One morning Tilly was occupied in the little front yard of her home.
Some rose-bushes needed attention, and with a pair of large scissors she
was pruning the branches and cutting the weeds away with a garden
trowel. Suddenly, happening to glance toward the town, she noticed one
of the street-hacks approaching. There was no doubt that it was headed
for the cottage, and a sudden qualm of alarm passed over her. Indeed,
she feared that some accident might have happened to John, for he had
told her that he was at work on a scaffold to which large stones were
being hoisted. The negro cabman seemed to be in a hurry, for he was
lashing his horse vigorously.
The cab stopped at the gate. The door was opened and Richard Whaley
stepped out. He wore his best suit of clothes, but it was badly wrinkled
and covered with dust. His black-felt hat was crushed, and its broad
brim had been pulled down over his eyes. Tilly heard him order the man
to wait, and the tone of his voice sent a shock of terror through her.
She had never heard him speak like that before, nor had she beheld such
a look in his haggard face. His whole form drooped and quivered as with
palsy as he came toward the gate.
"Father!" Tilly gasped, but she said no more, for the wild stare of the
bloodshot eyes cowed her into silence. He swung open the gate and lunged
into the yard.
"Where is that--where is John Trott?" he asked, panting, saliva like
that of an idiot dripping from his shaking lip. "Where is he, I say?"
Tilly saw the negro staring curiously. She knew he was listening. Almost
deprived of her wits, yet she was thoughtful, and she said:
"Come in, father; come in?"
"Oh, he is inside, is he?"
"Come in," Tilly answered, evasively. "Let's not talk out here."
She led the way into the sitting-room and tremblingly placed a chair for
him, noting as she did so that his coarse shoes were untied, his hat
without a band, his cravat awry, his shirt unclean. He refused the
chair, and stood holding to the back of it with a besmudged hand. Then
her alert eyes took in the bulge of the right-hand pocket of his short
coat. A weighty article drew it sharply downward. She knew that it was a
revolver, and her blood ran cold in her veins.
"Where is John Trott?" Whaley demanded, raspingly, and he looked toward
the door leading into the dining-room. That room was darkened and he
bent and peered toward it like a beast about to spring on its prey.
"He is not here, father," Tilly said, in almost a gentle whisper.
"Not here? Where has he gone?"
She hesitated and then answered, "Out in the country, father."
"I don't believe it." He turned, automatically laid his hand on his
revolver, and left the room. She stood still. She heard him stalking
from room to room, now striking against a chair or a table or tripping
on a rug. Through the window she saw the cabman, his gaze on the cottage
door. Whaley passed the window; he was walking around the house; his
hand was in his right pocket; he stumbled over a tuft of grass, almost
fell, and uttered a snort of fury. She raised a window at the side of
the house, and saw him looking into the little woodshed in the rear of
the lot. He turned and strode back to the cottage, entering at the
kitchen door and clamping over the resounding floor back to her.
"Where is he? I say," he snarled.
"I told you, father," she said. "Why--what is the matter? What do you
want? Why are you so excited?"
"You know well enough!" he cried. "Don't stand there and tell me that
you don't know all or more than I do. Show him to me. I want to meet the
white-livered atheistic agent of hell. And when I do meet him he'll
never sneak into another respectable home like he did in mine. Do you
know what is being said? Do you know what is spreading from county to
county up home?"
"I can imagine," Tilly sighed. She felt faint. The objects in the room,
the glaring fanatic, the sunny windows were swinging around her. She
pulled herself together. She told herself she must be strong. Unless she
conquered her weakness and held taut her wits her husband would be
killed. What was to be done? Suddenly an idea came. She told herself
that it might work. There was nothing else to do, and at any cost she
must prevent the meeting of the two men. Another moment and the madman
might be driving away in search for his victim.
"Father," she began, and she advanced to him and started to lay her hand
on his arm, but he drew back and snarled like an infuriated beast.
"Did you know about that strumpet, Liz Trott, before you married her
son?" he asked.
"No, father, I did not; but you don't understand John's position--"
"Understand the devil and all his imps! He'll understand me when I meet
him; that will be enough."
"Father, sit down, please. John is away out in the country and won't be
home for a long time. Please, please don't raise a row here and stir up
this whole town. John is suffering enough without that. Now listen to
me. You know I have some rights. I am a married woman now, and I've got
a heart and soul in me. I've got the right as an innocent woman not to
be dragged into a scandal like this. If you shot John in your present
fury I'd have to be held as a witness, and you'd be put in jail. You are
a religious man. Surely you ought to know that God would not forgive you
for treating your own child as you are about to treat me. I am willing
to go home with you right away--this minute! The cab is waiting, and we
could catch the twelve-o'clock train. Surely you regretted that other
shooting affair you had, and are grateful to God for sparing you from
the worst. I'll pack up and go. It won't take me long."
Slowly and limply he sank into a chair. His soot-streaked hands clutched
his knees and he groaned. She saw him shake his frowsy head and a tremor
went through him. He was being twisted between the hands of two forces.
He was silent for several minutes, save for his loud breathing. Glancing
through the window, Tilly saw that the negro had approached the gate.
She went to the window and leaned out.
"Can you tell me," she asked him, as he saw her and lifted his hat,
"what time the Tennessee north-bound train leaves?"
"Twelve ten, miss," he answered, trying to read the suppressed mystery
of her features. "Do you need me in dar? Dat man look' dangerous ter me,
miss."
"Oh no." She shook her head and forced a smile. "But I want to ask--can
you take us to the station, and a small trunk also?"
"Yes'm."
