|ON his left, farther away from the town, and about a mile distant,
stood a small mountain. Dark-red as to soil, bristling with sandstone
bowlders, sparcely grown with pines and thorny locust-trees, and gashed
by rain-washed gullies, it rose majestically against the cloud-flecked
blue of infinite space beyond.
Hardly knowing why he did so, Galt turned his face toward it and strode
on, vaguely conscious that he was battling against the soul-calamity
which had beset him as a dumb beast might fight for its physical life.
Around the sloping base of the mountain lay old worn-out fields, now
given over to the riotous possession of anything which would take
root upon its soil. There was no path leading to the seldom visited
elevation, but with his eyes constantly on the solitary finger of earth
he climbed over the old rail-fence encompassing the land, and forged
his way through the dense undergrowth, now ploughing his feet through
a matting of heather and dewberry-vines, or plunging unexpectedly into
some weed-hidden spring or fresh-water stream. Between him and the
mountain ran a creek, and he suddenly found himself at a spot on the
banks of it, where, as a boy, home on his vacations, he used to fish.
But it had changed, he told himself, as everything else had changed--he
was a man now, but _such_ a man!
Crossing the creek on a foot-log formed from the fallen corpse of a
giant oak he had once known, he walked onward. The land was now sloping
sharply upward, and his way was less impeded. The air was becoming more
rarefied, the view on either side and behind him was unfolding more
rapidly in the hazy distance. The sun, which had been beating on him
mercilessly, was now behind a drifting cloud, and the cool breezes of a
higher altitude fanned his flushed face.
Finally he reached a flat, jutting bowlder near the top, and, exhausted
from the inconsiderate tax on his muscles, he sank down panting. There
lay old Stafford nearest at hand, and beyond stretched out the new
town under its web of smoke, the besmudged handwriting of mercantile
progress. His brain had fostered the idea, and made it practicable.
Reaching out southward, in the sunlight, like two threads of silver,
lay the great steel highway which his foresight and ambition had brought
into existence. His fancy pictured with lightning flashes the growing
villages and towns, as he had seen them on the opening day when he,
like an emperor of a conquered territory, had been escorted over it. The
moment had given him the thrill of gratified avarice and the empty glory
of conquest, but the eyes of the eager throngs which had gazed upon him
in wonder and envy that day saw nothing of the cancer which even
then was eating into the vitals of his higher nature. Then--But why
contemplate it? The juggernaut of relentless Right had ground him under
its wheels.
He locked his arms over his knees, lowered his head, and groaned in
sheer despair. If Dora had only given him a bare chance! But she hadn't,
and now, loved as woman never was loved before, desired in spirit and
body as woman never was desired by man, she had coldly, firmly put him
from her. The sight of her as she sat holding his child in her arms,
and spurning him as was her right to spurn him, would haunt him into and
through the Eternity which had now become such a hopeless reality.
Suddenly raising his eyes to the relentless blue above, he tried to
frame a prayer.
“O God, have mercy!” he cried. “Show me, a sinner, a way out of the
darkness of my damnation. Give them to me, that I may atone by my
conduct to them throughout my life. Soften her heart, O God, and open
her eyes to the depths of my woe! I have suffered, I will suffer on to
the end, but give me my wife and child!”
Noon came and passed, but he had no thought of thirst or of hunger. He
remained there on the rock and watched the sun go down, and saw the soft
veil of coming darkness thicken over the earth. Now old Stafford lay
in darkness, save for the dazzling circles of light where the arc-lamps
swung across the streets and were grouped like a constellation in the
square. He waited till the town clock had struck nine; then, still
without sense of fatigue or hunger, he went down, now with considerable
difficulty, owing to the darkness of the incline.
He managed to reach his front gate without meeting any one, and was
entering when he saw the figure of a woman emerge from the veranda and
come slowly down the walk. Could it be one of the servants? he asked
himself. But his answer was the recognition of the woman herself. It was
Mrs. Barry. She paused, unable, it seemed, to formulate what she had to
say, so sudden was the meeting, and his heart sank lower, as the thought
came to him that something might have happened to Dora or the child.
“I came to see you,” she began, pushing back the bonnet which had
partially obscured her face. “Your servants told me they didn't know
where you were.”
“You wanted to see _me?_” he gasped. “Has anything gone wrong?”
“No, it is not _that_,” the woman said, leading the way toward a clump
of cedars on the grass, as if from the sensitive fear of meeting some
one on the walk. “My daughter and the child came home at noon. I saw
from her looks that she was troubled over something, and that Lionel had
been crying, from the marks on his face; but I did not question either
of them. All this afternoon she did not speak of you, but to-night,
after she had put the boy to sleep, she came into my room and sat down
near me. I knew she was in awful struggle over something. She began
telling me, in a slow, halting voice, of all that you had said. She is
my only child, Kenneth Galt, but I don't understand her any better than
if she were not of my flesh and blood. I never fully understood her
father. I suppose no practical-minded person can comprehend those who
live in the imagination, surrounded by ideals which become real to them.
She began to go over the whole history of her trouble from the very
first, and she never left out a single detail. She summed it all up
in the most marvellous manner. My heart ached for her as it never had
before. She wants to do right, she says, and she knows what would be
right and self-sacrificing on her part, but she says she simply can't
conquer the offended pride within her. She has had trouble and we are
poor, but there never was born a queen with more pride of womanhood.”
“Yes, yes,” Galt gasped, as he stared at her. “I know; I know.”
