DURING supper that evening Mrs. Porter eyed her daughter furtively.
Cynthia ate very little and seemed abstracted, paying no heed to her
father's rambling, inconsequential remarks to her grandmother, who,
in her white lace cap, sat across the table from him. Supper over, the
family went out, leaving Cynthia to put the dishes away. Mrs. Radcliffe
shambled quietly to her own room, and Porter took his pipe to his
favorite chair on the porch. Being thus at liberty to carry out her
own plans, Mrs. Porter stole unnoticed into Cynthia's room, and in the
half-darkness looked about her. The room was in thorough order. The
white bedspread was as smooth as a drift of snow, and the pillows had
not a wrinkle or a crease. The old woman noiselessly opened the top
drawer of the bureau; here everything was in its place. She looked in
the next and the next with the same result. Then she stood erect in the
centre of the room, an expression of perplexity on her face. Suddenly
she seemed to have an inspiration, and she went to the girl's closet and
opened the door. And there, under a soiled dress belonging to Cynthia,
she found a travelling-bag closely packed.
With a soundless groan, Mrs. Porter dropped the dress, closed the
closet-door, and moved back to the centre of the room.
“My God! my God!” she cried. “I can't stand it! She's fully made up her
mind.”
Mrs. Porter left the room, and, passing her husband, whose placid face
appeared intermittently in a red disk of light on the end of the porch,
she went down the steps into the yard and thence around the house
towards the orchard and grape-arbor. She paused among the trees, looking
thoughtfully at the ground.
“If I'm going to do it,” she reflected, “I'd better throw out some hint
in advance, to sort of lead up to it. I wonder if my mind is actually
giving way? I am sure I've been through enough to--but somebody is
coming.”
It was Cynthia, and she came daintily over the dewy grass.
“Mother, is that you?” she called out.
Mrs. Porter made no reply.
“Mother, is that--but why didn't you answer me?” Cynthia came up, a
searching look of inquiry in her eyes.
Still Mrs. Porter showed not the slightest indication of being aware
of her presence. Cynthia, in increasing surprise, laid her hand on her
mother's arm, but Mrs. Porter shook it off impatiently.
“Look here, Nathan, if you don't quit following me up, dogging my steps,
and bothering me with your--” Mrs. Porter broke off, looking blankly
into Cynthia's face.
“Why, mother, what is the matter?” the girl exclaimed.
“Oh, you look like--you look like--” Mrs. Porter moved to a near-by
apple-tree and leaned against its trunk, and with her head down she
began to laugh softly, almost sillily. Cynthia drew near her again, and,
catching the old woman by the shoulders, she turned her forcibly to her.
“Mother, what's the matter?” she demanded, her tone now quite full of
alarm. .
“Oh, Cynthia, nothing is the matter with me! I'm all right, but, but,
but--good gracious! just this minute you were--we were all at the
table. Your pa was in his place, mother was in hers, and, how in the
world”--Mrs. Porter was looking around in seeming astonishment--“how in
the world did I get out here? I don't remember leaving the house. The
last thing I recall was--”
“Mother, what's the matter?”
Mrs. Porter stared in a bewildered way at her daughter for a moment,
then she put her hand to her brow with a weary gesture. “Something
_must_ be wrong with me,” she declared. “I didn't want to mention it,
but this evening as I was coming back from town I got rather warm, and
all at once I heard a little sound and felt something give way in my
head. Oh, Cynthia, I'm afraid--I'm afraid I'm going like your aunt
Martha did. They say hers was a drop of blood on the brain. Do you
suppose it could be that, daughter?”
“Oh, mother, come on in the house and lie down. Go to bed, and you
will feel better in the morning.” Cynthia caught her arm, and, greatly
perturbed, slowly led the old woman towards the house.
“It's worry, daughter,” Mrs. Porter said, confidingly--“worry about you.
You seem to be bothered on account of Nelson Floyd's being away, and
I've allowed that to prey on my thoughts.”
“Never mind him, mother,” Cynthia said. “Come on in and lie down. You
don't feel any pain, do you?”
“No, daughter, not a bit--not a bit; but your aunt didn't, either. She
didn't suffer.”
“Don't you think we ought to send for the doctor, mother?”
“Doctor? No--how ridiculous! Even if it is a drop on the brain, he
couldn't do me a bit of good. The brain is inside the--the--what do
you call it? See there, my mind isn't what it was. I can't think of as
common a thing as a--you know what I mean, Cynthia.”
