It seemed to Kate presently, as she ran, that the wind was a friend,
trying to help her. The driving rain on her face cleared her brain. Even
the lightning was a friend, for without it she could not have seen a
foot of her way ahead in the blackness.
Each time it flashed she stared about her, hoping to catch sight of
Jacqueline. Suddenly she lifted up her voice and prayed aloud: "God, if
You are up there, if there really is a You, now's Your chance to prove
it! You hear me, God?" It was more a challenge than a prayer.
She knew that the girl had perhaps twenty minutes' start of her, but she
might yet overtake her, and in this storm Channing might well be late.
She slipped as she started down the ravine, and fell and rolled half
way, bruising herself on tree roots and boulders, the wet grass soaking
her to the skin.--No matter, it lost her no time. She fought her way
through dripping, clinging underbrush to the ruins of the slave-house.
The lightning showed it empty.--Could she have passed Jacqueline somehow
in the darkness? She dared not wait to see, but ran on into the lane
beyond. Nobody was in sight.
"I am too late!" she moaned, wringing her hands. "What shall I do now?"
She was convinced that Channing had already come for Jacqueline. She
started running down the road, as if she might overtake the automobile
on foot.
If she had waited at the cabin for a second lightning flash, she could
not have failed to notice the traveling-bag left by Mag beside the door.
Jacqueline, slipping into one of the stables to escape the first brunt
of the storm, had lingered a moment to say good-by to her friends the
horses; and it was at that moment that her mother passed. Kate had
reached the Ruin first.
But she did not know it. When at the turn of the road she saw the glare
of a headlight, she thought, "He's got her!" She was nearly exhausted by
this time, too dazed to realize that the machine was approaching, not
leaving, Storm. She gripped her rawhide whip and stepped directly into
the path of the automobile.
It swerved violently, and came to a stand not a foot from her.
"Good God, Jacqueline! I almost ran you down," cried Channing. "Quick,
jump in. You must be soaked to the bone, you plucky little darling!"
Quick as thought, Kate pulled open the door of the tonneau and slipped
in behind. His mistake had stimulated her failing wits. Let him think
her Jacqueline as long as possible! She choked back a laugh of rising
excitement.
"You're wise--it's drier there than in front. Gad, what a storm! I was
almost afraid it would scare you off. But I might have known better!"
Kate, listening acutely, detected a rather odd expression about the last
words, and wondered suddenly whether Jacqueline's nonappearance might
not have been something of a relief to Mr. Channing. Her eyes glittered,
and she drew the shrouding hood closer about her face.
He had started the engine, and was turning the machine around. So far he
had given her no opportunity to speak, and had to shout himself to be
heard above the noise of the engine and the storm.
"We're going to have a run for it. I've arranged to have the 12:45 stop
a second to take us on, and I'm late--This damned wind!"
The powerful car leaped forward. On two wheels it made the turn of the
road, full into the teeth of the storm. Channing bent over his wheel.
"Plenty of time to talk afterwards. Hold on tight!" His voice blew back
to her, faint in the roar of the blast.
Kate settled back for the wild ride with a smile on her face, just such
a grim, gay little smile as her daughter had worn when she led her
cavalry charge against the Night Riders. She was secure from discovery
for a few precious moments; while back there at the mouth of the ravine
the real Jacqueline waited, bag in hand, anxious, crying a little
perhaps, watching for a lover who would not appear.--Let her cry! She
was safe there, safe with the friendly storm, the wind, the rain, and
the lightning that do nothing worse than kill.
Far away across the wide plateau before them sounded the shrill whistle
of a train. It shot into sight, a long, slim, glittering thing, flying a
pennant of fiery smoke. Kate laughed exultingly. She never heard these
trains shrieking their way through the darkness without a shuddering
memory of her night of vigil in Frankfort, listening for the one which
was to carry away her child, and which had taken instead the man she
loved better than any child. She was a little beyond herself now, a
little _exaltée_, as the French say, with the excitement of the moment;
and it seemed to her that the approaching train was an old enemy upon
whom she was about to be avenged by robbing it of its prey.
"Hurry, hurry!" she cried, leaning forward, forgetting in her excitement
that she must not speak.
Charming laughed back over his shoulder. "You joy-rider! We're doing the
best we can now--but we'll make it."
They drew up at the platform just as the train paused, a grinning porter
waiting on the step with his box.
"Got your bag? Run for it," cried Channing, and followed through the
pelting rain with his own luggage.
The train started even as the chuckling porter helped her on.
"Stateroom fo' N'Yawk,--yessir, yessir! Right in dis way, miss. I done
seed you-all comin'. You suttinly did tek yo' foot in yo' han' an'
trabbel--yessir! yes, _suh_!"
"Lord, what a run!" Channing was saying behind her. "I left the engine
going, too--old Morty will be furious when he finds her! You must be wet
as an otter in spite of that great cape.--Well, little sweetheart, here
we are! Let 's--"
He stopped short. Kate had turned, slipping the cape from her
shoulders.--There they were, indeed. The train sped on, gathering speed
with each mile.