“Then I tried to advise her,” Mrs. Barry went on. “At first it was like
talking to a person born deaf, but finally she began to listen, for, as
a last resort, I was holding up the child's interests. I spoke of what
a glorious thing a trip to Paris would be--to stay there as long as we
liked, and to be able to come home again, for we do love it here, and
I am sure the people would be kind in their view of it. I reminded her
that once, when we asked Lionel what he had rather have than anything
on earth, he had said that, _first_, he wanted a father like other
children, and, _next_, that he wanted to be where he could have
playmates.”
“Oh, I can't bear it, Mrs. Barry!” Galt groaned. “If there is anything
under high heaven I could do to rectify my mistake, I'd give my life to
do it.”
“I know it, Kenneth, and I am going to say something that may surprise
you. I don't harbor any ill-feeling toward you. I simply can't. Living
so close with Dora has lifted me up in spiritual things. I can't have
anything but pity for the consequences of sin and temptation. What you
did wasn't a proof that you didn't love my child. It only proved that
the temptation you had, at the moment of your fall, kept you from
realizing what you would lose. That's all. I believe you loved her then,
that you did even after you left her, and I am sure that you do now more
than ever; in fact, I made that plain to her. I think she sees it, too,
_in her way_; but it doesn't help her overcome her pride. I am sorry
for her--more so than I ever imagined I could be for a woman under any
trial. She is pulled many ways by duty, and she is fairly in an agony,
undecided as to--”
“_Undecided?_ Did you say that?” Galt leaned forward eagerly, his lips
quivering, as he waited breathlessly.
“Yes, she is undecided. You see, things have come to such a focus that
we must leave here. She has just learned that Fred Walton has been
falsely accused by many persons, and she always liked him. He is coming
back home, and she wants to clear his name, and yet she shrinks from
having her private affairs brought in public view again. She said,
herself, that if she could get her own consent to become your wife, then
everybody would understand the truth, and not blame him. Then there is
the child--”
“Yes, Lionel!” Galt panted. “We must save him, and we can--we can, if
Dora could only--”
“She knows that full well,” the woman said, passing her gaunt hand over
her withered mouth and swallowing the rising lump in her throat. “If
you only could have--have heard what I did to-night it would have wrung
tears from your eyes. Lionel had waked up, and she had to go to him. He
couldn't sleep for what was on his mind. Kenneth Galt, that little
angel was simply begging his mother not to let you go away--think of it,
actually pleading for you! He had heard you say you were going, and, in
some way, he fancied Dora could persuade you to stay. He cried till his
little pillow was wet. He told her he loved you, that you had said he
was your little boy, and that he wanted to be with you always. I heard
her pleading with him and arguing, but through it all his little voice
would continue to cry out that it should not be so--that he wanted
_you_, and that _you_ wanted _him_.”
“God bless him!” burst from the lips of the bowed man.
“Finally he dropped to sleep,” Mrs. Barry went on, “and slept, still
sobbing, as children do when wrought up high, and she left him and came
again to me. Poor thing! She was simply undone--conquered! She put her
head in my lap and burst out crying. She sobbed and sobbed a long time,
and then I asked her if she would let _me_ manage it. She knew what I
meant--exactly what I meant, for she became like a lump of clay in my
lap. For a long time she lay like that, hardly breathing. Then I told
her of what a wonderful influence she had been to me in opening my eyes,
old as I am, to the beauty of a higher, spiritual life, and that in
holding back, as she was now doing, and refusing to pardon a repentant
man, even when the happiness of her own child was at stake, she was
going backward instead of forward. She seemed to realize it. She sat up
straight, and the old light of sweetness and gentleness seemed to
dawn in her face. 'I'll simply put myself in your hands, mother,' she
said--'in your hands!'
“I broke down and cried in pure joy, Kenneth Galt. Then what do you
think? I heard her go back to her room, and knew that the child had
waked. I am not sure; but I think she waked him purposely, for she never
could bear to have him go to sleep unhappy. I heard her telling him
about the beauty of Paris--about its streets, its boulevards, and its
parks; its buildings; its statuary and pictures, and of the pretty
children who were to be his friends. She laughed like a happy
child--they were always like two children, anyway--when she told him
about crossing the ocean in a great ship, and of the high waves, deep
water, and big fish. But he stopped her with a question. What do you
think it was, Kenneth? He wanted to know if _you_ were going? I knew she
hesitated, her pride closing her lips, even there alone with her child.
She wouldn't answer his question. Then I heard Lionel say plainly, and
there was a strange sort of stubborness in his little voice: 'Well, I
don't want to go; he would not want me to leave him; he said so once;
he said he would never leave _me_, and I wasn't to leave _him_. Is he
going, mother?' he kept asking.
“Then I heard her say, 'Yes, darling, he is going--now you can sleep!'”
“She said that? Did she say that?” Galt cried, his whole despondent
being aflame.
“Yes; it is settled, Kenneth. Perhaps, in time, you and she will be
thoroughly happy together. I don't know, but I hope so.”
“Thank God!” Galt said, fervently, and, taking the old woman's hand, he
wrung it in an ecstasy of delight. “I only wanted a chance, Mrs. Barry.
I shall devote my life to all of you, and we can be happy--gloriously
happy over there. She shall be our queen, and Lionel our little prince.
I'll have this old house kept in order, and some day we'll come back to
it.”
“Then here is my plan,” Mrs. Barry said. “Meet us in Atlanta the day
after to-morrow, and we shall be ready to sail. I'll let you know what
hotel we go to. The news will come back from there, but we sha'n't be
here during the reception of it. Now, I'm glad, for your sake as well
as ours, that it is all going to turn out well. I want to see you happy.
You have suffered enough, and so has she. As for me, I never was so
happy in my life. I want to go to Paris for a while. My husband is
buried there, you know.”