[Illustration: 9260]
T the corner of the street Helen encountered Sanders, who was waiting
for her. At the sight of him standing on the edge of the sidewalk,
impatiently tapping the toe of his neatly shod foot with the ferrule of
his tightly rolled silk umbrella, she experienced a shock which would
have eluded analysis. He had been so completely out of her thoughts, and
her present mood was of such an entrancing nature that she felt a desire
to indulge it undisturbed. The bare thought of the platitudes she would
have to exchange with any one ignorant of her dazzling discovery was
unpleasant. After all, what was it about Sanders that vaguely incited
her growing disapproval? This morning could it possibly be his very
faultlessness of attire, his spick-and-span air of ownership in her body
and soul because of their undefined understanding as to his suit, or was
it because--because he had, although through no fault of his own, taken
no part in the thing which today, for Helen, somehow, held more weight
than all other earthly happenings? Indeed, fate was not using the Darley
visitor kindly. He was unwittingly like a healthy soldier on a furlough
making himself useful in the drawing-room while news of victory was
pouring in from his comrades at the front.
“You see I waited for you,” he said, gracefully raising his hat; “but,
Helen, what has happened? Why, what is the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said; “nothing at all.”
“But,” he went on, frowning in perplexity as he suited his step to hers,
“I never saw any one in my life change so suddenly. Why, when you went
into that office you were simply a picture of despair, but now you look
as if you were bursting with happiness. Your face is flushed, your eyes
are fairly dancing. Helen, if I thought--”
He paused, his own color rising, a deeper frown darkening his brow.
“If you thought what?” she asked, with a little irritation.
“Oh”--he knocked a stone out of his way with his umbrella--“what's the
use denying it! I'm simply jealous. I'm only a natural human being, and
I suppose I'm jealous.”
“You have no cause to be,” she said, and then she bit her lip with
vexation at the slip of the tongue. Why should she defend herself to
him? She had never said she loved him. She had not yet consented to
marry him. Besides, she was in no mood to gratify his vanity. She wanted
simply to be alone with the boundless delight she was allowed to share
with no one but--Carson--Carson!--the one who had, for _her sake_, made
the sharing of it possible.
“Well, I am uneasy, and I can't help it,” Sanders went on, gloomily.
“How can I help it? You left me so sad and depressed that you had hardly
a word for me, and after seeing this Mr. Dwight you come out looking--do
you know,” he broke off, “that you were there alone with that fellow
nearly an hour?”
“Oh no, it couldn't have been so long,” she said, further irritated by
his open defence of what he erroneously considered his rights.
“But it was, for I timed you,” Sanders affirmed. “Heaven knows I counted
the actual minutes. There is a lot about this whole thing I don't like,
but I hardly know what it is.”
“You are not only jealous but suspicious,” Helen said, sharply. “Those
are things I don't like in any man.”
“I've offended you, but I didn't mean to,” Sanders said, with a sudden
turn towards precaution. “You'll forgive me, won't you, Helen?”
“Oh yes, it's all right.” She had suddenly softened. “Really, I am sorry
you feel hurt. Don't think any more about it. I have a reason which I
can't explain for feeling rather cheerful just now.” They had reached
the next street corner and she patised. “I want to go by Cousin Ida's.
She lives down this way.”
“And you'd rather I didn't go along?”
“I have something particular to say to her.”
“Oh, I see. Then may I come as usual this afternoon?”
Her wavering, half-repentant glance fell. “Not this afternoon,” she
said. “I ought to be with mammy. Couldn't you call this evening?”
“It will seem a long time to wait in this dreary place, with nothing
to occupy me,” he said; “but I shall be well repaid. So I may come this
evening?”
“Oh yes, I shall expect you then,” and Helen turned and left him.
In the front garden of the Tarpley house she found her cousin watering
the flowers. Observing Helen at the gate, Miss Tarpley hastily put down
the tin sprinkling-pot and hurried to her.
“I was just going up to see mammy,” Ida said. “I know I can be of no use
and yet I wanted to try. Oh, the poor thing must be suffering terribly!
She had enough to bear as it was, but that last night--oh!”
“Yes--yes,” Helen said. “It is hard on her.”
Ida Tarpley rested her two hands on the tops of the white palings of the
fence and stared inquiringly into Helen's face.
“Why do you say it in that tone?” she asked; “and with that queer,
almost smiling look in your eyes? Why, I expected to see you prostrated,
and--well, I don't think--I actually don't think I ever saw you looking
better in my life. What's happened, Helen?”
“Oh, nothing.” Helen was now making a strong effort to disguise her
feelings, and she succeeded to some extent, for Miss Tarpley's thoughts
took another trend.
“And poor, dear Carson,” she said, sympathetically. “The news must have
nearly killed him. He came by here last night making all haste to get
down-town, as he said, to see if something couldn't be done. He was
terribly wrought up, and I never saw such a look of determination on a
human face. 'Something _has_ to be done,' he said; 'something _must_ be
done! The boy is innocent and shall not die like a dog. It would kill
his mother, and she is a good, faithful old woman. No, he shall not
die!' And with those words he hurried on. Oh, Helen, that is sad,
too. It is sad to see as noble a young spirit as he has fail in such a
laudable undertaking. Think of how he stood up before that surging mob
and let them shoot at him while he shouted defiance in their teeth,
till they cowered down and slunk away! Think of a triumph like that, and
then, after all, to meet with such galling defeat as overtook him last
night! When I heard of the lynching I actually cried. I think I felt
for him as much as I did for Mam' Linda. Poor, dear boy! You know why he
wanted to do it so much--you know that as well as I do.”
