[Illustration: 9357]
WIGHT reached Darley the following evening shortly after dusk, and rode
straight through the central portion of the town and past his office.
All day long he had debated with himself whether it would be wise to
take Garner into his confidence, and at last had decided that it would
do no good, and only cause his sympathetic partner to worry needlessly,
since Garner nor no one else could point out any better course than
the one to which, perforce, he had committed himself. Carson now
comprehended his insistent morbidness. It was not fear; it was not a
guilty conscience; it was only the galling shackles of unwonted and
hateful secrecy, the vague and far-reaching sense of uncertainty, the
knowledge of being, before the law (which was no respecter of persons,
circumstances, or sentiment), as guilty of murder as any other untried
violator of peace and order.
On the way down the street to his home he met Dr. Stone, who was also
riding, and reined in.
“My mother--how is she, doctor?” he asked. “I've been away since I saw
you yesterday.”
“You'll really be surprised when you see her,” the old man smiled.
“She's tip-top! I never saw such a change for the better in all my
experience. She had old Linda in her room when I was there about noon,
and they were laughing and cracking jokes at a great rate. She'll pull
through now, my boy. I tried to get her to tell me what had happened,
but she threw me off with the joke that she had changed doctors and
was taking another fellow's medicine on the sly, and then she and Linda
laughed together. I believe the old negro knew what she meant. I'll
tell you one thing, Carson, if I wasn't afraid of hurting your pride I'd
congratulate you on what happened to that chap Willis. Really, if that
thing hadn't taken place you and he would have had trouble. Some think
he was getting ready for you when he was shooting at that target.”
“Perhaps so, doctor,” Carson said, glad that the dusk veiled his face
from the old man's sight. “Well, I'll go on.”
At the carriage gate at home he found old Lewis standing ready to take
his horse.
“Hello!” Carson said, with a joke that was foreign to his mood; “when
did Major Warren discharge you?”
“Hain't discharge me yit, young marster,” Lewis smiled, in delight, as
he opened the gate and reached out for the bridle. “I knowed you'd be
along soon, en so I waited fer you. Marse Carson, Linda powerful anxious
ter see you. She settin' on yo'-all's veranda-step now; she been axin'
is you got back all evenin'. Dar she come now, young marster. I'll put
up yo' horse.”
“All right, Uncle Lewis,” and Dwight, seeing the old woman shambling
towards him, went across the lawn and met her.
“Oh, young marster, I been waitin' fer you,” she said. “I got some'n'
ter ax you, suh.”
“What is it?” he asked: “If it is anything I can do I'll be glad to help
you.”
“I don't like ter bother you, young marster,” Linda said, plaintively;
“but somehow it don't seem lak anybody know what ter do. I went ter
young miss, en she said fer me ter see you--dat you was de onliest one
ter decide. Marse Carson, of course you done heard dat man Willis done
killed hisse'f, ain't you?”
“Oh yes, Mam' Linda--oh yes!” Dwight said, his voice holding an odd,
submerged quality.
“Well, young marster, you see, me'n Lewis thought dat, bein' as dat man
was de ringleader, en de only one left on de rampage after my boy, dat,
now he's daid, I might sen' ter Chattanoogy fer Pete en let 'im come on
home.”
“Why, I thought he was doing well up there?” Carson said again, in a
tone which to himself sounded as expressionless as if spoken only from
the lips.
“Dat so; dat so, too,” Linda sighed; “but, Marse Carson, he de onliest
child I got en I wants 'im wid me. I wants 'im whar I kin see 'im en try
ter 'fluence 'im ter do what's right. In er big place lak Chattanoogy
he may git in mo' trouble, en--” She went no further, her voice growing
tremulous and finally failing.
“Well, send for him, by all means,” Dwight said. “He'll be all right
here. We'll find something for him to do.”
“En, en--dar won't be no mo' trouble?” Linda faltered.
“None in the world now, mammy,” he replied. “The people all over the
country are thoroughly satisfied that he's innocent. No one will even
appear against him. He is all right now.”
Tears welled up in Linda's eyes and she wiped them off on her apron.
“Thank God, young marster; one time I thought I never would want ter
live another minute, en yit right now--right now I'm de happiest woman
in de whole world, en you done it, young marster. You stood up fer er
po' old nigger 'oman when de world was turn agin 'er, en God on high
know I bless you. I bless you in every prayer I sen' up.”
He turned from her as she stood wiping her eyes and went on to his
mother's room, finding her, to his delight, sitting up in an easy-chair
near the table on which stood a lamp and a book she had been reading.
“Did you see Linda?” Mrs. Dwight asked, as he kissed her tenderly and
stood, still with that everpresent alien weight at his heart, stroking
her soft cheek. He nodded and smiled.
“And did you tell her--did you decide that Pete could come back?”
He nodded and smiled again. “She seems to think I'm running the
country.”
