The following morning, in her neatest dress and white sun-bonnet,
Virginia walked to Wilson's store to buy some sewing-thread. She was on
her way back, and was traversing the most sequestered part of the road,
where a brook of clear mountain water ran rippling by, and an abundance
of willows and reeds hid the spot from view of any one approaching, when
she was startled by Langdon Chester suddenly appearing before her from
behind a big, moss-grown bowlder.
"Don't run, Virginia--for God's sake don't run!" he said, humbly. "I
simply _must_ speak to you."
"But I told you I didn't want to meet you again," Virginia answered,
sternly. "Why won't you leave me alone? If I've acted the fool and
lowered myself in my estimation for all the rest of my life, that ought
to be enough. It is as much as I can stand. You've simply got to stop
following me up."
"You don't understand, Virginia," he pleaded. "You admit you feel
different since that night; grant the same to me. I've passed through
absolute torment. I thought, after you talked to me so angrily the last
time I saw you, that I could forget it if I left. I went to Atlanta, but
I suffered worse than ever down there. I was on the verge of suicide.
You see, I learned how dear you had become to me."
"Bosh! I don't believe a word of it!" Virginia retorted, her eyes
flashing, though her face was deathly pale. "I don't believe any man
could really care for a girl and treat her as you did me that night. God
knows I did wrong--a wrong that will never be undone, but I did it for
the sake of my suffering mother. That's the only thing I have to lessen
my self-contempt, and that is little; but you--you--oh, I don't want to
talk to you! I want to blot it all--everything about it--from my mind."
"But you haven't heard me through," he said, advancing a step nearer to
her, his face ablaze with admiration and unsatisfied passion. "I find
that I simply can't live without you, and as for what happened that
awful night, I've come to wipe it out in the most substantial way a
self-respecting man can. I've come to ask you to marry me, Virginia--to
be my wife."
"To be your wife!" she gasped. "Me--you--_we_ marry--you and I? Live
together, as--"
"Yes, dear, that's what I mean. I know you are a good, pure girl, and I
am simply miserable without you. No human being could imagine the depth
of my love. It has simply driven me crazy, along with the way you have
acted lately. My father and mother may object, but it's got to be done,
and it will all blow over. Now, Virginia, what will you say? I leave it
all to you. You may name the place and time--I'm your slave from now on.
Your wonderful grace and beauty have simply captured me. I'll do the
best I can to hold up my end of the thing. My cousin, Chester Sively, is
a good sort of chap, and, to be frank, when he saw how miserable I was
down there, he drew it out of me. I told him my folks would object and
make it hot for me, but that I could not live without you, and he
advised me to come straight home and propose to you. You see, he thought
perhaps I had offended you in not making my intentions plainer at the
start, and that when you knew how I felt you would not be so hard on me.
Now, you are not going to be, are you, little girl? After all those
delicious walks we used to have, and the things you have at least let me
believe, I know you won't go back on me. Oh, we'll have a glorious time!
Chester will advance me some money, I am sure, and we'll take a trip.
We'll sail from Savannah to New York and stay away, by George, till the
old folks come to their senses. I admit I was wrong in all that
miserable business. I ought to have given you that money and not made
you come for it, but being a mad fool like that once doesn't prove I
can't turn over a new leaf. Now, you try me."
He advanced towards her, his hand extended to clasp hers, but she
suddenly drew back.
"I couldn't think of marrying you," she said, almost under her breath.
"I couldn't under any possible circumstances."
"Oh, Virginia, you don't mean that!" he cried, crestfallen. "You are
still mad about being--being frightened that night, and that old hag
finding out about it. No woman would relish having another come up at
just such an awkward moment and get her vile old head full of all sorts
of unfair notions. But this, you see--you are old enough to see that
marriage actually puts everything straight, even to the bare possibility
of anything ever leaking out. That's why I think you will act sensibly."
To his surprise, Virginia, without looking at him, covered her face with
her hands. He saw her pretty shoulders rise as if she had smothered a
sob. Hoping that she was moved by the humility and earnestness of his
appeal, he caught one of her hands gently and started to pull it from
her face. But, to his surprise, she shrank back and stared straight and
defiantly in his eyes.
