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THE REDEMPTION OF KENNETH GALT

By Will N. Harben

Author of “Gilbert Neal” “Abner Daniel” “The Georgians” “Ann Boyd” etc.

New York and London: Harper Brothers Publishers

M C M I X

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TO

MABELLE




PART I




CHAPTER I

|YOUNG Doctor Dearing sat in the little church at an open window through
which he had a partial view of that portion of old Stafford which
stretched out desultorily toward the east. Immediately in front was a
common fairly well covered with grass and weeds, except at the pawed and
beaten spot where the public hitched its riding-horses, and beyond stood
rows of old-fashioned residences of brick and stone, interspersed with
a few modern frame cottages which, in gaudy paint, thrust themselves
nearer the street than their more stately neighbors.

It was a Sunday morning, and the smile of a balmy spring day lay over
every visible object, filling the ambient air with a translucent message
that no human mind could interpret. It was as though an infinite God
were speaking to eyes and ears too coarsely fashioned to fully see and
hear.

The whole was conducive to the doctor's feeling of restfulness and
content and good-will to every human being. He liked the young minister
who was seated in the high-backed rosewood chair behind the white
pulpit, holding a massive Bible on his slender knees, a look of
consecration to a sacred cause in his brown eyes. There was an assuring
augury that spoke well for the youth of the town in the spectacle of the
choir--the young men in their best clothes, and the young women in their
flower-like dresses and plumed and ribboned hats.

His gaze was drawn perforce to the face of the young organist, who sat
staring listlessly over the top of her hymn-book. She had a face and
form of rare beauty and grace. Her features were most regular; her skin
clear; her eyes were large, long-lashed, dreamy, and of the color of
violets. Her hair was a living mass of silken bronze.

“She looks tired and worried,” was Dearing's half-professional comment.
“Perhaps her mother is worse, and she sat up last night. Poor Dora! she
has certainly had a lot to contend with since her father died. I'll wait
for her after church and ask about her mother.”

The service over, he made his way through the throng down the aisle
toward the door. He was quite popular, and there was many a hand to
shake and many a warm greeting to respond to, but he finally succeeded
in reaching a point in the shaded church-yard which Dora Barry would
pass on her way home, and there he waited.

For some unaccountable reason she was almost the last to leave the
church, and the congregation had well-nigh dispersed when he saw her
coming. He noticed that she kept her glance on the ground, and that her
step was slow and languid; he was all but sure, too, that he heard her
sigh, and he saw her firm round breast heave tremulously as she neared
him.

“Good-morning, Dora,” he said, cheerily; and she started as, for the
first time, she noticed his presence.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a flush forcing itself into the pallor of her
really exquisite face. “I thought--that is, I didn't expect to--to see
you here, and, and--”

“I have been watching you this morning instead of the preacher,” he
said, with a boyish laugh, “and I made up my mind that I'll have to take
you in hand. You are burning the candle at both ends, and there is a
fire-cracker in the middle. What is the use of being your family doctor
if I let you get down sick, when I can prevent it by raking you over the
coals? How is your mother? You had to be up last night--I can see it by
the streaks under your eyes.”

“No, I wasn't up,” the girl answered. The color had receded from her
cheeks, and the abstracted expression which he had noticed in the church
began to repossess her wondrous eyes. “She is not quite well yet, but
she did not call me at all through the night. Your last prescription did
her good; it soothed her pain, and she rested better.”

“Well, I'm going to walk home with you and stop in and see her, to make
sure,” he answered, still lightly. “If you don't look out you will be
down yourself. Two sick persons in a family of two wouldn't be any
fun.” She made no response; her eyes had a far-off look in their shadowy
depths, and as he walked along beside her he eyed her profile curiously.

“Well, I declare, Dora,” he said, half jestingly, “you don't seem
overjoyed to have a fellow's company. Of course, I'm not a ladies' man,
and--”

“Forgive me, Wynn.” She looked up anxiously, and her lip trembled as she
suppressed another sigh. “It wasn't that I didn't want you to come. You
know better than to accuse me of such a thing. I have always considered
you the best, kindest, and truest friend I have.”

