once had as my own,

but who is now out of my life forever.”

“You mean--you mean--a sweetheart?” ventured the boy, as he put out a

sympathetic hand and touched the arm of his companion.

Walton nodded. He had averted his eyes, that his companion might not see

the tears which blurred his sight, but no word escaped his lips.

“I'm sorry,” Dick Warren said, simply, and his hand tenderly clung to

the dust-coated sleeve--“I'm sorry, Fred.”

“I wish you knew her, Dick,” Walton went on, reminiscently. “If you did,

I reckon you'd pity your pal. Here I am, a tramp, an outcast in dirty

clothing, and no money in my pocket. If you'd ever seen her, you'd never

dream that such a girl could have actually cared for a man like me. I've

got her photograph in my pocket. It is in an envelope. I have not looked

at it once since I left her. I may never again on earth.”

“But why?” the boy asked, wonderingly. “It seems like it would be

company for you, now that you and she are--parted.”

“She gave it to me in trust and confidence,” Walton answered, his dull

gaze still averted. “She wouldn't want me to have it now. I shall keep

it--I simply can't give it up; but I shall not insult her purity by

looking at it. I must harden myself, and forget--forget thousands of

things. You may see it if you wish.” Walton drew the envelope from his

pocket and extended it to his companion. “I'll walk ahead, and when

you've looked at it put it back in the envelope.”

“All right; thank you, Fred.” The boy fell back a few steps, and with

his eyes straight in front of him Walton trudged on stolidly. The boy

gazed at the picture steadily for several minutes, and then caught up

with his companion and returned the envelope. He was silent for a moment

then he said, with a slight huskiness in his young voice:

“Would you like for me to say anything about her, Fred?”

“Yes, I think I should,” Walton responded, slowly, as he thrust the

envelope back into his pocket. “Yes, Dick, I'd like to hear what you

think of her.”

“She is so sweet and gentle looking--so good--so very, very pretty! Oh,

Fred, I understand now how you feel! I don't think I ever saw a face

that I liked better. It may be because she is your--”

“_Was!_” Walton broke in. “Don't forget that, Dick.”

“I think a girl like that, with a _face_ like that, would forgive almost

anything in the man she loved,” the boy went on, in a valiant effort at

consolation.

“If she still loved him, perhaps; but she could no longer love him,”

Walton sighed. “She belongs to a proud family, Dick, not one member of

which was ever guilty of such conduct as mine. She would shudder at the

sight of me, she would blush with shame for having cared for me. That's

why I came away. If I had not loved her, I'd have stayed and faced

my punishment.” After this talk the two trudged on through the garish

sunshine without exchanging a word for several miles. It was noon. They

had come to the gate of a farmhouse which bore the look of prosperity,

and they paused in the shade of a tree.

“We can't go farther without eating,” the boy said. “You don't like to

beg, but I don't care; I've done it hundreds of times, and don't feel

ashamed of it. I'm going to put on a bold front and tackle the kitchen

in the rear.”

“Don't ask for anything _for me_,” Walton said. “I'm not very hungry. I

can get along for some time yet.”

“Wait till I find out how it smells around that kitchen,”

Dick laughed. “I'm nearly dead.” The boy had opened the gate, and was

walking briskly toward the house, which stood back about a hundred yards

from the road. Walton saw him meet a great lazy-looking dog near the

steps and pat the animal on the head. Then the dog and boy went

round the building toward the kitchen. A moment later Walton saw Dick

returning, a flush on his face and empty handed. The dog paused near the

front steps, wagging a cordial if not, indeed, a regretful tail.

“The dirty red-faced scamp ordered me to move on!” Dick cried, angrily.

“He says the country is overrun with tramps, who won't work and who

expect to live on the toil of honest men.”

“Did he say that?” and Walton's eyes flashed. “I'd like to prove to him

that I'm no--But what's the use?”

“Look, he's coming!” the boy said, eagerly. “Maybe he's changed his

mind. A woman was listening to what he said. Perhaps she's told him

to call us back.” The fat, middle-aged farmer, bald, perspiring, and

without hat or coat, strode down to them, and languidly opened the gate.

“Say, I just want to tell you fellows _one more thing_,” he panted, as

he wiped his bearded chin with his pudgy hand, “and that is this: We may

look like a lot of galoots just out of an asylum along this here road,

but most of us have a grain of sense. Back here a piece a neighbor of

mine sent two able-bodied men like you two about their business a month

ago, and that night his barn was fired. Now, if you fellows try any game

of that sort on me, I'll--”

“Dry up!” Walton cried, as he suddenly faced him. “I wasn't begging of

you. I only let this boy go up to you because he is nearly starved. You

can't insult me--I won't have it! I am not a tramp. As proof of it, I

have a good solid gold watch here that I am willing to sell you or any

one else at any fair price you may put on it.”

“Huh! let me see it.” The farmer's eyes gleamed avariciously as Walton

took the watch from his pocket and extended it to him.

The man tested the weight of the timepiece by tossing it lightly in his

palm, and then he pried the case open with the stiff nail of his thumb,

and, with a critical eye, examined the works.

“Full-jewelled and good make,” he said; and then he gave it back. “I'm a

trader,” he went on. “I make money buying and selling any old thing from

a pickaxe to a piano, from a pet cat to a blooded horse; but I hain't in

_your_ market.”

“You say you 'hain't'?” Dick Warren mocked him, in fresh anger.

