"I haven't asked his reason; I've asked you a question."
"Well, I'll answer it. Do you think Jewett has run back into his own
lines?"
"Of course I do, and Ned Ferry does; don't you?"
"No! Smith, there ain't a braver man in Grant's army than that one
right now a-straddle of your horse. Why, just the way he got your horse
night before--"
"Oh, hang him and the horse! you've told me that three times; what of
it?"
"Smith, he's out here to make a new record for himself, at whatever
cost!"
"And do you imagine Ned Ferry hasn't thought of that?"
"Ah-h, there are times when a man hasn't got his thinking powers; you
ought to know that, Smith,--"
"Mr. Gholson, what do you mean by that?"
"Oh! I certainly didn't mean anything against you, Smith. Why is your
manner so strange to me to-day? Oh, Smith, if you knew what--if I could
speak to you in sacred confidence--I--I wouldn't injure Ned Ferry in
your eyes, nor in anybody's; I only tell you what I do tell so you may
help me to help him. But he's staying here, Smith, and keeping you here,
to be near one whose name--without her a-dreaming of it--is already
coupled with--why,--why, what made you start that a-way again, Smith?"
"Nothing; I didn't start. 'Coupled with somebody's name,' you say. With
whose? Go on."
"With his, Smith, and most injuriously. He's here to tempt her to forget
she's not--" He faltered.
"Free?" said I, and he nodded with tragic solemnity.
"You know who I mean, of course?"
"Certainly; you mean Mrs. Sessions."
He shook his head bitterly. "Oh, well, then, of course I know. How am I
to help you to help him; help him to do what?"
"O--oh! to tear himself away from her, Smith. I want you to appeal to
him. He's taken a great shine to you. You can appeal to his feeling for
romance--poetry--whatever he calls his hell-fired--I mean his
unfortunate impiety. You know how, and I don't. And there you reach the
foundations of his character, as far as it's got any; there's his
conscience if it's anywhere!"
I find myself giving but a faint impression of the spirit in which
Gholson spoke; it went away beyond a mere backbiting mood and became a
temper so vindictive and so venomously purposeful that I was startled;
his condition seemed so fearfully like that of the old paralytic when he
whined "That's not our way."
"Smith," my companion went on, "we ought to protect Ned Ferry from
himself!" The words came through his clenched teeth. "And even more we
ought to protect her. Who's to do it if we don't? Smith, I believe
Providence has been a-preparing you to do this, all through these last
three nights and days!"
He looked at me for an answer until I became frightened. Was my late
folly known to this crawling maligner after all? A sweet-scented
preparation I've had, thought I, but aloud I said only, "If Ned Ferry
clears out, I suppose we must clear out, too."
"Why, eh,--I--I don't know that my movements need have anything to do
with his. Yours, of course,--"
"Yes," I interrupted, beginning to boil.
"I know," he said, "that comes hard; you'll have to tear _yourself_
away--"
He stared at me and hushed. A panic was surging through me; must I be
brought to book by such as he? "Mr. Gholson," I cried, all scorn
without, all terror within; "Mr. Gholson, I--Mr. Gholson, sir!--" and
set my jaws and heaved for breath.
"Why, Smith,--" He extended a soothing hand.
"No explanation, sir, if you please! I can get away from here without
tearing myself, which is more than you can boast. Any fool can see why
_you_ are here. Stop, I take that back, sir! I don't play tit-for-tat
with my tongue."
Gholson turned red on the brow and ashen about the lips. "I don't call
that tit-for-tat, Mr. Smith. I remind you of an innocent attachment for
a young girl; you accuse me of harboring a guilty passion for--" All at
once he ceased with open lips, and then said as he drew a long breath of
relief, "Smith, I beg your pardon! We've each misunderstood the other; I
see, now, who you meant; you meant Miss Estelle Harper!"
"Whom else could I mean?" Disdain was in my voice, but he ought to have
seen the falsehood in my eye, for I could feel it there.
"_Of_ course!" he said; "of course! But, Smith, my mind was so
full--just for the moment, you know,--of her we were speaking of in
connection with Ned Ferry--Do you know? she's so unprotected and tagged
after and talked about that it seems to me sometimes, in this nervous
condition of mine, that if I could catch the entire gang of her
pursuers in one hole I'd--I'd _end 'em_ like so many rats. That sort of
feeling is mere impulse, of course," he went on, "and only shows how
near I am to that nervous breakdown. Yes, the Harper ladies are mighty
lovely and hard enough to leave, but that's all I meant to you, and I'm
sorry I touched your feelings. I'm _tchagrined_. Anyhow, all this is
between us, you know. I wouldn't ever have confessed such feelings as I
did just now except to a friend who knows as well as you do that if I
ever should do a man a mortal injury I wouldn't do it in a spirit of
resentment. You know that, don't you? No, that's not my way--Why,
Smith, what gives you those starts? That's the third time you've done
that this morning."
I said that entering the cool shade of the Sessions grove after the
blazing heat of that long lane gave any one the right to a little
shudder, and as we turned toward the house Gholson murmured "If you say
you'll speak to Ned as I've asked you, I'll sort o' toll Squire Sessions
off with me so's to give you the chance. It's for his own sake, you
know, and you're the only one can do it."