“I was only joking,” he responded, touched by the undoubted sincerity
of her tone and manner; “but, really, I don't like to see my little
neighbor looking so glum, and I am going to stop in and see how your
mother is. If she needs a trained nurse I'll get one, or come over and
look after her myself.”

They had reached the cottage where Dora lived. It was small, and stood
in a diminutive but rather pretty flower-garden on a short, little used
street immediately behind Dearing's home. And when he had opened the
sagging gate in the white paling fence, she preceded him into the low,
vine-grown porch, and narrow, box-like hallway, from which she led him
into the parlor, the room opposite to the chamber of the sick woman.

“Sit down, won't you?” Dora said, in a weary tone, as she began to
unfasten her hat. “I'll tell her you are here.”

He took a seat in the bowed window of the plainly furnished room, and
she brought a palm-leaf fan to him. “I'm sure my mother won't keep you
waiting long.” And with the look of abstraction deepening on her mobile
face, she turned away.

A neat matting made of green and brown straw covered the floor, on which
were placed rugs made of scraps of silk of various colors artistically
blended. A carved rosewood table with a white marble top stood in the
centre of the room, and on it rested a plush-covered photograph-album,
a glass lamp with a fluted and knotched paper shade on a frame of wire,
and a vase of freshly cut flowers. Between the two front windows, which,
like their fellows, were draped in white lace curtains of the cheapest
quality, stood Dora's piano--a small, square instrument with sloping
octagonal legs and lyre-shaped pedal-support. Against the wall near by
leaned a time-worn easel, on which lay some torn and ragged sketches,
a besmeared palette, and a handful of stubby, paint-filled brushes. The
ceiling overhead was made of planks and painted light blue; the walls
were plastered and whitewashed and ornamented by some really good family
portraits in oil which had been done by Dora's deceased father, who had
been the town's only artist. A Seth Thomas clock presided over a crude
mantelpiece which was bare of any other ornament. The deep chimney was
filled with pine-tops and cones, the uneven bricks of the hearth were
whitewashed.

Dearing heard the girl's returning step in the hallway, and then she
looked in on him.

“She is sitting up,” Dora announced. “She wants you to come to her.”

As he entered the room across the hall Dora turned toward the kitchen
in the rear, and he found himself facing her mother, a thin, gaunt woman
about fifty years of age, who sat in a low rocking-chair near her bed,
the latter orderly arranged under a spotlessly white coverlet and great
snowy pillows.

“This is not a professional visit, Mrs. Barry.” He smiled as he bent to
take her thin, nervous hand, the fingers of which were aimlessly picking
at the fringe on the arm of the chair. “Dora was headed for home, and
so was I. The truth is, I am not half so much worried about you as I am
about her. Your color is coming back fast enough, and you have no fever.
You are all right, but she looks upset and nervous. It may be due to
her highly artistic temperament, which is a thing medicine can't easily
reach. Do you know if her appetite is good?”

“Really I haven't noticed about that particularly,” the woman answered,
in a plaintive tone. “You see, since I got down I haven't been about the
dining-room at all. She has waited on me instead of me on her.”

“Well, you'll be all right in a day or so,” Dearing said, his brows
drawn thoughtfully, “and then you can take charge of her. She declares,
though, that her health is tip-top.”

The old patient folded her thin, blue-veined hands tightly for a moment,
and twisted them spasmodically together; then suddenly she fixed her
sharp, gray eyes anxiously on the young man's face, and he saw that she
was deeply moved, for her lower lip was twitching.

“I have always felt that you are the one young man whom I could
trust--absolutely trust,” she said, falteringly. “Physicians are
supposed to keep certain matters to themselves, anyway, but even aside
from that, Wynn, it is hard to keep from speaking to you in a familiar
way, having seen you grow up from babyhood right under my eyes, so I
hope you will forgive me if--”

“Oh, I wouldn't have you quit calling me that for the world!” Dearing
flushed deeply and laughed. “I haven't grown a full beard yet to make me
look older and wiser than I am, as many young sawbones do. I hope I'll
always be simply Wynn Dearing to you, Mrs. Barry.”

She looked as admiringly and as proudly as a mother might at the strong,
smooth-shaved face, with its merry eyes of brown, firm chin and mouth,
and shock of thick, dark hair, and at the tall, muscular frame and limbs
in the neatly cut suit of brown.