“As far as her interests are concerned, you _have_ been,” the invalid
said, proudly. “Oh, Carson, you know somehow it has happened that I
never knew Linda so well as some of our own slaves, but since this thing
came up I have thoroughly enjoyed having her come to see me. I keep her
here hours, at a time. Do you know why?”
He shook his head. “Not unless it is because she has such a strong
individuality and is so original.”
“No, that isn't it--it is simply, my boy, because she worships the very
ground you walk on, and I love to hear her express it in the thousands
of indirect ways she has. Oh, Carson, I'm simply foolish--_foolish_
about you! I have never been able to tell you how I felt about your
heroic conduct. I was afraid to. I gloried in it, but your constant
danger tied my tongue--I was afraid you'd take more risks. I've got a
secret to tell you.”
“To tell me?” he said, still stroking her cheek. “Yes; Dr. Stone, seeing
that I was so much better this morning tried to worm it out of me, but
I wouldn't tell him the cause. Carson, for a long time I have harbored
a gnawing, secret fear. It was with me night and day. I knew it was
dragging me down, keeping me from proper sleep and proper nourishment,
but I couldn't rid myself of it till this morning.”
“What was it, mother?” he asked, unable to see her drift.
“The fear, my boy, that you and that Dan Willis would meet face to face
has for a long time been a constant nightmare to me. I had picked up in
various ways, sometimes from remarks let fall by your father or one of
the servants, more about your differences with that man than you were
aware of. I tried to keep you from knowing how I felt, but it was
secretly dragging me to my grave.”
“And now, mother?” he asked, an almost hopeful light breaking far away
on his clouded horizon.
“Oh, it may be an awful sin, for I'm told Willis had a mother”--Mrs.
Dwight sighed--“but when the news came to-day that he had accidentally
killed himself I became a new woman. He was the one thing I dreaded
above all else, for, Carson, if he had not shot himself you and he would
have met and one of you would have fallen. Oh, I'm so happy. I'm going
to get well now, my boy. You will see me out on the lawn in a day or
two.”
His eyes were on the floor at her feet. Why he gave so much of his
mental burden to mere utterance he could not have explained, but he
said: “And even if we _had_ met, mother, and he had tried to shoot
me, and--and I, in self-defence you know, had been forced to kill
him--really forced--I suppose even that situation would have--disturbed
you?”
“Oh, don't, don't talk of that!” Mrs. Dwight cried. “I don't think it
is right to think of unpleasant things when one is happy. God did it,
Carson. God did it to save you.”
“All right, mother, I was only thinking--”
“Well, think of pleasanter things,” Airs. Dwight interrupted him.
“Helen's been over to see me rather oftener of late. We frequently sit
and chat together. It makes me feel young again. She is very free with
me about herself--that is, about everything except her affair with Mr.
Sanders.”
“She doesn't talk of that much, then?” he ventured, tentatively.
“She won't talk about it at all,” said the invalid; “and that's what
seems so queer about it. A woman can see deeper into a woman's heart
than a man can, and I've been wondering over Helen. Sometimes I almost
think--” Mrs. Dwight seemed lost in thought and unconscious of the fact
that she had ceased speaking.
“You were saying, mother,” he reminded her, eagerly, “that you almost
thought--”
“Why, it seems to me, Carson, that any natural girl ought to be so
full of her engagement to the man she is to marry that she would
really _love_ to talk about it. Really it seems to me that Helen may
be questioning her heart in this matter, but she'll end by marrying Mr.
Sanders. It looks as if she has pledged herself in some way or other,
and she is the very soul of honor.”
“Oh yes, she is all that,” Dwight said, in an effort at lightness. “Now,
good-night, mother.”
Much fatigued from his journey and the mental strain upon him, he
went up to his room. Throwing off his coat, the night being warm to
oppressiveness, he lighted a cigar and sat in the wide-open window. What
a strange, tempestuous life was his! How like a mere bauble of soul and
flesh was he buffeted between highest heaven and lowest earth! And for
what purpose was he created in the vast scheme of endless solar systems?
From the row of negro cabins and cottages below, across the dewy grass
and shrubbery, on the flower-perfumed air came sounds of unrestrained
merriment. Some negro in a cottage near Linda's was playing a
mouth-organ to the accompaniment of a sweetly twanging guitar. There was
a rhythmic clapping of hands, the musical, drumlike thumping of feet
on resounding boards, snatches of happy songs, clear, untrammelled,
childlike laughter.
They--and naught else--had brought him his burden. That complete justice
might be meted out to such as they, he had dipped his hands into the
warm blood of his own race, and was an outlaw bearing an honored name,
stalking forth, pure of heart, and yet masked and draped with deceit,
among his own kind. And for what ultimate good? Alas! he was denied
even the solace of a look into futurity. And yet--born in advance of his
time, as the Son of God was born ahead of His--there was yet something
in him which--while he shrank from the depth and bitterness of _his_
cup--lifted him, in his unmated loneliness, in his blindness, to far-off
light--high above the material world. There to suffer, there to endure,
and yet--there.