“No, I hain't,” the obtuse farmer repeated. “I did a fool thing like

that when I was a boy. I bought a bay mare from a man who rid up to my

daddy's barn without a saddle, blanket, or bridle--had just a heavy hemp

rope round her neck. I bit, and chuckled all that day as I rid about,

showing the gals how bright I'd been. Then the sheriff of the county

hove in sight, and--well, my daddy had to pay out a hundred-dollar

lawyer's fee to prove that I wasn't of age, never had had any sense, and

couldn't have knowed the mare was stolen property. So, you see, when a

fellow comes hiking along here without a nickel to buy a loaf of

bread, and lookin' like he's been wading through swamps and sleeping in

haystacks, and has a gold ticker that is good enough fer the vest-pocket

of Jay Gould, why, I feel like pullin' down the left-hand corner of

my right eye an' axin' him ef he hain't got a striped suit under his

outside one, hot as the weather is.”

“You blamed old--” Dick Warren began, threateningly, as he bristled up

to the farmer, his fists drawn; but Walton put out his hand and stopped

him.

“He's right, Dick,” he said, and there was a pained look about his

sensitive mouth. “The circumstances are dead against us.”

“Yes, I reckon they are, gents,” grinned the man at the gate. “Anyways,

I don't think you will find a buyer fer that timepiece. Good-day. There

ain't nothing in all this palaver fer _me_,” and his eye twinkled as he

finished. “My wife's got dinner waitin' for me: a good fat hen, baked

to a turn, with rich corn-meal stuffin', an' hot biscuits, coffee,

string-beans, and fried ham--the country-cured sort that you've read

about!”

CHAPTER XV

|I SWEAR, I'd enjoy firing _his_ barn!” Dick fumed, as the two friends

walked on through the beating sun. “I don't think I can stand much more

of it, Fred. I'm all gone inside. The lining of my stomach has folded

over.” They were passing the corner of a field where, in the distance,

they could see two men at work digging ditches to drain the boggy land,

and they paused again to rest under the shade of a tree.

“I guess they will stop soon and go home to a square meal,” Dick said,

bitterly; and then his roving glance fixed itself on a spot in the

corner of the snake-fence near by.

“By George!” he exclaimed, exultantly, “we are in luck! Gee, what a

pick-up!”

“What is it, now?” Walton asked. But the boy was bounding away toward

the fence. “You wait and see--gee, what luck!”

Walton stood and watched him as he climbed over the fence, dived into

the thick underbrush, and reappeared with a covered tin pail in his

hands. As he came back he unfastened the lid and laughed loud and long.

“Full to the brim!” he chuckled. “Meat, bread, pie, and a bottle of

fresh milk. We can leg it along the road a piece and sit down to it, or

stow it away as we walk. My dinner-bell's rung, old man.”

“Put it back, Dick! Go put it back!” Fred said, firmly, his eyes

averted.

The boy stared, a blended expression of surprise and keen disappointment

capturing his features.

“Do you really mean it, Fred?” he asked, his lip falling, the pail

hanging motionless at his side.

“Yes, it is not ours,” the other said. “Put it back before they see you,

and then I'll--I'll try to explain what I mean.”

The boy swore under his breath, and for a moment he stood gloweringly

sullen, but at the third command of his companion he retreated to the

fence and dropped the pail into its place. Then he came back, his head

hanging, his face still dark with disappointment.

“Huh!” he grunted, and started on without waiting to see if Fred was

ready to go. Walton followed, and presently caught up with him.

“I'm not a preacher, Dick,” he began, with a forced laugh, which was

intended as an opening wedge to the boy's displeasure, “I'm not one bit

better than you are. I've stolen a farmer's watermelons by the light of

the moon, and climbed his June apple-trees, and filled my pocket with

his prize fruit, and heartily enjoyed it; but somehow I feel differently

now. Dick. I'm older than you are, and reckless living has got me down

and stamped all hope out of me. I'm fighting for my life. I'm swimming

in a strange, swift stream, and my strength is almost gone, but I have

grasped at a straw; it may hold me up, it may not; but I hope it will.

That straw is the determination to live right--absolutely right--from

now on, no matter what it costs. I've done great wrong, and I'm sick

with the very thought of it. I want to try to do what is right, and if

I could influence you to feel as I feel about these things, I'd like it

mightily; it would strengthen me in my course. Two can succeed better,

even at a thing like that, than one.”

“But I'm _starving!_” the boy whimpered. “The world wasn't made for

anybody to starve in. The birds up there in the trees don't starve, and

God gave them as good right to live as you or me. Huh! when that beefy

chump back there sows his wheat they watch him with their keen eyes from

their nests in the trees, and when his hulking back is turned they chirp

with glee and pounce down on his seed and take it and flutter away with

it in the sunshine.”

“Dick, you are a bloody anarchist!” Walton laughed gently as he placed

his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder.

“I don't know whether I am or not,” Warren retorted, still ruffled. “But

the blamed bucket of grub may stay where it is. I wanted it for your

sake as much as mine, but I sha'n't ask you to sit down to other men's

dinner if you are going to ask the blessing over it. But you are too

dang particular. At least, I've got as much right to the stuff as they

have, for they can go home and get more, and I can't.”

“That is _one_ way to look at it,” Walton said, quietly, “and I thought

as you do once, but I don't now.” After this they trudged along for

several minutes in silence. The boy did not raise his eyes from the

dusty ground, but he put his hand on Walton's arm, and there was a catch

in his young throat as he said:

“Fred, somehow you make me think of my mother, When she was alive she

was always wanting me to be good. She used to talk to me when I was

a little tiny fellow. It was always that one thing over and over: 'My

little boy is not going to be a bad man when he grows up, is he?' That's

what she said time after time, and in a thousand ways she tried to

impress it on me. She worried a lot about me just before she died. You

see, my father--well, he didn't care what became of me, or her,

either. He drank like a fish, and went with idle men about the

loafing-places--in fact, he was shot and killed in a bar-room. I've

tried pretty hard to have faith in what my mother used to say about

God's mercy and all that stuff, but, Fred, God never answered her

prayers to look after _me_. If I haven't had to go it blind, I don't

want a cent. Selling papers on the street at night till nearly morning,

sometimes sleeping in a stairway, outhouse, or stable. Then I was a

messenger boy, for a little better wages, in a dead boy's uniform, and

finally became a tramp telegraph operator. But, Fred, you are true blue.