“Yes, I can trust you,” she muttered, her voice growing husky, “and it
seems to me if I don't confide in some one, I may as well give up.”

“Why, what is the matter, Mrs. Barry?” Dearing inquired, now quite
grave.

“Oh, it is about Dora!” The old woman sighed. “Wynn, I may as well
confess it. My sickness is partly due to worry over her. It is not
because she is unwell either. It is something else. I am afraid she
has some--some secret trouble. You must not show that you suspect
anything--that would never do; but all is not as it should be with her.
Naturally she has as happy a disposition as any girl I ever knew. Her
art pupils adore her, and up to quite recently she used to laugh and
joke with them constantly; but she has altered--strangely altered. I
catch her sitting by herself at times with the saddest, most woebegone
expression on her face. When I try to worm it out of her, she attempts
to laugh it off; but she can't keep up the pretense, and it is not long
before she begins to droop again. Her room is there, you see; and as
the partition is thin, I often wake up in the dead of night and hear her
cautiously tiptoeing over the floor--first to the window and then back
to her bed, as though she were unable to sleep.”

“That is bad,” Dearing said, sympathetically, as Mrs. Barry paused and,
covering her wrinkled face with her hands, remained silent for a moment.

“I would like to ask you something,” the old woman continued,
hesitatingly--“something of a personal nature. I have no earthly right
to do such a thing, but I thought, you see, that it might help me decide
whether I am right in something I fear. Is it true that--that your uncle
has forbidden Fred Walton to visit your sister Margaret?”

Dearing shrugged his broad shoulders and contracted his heavy brows.
“I may as well tell you that he has, Mrs. Barry. I don't like to speak
against another young man, and one who has never harmed me in any way;
but I agree with my uncle that Fred is not exactly the kind of man I'd
like to have Madge make an intimate friend of. His general character is
not what it ought to be, and he seems to be going from bad to worse. He
still has plenty of friends and even sympathizers, who think Fred would
reform and settle down to business if his father were not quite so hard
on him. Madge is one of them. She has a sort of girlish faith in the
fellow, and the slightest word against him makes her mad.”

“Well, it is about Fred Walton that I want to speak to you,” Mrs. Barry
resumed, tremulously. “He has been coming to see Dora a good deal for
the last year. He passes by the gate often in the afternoon, and they
take long walks over the hills to the river. Sometimes he accompanies
her when she goes to sketch in the woods. And now and then she slips
out after dark, and won't say where she has been. You see, I am speaking
very frankly. I _have_ to, Wynn, for I am in great trouble--greater
than I ever thought could come to me at my time of life. My child is an
orphan, and there is no one, you see, to--to protect her. It is hard to
think that any man here at home could be so--so dishonorable, but they
all say he is reckless, and--well, if I must say it--I am afraid she
cares a great deal about him. I may be very wrong, and I hope I am, but
I am deeply troubled, and need not try to hide it.”

“I see how you feel,” Dearing said, his face hardening as he bit his
lip, and a fixed stare came into his eyes, “but I am sure you have
nothing very--very serious to fear. Dora may think she cares for him. He
seems to have a wonderful way with women, young and old. They all stand
by him and make excuses for his daredevil ways.”

“Well, I do hope I am wrong,” Mrs. Barry said, brightening a little. “It
has made me feel better to talk to you. We'll wait and see. As you say,
it may be only a fancy on Dora's part, and it may all come out right. I
have said more to you, Wynn, than I could have said to any one else in
the world. That shows how much confidence I place in you.”

“You can trust me, Mrs. Barry,” Dearing said, as he looked at his watch
and rose to go. “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

As he was leaving, Dora stood motionless at the window of her room,
hidden from his view by the curtains. She watched him as he passed out
of the yard and crossed the narrow street to reach the rear gate to his
own grounds.

“If he knew the truth he'd despise me!” she moaned, as she sank into a
chair and tensely clasped her little hands in her lap. “How can I bear
it? I'm so miserable--so very, very miserable!”

She rose, and went to her bureau, and took up a photograph of Fred
Walton; as she gazed at it her eyes filled and her lip quivered.

