“But what about this quarrel with Captain Harbach? He will surely
challenge you.”
“Of course, and I shall accept. Never mind that. He may possibly shoot
me through the head or heart or lungs. The chance of that renders it
only the more imperative that you and I shall talk out our talk. I
have much to say to you that must be said before morning. Besides, I
must prepare my charges against Captain Harbach. It is a duty that I
owe to the service to expose the arrogant incapacity of such men as
he. Such incapacity imperils the lives of better men, by scores and
hundreds, every day. If I can do anything to purge the service of
such incapables—men whose fathers’ or friends’ influence has secured
commissions for them to assume duties which they are utterly incapable
of discharging properly or even with tolerable safety to the lives of
other men—it will be a greatly good achievement. Let us talk now of
something else.”
Then he told Arthur about the papers that the man who called himself
Campbell had intrusted to his keeping.
“The matter sorely embarrasses me,” he explained. “I don’t know
what I ought to do. Of course I am in no way bound by that fellow’s
half-spoken, half-suggested injunction not to give the papers to Evelyn
till she attains the age of twenty-one. I completely disregard that.
But there are other things to be thought of. My command here on the
lines is losing from twenty to thirty per cent of its personnel each
month. Nothing is more likely than that I shall turn up among the
‘killed in action’ some morning. If I keep the papers with me, they
are liable to fall into other and perhaps unfriendly hands at any
moment. As I have not the remotest notion of what is recorded in them,
of course I cannot even conjecture how much of harm that might work to
Evelyn. You perfectly understand that her welfare, her comfort, her
feelings, constitute the controlling consideration with me.”
“Oh, yes, I understand that,” said Arthur.
“Don’t jest, if you please,” broke in Kilgariff, with a note of offence
in his voice.
“My dear fellow,” answered Arthur, with profound seriousness, “nothing
could be farther from my thought than jesting on a subject so serious.
I beg you to believe—”
“I do. I believe you implicitly. But somehow this explosion, and poor
Johnny Garrett’s needless death, and my quarrel with that reckless
incapable, Harbach, have set my nerves on edge, so that I am querulous.
Forgive me, and let me go on. As to these papers, I want to do that
which is best for Evelyn; but I don’t know what is best, and I can’t
find out by questioning my own mind. You see, I not only do not know
what is in the papers, but I do not even know what circumstances
gave them birth, or what purpose of good or evil lies behind them,
or what distressing revelations they may make for her affliction.
The cold-blooded gambler, swindler, adventurer, cheat, who gave the
papers to me is—or was, for I don’t know whether he is now dead or
alive—capable of any atrocity. He admitted to me that he had cruelly
persecuted the girl, his daughter. It would not be inconsistent with
his character, I think, for him to send her from his deathbed a bundle
of papers that should needlessly afflict and torture her. He cherished
quite enough of enmity to me, I think, to make him happy in the
conviction that he had made me his unwilling and unwitting agent in
inflicting such wounds upon her spirit.
“Thus I dare not give her the papers, nor dare I withhold them, lest
thereby I do her a wrong. Counsel me, my friend. Tell me what I should
do!”
“Consult Dorothy,” answered Arthur. “Her judgment in such a case will
be immeasurably wiser than yours or mine, or both combined.”
“Thank you. That is the best solution. I wonder I didn’t think of it
before. I will act upon it at once. I’ll send the papers to Dorothy by
your hand, and I’ll ask you also to bear her a letter in which I shall
beg for her judgment. That’s the end of one of my perplexities, for the
time being at least. Now let us talk of another thing that concerns
me very deeply. I am a pretty rich man, as you know. I own some real
estate in New York City. That will probably be confiscated when this
war comes to an end, as you and I clearly see that it must do very
soon. I own a good many stocks and bonds and other securities, which
cannot be so easily confiscated, inasmuch as they are in possession
of my bankers, who are like drums for tightness, and are besides my
very good friends. In addition to these things, the bulk of my fortune
is invested in Europe, where it cannot be confiscated at all. The
securities are held by the Liverpool branch of Frazer, Trenholm, and
Company, of Charleston, for my account, so that they are perfectly safe.
