With Henley the next day passed like some fascinating dream. He was busy
in various ways as usual, and yet scarcely for a moment were his
thoughts away from his new-found delight. He had no hope, bound as he
was to another to whom he owed his honor, of ever being closer to Dixie
than he was now, and yet there was something in the very purity of his
possession of her heart and in her willing sacrifice of so much for the
principle which guided her that lifted him into new and untrodden fields
of spiritual ecstasy.
It was near sunset, and he stood in the front doorway of the store,
looking out into the quiet square, when, to his surprise and with a
tumultuous throbbing of his heart, he saw Dixie pass with a letter in
her hand on the way to the post-office. She was on the opposite side of
the street and did not glance in his direction, and he made no effort to
attract her attention. As she passed along by old Welborne's diminutive
office Henley noticed that Hank Bradley, who had been drinking about
town through the day, came from the doorway and bowed to her
conspicuously, his slouch-hat almost sweeping the pavement as he bent
downward. She passed on with a bare nod and quickened her step till she
entered the post-office, a few doors farther on.
There was something in this, remembering as he did that Bradley had
persistently pursued the girl with attentions, which not only angered
Henley, but filled him with concern for her safety. The half-drunken
brute might take it into his head to follow her down the lonely road
which she had to traverse to reach her house. So, with these things in
mind, Henley told Cahews that he was going home, and he walked out to
the first densely shaded part of the road and, retiring into the bushes,
sat on the grass, determined that he would at least follow in her wake
till she was out of danger of being accosted.
The sunlight had quite disappeared now, and the fringe of dusk was
settling over the silent wood. He was growing impatient, and wondering
if anything could have happened to detain Dixie in town, when he beard
voices down the road. He stood up and peered through the curtain of wild
vines which hung between him and the open. He could see no one, and the
voices were so indistinct that he failed to recognize them. But the
conversing individuals were evidently rapidly approaching, for their
voices were growing louder. Both seemed to be talking at the same time,
and Henley was pretty sure that it was a man and a woman. Then the
coarser voice drowned the finer and fainter, and Henley recognized it as
belonging to Bradley.
"I've been put off and fooled and deviled by you as long as I'm going to
be!" the brute cried out. "You are a beautiful young devil, that's what
you are. I've offered you every inducement a man could offer. If I'm
drunk, you are the cause of it. I can't think of nothing but you--you,
with your maddening eyes of fire and cheeks full of hot blood. I want
you. I want you every minute I draw breath. You must listen to reason.
I've got plenty of money. We could live like a king and queen on the fat
of the land, as God means men and women to live, full of joy and life.
Stop, you've got to kiss me! We are alone; nobody is about."
"Let me pass, I tell you, let me pass!" Dixie's terrified voice rose to
a shriek, and then it ended in a smothered sound as if a hand had been
placed over her mouth. Henley was sure they were struggling and he
sprang into the road. Swaying back and forth against the dark background
of the wood, he saw Bradley with the girl in his arms. Dixie had ducked
her head to avoid his repulsive lips, and the assailant's back was
turned to Henley. With the bound of a panther he reached them just as
Dixie was eluding Bradley's embrace and trying to release her hand, to
which he clung with a grip of steel. Neither of the two saw Henley, and
it was a crushing blow from the storekeeper's fist against the side of
Bradley's head that showed him what he had to contend with. He had
scarcely taken another breath before Henley struck him again with the
force of a sledgehammer squarely between the eyes. Bradley staggered,
swayed, grew limp, and went down. His eyes rolled back in his head till
the whites were exposed. He quivered through his whole form, drew his
shoulders up once, and then lay still. Henley, his hands clinched, the
eyes of an infuriated animal in his head, his great mouth hanging open,
stood over the fallen man.
"Thank God, oh, thank God!" It was Dixie's voice behind him, and he
turned to see her at the edge of the road, her face as white as death
could have made it, her hands convulsively clasped in front of her. "Oh,
Alfred, Alfred, if you hadn't come--" She came to him, but, primitive
man that he now was, there seemed to be no place in him for tenderness.
