Toward evening of the same day, Warwick took his way down Front Street
in the gathering dusk. By the time night had spread its mantle over the
earth, he had reached the gate by which he had seen the girl of his
morning walk enter the cedar-bordered garden. He stopped at the gate
and glanced toward the house, which seemed dark and silent and deserted.
"It's more than likely," he thought, "that they are in the kitchen. I
reckon I'd better try the back door."
But as he drew cautiously near the corner, he saw a man's figure
outlined in the yellow light streaming from the open door of a small
house between Front Street and the cooper shop. Wishing, for reasons
of his own, to avoid observation, Warwick did not turn the corner, but
walked on down Front Street until he reached a point from which he
could see, at a long angle, a ray of light proceeding from the kitchen
window of the house behind the cedars.
"They are there," he muttered with a sigh of relief, for he had feared
they might be away. "I suspect I'll have to go to the front door,
after all. No one can see me through the trees."
He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open.
There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work.
Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement,
pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after
which it opened readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded path,
tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front
door, not too loudly, lest this too might attract the attention of the
man across the street. There was no response to his rap. He put his
ear to the door and heard voices within, and the muffled sound of
footsteps. After a moment he rapped again, a little louder than before.
There was an instant cessation of the sounds within. He rapped a third
time, to satisfy any lingering doubt in the minds of those who he felt
sure were listening in some trepidation. A moment later a ray of light
streamed through the keyhole.
"Who's there?" a woman's voice inquired somewhat sharply.
"A gentleman," answered Warwick, not holding it yet time to reveal
himself. "Does Mis' Molly Walden live here?"
"Yes," was the guarded answer. "I'm Mis' Walden. What's yo'r
business?"
"I have a message to you from your son John."
A key clicked in the lock. The door opened, and the elder of the two
women Warwick had seen upon the piazza stood in the doorway, peering
curiously and with signs of great excitement into the face of the
stranger.
"You 've got a message from my son, you say?" she asked with tremulous
agitation. "Is he sick, or in trouble?"
"No. He's well and doing well, and sends his love to you, and hopes
you've not forgotten him."
"Fergot him? No, God knows I ain't fergot him! But come in, sir, an'
tell me somethin' mo' about him."
Warwick went in, and as the woman closed the door after him, he threw a
glance round the room. On the wall, over the mantelpiece, hung a steel
engraving of General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and, on the
opposite wall, a framed fashion-plate from "Godey's Lady's Book." In
the middle of the room an octagonal centre-table with a single leg,
terminating in three sprawling feet, held a collection of curiously
shaped sea-shells. There was a great haircloth sofa, somewhat the worse
for wear, and a well-filled bookcase. The screen standing before the
fireplace was covered with Confederate bank-notes of various
denominations and designs, in which the heads of Jefferson Davis and
other Confederate leaders were conspicuous.
"Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away,"
murmured the young man, as his eye fell upon this specimen of
decorative art.
The woman showed her visitor to a seat. She then sat down facing him
and looked at him closely. "When did you last see my son?" she asked.
"I've never met your son," he replied.