I don't want a better pal. The way you yanked out that watch and offered

it to keep me out of jail when it was the last thing you had in your

pocket--well, you can count on me, that's all. I won't try to stuff

another man's grub down your throat, either.”

A man was coming toward them on horseback, and as he drew near he reined

in and leaned forward on the neck of his horse. “Gentleman,” he began,

as he pulled at his scraggy beard and kicked his feet more firmly into

his wooden stirrups, “I don't know whether you fellows are interested

in the like or not, but I'm riding round here and yon trying to drum up

hands to gather and crate and ship my crop of early peaches. There is

such a demand for labor of that sort all through the peach section that

we are powerful short on help.”

The two pedestrians exchanged eager glances.

“Where is your place?” Fred asked.

“Why, it's a few miles to the right, over them hills,” the rider said.

“It's the Womack farm. That's my name. I've got a hundred acres of

dandy Elbertas, and they are ripening as fast as chickens in a

hatching-machine. They are a thing that has to be picked an' got off in

cold-storage cars at exactly the right minute or they ain't worth the

nails in the crates when they get to market. They say if all us early

fellows can manage to hit New York just right this year, we'll get three

dollars a crate, an' that will pay big, as times are now.”

“How far is it to your place?” Walton asked.

“Why, it's a little better than seven mile--on a beeline; but I reckon

by the nighest road it's a matter of ten or thereabouts. You fellers

look a little mite tired, but by stiff walking you could get there by

sundown. You can make good wages in a pinch like this if you will buck

down to it--I calculate three plunks a day for each of you.”

“And how long would the work last?” inquired Fred, as he and Warren

looked at each other, their pulses quickening, their eyes beginning to

glow.

“Well, I could hold you down for two weeks at least, for mine don't all

ripen at once; but after you was through on my land you could go farther

north and get more to do.”

“I think we'd better take you up,” Warren said. “I'd like that sort of

work.” He winked at his friend and rubbed his stomach. “I see myself

_packing_ good, ripe, juicy peaches right now, but not in crates. The

truth is, farmer, we are mighty hungry, and that is a long walk. Now,

if you had fifty cents about you that you'd be willing to let go in an

advance, why we'll buy a snack at some farm-house, and go right on to

you.”

The horseman's shrewd face fell. He leaned forward and ran his gnarled

fingers through the mane of his horse, and avoided the pair of anxious

eyes fixed on his. “I don't want to be blunt and hurt your feelings,

fellers,” he said. “But we never come together before--we are plumb

strangers, I might say; and, well, to tell the truth, last year I

started out on this same business, and to my certain knowledge not a

man, woman, gal, boy, nor baby that I advanced money to ever got to my

place, while all the others who wasn't paid was there bright and early.”

“But we are hungry and weak!” Dick Warren protested.

“Well, some o' them that I failed to get told the selfsame tale. One

said if I'd pay off the mortgage on his land, he'd bring his entire

family; but that wasn't _business_, and I refused. I'm making you

fellows a fair open-and-shut proposition. You hit my place before dark

to-night and tell my wife to give you a square meal--tell her I've hired

you to pick and pack, and that I said to stow you away somewhere for

the night. She will make room for you. Now, I hope I'll see you there.

That's as good as I can offer, as I look at it.”

“All right, we'll be there,” Walton promised. “And we will do the best

we can for your interests.”

“Very well, gentlemen, I'll expect to see you there when I get back.

So long.” And with his legs jogging the flanks of his mount, the farmer

rode away.

“We can make it, Dick,” Walton said, encouragingly. “Let's bend down to

it.”

“The thought of that meal is enough to keep me going,” the boy replied.

“What do you reckon she will give us? But stop! My mouth is watering at

such a rate that I believe I'll try not to think of it.”

It was long after sundown when the wayfarers reached the farm in

question. The house was a rambling, one-story, frame structure which

originally had been painted, afterward whitewashed, and rain and storm

beaten till not a trace of any sort of coating remained on the bare,

fuzzy, gray boards. At the gate, or bars, of the snake-fence, in front,

they paused, faint and exhausted, wondering if they would be bitten by

watch-dogs if they entered unannounced. On the grass under the trees in

the front yard a group of twenty or more young women and young men were

singing plantation melodies, and here and there couples were sitting

alone or strolling about, their heads close together.

“They are peach-gatherers,” Walton surmised. “Come on; there are no dogs

that I can see.”

Crawling through the bars, they went to the house. There was no light in

the front part, but a yellow glow shone from a window against the dark

foliage of the trees in the rear, and thither the wanderers directed

their lagging steps. Looking in at the open door of the kitchen, they

saw the portly form of the farmer's wife at a table washing dishes in

the light of a smoking brass lamp which had no chimney.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as her kindly eyes fell on them. “Not more pickers,

surely?”

“That's what we are, and as good as you ever laid eyes on,” Dick told

her. “Mr. Womack said you'd give us something to eat. We haven't had a

bite since yesterday.”