His great breast heaved, his lips quivered, his eyes bulged from their
sockets. She was about to put out her hands in an effort toward soothing
him when, glancing toward Bradley, she uttered a scream of alarm. He was
rising, a drawn revolver in his hand. Quick as his approach had been,
Henley's next movement was quicker; before the weapon was fairly poised
he had knocked it from Bradley's grasp. Contemptuously kicking it out of
his reach, Henley gave the man a sharp blow with his fist; and while
Bradley was impotently shielding his face with his arms, Henley picked
up the revolver, cocked it, and directed it toward him.
"Apologize to this lady," he said, huskily, "and do it quick, for I'm
going to blow your brains out. Down on your knees, you dirty
whelp--down, I say!"
"I'll be damned if I do."
"Then take your medicine, and may God have mercy on your dirty soul!"
And, as Bradley screamed out and held up his hands in sudden,
overpowering fear, Dixie sprang forward and wrested the weapon from
Henley's hand.
"No," she said--"no, you sha'n't kill him. Hank Bradley, go! Go, I tell
you! I won't have blood spilt over me. I've got a right to demand that,
and I _do_ demand it. Go, I tell you! I'm going to keep this gun to
protect myself with. I live in a country of outlaws, and I'm going to
defend myself from now on. Go! What are you waiting for?"
Muttering and growling in sullen defiance, Bradley got to his feet, his
battered face and eyes swollen.
"You've got the best of the game so far," he snarled at Henley, "but
it's not ended. You'll hear from me."
"I'll tell you one thing, Hank," Henley said, as he glared at the man,
"you are leaving here now, but if I ever meet you face to face in town,
or anywhere else, I'll kill you as sure as there's a God. I've said it,
and I mean it--I'll kill you as I would a snake."
Henley and Dixie stood in silence and watched him as he entered the wood
and strode farther into its depths. They heard the cracking of dry twigs
under his feet as he steadily receded, the sound of his untoward
progress growing fainter and fainter in the distance.
"I'll be sorry to the day of my death that I didn't kill him," Henley
panted, the wild fury unabated in his voice, face, and eyes. "Why, he
was treating you like a dog; he actually proposed, actually dared to
hint that his dirty money--my God! and I let him walk off on his two
feet."
"I know, I know," Dixie muttered, soothingly, and she forced a smile as
she looked at the revolver in her hand, "and oh, Alfred, I'm just girl
enough to be glad you come as you did, and even to see it work you up
like it has; but at a time like this a woman must act and think for a
man when he is all wrought up and half out of his head. I couldn't
prevent what he done. He was waiting for me at the end of the street and
insisted on walking with me. I begged him to go back, but he was talking
so loud and rough that I was afraid folks would make remarks. I hated to
call for help; I'm neither sugar nor salt, and am able to care for
myself. But I'd never seen him as drunk as that before, and, well, if
you hadn't come--"
She shuddered convulsively. He looked at her wrist, which she kept
touching with her handkerchief; the skin was broken and the flesh
bruised where Bradley had clutched it.
"My God!" Henley took it gently in his throbbing hands and looked at it
with glaring eyes, "and I let him walk away! He's free now, but, as
there is a God overhead, I'll--"
"No, stop, listen--hear me, Alfred!" Dixie entreated, allowing her hand
to rest passively in his. "There are some things you men make more of
than us women. I reckon it's your natures to be that way. Now, me 'n you
have got to settle this thing for good and all right here and now, for
if I have to go home to-night with the fear that there is to be
bloodshed on my account I'd be more miserable than I ever was. Last
night, Alfred, after I left you at the lot-gate, I went home and done my
work with an odd feeling on me, I waited on Joe; I fixed the beds and
made my mother and aunt lie down, and then I was all alone and had time
to reflect over--over me and you. I reckon my thoughts had taken a new
turn by just one little remark of yours. Alfred, it was you asking to
come over on the--the first--the very first night after your wife left.