"That's the way _you_ look at it!" she cried, indignantly. "You think I
hopelessly compromised myself by what I did, and that I'll have to tie
myself to you for life in consequence; but I won't. I'd rather die. I
couldn't live with you. I hate you! I detest you! I hate and detest you
because you've made me detest myself. To think that I have to stand here
listening to a proposal in--in the humiliating way you make it."
"Look here, Virginia, you are going too far!" he cried, white with the
dawning realization of defeat and quivering in every limb. "You are no
fool, if you _are_ only a girl, and you know that a man in--well, in my
position, will not take a thing like this calmly. I've been desperate,
and I hardly knew what I was about, but this--I can't stand this,
Virginia."
"Well, I couldn't marry you," she answered. "If you were a king and I a
poor beggar, I wouldn't agree to be your wife. I'd never marry a man I
did not thoroughly respect, and I don't respect you a bit. In fact,
knowing you has only shown me how fine and noble, by contrast, other men
are. Since this thing happened, one man--" She suddenly paused. Her
impulse had led her too far. He glared at her for an instant, and then
suddenly grasped her hand and held it in such a tight, brutal clasp that
she writhed in pain, but he held onto it, twisting it in his unconscious
fury.
"I know who you mean," he said. "I see it all now. You have seen Luke
King, and he has been saying sweet things to you. Ann Boyd is his
friend, too, and she hates me. But look here, if you think I will stand
having a man of that stamp defeat me, you don't know me. You don't know
the lengths a Chester will go to gain a point. I see it all. You've been
different of late. You used to like him, and he has been talking to you
since he got back. It will certainly be a dark day for him when he dares
to step between me and my plans."
"You are going entirely too fast," Virginia said, grown suddenly
cautious. "There's nothing, absolutely nothing, between Luke King and
myself, and, moreover, there never will be."
"You may tell that to a bigger fool than I am," Chester fumed. "I know
there is something between you two, and, frankly, trouble is brewing for
him. He may write his long-winded sermons about loving mankind, and bask
in the praise of the sentimental idiots who dote on him, but I'll draw
him back to practical things. I'll bring him down to the good,
old-fashioned way of settling matters between men."
"Well, it's cowardly of you to keep me here by brute force," Virginia
said, finally wresting her hand from his clasp and beginning to walk
onward. "I've said there is nothing between him and me, and I shall not
repeat it. If you want to raise a fuss over it, you will only make
yourself ridiculous."
"Well, I'll look after _that_ part of it," he cried, beside himself with
rage. "No mountain razor-back stripe of man like he is can lord it over
me, simply because the scum of creation is backing up his shallow ideas
with money. _I'll_ open his eyes."
And Langdon Chester, too angry and disappointed to be ashamed of
himself, stood still and allowed her to go on her way. A boy driving a
drove of mules turned the bend of the road, and Chester stepped aside,
but when they had passed he stood still and watched Virginia as she
slowly pursued her way.
"Great God, how am I to stand it?" he groaned. "I want her! I want her!
I'd work for her. I'd slave for her. I'd do anything under high heaven
to be able to call her my own--all my own! My God, isn't she beautiful?
That mouth, that proud poise of head, that neck and breast and form!
Were there ever such eyes set in a human head before--such a maddening
lip, such a--oh, I can't stand it! I wasn't made for defeat like this.
Marry her? I'd marry her if it impoverished every member of my family.
I'd marry her if the honeymoon ended in my death. At any rate, I would
have lived awhile. Does Luke King intend to marry her? Of course he
does--he has _seen_ her; but _shall_ he? No, there is one thing certain,
and that is that I could never live and know that she was receiving
another man's embraces. I'd kill him if it damned me eternally. And yet
I've played my last and biggest card. She won't marry me. She would
_once_, but she won't _now_. Yes, I'm facing a big, serious thing, but
I'll face it. If he tries to get her, the world will simply be too small
for both of us to live in together."