“Well!” The woman drew her hands from the big dish-pan and dried them

on her apron as she looked them over doubtfully. “Pete Womack goes crazy

every year at picking-time. He's filled the house, barn, and yard with

hooting and singing gals and boys, and furnished nobody to wait on 'em

but me. The gals all say they are too fagged out at night to lay their

hands to cooking or dish-washing, and yet, if you'll just listen and

watch, you'll see that they are all able to gallivant with the men about

the yard. Six couples met here for the first time last summer and got

married. They say there's some progress being made right now between

three or four, an' picking's just set in. I tell Pete he ought to start

a marrying-agency and take out a license to preach, so he can tie 'em on

the spot and collect two fees. Some of 'em are respectable and mean all

right, but Pete is so anxious to get his crop off on time that he's got

women in that bunch that--to _look_ at 'em--Well, it ain't any of _my_

business! I ain't set up as a judge, and as the saying is, I won't throw

no stones. But you say you are hungry, and I don't see how I could give

you a thing hot at this time of night. My fires are out, and--”

“Hot!” Dick shouted. “Why, I've got such a big storage capacity that I'd

be afraid to take it hot. It might generate steam and explode.”

The woman laughed. “Well, you _must_ be hungry,” she said. “Come on in

the dining-room and I'll lay it out in a minute. There is plenty of cold

stuff. I cook a lot ahead. You have to feed pickers like kings or they

won't stay. It won't take long to heat the coffee. But I reckon you want

to wash and wipe. You'll find pans and water on the shelf in the entry,

and a clean towel on the roller. I'll be ready when you are.”

“I'll see about that, old lady,” Dick challenged her, as he made a dash

for the near-by water-shelf.

Two minutes later the two wanderers sat down at a long, improvised

table, made of unplaned planks, in the dining-room. In the light of a

guttering home-made tallow dip the farmer's wife spread before them the

best meal that famished men ever feasted on. They saw roast chicken with

dressing, fried chicken with cream gravy, country-smoked ham in a great

platter of eggs; butter, hard and cold, from the spring-house; great,

snow-capped pound-cakes, biscuits, apple-sauce, jellies, jams, cold

buttermilk, and hot coffee.

“I don't know where I'm going to bunk you boys,” Mrs. Womack said, in a

motherly tone, as she stood behind their chairs, and, with unsuppressed

delight, watched them eat. “The women and gals have got every bed in the

house; and every spot on the floor, even to the kitchen, has been staked

off by the men.”

“What's the matter with the barn?” Dick mumbled, with his mouth full. “I

wouldn't want a better place this time of year than a sweet-smelling bed

of fresh hay or fodder.”

“There's plenty of room in the loft down there,” the woman replied; “but

somehow I hate to see nice-looking young men like you put in a place

like that.”

“It will do very well,” Fred assured her. “In fact, we would rather like

it.”

“Well, a little later, if you decide to stay, I may fix you a place in

the house,” the woman said; “but you got in too late to-night.”

“I'm dead tired and sleepy, Fred,” Dick said, when they had left the

table. “Let's turn in.”

Directed by Mrs. Womack, they went down to the barn, and from the big

cattle-room on the ground they climbed a ladder to the loft above. A

startled hen flew from her nest with a loud cackling as they crawled

through the hay and husks and leaves of corn to a square, shutterless

door, through which the hay was loaded to wagons below. They threw off

their coats and vests, and made pillows of them; then took off their

shoes, and lay down and stretched out their tired limbs.

Through the doorway they saw the fathomless sky filled with mysterious

stars. The chirping of some chickens, as they jostled one another on the

roost below, came up to them; the champing of the teeth of a horse, as

he gnawed his wooden trough; the snarling of a tree-frog; the far-off

and dismal howling of a dog, and--they were asleep.

CHAPTER XVI

|IT was not till early autumn that the two friends reached their far-off

destination. Fred's watch had been sold; they had saved the greater part

of their earnings from the various odd jobs at which they had worked,

and had made of their journey by rail. It was Walton's idea that they

must put their best foot to the front in Gate City, and start out with

a good appearance in their new home, and so the most of their funds were

promptly invested in new clothing. Notwithstanding their spick-and-span

appearance, however, luck seemed against them, for every application

they made for work--Dick as a telegraph operator and Fred as an

accountant--was refused them.

The city was a bustling new place with prosperity and activity in its

very air. There were great railway-shops, factories of several kinds,

and various other enterprises. It was a typical Western “boom” town.

Its buildings were modern, its streets regular and well-paved. Men and

women, as they drove through the streets in their carriages, thought

nothing of it if a mounted horde of yelling cow-boys galloped past with

their revolvers playfully flourished, nor saw anything unusual in

the gangs of blanket-draped Indians who hung about the bar-rooms,

dance-halls, or gambling-houses. The new-comers liked the place; Dick

believed they would eventually secure work, and Fred had the first sense

of security which had come to him since leaving Stafford. Here, under

his new name, in this remote place, he was sure he would meet with no

familiar face, nor catch any discordant echoes of the life he had left

behind him, and which he was trying to banish from his memory.

There was in the town a certain Stephen Whipple, a man about sixty-five

years of age, who had come from one of the Southern States shortly after

the Civil War. He had established himself, first, as a small grocer,

but, having acquired considerable wealth, he was now the owner of the

only wholesale grocery store in the place, an establishment which was

known for miles around.

He was an earnest member of the Presbyterian church of the town, and its

chief pride, owing to his influence in the community. It had been his

money which had built the church to which he belonged, and it was said

that he practically paid the salary of its eloquent young preacher.

