One evening, several days after Charles's trip with Mary to the
hiding-place of the two boys, he and Rowland sat on the front veranda.
It was dusk and supper was almost ready.
"We may have to wait a little while," the old gentleman explained, in
his languid way. "Mary is looking for company, I understand, and he may
be slow getting here. He is sometimes, for he is a little careless about
such things--more careless, I know, than I used to be in my
courting-days."
With a sudden depression of spirits Charles surmised that the expected
visitor was Albert Frazier, and he made no comment. Presently Mary came
down the stairs. She had changed her dress, rearranged her hair, and
looked very pretty as she stood in the doorway and glanced down the road
toward Carlin.
"You and Mr. Brown need not wait, father," she said. "You know how slow
Albert is. I'm sure Mr. Brown is both hungry and tired. He has finished
the cotton and started on the corn. Albert and I can eat later. I want
to get news from Tobe Keith. Albert promised to go by his house before
starting out."
"I am not at all hungry," Charles declared, as Mary disappeared in the
parlor.
"Well, I am," Rowland said, "and I shall not wait longer for Frazier, or
any one else. I have some notes to make after supper, and this delay is
upsetting me. Come, let's go in and leave the two sweethearts to eat and
coo together. They won't eat much, I reckon. By the way, in my
genealogical research I find that there are many family names of French
origin in our mountains. This Frazier--'Frazyea' would be the French
pronunciation--may have had fine old Huguenot ancestors away back in the
early settlement of South Carolina. He has his good points. He is not
exactly the stamp of man I would have wanted my daughter to marry in the
old days, you know, but things are frightfully changed. The financial
shoe is on the other foot, you see, and it is money that founds
families."
Their supper was soon ended, and on their return to the veranda they
found Mary still watching the road. "I see him, I think," she announced,
wearily. "It looks like a man with a broad-brimmed hat on. Yes, that is
Albert."
The rider drew in at the gate and dismounted, leading his horse into the
yard and up to the steps. "You must excuse me, little girl," he said. "I
couldn't make it earlier and get the news you wanted. The doctor was
making an examination and was delayed. Tobe fainted several times. He is
weak, the doctor says tell you, but there is still hope." Here catching
sight of Charles, he continued, gruffly: "Say, fellow, put up my horse.
And, say, give him a pail of water from the well and some shelled corn
and a bundle of fodder."
Starting in surprise, Charles was about to thunder out a furious reply;
to save himself from such a display of temper in the presence of a lady
he simply turned back into the sitting-room.
"Did he hear me?" he heard Frazier asking his host, in a rising tone of
anger.
"He was not hired for that sort of work, Albert," the old man said,
pacifically. "He has been in the field ever since sunup. Zilla takes
care of our own stock. Come, I'll go with you and show you the stall and
the feed."
Frazier swore aloud and muttered something about "tramp farm-hands"
which Charles could not catch; then he and Rowland led the horse to the
stable. Charles was standing in the center of the room when Mary came
in. She walked straight up to him and laid her hand on his arm.
"Don't let that bother you; please don't!" she urged, excitedly. "I
don't want you to have trouble with him. He is a dangerous sort of man.
If he takes a dislike to you he will do his best to injure you, and he
has it in his power to do all sorts of things, along with his brother as
an officer of the law."
"I understand. I have already heard a few things he has said about me,"
Charles replied, still furious, and yet trying to calm himself. "I know
the kind of man he is exactly. But you are in trouble, and I shall not
worry you in the matter. If he insults me again I'll try to overlook
it--I _will_ overlook it."
"Thank you," Mary said, gently and sweetly, in a voice which quivered
with curbed emotion, "but he mustn't do it again. I must talk to him. He
has no right to come here giving orders like that to people who have
been as kind and unselfish as you have been. Oh, I don't know what I am
to do, Mr. Brown! When he was telling about how weak Tobe Keith was my
very soul seemed to die in my body."
The room was dimly lighted by an oil-lamp on a table in the center of
the room. She stood facing him, her wondrous eyes filling with tears of
anxiety, her lips twitching, her brows knitted, her hands clasped over
her snowy apron.
"I don't know what to say to comfort you," said Charles. His voice shook
and he tried to steady it. "I am ashamed of myself for sinking so low as
to be angry with that man at such a time as this. You are stretched on
the rack, Miss Rowland, and you are being tortured. I wish I could take
your place--as God is my judge, I do! I can't bear the sight of it. It
is unfair, hellish, satanic! It must not go on like this."