"Hold on!" It was Whaley's voice, and he had risen. "Tell that nigger
to-- Let me speak to him. Do you think I came down here to--"
Tilly thrust her small person between him and the window. She laid two
opposing hands on his breast and checked him.
"I'm going to save you from murder-- I will, I will!" she said,
desperation filling her voice with power and causing his fierce stare to
flicker. "If you meet my husband you will shoot him and the blood of a
helpless, suffering, noble man will be on your head. You know what the
brand on Cain was. You will bear it till you meet God with it on your
brow. Do you think He'd forgive you? No, you'd have to burn for it in
eternal torment, and you know it. You know you thanked God for sparing
you before. Are you going to do even a worse thing now?"
He sank, half pushed down by her, into his chair. She saw the revolver,
now exposed by his gaping pocket, and had an impulse to take it, but
realized that the act would infuriate him anew. So she left it alone and
stood squarely in front of him.
"You are not going to damn your soul," she went on, firmly. "Jesus, your
Saviour and mine, forgave the guilty and you are refusing to pardon
_even the innocent_. You are going to take me home. You are going to sit
quietly there till I pack my trunk, and then we'll take the cab to the
train."
He groaned under a vast inrolling wave of indecision, and stared at her
like a helpless, thwarted child, and yet she knew that the flames
smoldering within him were apt to burst at any moment.
"I want to go home," she said. "I'm giving you this chance to take me in
a decent way. If you refuse, I don't know what I'll do, but you'd better
take me. For your sake and mine, you'd better do it. Now, I am being
driven to the wall, father, and down inside of me is your stubborn
nature when it is roused. You harm my husband, and see what I'll do.
I'll swear against you at the court of man. I'll appear against you on
the Day of Judgment."
He stared at her helplessly. His great mouth fell open and he groaned.
"I understand, and--and you may be right," he faltered. "But you'd
better hurry. I know myself, and I know that if I met him I'd put him
out of the way if all hell stood between me and him. He has dragged my
name down into the mire and made me a laughing-stock before all men. I'm
pointed at, sneered at--called a senile fool."
"I'll hurry," she promised. "It won't take long."
In the little bedroom she threw open her trunk and began hastily to
pack. New fears were now assailing her. What if John should suddenly
come home for something he had left, as he had done once or twice?
Indeed, there on the bureau lay the blue-and-white drawing which only
the night before he had been studying. He might come for that, using
Cavanaugh's horse and buggy, as he frequently did. The thought chilled
her to the marrow of her bones. In her haste she all but tore her simple
dresses from their hooks in the closet and stuffed them, unfolded, into
the trunk. Now and then a little stifled sob escaped her. Her father
sat still and soundless in the other room. She wanted to brush his
clothes, tie his shoes, and fix his hatband before starting away, but
time was too valuable.
There was a pad of writing-paper and a pencil on the bureau, and she
told herself that she must write John a note and leave it. She closed
and locked her trunk. Then she turned to the pad. She took up the pencil
and started to write, but was interrupted. Her father crossed the hall
and stood in the doorway.
"What are you doing?" he asked, a suspicious gleam in the eyes which
took in the pad and pencil.
"Nothing. I am ready," she replied, dropping the pencil and turning to a
window. "Come in and get the trunk," she ordered the cabman.
Nothing was said by Whaley or herself now, for the negro, hat in hand,
was entering. And when he had left with the trunk, Tilly said:
"Come on, father, let's go."
Sullenly and still with a haunting air of indecision on him, he trudged
ahead of her out into the yard. She closed the door but did not lock it.
"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way
that I can see, and yet I must--oh, I must!"
Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood
waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly,
ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His
lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and
hammer the glass door of the cab.
The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's
eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen," she said, in a low tone. "See
my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came
for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home."
The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed
to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes
were now on him and his daughter.
"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door.
She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her.
Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of
the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the
trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the
cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted,
seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her
hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare
do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no
risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above
the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant
railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some
ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and,
as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed
each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they
play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed
to be whirling to its doom?
A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed
to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what
if, on finding her gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father
before the train left?
"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He
made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver
watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it,
and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with
difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her.
They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood
about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh
might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire
on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly
noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her
father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of
them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so.
Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered
him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring
more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to
escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the
door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a
policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to
her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the
tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve.
Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well
when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk
wrote on a blackboard bulletin:
"36 North-bound 15 minutes late."
The time dragged. More curious persons came to the door, stared, and
even paused. The cabman came for his fare. She paid him for the use of
his cab all the morning. "Don't forget," she whispered.
"I won't, miss," he said, comprehendingly, and thereupon she put some
more money into his hand.
"Please, please, don't forget!" she repeated.
She watched him as he walked away, and then she saw the policeman join
him, and the two turned to one side and began to talk earnestly
together.
At last the train came. Through a gaping throng, ever increasing, she
led her father to a seat in one of the coaches. There was only a short
stop, and the train was soon moving again. The relief was great, and a
vast sense of weakness came over her. She felt like crying, but she knew
that would never do. She yearned for the opportunity to confide in some
one. It could not be her mother, for she had never been understood by
her mother. There was one friend who would understand, who had always
understood, and that was Joel Eperson. Joel would be grieved. She was
the wife of another, but that would make no difference to Joel Eperson,
for that he was still faithful to her she did not doubt. She told
herself that she must see Joel at once and get his advice. She could
think of no one else upon whom she could so confidently rely, and she
must go to some one, for all the initiative she had ever possessed
seemed to have been ruthlessly destroyed along with every girlish dream,
hope, and ideal.