In his great red-brick, four-story business-house on the main street

Stephen Whipple had his private office. It was in the rear of the

counting-room and was of unusual size, and by many deemed a curious

place. Indeed, it was put to strange, unbusiness-like uses, for it was

here that the owner of the establishment personally received all sorts

of applications for aid. There were half a dozen plain chairs in the

bare, uncarpeted room, and the Rev. Luke Matthews, who had the entrée to

the office at any moment, often found a motley gathering of supplicants

on hand, each patiently awaiting his turn to be beckoned to the seat

close to the portly, shaggy-browed merchant. There were individuals who

called the old man a deep-dyed hypocrite, for they held that no really

self-sacrificing toiler in the Lord's vineyard could have amassed the

great wealth old Whipple was known to possess. But this was disputed by

all the men in his employment, at least, for they were ready to attest

that Whipple had often held over important business matters till the

case of some suffering applicant could be investigated and relief

supplied. There were other uses to which this room was put. Old Whipple,

in order to render his pet church more attractive to the public,

selected and paid out of his own pocket the salaries of the best choir

in town. He was no expert musician, but he had them meet in his office

and practise on every Saturday afternoon, and he was always present,

seeing to it that refreshments were served and the singers made

comfortable.

It was one morning when Dick Warren and Fred Walton had been in the town

for a month, and had reached the lowest ebb of their resources, that the

minister dropped in to see the merchant. The Rev. Luke Matthews was of

unusual height, measuring six feet four, very slender in build, and of

markedly nervous temperament. He was under thirty, unmarried, wore his

black hair long enough to touch his shoulders, and had the thin-lipped,

unbearded face of an Edwin Booth. It was said of him that he couldn't

keep a coin in his pocket--that it was promptly given to the first

beggar he met.

“Well, brother, how are your bones?” was the halfjesting greeting he

gave the old man, as he bustled in, buttoning and unbuttoning his long

black coat and swinging his broad-brimmed hat at his side. “Not holding

court this morning?” He laughed as he looked over the empty chairs.

“No; I sent the last prisoner up for life an hour ago,” the merchant

responded, jovially. “Set down, set down!”

The long-legged man with the poetic face complied. “Well,” he said,

“you'll have to be a judge in that sort of tribunal so long as you

inhabit this globe.” He smiled, showing two fine rows of white teeth.

“It looks like the Lord is pushing you on to unlimited prosperity,

and your work for humanity will increase instead of letting up.

Say, brother, I know the sort of thing you glory in, and I've had

an experience--the sort of experience that makes a fellow feel like

preaching is worth while. It was exactly the kind of thing you are

interested in yourself.”

“What have you run across now?” Whipple asked, as he leaned his elbow on

his desk and rested his florid face on his hand.

“The genuine thing, brother--a genuine reformation in a young chap

hardly out of his teens. He's been coming to my special meetings for

young men, and, as I'm a close observer, I was attracted by his face.

It interested me more than that of any boy's I ever saw. Finally, I

ventured to approach him. I never scare them off if I can help it, but I

singled him out from the rest last Thursday evening and spoke to him. I

saw that he was greatly moved, and I invited him into my study, and we

had a good long heart-to-heart talk. Brother Whipple, I never felt the

glory of God bearing down on me in my life as I did while that boy was

talking--while he was telling me his past history. Crying like his heart

would break, he confessed to having been almost everything a boy could

be--a thief, a tramp, and an all-round, good-for-nothing idler, from his

childhood up to his sudden awakening to what was right.”

“Good, good!” Stephen Whipple ejaculated, his features working, his kind

old eyes twinkling.

“But now comes the climax to my experience,” the minister went on.

“You and I meet a converted person now and then, but we don't often run

across individuals in private life who are leading lives which convert.

The boy went on to tell me, brother, how he was rescued from arrest by

a young man who was a tramp like himself. They began searching for work

side by side. The boy told me how his new friend--without ever saying a

word that was preachy--gradually won him from his ingrained tendencies

and taught him the difference between right and wrong. He gave me scores

of touching and inspiring incidents that had happened between them

during their wanderings here and there, trying to get work. Somehow I

became even more deeply interested in the fellow I hadn't met than the

one I had in tow, and so I asked the boy if he would introduce me to his

friend. He hesitated for a while, and then finally agreed to take me to

the room they had together. It was away over beyond the railroads, in

the slums of our 'tenderloin' district. It seemed to be the only room

whose price they could afford, and they were unwilling to contract for

what they could not pay. It was an awful place, brother, up a narrow

flight of shaky stairs, in the attic of a negro shoemaker's house, in

the worst part of 'Dive-town.' The man, this Fred Spencer, when we came

in, was seated at the little dingy window reading a newspaper. He seemed

very much surprised, and flushed red as he stood up and shook hands. He

was fine-looking--strong and tall, well-clad and neat from his feet to

his carefully combed hair, but his great big sad eyes haunted me long

after I left him, and when he spoke his voice seemed to come from a

proud spirit that was crushed and broken. He began by saying that his

friend had spoken to him of my meetings, and that he was exceedingly

grateful for my interest and courtesy in calling. He tried to apologize

for the appearance of the room, and insisted on my taking the only chair

while he and his room-mate sat on the bed, which, by the way, was unfit

for a convict to sleep on. They used it together, and yet it was barely

wide enough for one. The straw in the mattress was crumbling to powder

and falling to the floor.”

“Poor chaps,” the merchant sighed, “and they have evidently seen better

days.”

“Spencer, the older one, has decidedly,” the minister answered. “He is

evidently Southern, for he has the soft accent of Virginia, I should

say, and the manner of the old aristocracy. I told him that I had heard

of his good influence over the boy, and he got redder than ever,

and tried to make light of what he had done, endeavored, in fact, to

convince me that the boy had only spoken as he had out of personal

friendship. Finally I offered my assistance toward finding employment

for them both, and Spencer showed real embarrassment--as if he did not

want to put me to any trouble in the matter.”