“Dear, dear Fred!” she said, fervently, “in spite of all the faults they
say you have, you are the best and truest friend a poor girl ever had.
If I'd only listened to your advice I'd never have been like this. Oh,
what will you think when you hear the truth--the awful, awful truth!”

She threw herself on her bed, and with her face covered she lay trying
to sob, trying to shed tears, but the founts of her agony were dry.




CHAPTER II

|DR. DEARING'S house was an old-fashioned structure built long before
the Civil War. It fronted on the main residential street of the town,
and was of red brick partly covered with clinging ivy. It had a colonial
veranda with the usual tall, fluted columns, which were painted white
and rested on square blocks of masonry. It had been the property of
several generations of Dearings more or less distinguished in the
history of the State, and since the death of the doctor's father, a
prosperous merchant, slave-holder, and planter, it had been in the
possession of the brother and sister, who, with an aged maternal uncle,
General Sylvester, now occupied it.

As Dearing entered the lower gate of the grounds he saw Kenneth Galt,
his next-door neighbor, crossing the lawn to reach his own house just
beyond a low hedge of well-trimmed boxwood. And hearing the clicking
of the iron gate-latch, Galt paused, turned, and advanced toward his
friend. He was a handsome man, tall, dark, well-built, about thirty-five
years of age, and with a strong, secretive face--the face of a man full
of nervous force and the never-satisfied hunger of ambition.

“You've been to church like a good little boy,” he laughed, as he paused
and stood cutting at the grass with his cane.

“Yes, and it is exactly where you ought to have been,” Dearing retorted,
with a smile. “If you would only listen to a few good sermons on the
right line you'd burn up that free-thought library of yours, and quit
thinking you know more than your good old Godfearing ancestors.”

“I simply couldn't sit and listen to such stuff with a straight face,”
 Galt answered. “Goodness knows, I've tried it often enough. It really
seems an insult to a fellow's intelligence. I can't agree with you that
any man ought to try to think as his forefathers did. You don't in your
profession, why should a man do it in more vital matters? You don't
bleed your patients as doctors did fifty years ago, because you know
better. I believe in evolution of mind as well as of matter. We
are constantly advancing. Your old-time preacher, with all his good
intentions, is a stumbling-block to intelligence. You may listen to a
man who tells you your house is burning down over your head and urges
you to save your life, but if you don't believe him you wouldn't care to
have him pull you out by the heels on a cold night to convince you. But
you don't hear what I am saying!” Galt finished, with a short laugh. “I
am sowing my seed on stony ground. I've been in to see the General. I
have some important letters about the railroad that he and I are going
to get built one of these days. As a rule, he is more than eager to talk
about it, but he was certainly out of sorts just now. I have never seen
him so upset before. While I was talking to him he kept walking up and
down the room, and not hearing half I was saying. He is not well, is
he?”

“No, he really is not in the best of shape,” Dearing answered, with a
thoughtful shadow on his face; “but I think he will pull through all
right. I see him on the porch now. I'll walk on, and talk to him.”

As Dearing drew near the house General Sylvester, who was a tall,
slightly bent old man with long gray beard and hair, came down the steps
and walked across the grass to a rustic seat under a tree. He was about
to sit down, but seeing his nephew approaching he remained standing, a
gaunt hand held over his spectacled eyes to ward off the sunlight.

“I have been waiting for you,” he said, in a piping, irritable voice.
“Kenneth was in to talk business, but it seems to me that I'll never be
interested in such things any more. What's the use? I didn't want the
money for myself, anyway. I saw the others coming back from church some
time ago, and couldn't imagine what delayed you. I've had another row
with Madge, and this time it is serious--very, very serious.”

“Oh, _that's_ the trouble!” Dearing cried, and he attempted to laugh.
“Uncle Tom, in your old age you are just like a school-boy with his
first sweetheart. You are actually flirting with your own niece. You
and she bill and coo like doves, and then get cold as ice or as mad as
Tucker. What's wrong now?”

“Well, I think a young girl like she is ought to take the sound advice
of a man as old and experienced as I am, and she won't do it. That's
all--she won't do it, sir!”