“You mean skull, mother,” the girl said, anxiously.
“Yes, I mean that. Your aunt's memory was bad, too. She suddenly forgot
her own name, and came in from the strawberry-patch one day scared out
of her senses. The next thing was her hand getting numb. My thumb feels
queer; I believe you could stick a needle through it and I wouldn't feel
it. But don't you tell your pa, Cynthia. Wait, anyway, till to-morrow,
and see how I feel then. It may pass away, and then--then, again, it may
be the first stroke. They say people about my age usually have three,
and the last one ends it. I hope I'll go naturally--the way Martha went
was horrible; and yet when I think of all my trouble I--”
“Hush, mother, don't!” Cynthia cried. They had now reached the porch.
Porter had retired, and so they passed on unnoticed to Mrs. Porter's
room.
Cynthia helped her mother undress and get into the bed, and then she
went to her own room and sat down, irresolutely, at her table. She
leaned her head on her crossed arms and remained quite still. She was
very tired in brain and body, and presently dropped to sleep. She slept
for about two hours. Suddenly she waked with a start. The clock in the
sitting-room was striking ten. Nelson would be at the grape-arbor soon,
she told herself with a shudder. Perhaps he was already there, and too
cautious to whistle as on former meetings. She stood up, tiptoed to the
closet, and opened the door. She uncovered the hidden valise and lifted
it out into the light. Then a recollection of her mother's strange
condition struck her like a blow in the face, and, standing in the
centre of the room, she sighed.
Just then she heard the tread of bare feet in the hall, and a
low-mumbled monologue. Her heart stood still, for she recognized her
mother's voice. Going softly to the door, she peered out, and there,
in a thin, white dress, stood Mrs. Porter, Nathan's double-barrelled
shot-gun clutched in her hand, her long hair hanging loose on her
back. The old woman's face was averted, and she seemed unaware of her
daughter's presence.
“Lord, my God, pardon me for this last act,” she was praying. “It may be
a sin in Thy sight for a tortured person to seek escape from trouble by
this course, but I can't stand it any longer.”
“Mother, what is this?” Cynthia darted out into the hall and snatched
the gun from her mother's hands.
For an instant Mrs. Porter stood staring at her daughter, and then, as
if to escape her glance, she turned and went slowly into Cynthia's room.
“Sh!” she said; “don't wake your pa.” And, seeing Cynthia's lamp burning
low, she blew down the chimney and put it out. The room was now dark
save for the moonlight that struggled in at the windows on each side of
the drawn shades.
“Mother, you've got to tell me,” Cynthia demanded, as she leaned the
cumbersome weapon against the wall and groped towards the still, white
figure; “what were you going to do with that gun?”
Mrs. Porter said nothing, but moved backward to Cynthia's bed and, with
a groan, sat down on it.
“Mother”--Cynthia leaned over her, a horrible fear gripping her
heart-cords--“what were you about to do?”
“I don't know as I am obliged to tell you or anybody,” Mrs. Porter said,
doggedly.
“Mother”--Cynthia sat down by the old woman and put her arm about the
gaunt figure--“what were you going to do?”
“I was going to get out of my trouble, if you _will_ know,” Mrs. Porter
said, looking her daughter defiantly in the face.
“Your trouble, mother?”
“Yes, I've borne it as long as I can. Huh! you can't guess how much I
know. I was awake last Friday night and overheard your plan to run off
with Nelson Floyd. I was in a yard of you, crouched down behind the
rose-bushes. You said you'd decide by to-night, and ever since then
I've been tortured like a condemned soul. That's what affected my brain
to-day. It wasn't the sun. Since that awful hour I have been praying God
to spare you--to have mercy on my misguided child, and I hoped He would
do it, but to-night, while you were putting the dishes away, I came in
here and saw your packed valise, and knew you had concluded to leave.
Then--then I decided to--to go like Sister Martha did. I was going out
in the meadow, by the creek, where it was quiet. I couldn't bear the
thought of having to face all those curious people who will throng the
house to-morrow to find out about your disgrace.”
“You say you were there?” Cynthia gasped--“you heard?”
“Every word,” answered Mrs. Porter; “and every one was a rusty nail in
my heart.”
There was silence. Cynthia had no defence to offer. She simply sat with
bowed head, her arm lying limp upon her mother's thinly clad shoulders.'