“Now the only relatives I have in the world, so far as I know, are
my brother and his family. I have every reason for desiring that
none of them shall ever get a single cent from my estate. So much on
the negative side. Affirmatively, I very earnestly desire that every
dollar I have in the world shall go at my death to the one woman I
ever loved—Evelyn Byrd.
“It may seem to you a simple and easy thing to arrange that, but it
is not so. Any will that I might make cutting off my relatives from
the inheritance of my property would be obstinately contested in the
courts.”
“But upon what grounds?”
“Oh, the lawyers can be trusted to find reasons ‘as plenty as
blackberries.’ For one thing, they could insist that I was a dead man
long before the date of my will.”
“How do you mean?”
“Why, when I escaped from Sing Sing, there were two other men with me.
As we swam out into the Hudson, the guards opened a vigorous fire upon
us. One of my companions was killed outright, his face being badly
mutilated by the bullets. The other was wounded and recaptured. He
positively identified the dead man’s body as mine. It was buried in my
name, and my death was officially recorded as a fact. So, you see, I am
officially a dead man, if ever my relatives have occasion to prove me
so. But apart from that, my estate, when I die, will be a sufficiently
large carcass to induce a great gathering of the buzzards about it.
With half a million dollars or more to fight over, the lawyers may be
trusted to find ample grounds for fighting.”
“It seems a difficult problem to solve,” said Arthur, meditatively. “I
don’t see how you can manage it.”
“Such matters are easy enough when one has friends, as I have, who may
be trusted implicitly. I have thought this matter out, and I think I
know how to handle the situation.”
“Tell me your plan, if you wish.”
“Of course I wish. My first thought was to give everything I have in
the world to Evelyn now, giving her deeds for the real estate and
absolute bills of sale for the securities. But of course I could not
do that. I could never gain her consent to such an arrangement without
first winning her love and making her my affianced bride.”
“Do you think that would be impossible?”
“I do not know—perhaps so. At any rate, it is out of the question.”
“I confess I do not see why.”
“I am a convicted criminal, you know—a fugitive from justice.”
“No. You are officially dead. The courts of New York will not hold a
dead man to be a fugitive from justice. And morally you are nothing of
the kind. It was not justice, but infamous injustice, that condemned
you.”
“However that may be, I can never ask Evelyn Byrd to be my wife,
to share the life of a man who might even possibly be sent back to
Sing Sing. I can never ask her to make of her children the sons and
daughters of a convicted criminal. I will not do that. So I have
thought out another plan. My second thought was to turn over all I
have to you in trust for Evelyn. When I am dead, she need not refuse
the gift. But there again is a difficulty. When this war ends in the
complete conquest of the South, as it soon must, political passion at
the North is well-nigh certain to find expression in acts of wholesale
confiscation, directed against men of wealth at the South, and men who
have served as officers in our army. They may, indeed, include all who
have served at all, even as privates. At any rate, you are an officer
of high rank, and between you and Dorothy you are one of the greatest
plantation owners in Virginia. You are pretty sure to be included in
whatever is done in this way.
“It will not do, therefore, to make you my trustee for Evelyn. I must
have some non-combatant to serve in that capacity, and, with your
permission, I am going to ask Dorothy to accept the duty.”
“You have my permission, certainly. But I see another danger. Suppose
anything should happen to Dorothy?—God forbid it! Suppose she should
die?”
“I have thought of all that,” answered Kilgariff, “and I think I see a
way out. I shall ask Dorothy to select some friend, some woman whom she
can absolutely trust, to serve with her as a joint trustee, giving full
power to the survivor to carry out the trust in case of the death of
either of the two. I haven’t a doubt she knows such a woman.”
“She does—two of them. There is Edmonia Bannister, one of God’s elect
in character, and there is Mrs. Baillie Pegram—she who was Agatha
Ronald. Either of them would serve the purpose perfectly.”
“I’ll get Dorothy to ask both of them,” responded Kilgariff. “Then all
possible contingencies will be fully met and provided for.
“Now for present concerns. If I can make a Confederate taper burn for
an hour, I’ll write my letter to Dorothy, to accompany the papers, and
to ask her to serve me in this matter of the trusteeship. I have a very
capable young lawyer under my command here as a sergeant. Early in
the morning I shall set him to work preparing the trust conveyances.