"I want you to--to think well of me," Mary said, haltingly, "and I
believe you will. You must not think me shallow if I appear to be
light-hearted to-night with Mr. Frazier. You see, everything depends on
him now. He knows where the boys are, and if I were to anger him or
rouse his suspicions in any way he would turn against us. I am sorry he
is like that, but he is. I see now that I made a mistake in allowing him
to pay such constant attention to me, but I am only a weak girl and
couldn't help it. You see, at first he offered to take me to places,
parties, picnics, and I wanted to go, as any girl would in my place, and
that is the way it began. Then he became dictatorial and jealous, and so
it went on till--well, you see how it now is. My father is indebted to
him and so am I now."
"Surely you haven't obligated yourself--" stammered Charles.
"Not in so many words," Mary broke in, "but it amounts to the same
thing. He wants me to let him furnish the money to pay Tobe Keith's
expenses to Atlanta, and I see no other way than to accept his offer. If
it goes that far, I shall consent to be his wife. If he saves my
brothers from the scaffold I'll be his slave for life. Love? I don't
expect love. What he feels for me is not love, and what I would be
giving would not be, either. Love is a dreamlike thing, more of the soul
than the body."
"I know what love is now," Charles thought. "I never knew before, but I
do now."
The steps of the two men were heard coming from the barn, and Mary went
hastily out of the lamplight and into the gloom of the hall.
"Our supper is ready, Albert," Charles heard her say. "Come on before it
is cold."
Passing through the dining-room, Charles managed to reach the yard by
means of a side door without having to meet Frazier. He found himself
standing among some fig-trees and grape-vines in the dewy grass,
surrounded by what had been beds of flowers in the day when the place
had been well kept. An unshaded window of the dining-room was before
him, and through it Charles saw Frazier and Mary approaching the table.
The man's arm was actually about the girl's waist, his coarse lips were
close to her pale cheek. He was smiling broadly, and laughing as if over
some jest of his own making. Charles would have withdrawn his eyes, but
he was held as if spellbound by the tragedy which was being enacted,
with him as the sole spectator. Charles noted that Frazier sank heavily
into a chair without first seeing that Mary was seated. He saw him take
a cigar damp with saliva from the corner of his great mouth and place it
on a plate at his side. He saw him reach out and take Mary's hand and
fondle it patronizingly as he continued to talk. Even in the dim
lamplight Charles read in the girl's face the growing desire to resent
the fellow's coarse familiarity.
Charles uttered a groan and turned away. Off toward the barn he
wandered, finding himself presently at the blacksmith's shop. The wide
sliding-door was open, and for no reason of which he was conscious he
went into the dark room and sat on the anvil. Money was now the thing he
wanted above all else in the world. If only he could anonymously send to
the suffering girl the funds needed for Keith's treatment, how glorious
it would be! So small a thing and yet it might free the girl from a
union that would be a lifelong outrage against her sensitive spirit.
Only four hundred dollars! He remembered having spent more than that in
a single night at a card-table--more than that on a drunken trip to
Atlantic City in the company of reckless associates. Obtaining the
money, however, was out of the question. He might get it from William,
but he had pledged his honor never to enter his brother's life again;
besides, the time was too short. The window of the dining-room gleamed
in a sheen of light through the boughs of the trees about the house. He
fancied he saw the pair again, and the thought maddened him. Marry that
man! Could she possibly work herself up to the ordeal? Yes, for she was
simply ready to sacrifice herself, and Charles knew from experience what
self-sacrifice was like. He groaned as he left the shop and went toward
the barn. The dense wood beyond it, lying under the mystic light of the
rising moon, lured him into its bosom, and he decided that he would walk
there, for no reason than that he hoped in that way to throw off the
gnawing agony which lay upon him.
He had climbed over the fence and was about to plunge into the thicket
when he heard a low, guarded whistle. He recognized it as the one
Kenneth had used in response to his own as he approached the secret
hiding-place. In a low whistle he answered and stood still.
"It's him!" He now recognized Kenneth's voice. "I knew him as he got
over the fence. Come on, stupid! It's all right!"
"Yes, it is all right. I'm alone," Charles said softly.
"Come here to us, then," Kenneth proposed. "The bushes are thicker."
Charles obeyed, and soon stood facing the two bedraggled boys.
"What does this mean?" he asked, aghast over the risk they were running.
"It means that we've made up our minds to hide closer to home," Kenneth
half-sheepishly explained. "Nobody's looking for us here in the
mountains; you said so yourself. Sister said Albert Frazier was keeping
the sheriff off the track. We don't like it out there, and--"
"How is Tobe Keith?" Martin's tremulous voice broke in. "What is the use
of so much chatter about smaller things? How is he?"