“He's tried to find work here, then?” Stephen Whipple mused, aloud.

“Yes, and been turned down on all sides. He has tried till he has lost

hope. He likes Gate City, but is afraid they will be driven to the road

again.”

“And to think that a fellow like _that_ can't find work,” Whipple

cried, indignantly, “when the world is full of grafters and panhandlers!

Brother Matthews, I am interested in those fellows, especially the

oldest one. My list is full, as you know, but I can manage to find

places for the right sort. Couldn't you send him to me right away? I'll

be here to-night after closing time. There won't be anybody else about,

and me and him can talk undisturbed. I'd like to help a chap like that.

You have got me interested. The world is too full of bad men who are

prospering for his sort to go unrewarded.”

“Well, I'll send him, Brother Whipple. God bless you, old man, you can

always be counted on!”

That evening the merchant sat in the light of his green-shaded gas-lamp

at his desk waiting for the expected caller. The outer door of the great

building, which opened on the main street, was ajar, and was plainly

visible to the merchant from his seat. Now, as he heard his visitor

coming, he rose to his feet, pushed his desk-chair back with his

ponderous calves, and stood smiling cordially. As the young man entered,

politely removing his hat, Whipple grasped Walton's hand and shook it

warmly.

“I'm powerfully glad to know you, Mr. Spencer,” he said, “I am, indeed.

I'm told you are a newcomer to our brag town, and as I'm one of the

pioneers, so to speak, I take a personal pride in the place, and I

want to see everybody that drifts this way anchored here for life. It

certainly is the town for fresh young blood. Even old men can make money

here, and I know the young can. Set down, set down! I'm glad you ran

across my long-legged jumping-jack of a preacher. He is a wheel-horse,

I am here to state. If all the churches in the world were led by men of

his stamp, infidelity would die of the dry rot or burn up with shame.

“I built Matthews' meeting-house, and if I hadn't found a man like him

to fill the pulpit I'd have turned the blamed thing into a warehouse to

store groceries in. But I found him, and he's doing mighty well--mighty

well! He isn't any of your ranting trance religionists; he's practical,

and, in one way, the funniest cuss you ever laid eyes on. Me and him

have big times in our way. He looks after the souls of men while I

sometimes help a little in patching up their bodies. He tells me that

you and a friend of yours haven't made any business connection yet. My

house is pretty well supplied, but this is our best season of the year,

and a good man always comes in handy. You look like you've got a good

head on them broad shoulders, and I want to give you a start, so if you

will show up here in the morning with your friend, I'll put you to work

in the office and stow him away somewhere.”

“You are very, very kind, Mr. Whipple,” Fred said, a gratified flush on

his face; “but you have had no recommendation of me, and--”

“I don't _want_ none,” the merchant said, firmly. “You see, I've already

heard about you. Long before me and you met you had cast your bread on

the water, and it has already come back. I've heard about you. Anybody

these days can bring a scrap of paper with indorsements scribbled on

it, but the best recommendation is the sort that crawls along ahead of

a fellow. Yes, I've heard about you, and, to be plain, that's why I sent

for you. Even if I didn't have no opening right now, it would pay me to

rub against men that--well, that believe like you do and act like you

have acted.”

“I suppose you mean”--Walton was quite embarrassed now--“I suppose

Mr. Matthews has been speaking of what my friend told him of our

ups-and-downs together; but really I couldn't let that sort of

thing stand as an indorsement of me, Mr. Whipple. Dick is young and

enthusiastic. It seems that he has never had a close friend before, and

he naturally exaggerates my--”

“Say, look here,” the merchant broke in, with a smile, “you really

don't know how funny that sounds. In this day and time, when a man in

my position has to set and listen to folks spout for the hour about how

good and worthy they are, why--well, to see a chap actually denying the

favorable things which have been said behind his back is a downright

curiosity. Why, the very fact that you are _talking_ this way shows

plain enough what you are. Along with what I've picked up about you and

the--the general look of you, now that you are at close range--why, if

you was to lay down a whole batch of written recommendations I'd chuck

'em in that stove. I'm a judge of human faces and of men, and I know you

_mean_ well, and that is all I ask.”

“It is very good of you, Mr. Whipple,” Walton said, his glance on the

floor. “I feel like we could get on together. I know I'd do my best to

please you.”

“Well, then, there is nothing more to be said,” old Whipple answered.

“Bring that boy in to-morrow morning, and we'll make some sort o' a

start.”

Fred sat silent. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the

genial face in the green light. “I must be frank and open with a man

as generous as you are, Mr. Whipple. If I am to work here we ought to

understand each other thoroughly. There are some things which you must

know about me, or I cannot consent to enter your employment, for it

would be deceiving you.”

“Oh, _that's_ it!” Whipple said, awkwardly. “Still, you mustn't feel

that I am requiring any explanations of--of a private nature, for I am

not.”

“You ought to know more than you do know about me, at all events,”

Walton went on. “I'd feel better if nothing at all was hidden from your

knowledge. I haven't lived right, Mr. Whipple. I went wrong--frightfully

wrong. I got in debt--it is worse than that. I misappropriated a

considerable sum of money belonging to my father. He is a stern, hard

man, and demanded as much of me as he would have done of a stranger. I

left home to escape arrest. You may think I ought to have submitted to

the law. I simply couldn't, for I felt that my father, when his passion

cooled, would regret his step, and, moreover, I felt that, with my

freedom, I could apply myself and eventually restore the loss.”