She began to laugh, softly at first, then more and more heartily, till
her whole body shook and the tears streamed down her face. The
romance-loving porter, listening outside, chuckled in sympathy. Channing
essayed a sickly smile.
She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, and a silence fell.
Channing broke it, of course. It was his misfortune in moments of
emergency always to become chatty.
"You have taken me by surprise, really!--I--I didn't recognize you at
first. That cape--Look here, this isn't entirely my fault. You must know
that! I meant to keep my word, I tried to. But Jacqueline would insist
upon seeing me to--to prove that she trusted me. I _told_ her it
wouldn't do. She said she had made no promise.--Oh, hang it all, how
could I help myself, with the girl throwing herself at my head like
that? I'm no anchorite."
"No?" murmured Kate.
"No, certainly not! That is.--Look here, it's not what you think at all!
I've been meeting her at night--it was the only way we could manage. But
I _am_ a gentleman, you know."
"Yes?" murmured Kate.
He tried again, perspiring freely. "This looks bad, I know, but I assure
you--Jacqueline understands that I mean to marry her as soon as things
are definitely settled. She understands me absolutely, the only woman,
perhaps, who ever has. She has temperament herself. Why, that's the
reason I consented to take her away," he continued eagerly, gaining
confidence from the other's silence. "She really ought to have her
training for opera. You don't realize what a voice it is, Mrs. Kildare!
I could offer her certain opportunities, lessons abroad, introductions,
a career, in fact--"
"And meanwhile you were going to act as her protector?" broke in Kate.
"Why--why, yes. Exactly!"
The faintest smile just lifted her lip. "From yourself?" she murmured.
Channing's eyes dropped. He would have given years of his life to meet
without flinching that little smile. "I repeat, I would have married
Jacqueline as soon as it was possible." He spoke with an effort for
quiet dignity that was not convincing, even to himself; perhaps because
he noticed just then, for the first time, the dog-whip which Mrs.
Kildare was twisting and untwisting in her strong fingers.
"I suppose that dream is over now," he added sadly--a little hastily.
"I think we may safely say," she admitted, "that that dream is over."
He could not lift his eyes from those slender, muscular fingers. Across
his too-vivid imagination had flashed Farwell's picture of the Madam
going to the rescue of her fighting negroes. A little shudder went down
his back. He wondered what he should do if she suddenly attacked him.
Could he lay his hands upon a woman? Should he call for help? Must he
simply stand there and let her--whip him?...
At that moment a whistle sounded, and the train began to slow down for a
station. To his almost sick relief, Mrs. Kildare drew her cape about her
shoulders. "I get off here," she said.
He rushed into speech. "Will you please tell Jacqueline how miserably
sorry I am--how I regret--"
She cut him short. "I will tell Jacqueline nothing, and neither will
you. All this"--she waved an inclusive hand about the stateroom--"_it
never happened_."
"What! You mean--she is to believe I did not come for her?"
"Exactly. You have disappeared. And without any explanations to
anybody."
"But, Mrs. Kildare! Good Lord! What will she think of me?"
"That you have simply broken your word again; which," said Kate, "is
what I intend her to think. She shall not be further humiliated by the
knowledge that there has been--an audience."
He began to understand. Kate knew her daughter. Pride was to be called
to the rescue, and he himself would play a very sorry part hereafter in
the memory of Jacqueline.
"But, Mrs. Kildare!" his vanity protested. "Really, I can't--"
His eyes dropped again, as if magnetized, to that twisting whip.
The author was not of the material out of which he created his heroes.
He had a dread, an acute physical dislike, of what is called "a
scene."--Very well! (he thought); if it helped poor, dear little
Jacqueline to remember him as a cowardly wretch, as the sort of
ungentlemanly villain of the piece who made engagements to elope with
young women and then broke them--very well, let her so remember him.
Also, the thought occurred to him that if no explanations were to be
made to any one, Philip Benoix would perhaps never hear of the thing he
had tried and failed to do this night. For some odd reason, not entirely
connected with the pistol he had seen in the clergyman's pocket,
Channing wanted to be remembered as pleasantly as possible by Philip
Benoix.
He sighed. "I see! You mean that Jacqueline shall learn to hate me.--As
you wish, of course. I will make no explanations. I give you my word of
honor never to write to her, or--"
"Your word of honor!" For one moment he met the full blast of the scorn
in Kate's eyes, before his own fell again. "Never mind promises, sir. It
will be to your advantage, Mr. Channing, to keep out of my way.
Hereafter I take care of my own!"
For the first time her gaze followed his to the whip in her hands, and
once more she burst out laughing; clear, ringing laughter that wakened
half the car.
"Just a dog-whip," she explained from the door, reassuringly. Her voice
was never sweeter. "I find after all that I shall not need it, you poor
little prowling tomcat!--Good-by."