"The doctors say there has been no vital change," Charles informed the
quaking boy.
"No change? My God! when _will_ there be a change?" Martin groaned. He
was covering his pale face with his hands, when Kenneth roughly swept
them down.
"Don't be a baby, silly!" he snarled. "Blubbering won't undo the matter.
If he dies, he dies, and we can't help it." Kenneth forced a wry smile
which on his soiled, bloodless face was more like a grimace in the white
moonlight. "Martin behaves like that all the time, morning, noon, and
night. That is one reason I decided to come nearer home. He needs sister
to cheer him up and pet him. I don't know how. Then our cave is damp and
chilly. I'm afraid he will get sick. He don't eat enough. I get away
with most of the grub. Here is my plan, Brown. You are a good chap, and
a friend, too. We may as well sleep in the hay in the loft of the barn.
We'd have nothing to fear in the night, and through the day, with all of
the family to keep a lookout up and down the road, we could get away
even if the sheriff did come."
Charles informed him of Albert Frazier's presence in the house and that
he might remain over night. At this the two boys exchanged dubious
glances.
"Well," Kenneth opined, slowly, "I am sure he can be trusted in the
main. As long as he and sister understand each other he will be on our
side. He has stood behind the old man often in raising money; though,
take it from me, Brown, Albert is not made of money. He owes a lot here
and there and has to be dunned frequently even for small amounts. In her
last note sister said that he would raise the money to send Keith to
Atlanta. He can get it, I guess, by some hook or crook."
"Sister mustn't let him furnish the money," Martin faltered, his voice
raising in uncertainty and ending in firmness.
"Mustn't? What do you mean, silly?" and Kenneth turned on him
impatiently.
"Because she doesn't want to accept it from him, that's why," Martin
stated, almost angrily. "She doesn't want to bind herself to him like
that. I know how she feels about that fellow. She was just amusing
herself with him and was ready to break off when this awful thing came
up. If she takes the money and binds herself we'll be responsible, for
if we hadn't been drunk that night at Carlin--"
"Oh, dry up! dry up! you sniffling chump!" Kenneth retorted. "We are in
a hole, and we have got to get out the best we can."
"She mustn't take the money from him," reiterated the younger boy,
turning his twisting face aside. "If she takes it she will marry him,
and she is no wife for that dirty, low-bred scoundrel. You and I know
all about the girls he has ruined. Didn't Jeff Raymond come all the way
from Camden County to shoot him like a dog for the way he treated his
niece, and then the sheriff stepped in and smoothed it over? Pouf! do
you think I want my sweet, beautiful sister to marry a man like that to
save my neck? I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Brown, if she starts to do
that for my sake I'll drown myself. She is an angel. She has had enough
trouble from me and Ken. We have treated her worse than a nigger slave
ever was treated."
"For the Lord's sake, let up!" thundered Kenneth. "This is no
camp-meeting. If sis wants to take the money, let her do it. Now, Brown,
I'm willing to trust Albert Frazier to some extent, but he need not know
just yet that we are bunking in the barn. Let him keep on thinking we
are at the other place. Tell the others about it, though. We've had
enough to eat to-night, but please have Aunt Zilla get us up a warm
breakfast in the morning. It will tickle the old soul and she will
spread herself. You see, I'm in a better mood than Martin is. I don't
cross a bridge till I get to it, but he has attended Keith's funeral a
hundred times in a single night, and as for the other"--Kenneth uttered
a short, hoarse laugh and made a motion as if tying a rope around his
neck--"he has been through _that_ quite as often. That boy is full of
imagination. Mother used to say he would write poems or paint pictures.
He has 'painted towns red' with me often enough, the Lord knows. Some
say I am ruining him. I don't know. I don't care. If a fellow is weak
enough to be twisted by another--well, he deserves to be twisted, that's
all."
"I don't blame anybody but _myself_," Martin whispered from a full,
almost gurgling throat. "I know I never let sister twist me, and I ought
to have done so. A man is a low cur that will bring his sister down to
this sort of thing, and that's what I am. But she shall not marry
Frazier if I can help it. The trouble is, I can't help it!" he ended,
with a groan. "By my own conduct I have sealed her fate and mine. If our
gentle mother were--"
Kenneth abruptly turned his back on his brother. "Come on," he said to
Charles, with a frown of displeasure, "let's go to the barn and put the
baby to bed in the hay. Then you may go tell sister, if you will be so
kind."