“Merciful Father!” Whipple exclaimed, fervently. “Lord have mercy! To

think of a man blessed with a son holding the law over his repentant

head and chasing him from spot to spot over God's green earth! The child

he brought into the world and saw cooing in the cradle, a little, tiny

sprout of his own flesh and blood, made in the image of the Lord God of

Hosts! My boy,” the old man leaned forward, “shake hands with me. I've

often wanted to help young men in my stormy life, but, God knows, I

never felt the desire as strong as I do now. Just in this little talk

I've been drawn more closely to you than I ever was to a human being

before. You are the right sort, the genuine thing; if I was to turn you

adrift, I'd never get over it. I had a boy once, and I doted on him.

He died when he was a little toddling fellow, and since then I have

never been consoled. But his loss, and the memory of him, has warmed my

heart to young men wherever I meet them. You must come to me, my boy. I

feel sure we'll pull together. In fact, I'd want you at hand, for I'd

grieve to see you falter in your noble undertaking. God will bless your

effort as sure as the stars are shining up there in the heavens

to-night.”

“I haven't told you quite all yet,” Walton added, in a low tone. “To

protect myself, I took another name. My real name is--”

“Stop! Don't tell me. That won't make one bit of difference to me,”

Whipple answered, with a sigh, as if he were thinking more of the young

man's former revelations than the one just made. “No doubt it is best.

You say you have determined to make good the loss, and if bearing

another name will help you out, then it can't be wrong. Go ahead, I'll

be your friend; I'll stick to you. I'm glad we came together to-night.

It makes me feel better. I've seen many sorts of human struggles, but

I never saw one that touched me down deep like yours does. Wait, let me

lock up, and I'll walk along a piece with you.”

Outside, after he had closed the heavy door, the merchant put his hand

on the arm of his companion, and they moved on down the street together.

Suddenly they paused. Whipple swept his fat hand in a slow gesture

toward the skies.

“My boy,” he said, fervently, “this is a wonderful, wonderful old world.

Life seems hard and harsh at times, but when the soul is right a man can

conquer anything. I have my fight to make; you have yours--stick to it,

and may the Lord be with you! Goodnight.”. .

PART II

CHAPTER I

|OLD Stafford had changed wonderfully in the six years which passed

after Fred Walton's flight. The building of President Galt's trunk-line

to the sea had marked the turning-point in the town's career. The older

portion of the place remained quite as it was, but new suburbs and new

centres of commerce had sprung up beyond the old incorporated limits.

Where farms, fields, and pastures had once been, now lay even,

well-graded, and electric-lighted streets. No small city in the South

had a better freight-rate to all points, and this had brought about the

establishment of various manufacturing enterprises which had greatly

increased the population. The clang and clatter of new growth was in the

air; speculation in building-sites was rife. The modest price of one day

was the jest of the next. Owning a great deal of the land along the new

railway, General Sylvester was now more wealthy than ever, and the new

interest in life had given him back his youth and health.

As for Kenneth Galt, he had scarcely spent a day in the town of his

birth since his hurried journey to New York to meet the capitalists

whose co-operation had made the road a certainty. His explanation to

Sylvester was that other points on the long line constantly demanded

his attention. His old home was still cared for by Mrs. Wilson as

housekeeper and John Dilk as gardener, and now and then a false

report had emanated from these proud and worshipful menials that the

distinguished owner was coming back to reside there permanently. Indeed,

he had promised General Sylvester to do so time after time, only to make

more delays and more excuses.

“He's coming this time sure,” the old soldier said to his nephew on the

veranda one day in the early part of the present summer. “I had a letter

from him this morning, in which he promised to come and spend the hot

weather here and take a good long rest. Mrs. Wilson said, also, that he

had written her about renovating his rooms, so I reckon it is settled.

And when he comes you will see that I was right about my prophecy

concerning him and Madge. He's a woman-hater, they say--won't have a

thing to do with society; and, quiet and reserved as your sister is, the

two will naturally drift together. I'll be glad to have him back. That

shady old place, with its early associations, will fairly make him over.

When I spent that week with him in Savannah I naturally expected to find

him at the top of the social heap, but he went nowhere at all, and even

seemed to shun the men who extended courtesies to him. He's had too big

a load on him; his face shows wrinkles, and his hair is turning at the

temples.”

“Yes, he is a strange chap,” Dearing answered. “I have been thrown with

him in Atlanta several times of late, and while he really seemed glad

to see me, and was cordial enough, in a way, I couldn't exactly make him

out. As usual, I found him moping over his favorite books, and every

bit as anxious, as of old, to prove that the grave ends everything. That

will ruin any man, Uncle Tom. When a fellow actually gets to fighting

the belief that we are more than sticks and stones he can't rise very

high in any spiritual sense. Why, Kenneth has even reached the point of

defending some of the lowest things that men do. He and I were walking

away out in the outskirts of the city one night. He had asked me to

go, because he wanted to avoid some clubmen who were bent on having

him preside at a banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce. We were all

alone, and it was dark. He had asked me, I remember, if any news had

come as to the whereabouts of Fred Walton, and I had told him that

nothing at all had been heard except that his father had cut him off

forever. To my astonishment, Kenneth actually sighed. Then I distinctly

heard him muttering to himself: 'Poor fellow. Poor chap! He's been

treated like a dog!”' “Huh, the idea!” Sylvester broke in. “Well, that's

like Kenneth. He is always ready to take up for somebody or something

that no one else believes in.”

“Well, feeling as I did, and knowing what I do of the case,” Dearing

continued, warmly, “I couldn't hold my tongue. I didn't leave a grain

of sand for Fred Walton to stand on, and it made me hot for Galt not to

agree with me. He made some weak remark about men obeying natural laws,

and being cursed with uncontrollable passions, and the like; but

I flatter myself that I silenced him. I gave him a picture of that

beautiful girl's isolated life with her son and old mother, wholly

ostracized in the only community they had ever known or loved. I saw,

then, that I had touched his sympathies in another direction.