“Of course she _ought_ to,” Dearing said, still inclined to jest, “but
you are wise enough to know that no woman ever took the advice of a man,
young or old. See here, uncle, I'll bet you haven't had your medicine
yet, and the dinner-bell will ring soon and you will have to wait
fifteen minutes before you shall taste a bite. You and I 'll quarrel if
you don't do as I tell you. Madge won't obey you, but you've got to get
down on your marrow-bones and follow my orders.”

“Oh, I'll take the blasted stuff in time!” the General fumed. “I don't
want to eat now, anyway. I tell you, I'm too mad to eat.”

“I suppose it is Fred Walton again,” Dearing said, resignedly.

“Who else could it be?” the old man burst out. “She tries to close my
eyes as to her doings with him; but I got it straight that he was out
driving with her last night while you were in the country.”

The face of the doctor clouded over. “You don't mean to say that--”

“I mean that he was afraid to drive up to the door like a gentleman, but
met her down-town and took her from there, and when they got back, long
after dark, he left her at Lizzie Sloan's, to keep us from getting on to
it. You know, folks will talk about a thing like that.”

Dearing's eyes flashed, and a touch of whiteness crept into his face,
but he said, pacifically: “Oh, there must be some mistake. I hardly
think Madge would--”

“But there _isn't_ any mistake, for she admitted it to me not ten
minutes ago, and just as good as told me it was none of my business
besides. Now, listen to me, my boy. I am an old man, but I am still in
the possession of my faculties, and I know what I am talking about. I
was in the bank yesterday, and had a talk with his father. He told me
frankly that he intended to cut the scamp off without a penny. He gave
the fellow a position of trust in the bank, but instead of behaving
himself properly, he started into gambling, speculating in futures, and
every reckless thing he could think of. He turned customers away, scared
off depositors, who don't like to leave their money in such hands, and
in many ways injured the business. Old Walton was so mad he could hardly
talk to me, and when I told him right out how I felt about my niece
going with him, he said he didn't blame me; that he wouldn't let such a
rascal go with a servant of his, much less the acknowledged belle of the
town, and a prospective heiress. Now, Wynn, this is what I have decided
to do. You know that I have made my will, leaving all I have in the
world to her.”

“And it is blamed bully of you, Uncle Tom,” Dearing said, laying his
hand on the old man's shoulder, which he could feel quivering with a
passion not good for even a younger man. “I am sure, neither of us is
worthy of the great interest you have always taken in us.”

“_You_ are, my boy. I am proud of _you_. You are already a shining light
in your profession, and will make all the money you'll ever need. But I
always have worried about Madge. I want to provide well for her, and
I haven't many years to live. Sometimes I think I may snuff out like a
candle without a moment's notice, so I don't intend to leave my affairs
in such a shape that Fred Walton will gloat over my demise and throw
away my savings. No, sir. I tell you if your sister does not agree to
give that scamp up inside of the next twenty-four hours, I will set my
effects aside for another purpose.”

“I'll see her and talk to her, Uncle Tom,” Dearing promised, gravely.
He had never seen the General so highly wrought up, nor heard such an
exasperated ring in his voice. “Now, you go take your medicine. Madge
will be sensible. She loves you, I know she does.”

“Well, remember what I've said,” the old soldier threw back as he turned
away.

Dearing waited till he had disappeared through the side entrance of the
house, and then he went up the front steps, crossed the wide veranda,
with its smooth, rain-beaten floor of ancient heart pine, and stood in
the great hall, straw hat in hand, looking about him.

“I'll see her at once,” he thought. “She must come to her senses. She is
driving uncle to his grave with worry over her silly conduct.”

“Oh, Madge!” he called out. His voice rang and echoed in the great
opening through which the walnut stairs and polished balustrade ascended
to the corridor and sleeping-rooms above, but there was no response.

Still holding his hat, with which he fanned his heated face in an
absent-minded, perturbed sort of way, Dearing went through all the
lower rooms--the parlor and library and adjoining study, and even the
dining-room and kitchen. The colored cook, old Aunt Diana, a former
slave of the family, in white apron and turbaned head, informed him that
his sister was in her room.

“I know she is, Marse Wynn, 'case she sent Lindy down fer some fresh
col' water not mo'n ten minutes ago.”

Back to the front hall Dearing went, and thence up the stairs to his
sister's room, adjoining his own. The door was ajar, but he stood on the
threshold and rapped softly.