He is a rapid worker, and will have the documents ready by nightfall.
Then I’ll send them to Wyanoke by a courier. In the meanwhile I have
Captain Harbach on my hands. I’m afraid I must ask you to act for me
in that matter. While we have been talking, it has occurred to me that
when I prefer my charges against Captain Harbach, he will be placed
under arrest. In that position he would not be permitted to send me the
hostile message he threatened to-night. It would be extremely unfair
to him to place him in such a position. I want you to write to him, if
you will, as my friend. Say to him that in view of his expressed desire
to hold me responsible for words spoken to-night, and in order to give
him opportunity to do so without embarrassment, I shall postpone for
twenty-four hours, or for a longer time, if for any reason he cannot
conveniently act within twenty-four hours, the preferring of my
official charges against him. Ask him, please, to advise you of his
wishes in the matter in order that I may comply with them.”
“You are a very cool hand, Kilgariff,” said Arthur, “and your courtesy
to an enemy is extreme.”
“Oh, courtesy in such a case is a matter of course. Let me say to you,
now, that when I meet Captain Harbach on the field, I shall fire high
in the air. I have no desire to kill him or to inflict the smallest
hurt upon him. I am merely giving him the opportunity he desires to
kill me, by way of avenging himself upon me for the severe criticisms
I have made upon his character, his conduct, and his assumption of
functions that he is incapable of discharging with tolerable safety
to other men. Let me make this matter plainer to your mind, Arthur. I
do not at all believe in the duello. I think it barbarous in intent
and usually ridiculous in its conduct. But I had the best of good
reasons for saying what I did to Captain Harbach, and so I said it.
What I said was exceedingly offensive to him, and the only way he
knows of ‘vindicating’ himself is by challenging me to a duel. It
would be a gross injustice on my part to refuse to meet him, and to do
an injustice is to commit an immorality. So, of course, I shall meet
him. As I have no desire to do him other harm than to get him removed
from a position which he is incapable of filling with safety to others
and benefit to the service, I shall not think of shooting at him. But
I shall give him the privilege he craves of shooting at me. I really
don’t mind, you know, under the circumstances, except that in any case
I shall postpone his shooting at me till I can execute the documents
relating to my property.”
“In view of your explanation,” answered Arthur, “I must decline to act
as your friend in this matter.”
“But why?”
“Because I will have no part nor lot in a murder. I detest duelling,
as you do; I regard it as a relic of feudalism which ought to give
place to something better in our enlightened and law-governed time. But
while it lasts, I am forced to consent to it, however unwillingly. I
recognise the fact that the right of the individual to make private war
on his own account is the only basis on which nations can logically
or even sanely claim the right to make public war. Nations are only
aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of
the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them.
But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a
contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going
to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at
and does not himself intend to make war at all.”
“Very well,” answered Kilgariff. “I’ll get some one else to send the
letter.”
He summoned an orderly and directed him to go to a neighbouring camp
and ask an officer there to call upon Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff,
“concerning a purely personal matter, and not at all with reference to
any matter of service.”
The officer, a fiery little fellow, responded at once to the summons,
and he promptly wrote—spelling it very badly—the message which
Kilgariff had asked Arthur to send.
Half an hour later, the messenger who had borne the note returned with
it unopened. For explanation, he said:—
“Captain Harbach had his head blown off in the trenches just before
daylight this morning.”
XVIII
EVELYN’S REVELATION
IT was during Arthur’s absence at Petersburg that Evelyn began talking
with Dorothy about herself.
“It isn’t nice,” she said, as the two sat together in the porch one
day, “for me to have reserves and secrets with you, Dorothy.”
“But why not? Every one is entitled to have reserves. Why should not
you?”
“Oh, because—well, things are different with me. You are good to
me—nobody was ever so good to me. I am living here, and loving you and
letting you love me, and all the time you know nothing at all about me.
It isn’t fair. I hate unfairness.”
“So do I,” answered Dorothy. “But this isn’t unfair. I never asked you
to tell me anything about yourself.”
“That’s the worst of it. That’s what makes it so mean and ugly and
unfair for me to go on in this way. Why should you be so good to me
when you don’t know anything about me?”