A girl will do a lot of headstrong things when her pity and admiration
are worked up for a man she loves, but now and then, if she's sensible,
some powerful small thing will make her think. Alfred, I saw the brink
we was standing on, as plain as if we was on a high cliff and there was
nothing between us and the bottom, and all sorts of forces was blinding
us and pulling and shoving us over. I'm a good, pure girl--no purer, in
thought or act, ever lived, and yet I've been in an inch of having a bad
character saddled on me for the rest of my life. As I looked at little
Joe asleep in his bed and remembered that I had given my word and bond
to the law to make a worthy mother to him, as I looked at them two old
women who think I'm already robed in the garb of paradise, and realized
that one mischievous word started about me and you would ruin me and all
the others--I say, when that thought come to me I wondered how I could,
in my right senses, have talked to you as I have and let you know my
feelings. I can't believe that it is wrong to--to feel as I do toward
you, because I was drawed into it by things that I couldn't avoid. You
was always trying to help me, and was so sweet and good and manly and
respectful that, knowing about your own troubles, I couldn't help
myself. Then I saw you loved--liked me, and the--the pure, hungry joy of
it--the dazzling glory of it, bound me hand and foot, and I plunged in
without thought or caution. But we are cooler now, Alfred, and we've got
to keep our heads. To begin with, you have got to let this matter with
that scamp drop. I demand it; my good name demands it; I haven't given
you the right to fight battles over me, and I don't intend to. I'd
rather let that man, repulsive as he is, kiss me a dozen times than
have to hang my head before them I love. They would take Joe from me; it
would hurry my mother to her grave; it would be a living death. See,
here's the revolver." She, forced a white smile as she slid it into the
pocket of his coat. "Dispose of it; I don't want to be reminded of
what's happened. I'm giving it to you because I can trust you. I know
you'll do as I ask."
"Do as you ask me--good God!" Henley bit his lip till the blood ran
against his fine teeth, and he fell to quivering. "I see what you mean,
and I know you are right, and yet, and yet, I couldn't have let him walk
off like that if I hadn't thought--"
"I know--I saw that in your eye," Dixie went on, firmly--"and that's why
I'm making you promise now. No matter what happens, Alfred, you are
going to avoid that man--you are going to protect me in a higher and
braver way than spilling human blood. You'll avoid him, won't you?"
She saw the muscles of his face settle into a rigid grimace, his eyes
flared, his great breast heaved, and he nodded. "Yes," he said, "I'll
avoid him; that is, I think--yes, I know I'll do it for your sake."
"There, I knew you wouldn't refuse me," Dixie cried, almost merrily.
"Now let's walk on. You mustn't go all the way. I'm afraid our dream is
over, Alfred. This scare has opened my eyes to our earthly duties. I'm
going to think of you just as--as often as I wish, and lo--love you, but
we mustn't meet often. I want you to love me, too--that's God's truth,
but don't tell me so, Alfred, any more--not a single time."
"How can I help it?" He turned on her, his face full of fire, his voice
shaking with passion. He threw his arms about her and was drawing her
into a close embrace when she stiffened her body and, with firm hands,
disengaged herself, and, as she pushed him back, she said: "No, no! that
will not do, Alfred. You must never do that again. It isn't because I
don't want you to. If we had the right, I could rest forever in your
dear arms; I could--oh, Alfred, what does God mean by treating us like
this?"
"He means that we were made for one another," Henley gulped, as his eyes
probed her own. "I know it--I know it."
"Yes, maybe," she said, as she moved onward, "but perhaps not for this
life, Alfred. Our love is as eternal as that space above is endless. It
is spiritual and pure; let's keep it that way. Now I'll leave you. Don't
forget."
"I'll obey your commands," Henley answered, fervidly. "I know my duty
and I'll try to do it."
She hung back a moment longer, her pretty, arching brows drawn together
in thought. "I'm more worried about you and Hank Bradley than you may
guess," she said. "Even if you don't meet him, he may do you some other
injury. In fact, he once said--" She paused, her eyes on the ground.
"He said what, Dixie?" Henley prompted.
"He said something one day that worried me a lot," she went on, slowly.
"It was the day, you remember, when he was drinking and you ordered him
from the store. I met him, and he was in an awful state of fury. I
didn't tell you about it because I was afraid it would make trouble."
"Oh, I reckon he was mad that day," Henley said, lightly. "He looked it
when he left."
"It wasn't that exactly," Dixie said. "He seemed to be under the same
impression that lots of folks are, that--that you are very much in love
with your wife, and always have been, for he sneered a great deal about
it, and finally said he knew something which, if he was not bound by
promise to keep, would tear you all to pieces."
"Humph!" Henley sniffed, "I reckon it was some lie or other that Dick
Wrinkle told him when they was out West together. You know Dick hated me
like a snake. That ain't nothing, don't let it bother you."
"I couldn't help it," Dixie said, as she turned away. "It looked to me
like he really meant something important. He seemed so sure that he had
you in his power. Now, good-bye. Keep your promise."