“Come!” It was a sweet young voice, and belonged to a pretty girl
seventeen or eighteen years of age, who, as Dearing entered the room,
sat at a quaint mahogany writing-desk between two lace-curtained windows
through which a gentle breeze was blowing. She wore a becoming wrapper,
and her small feet were shod in dainty embroidered slippers. Her
abundant hair was quite dark, and her eyes very blue. She had been
writing, for on the page of tinted note-paper before her he saw an
unfinished sentence in the round, schoolgirl hand.

“I don't want to disturb you, Madge,” Dearing began, “but you will have
to stop anyway soon, and get ready for dinner.”

“I am not going down,” she told him, her glance falling to the rug at
her feet. “I had breakfast late, and I am not a bit hungry.”

“But that wouldn't be treating Uncle Tom quite right, you know,” Dearing
gently protested, as he took a seat on the broad window-sill, swung
his hat between his knees, and eyed her significantly. “You know how
childish he is getting, Madge. It really upsets him not to have you at
the table. He is old-fashioned, and was something of a beau when he was
a young man. Making a fine lady of you and paying court to you seems to
be about all the pleasure he gets in life. I know it must be tiresome,
but there are many things we--”

“He is _childish!_” Margaret exclaimed, her eyes flashing angrily,
“but I bore with it because I loved him, and because mother would have
approved it; but he is getting worse and worse. He wants me at his beck
and call every minute in the day, and even if I go out to see one of
my girl friends he either comes or sends one of the servants to see if
anything has happened. Then he--he--oh, there are a lot of things a girl
can't put up with!”

“You mean his opposition to the visits of a certain friend of yours?”
 Dearing said, in a forced tone of indifference, as he glanced out at the
window. Although his eyes were still ostentatiously averted, he saw her
cautiously draw a blank sheet of paper over the lines she had written.

“Yes,” she said, “that is _one_ thing. Fred Walton is a friend of mine,
and for all I know his feelings may be hurt by what uncle has said and
done. I know Fred is wild and reckless, but he has a good side to him--a
side everybody can't see who doesn't know him intimately.”

Young as he was, Wynn Dearing was wise in the ways of the world, and he
well knew that a temperament and will like his sister's would never
be coerced. He decided to profit by the error in the method of his
blustering uncle.


“You have never heard _me_ abuse Fred,” he said, gently. “Many young
men who have wealthy parents are inclined to 'sow wild oats,' as the old
folks say; but really, Madge”--and he was smiling now--“for an honest,
inoffensive cereal, the 'wild oat' has to bear the burden of many a
tough young weed. Charity is said to cover a multitude of sins, but for
genuine selfsacrifice give me the old-fashioned, long-bearded wild oat,
in all its verdant and succulent--”

“Brother, I'm not in a mood for silliness!” the girl interrupted him,
quickly, and with an impatient flush.

“I'm not either, Madge.” He took one of his knees between his hands,
and drew it up toward him. “The fact is, I am worried--worried like
everything! I may not show it, but this thing has taken a deep hold on
me. Something has got to be done, and that right away. Young folks may
love each other, or _think_ they love each other, and if it does no harm
to any one _else_, why, all well and good. But if their love business is
causing suffering--yes, and positive bodily injury to another--then they
ought to stop and ponder.”

“You mean that Uncle Tom--”

“I mean this, Madge, and now I am talking to you as a physician--_his_
physician, too. The old man is actually so near the end of his
natural life that irritation like this is apt to undermine what little
constitution he has left. I've known old men to worry themselves into
softening of the brain over smaller things than this. You may not think
it would make much difference; but remember that if any act of yours and
Fred Walton's were to cause his death, even indirectly, you could never
outlive the reproach of your conscience. Uncle Tom is in a dangerous
condition: his heart-action is bad, and so are his kidneys. You are too
young a girl to take such a responsibility as that on your shoulders;
besides, Madge, I must say that Fred--it is my duty as a brother to
say--”

“You are going to abuse him; remember, you have not done it so far!”
 Margaret broke in. “You won't gain by it, brother. The whole town has
talked of nothing lately but him and his faults, and I appreciated your
silence, and so does he. We were speaking about it only yesterday,
and he praised you for it. He said you were the truest, most perfect
gentleman he had ever known, that you knew human nature too well to
expect young men to be absolutely perfect, and that--”

“I wasn't going to say a word against his _honor_, Madge,” Dearing
interrupted her, gently; “but I am going to say this: if I were in _his_
place right now I'd feel that I could not conscientiously, or even quite
honorably, continue to pay attention to a young lady situated--well,
situated _just as you are_.”