“Yes, you made up your mind to stain forever our family record. No other
girl that I ever heard of, even among our far-off kin, ever threw away
her honor as you--”
“Stop, mother, you are going too far!” Cynthia cried, removing her arm
and standing erect before the old woman.
“Cynthia, my _poor, poor baby!_ in all that man said the other night he
didn't once mention marriage.
“But he meant it, mother!” broke from the girl's pallid lips--“he meant
it!”
“He didn't mean anything of the kind, you little fool! As plain as plain
could be, he said, right out, that he had no name to give you. And any
fool knows no marriage can be legal unless it is brought about under the
lawful names of the contracting parties. He simply was trying to give
you to understand that he wanted you as a companion in his sin and
misery. He has lost his right to a foothold in society, and he wants
you, of your own accord and free will, to renounce yours. It was a crazy
idea, and one that could have come from none but a brain disordered by
liquor, but that is what he had in view.”
“I don't believe it,” Cynthia said, firmly.
“It doesn't make any difference what you believe,” Mrs. Porter returned.
“I'm older than you, and I see through him. He tried and tried to ruin
you as he did Minnie Wade, but when he was reduced to despair by his
trouble he rose from his debauch and wanted to turn his very misfortune
to your undoing. The idiot was trying to make himself believe, because
his parents had brought all that nastiness down on him, that he would be
justified in a like course. The disgrace he had inherited he intended to
hand down to another generation, and you--you poor, simple thing!--you
calmly packed your white, unspotted things and were ready to sell
yourself to his hellish purpose.”
There was awful silence. Cynthia stared, unable to utter a word. She may
have doubted the fairness of her mother's version, but the grim picture
painted there in the darkness by a woman in seeming readiness to take
her own life on account of it fairly chilled her young life's blood.
Suddenly a sound broke the outside stillness. There was no mistaking it.
It rang out as shrilly on the girl's quaking consciousness as the shriek
of a locomotive dashing through a mountain gorge.
“There he is now,” said Mrs. Porter. “Pick up your valise and hurry,
hurry to him; but before you go hand me that gun. Before you and he get
in that buggy you'll hear my death-knell, and you may know, too, that
you fired the shot into the withered breast that nursed you. Go! I'm not
keeping you!”
Cynthia swayed visibly in the darkness, and then she sank to her knees
and put her head in her mother's lap.
“I won't go,” she groaned, softly. “Mother, I'll do anything you
say--anything!”
“Now you are joking, I know,” Mrs. Porter said, harshly.
“No, I mean it--God knows I mean it, mother! Only give me a chance
to prove that I mean it. I'll never see him again, if that will suit
you--never on earth! I'll stay and nurse you and make you well.”
“If I thought you meant that, Cynthia--Lord, Lord, what a load it would
take off of me! Don't--don't say that unless you mean it; the--the joy
of saving you would almost kill me.”
“Oh, mother, God knows I mean it!”
“Then”--Mrs. Porter seemed to squeeze her words from her frail body
as she stiffly rose to her feet--“then you must let me go, myself, out
there and send him off.”
Cynthia, still on her knees, glanced up, her startled eyes wide open.
“Would you ask that, mother?”
“Yes, for in my present condition I'm afraid I'd never believe it was
absolutely settled. I--I'm not as clear-headed as I used to be. I've got
deep-rooted suspicions, and I'm afraid they would prey on my mind.”
“Then go, mother--go send him away. I'd rather never see him again on
earth than to cause you to--to contemplate--but go, mother!”
“Well, you stay here then.” Mrs. Porter was moving towards the door.
“I'll be easy with him. I'm so happy over this release that I feel
grateful even to him. I'll be gentle, Cynthia.”
As she stood in the door-way of the chamber and glanced back, Mrs.
Porter saw Cynthia throw herself face downward on the bed. The old woman
was in the hall making her way towards the front-door when she heard
Cynthia call her. Retracing her steps, she found her daughter sitting
up.
“Mother,” the girl said, “let me go with you. You can hear all that
passes between us. That ought to be satisfactory.”
“No, that won't suit me,” Mrs. Porter said, firmly. “I've set my heart
on your never facing that man again. For you to go, it would look like
you are crazy after him, and he'd hang around here no telling how long.”
“Then go on, mother.” Cynthia fell back on the bed, and, covering her
face with her hands, lay still.