“Why he wanted to do it!” Helen echoed, almost hungry for the sweet
confirmation of Dwight's fidelity to her cause.
“Yes, you know--you know that his whole young soul was set on it because
it was your wish, because you were so troubled over it. I've seen that
in his eyes ever since the matter came up. I saw it there last night,
and it seemed to me that his very heart was burning up within him. Oh,
I get mad at you--to think you'd let that Augusta man, even if you do
intend some day to marry him--that you'd let him be here at such a time,
as if Carson hadn't enough to bear without that. Ah, Helen, no other
human being will ever love you as Carson Dwight does--never, never while
the sun shines.”
With a misleading smile of denial on her face Helen turned homeward. He
loved her--Carson Dwight--_that man_ of all men--still loved her. Her
body felt imponderable as she strode blithely on her way. In her
hands she carried a human life--the life of the poor boy Carson had so
wonderfully struggled for and intrusted to her keeping. To his mother
and father Pete was dead, but to her and Carson, her first sweetheart,
he still lived. The secret was theirs to hold between their throbbing
hearts. Old Linda's grief was but a dream. Helen and Carson could draw
aside the black curtain and tell her to look and see the truth.
Standing with bowed head at the front gate when she arrived home, she
saw old Uncle Lewis, his bald pate bared to the sunshine.
“Mam' Lindy axin' 'bout you, missy,” he said, pitifully. “She say you
went down-town ter see Marse Carson, en she seem mighty nigh crazy ter
know ef you found whar de--de body er de po' boy is at. Dat all she's
beggin' en pleadin' fer now, missy, en ef dem white mens refuse it, de
Lawd only know what she gwine ter do.”
Helen gazed at him helplessly. Her whole young being was wrung with the
desire to let him know the truth, and yet how could she tell him what
had been revealed to her in such strict confidence?
“I'll go see mammy now,” she said. “I've no news yet, Uncle Lewis--no
news that I can give you. I'm looking for Carson to come up soon.”
As she neared the cottage the motley group of negroes, serious-faced men
and women, bland-eyed persons in their teens, and half-clad children,
around the door intuitively and respectfully drew aside and she
entered the cottage unaccompanied and unannounced. Linda was not in the
sitting-room, where she expected to find her, and so, wonderingly, Helen
turned into the kitchen adjoining. Here the general aspect of things
added to her growing surprise, for the old woman had drawn close the
curtains of the little, small-paned windows, and before a small fire in
the chimney she sat prone on the ash-covered hearth. That alone might
not have been so surprising, but Linda had covered her body with several
old tow sacks upon which she had plentifully sprinkled ashes. The
grayish powder was in her short hair, on her face and bare arms, and
filled her lap. There was one thing in the world that the old woman
prized above all else--a big, leather-bound family Bible which she had
owned since she first learned to read under the instruction of Helen's
mother, and this, also ash-covered, lay open by her side.
“Is I gwine ter bury my chile?” she demanded, as she glared up at her
mistress. “What young marster say? Is I, or is I never ter lay eyes on
'im ergin? Is I de only nigger mother dat ever lived on dis yeth, bound
er free, dat cayn't have dat much? Tell me. Ef dey gwine ter le' me see
'im Marse Carson ud know it. What he say?”
Rendered fairly speechless by the predicament she was in, Helen could
only stand staring helplessly. Presently, however, she bent, and lifting
the Bible from the floor she laid it on the table. With her massive
elbows on her knees, her fat hands over her face and almost touching the
flames, Linda rocked back and forth.
“Dey ain't no God!” she cried; “ef dey is one He's es black es de back
er dat chimbley. Dat book is er lie. Dey ain't no love en mercy anywhars
dis side de blinkin', grinnin' stars. Don't tell me er nigger's prayers
is answered. Didn't I pray las' night till my tongue was swelled in my
mouf fer um ter spare my boy? En what in de name er all created was de
answer? When de day broke wid de same sun shinin' dat was shinin' when
he laid de fus time on my breas', de news was fetch me dat my baby chile
was dragged out wid er rope rounst his neck, prayin' ter men whilst I
was prayin' ter God. Look lak dat enough, hein? But no, nex' come de
news dat ef he'd er lived one short hour longer dey might er let 'im go
'ca'se dey foun' de right one. Look lak dat enough, too, hein? But nex'
come de word, en de las' message: innocent or no, right one or wrong
one, my chile wasn't goin' ter have a common bury in'-place--not even
in de Potter's Fiel' dis book tell erbout so big. Don't talk ter me! Ef
prayers fum niggers is answered mine was heard in hell, en old Scratch
en all his imps er darkness was managin' it. Don't come near me! I might
lay han's on you. I ain't myself. I heard er low trash white man say
once dat niggers was des baboons. I may be one, en er wild one fer all
I know--oh, honey, don't pay no 'tention ter me. Yo' ol' mammy is bein'
burnt at de stake en she ain't 'sponsible. She love you, honey--she love
you even in 'er gre't trouble.”
“I understand, mammy,” and Helen put her arms around the old woman's
neck. An almost overpowering impulse had risen in her to tell the old
sufferer the truth, but thinking that some of the negroes might be
listening, and remembering her promise, she restrained herself.
“I'm going to write a note to Carson to come up at once,” she said.
“He'll have something to tell you, mammy.”
And passing the negroes about the door she went to the house, and
hastening into the library she wrote and forwarded by a servant the
following note:
_“Dear Carson,--Come at once, and come prepared to tell her. I can't
stand it any longer. Do, do come._
_“Helen.”_