“'You think,' he said, 'that Walton ought, even _now_, to go back and

marry her--_at this late date?_”

“I told him that I had grave doubts as to whether a woman who had

suffered as she had at a man's hands would ever want to see her betrayer

again, and he answered that he felt sure she wouldn't. Then he asked

about the boy. You know, he was always fond of children--that is

one redeeming quality he has, and it makes me hope that he isn't so

heartless as he would have us believe. He listened attentively to all I

said about Lionel, even asking me questions as to how the child looked

and how he amused himself. When I told him that the little fellow was

completely cut off from other children, and that his association only

with his mother and grandmother had made him act and speak more like an

older person than a child, he seemed actually shocked.”

“'You don't mean to tell me,' he said, 'that the people of old Stafford

would turn against a helpless child because of any fault or mistake of

its parents!'

“I explained to him that it was mostly due to the pride of his mother,

and to the natural fear that such an intelligent boy, and one so

sensitive and observant as he is, might learn of his misfortune and

suffer from it. That conversation raised Kenneth Galt in my estimation,

Uncle Tom. I know now that he has true feeling and sympathy for the

unfortunate, and that his ambition is not all there is to him.”

“I must confess that the child has greatly interested me,” the General

said. “From my window I can see him playing in that narrow yard, always

dressed neatly, and as strong and straight as an Indian in his bearing.

I have never seen him outside the fence. I have stopped to speak to him

once or twice in passing, and have been actually charmed by his face

and manner. I don't think I ever heard of a case exactly like his.

Of course, there have been thousands of children born like that in

straitlaced communities, but I never heard of one being brought up in

that prison-like way. It surely is wrong, and it will make the truth all

the harder to bear when it does come out, as it must sooner or later.

She is a wonderful woman--I started to say girl, for she seems almost

like a child to me with that sad, young face, and wistful, artistic

beauty. I have met her mother on the street a few times, her old face

thickly veiled, but I have not seen Dora or the child away from the

cottage.”

“As their family doctor,” said Dearing, “I urged Dora to go out herself

for exercise and to take the boy with her. At first she flatly refused.

I frightened her, however, by saying that the constant confinement would

injure Lionel's health. Since then she has taken him with her in fine

weather when she goes sketching in the woods and swamp back of the

cottage, but she is as shy as a fawn about it. I venture to say that no

one has ever met her on those excursions. I've seen mother-love, Uncle

Tom, in all its phases. I've met it at the death-beds of scores of

children, but the love between that unfortunate mother and child is the

prettiest thing on earth. No pair of lovers were ever more constant and

affectionate. Lionel is really a sort of psychological oddity in his

way. I have a theory that the mother's morbid suffering was in some

prenatal way stamped on her offspring.' He is queerly supersensitive for

one so young, and seems constantly afraid that he won't be liked. He

is rather fond of me--perhaps it is because I'm the only visitor at

the house; and when I take him in my lap to hold him, I can see that he

enjoys it as if it were an unusual luxury. He closes his eyes sometimes

and smiles, and says he wants to go to sleep that way. Then he will ask

me over and over again if I love _him_. After being told that I do, he

will detect some slight change in my face or voice and cry out, 'Now,

you don't like me--do you?' I am not sentimental, Uncle Tom, but that

little chap's condition has worried me a lot. I pity him as I've never

pitied a human being before.”

“I have often wondered whether Madge has taken notice of him,” General

Sylvester remarked, reflectively. “A woman is hard to read on the

surface, and while Madge never mentions Fred Walton's name any more than

if he were dead, I've been afraid that the mere sight of his child might

keep the old memory alive. Do you know, my son, a woman will condone

exactly that failing in a man more quickly than any other? I suppose

they lay most of the blame on the woman in the case. A high-strung

creature like your sister wouldn't for a moment consider herself a rival

of a fallen woman, and it may be that the explanation of her never

having shown interest in other men is that--”

“That she still cares for the rascal?” Dearing broke in, his face

darkening.

“Yes, and that she still clings to some sort of faith in his constancy,”

the General added. “You can't crush love in a woman's heart so long as

she believes she is loved by a man who is longing for her and is kept

away by adverse circumstances. You see, if our dear girl attributes

Walton's predicament to a simple act of _low, impulsive passion_, and

believes that he loved her, and her alone, in a _pure_ way, why--”

“I see, I see, and I am afraid you may be right,” Dearing said,

bitterly. “And instead of curing her, the scoundrel's absence is only

making the thing worse. Did you tell her about Kenneth's coming?”

“Yes, only an hour ago, and it seemed to me that she was rather pleased.

She remarked that she was glad John Dilk had kept up the place so well,

and that the flowers would gratify him. I really fancied that she was

more pleased by the news than she was willing to show, for she changed

the subject by offering to play for me.”

At this juncture a woman came round the house hurriedly, wiping her red,

bare arms, and trying to adjust the damp dress she wore. It was Mrs.

Chumley, the washerwoman. Her tawny hair was disarranged, and her fat,

freckled face flushed with an excitement that was almost pleasurable.

“Oh, here you are, Doctor Wynn!” she panted. “I hain't been told to

come; in fact, them highfalutin' neighbors of mine never let a body know

anything they can get out of. But Mrs. Barry is having another of her

falling spells. She was on the side porch brushing little Lionel's head

when I heard her cry out to Dora for help, and then she struck the floor

of the kitchen with a thump you could have heard up here if you'd been

listening.”

“Well, I'll run down,” Dearing said to his uncle. “It may not be very

serious. She is subject to such attacks.”