“Why, because, although I do not know your history, _I know you_. If it
is painful for you to tell me about yourself—”
“It wouldn’t be painful,” the girl answered, with an absent, meditative
look in her eyes. But she added nothing to the sentence. She merely
caressed Dorothy’s hand. After a little silence, she suddenly asked:—
“What’s a ‘parole,’ Dorothy?”
Dorothy explained, but the explanation did not seem to satisfy.
“What does it mean? How much does it include? How long does it last?”
Dorothy again explained. Then Evelyn said:—
“It was a parole I took. I don’t know what or how much it bound me not
to tell. I wish I could make that out.”
“If you could tell me something about the circumstances,” answered the
older woman, “perhaps I could help you to find out. But you mustn’t
tell me anything unless you wish.”
“I should like to tell you everything. You see, they were trying to
send me South, through the lines somehow. They said I was to be sent
to some relatives—but I reckon that wasn’t true. Anyhow, they wanted
to send me through the lines, and they had to get permission. So they
took me to a military man of some sort, and he took my parole. I had
to swear not to tell anything to the enemy, and after I had sworn that
I wouldn’t, he looked very sternly at me and told me I mustn’t forget
that I had taken an oath not to tell anything I knew.”
Dorothy answered without hesitation that the parole referred only to
military matters, and not at all to things that related only to the
girl herself and her life.
“But, Dorothy, I didn’t know anything about military affairs—how could
I? So I reckon they couldn’t have meant that.”
“They could not know what information you might have, or what messages
some one might send through you. You may be entirely sure, dear,
that your oath meant nothing in the world beyond that. The military
authorities at the North care nothing about your private affairs or
how much you may talk of them. Still, you are not to tell anything
that you have doubts about. You are not to wound your own conscience. I
sometimes think our own consciences are all there is of Judgment Day.
You are always to remember that Arthur and I are perfectly satisfied
to take you for what you are, asking no questions as to the rest. We
are vain enough to think ourselves capable of forming our own judgment
concerning the character of a girl like you. We are not afraid of
making any mistake about that.”
Evelyn did not reply. She sat still, continuing to caress Dorothy’s
hand. She was thinking in some troubled fashion, and Dorothy was wise
enough to let her go on thinking without interruption.
After a while the girl suddenly dropped the hand, arose, and went out
upon the lawn. Her mare was grazing there, and Evelyn called the animal
to her. Leaping upon the unsaddled and unbridled mare, she started
off at a gallop. Presently she slipped off her low shoes, and in her
stocking feet stood erect upon the galloping animal’s back. With low,
almost muttered commands she directed the mare’s course, making her
leap a fence twice, while her rider sometimes stood erect, sometimes
knelt, and sometimes sat for a moment, only to rise again with as great
apparent ease as if she had been occupying a chair.
Finally she brought her steed to a halt, leaped nimbly to the ground,
and resumed her slippers. She walked rapidly back to the porch, and,
with a look of positively painful earnestness in her face, demanded:—
“Does _that_ make a difference? Does it alter your opinion? Do you
still believe in me?”
Her tone was so eager, so intense, that it seemed almost angry. Dorothy
only answered:—
“It makes no difference.”
“You know what that means? You guess where I learned to do that?”
“Yes.”
“And still you do not cast me out? Still you do not command me to go
away?”
“Not at all. Why should I?”
“But why not? Most women of your class and in your position would send
me away.”
“I am perhaps not like most women of my class and condition. At
any rate, as I told you a while ago, I _know you_, I trust you, I
believe in you. _You are you._ What else matters? Let me tell you a
little life-story. My mother was a musician, who performed in public.
Everybody about here scorned her for that. But she was the superior
of all of them. She was a woman of genius and strong character. She
hated shams and conventionalities, and she was a good woman. When the
war came, she set to work nursing the wounded. She was shot to death
a little while ago, and the soldiers loved her so that they rolled
a great boulder over her grave and carved a loving inscription upon
it with their own hands. Many of them were killed in doing that; but
whenever one fell, another took his place. Do you think, Evelyn, that
I, her daughter, could ever scorn a good woman like you, merely because
she was or had been an actor in a show? I tell you, Evelyn Byrd, I
_know_ you, and that is quite enough for me.”
“Is it enough for Cousin Arthur?”
“Yes, assuredly.”
“And for—well, for others?”
“If you mean Kilgariff, yes. If you mean the conventional people, no.
So you had better never say anything about it to them.”
At Dorothy’s mention of Kilgariff’s name, Evelyn started as if
shocked. But quickly recovering herself, she said with passion in her
tones:—
“You are the very best woman in the world, Dorothy. I shall not long
have any secrets from you.”
The girl’s agitation was ungovernable. Emotionally she had passed
through a greater crisis than she had ever known before, and her nerves
were badly shaken. Without trying to utter the words that would not
rise to her quivering lips, she took refuge in the laboratory, where
she set to work with the impatience of one who must open a safety valve
of some kind, or suffer collapse. Most women of her age, similarly
agitated, would have gone to their chambers instead, and vented their
feelings in paroxysms of weeping. Evelyn Byrd was not given to tears.
Perhaps bitter experience had conquered that feminine tendency in her,
though very certainly it had not robbed her of her intense femininity
in any other way.
When Dorothy joined her in the laboratory an hour later, the girl was
engaged in an operation so delicate that the tremor of a finger, the
jarring of a sharply closed door, or even a sudden breath of air would
have ruined the work.
“Step lightly, please,” was all that she said. Dorothy saw that the
girl had completely mastered herself.
And Dorothy admired and rejoiced.
XIX
DOROTHY’S DECISION
KILGARIFF had not long to wait for Dorothy’s answer, nor was the reply
an uncertain one. It was not Dorothy’s habit to be uncertain of her own
mind, especially where any question of right and wrong was involved.
She never hesitated to do or advise the right as she saw it, and she
never on any account juggled with the truth or avoided it.
So far as the trusteeship was concerned, she accepted the appointment
for herself and also for Edmonia Bannister and Agatha Pegram, both of
whom were within an hour’s ride of Wyanoke, as Agatha was staying for
a time at Edmonia’s home, Branton. Dorothy had gone to them at once on
receipt of Kilgariff’s letter, and both had consented to accept the
trust.
That matter out of the way, Dorothy took up the other with that
directness of mind which made her always clear-sighted and well-nigh
unerring in judgment, at least where questions of conduct were
concerned.
I am rather surprised, Kilgariff [she wrote], and not quite pleased
with you. Can you not see that you have no more right to let me read
Evelyn’s papers than to read them yourself? They are hers to do with
as she pleases, and neither you nor I may so much as read a line of
them without her voluntary consent.
Neither, I think, have you any right to withhold them from her. They
are her property, and you must give them to her, as you would her
purse, had it come into your possession. The fact that these papers
may hurt her feelings in the reading has no bearing whatever on the
case. It is not your function to protect her against unpleasantness by
withholding from her anything to which she has a right, whether it be
property or information or anything else. You are not her father, or
her brother, or her husband, or even a man affianced to her—this last
mainly by your own fault, I think. It is just like a man to think that
he has a right to wrong a woman by way of protecting her and sparing
her feelings.
Let me tell you that Evelyn Byrd stands in need of no such protection.
Little as I know of her life-experiences, that little is far more than
you know. She has suffered; she has known wrong and oppression; she
has had to work out for herself even the fundamental principles of
morality in conduct. Her experience has been such that it has made
her wonderfully strong, especially in the matter of endurance. She is
tender, loving, sensitive—yes, exquisitely sensitive—but she has a
self-control which amounts to stoicism—to positive heroism, I should
say, if that word were not a badly overworked one.
Nevertheless, I have some fear that these papers may contain things
that it will be very painful for her to read, and I strongly
sympathise with your desire to spare her. I condemn only the method
you have wished to adopt. I must not examine the papers. I have no
right, and you can give me no right, to do that. Still less must I
think of deciding whether they are to be given to her or withheld.
That is a thing that decides itself. They are absolutely hers. You
must yourself place them in her hands. In doing so, you can make
whatever explanation or suggestions you please, and she can act upon
your suggestions or disregard them, as shall seem best to her.