“Why, what do you mean?” the girl asked, her lip quivering stubbornly.

“This, sister, and nothing else. We may say what we please about Fred's
good qualities, his sincerity, his--his devotion to you; his plans,
whatever they are; but a very disagreeable fact stands out like a black
splotch on the whole business, and that is simply this: Fred really has
failed to make good in the way a man ought to make good who aspires to
the hand of a girl like yourself. His father gave him a splendid chance
in the bank, but Fred's best friends admit that he hasn't profited by
it. Instead of attending to business and helping his old daddy--who,
harsh old skinflint though he is as to money matters, is a safe man in
any community--instead of doing what was expected of him, Fred--well, he
has turned his father against him, that's all. The old man swears he
is going to cut him off without a penny, and everybody in town knows he
means it; Fred doesn't dispute it himself. So, taking that along with
_the other thing_, I honestly can't see how he can talk of love and
marriage to a girl like you are.”

“What _other_ thing do you mean?” Margaret demanded, pale with
suppressed emotion.

“I mean the fact that his marriage to you would cause Uncle Tom to
disinherit you outright. A man might sink low enough to want to marry a
girl after he himself has been disinherited for his irregular conduct,
but no creature with a spark of manhood in him would let his act
impoverish the woman he loves. I have said nothing against him so far,
but when he knows what uncle has determined to do--when he is told that
if he persists--well”--Dealing's eyes were burning now with the fire
of genuine anger--“he'll have _me_ to reckon with, that's all--_me_,
Madge!”

Margaret stared at him for a moment, and then, with a piteous little
sob, she covered her face with her hands. “You are going to _tell_ him!”
 she said, huskily. “Yes.” Dearing stood up and laid his hand on her
head. “I'm going to tell him, Madge, but it will be only for his own
good. In any case, he couldn't honorably ask you to marry him _now_, and
the delay--if he is willing to wait--won't do either of you any harm.
You are both young, and the world is before you. You can't realize it
now, Madge, but this very thing may be the making of him. If he loves
you as truly as he ought, this will be only a spur toward proving his
worthiness.”

“Brother, must you really--? oh, I can't--can't--” The girl stood
up, her cheeks wet with tears, and clasped her hands round his
neck appealingly. “You really must not! He is already in trouble.
Surely--surely--”

“There is no other way, Madge, but I'll not be rough; I pity the poor
chap too much for that.”

“When do you intend to--to see him?” She was sobbing again, her face
pressed against his shoulder.

“This evening, Madge, if I can find him at home. There is no other way.
Uncle and I are the only protectors you have, and he is too angry and
easily wrought up to be trusted with the matter. I'd better manage it;
but you know I'll be fair.”

The girl gazed fixedly at him for a moment, and then, in a storm of
tears, she threw herself oh her bed and hid her face in a pillow.
Glancing at her pityingly, and with moisture in his own eyes, Dearing
turned from the room.

“I am sorry for them both,” he muttered. “They are having hard luck, and
yet Fred Walton isn't, from any point of view, worthy of her; there are
no two ways about it. He has got himself into a terrible plight, and he
has no right to involve my sister. No, and he sha'n't!”




CHAPTER III

|THE greater part of the ensuing afternoon was spent by Dr. Dearing in
his musty little office on the ground-floor of a building in the central
square of the town which was devoted to lawyers' quarters, the rooms of
the sheriff of the county, and the council-chamber where the mayor held
his court. He received a few patients, made some examinations, wrote
several prescriptions, and, considering that it was Sunday, he felt that
he was fairly well occupied. His mind, however, was constantly on the
topic of the morning and the disagreeable task confronting him. Finally
he turned over the placard on the door till the word “out” was exposed
to view, and went home to supper. Here, however, he met only General
Sylvester, who, a dejected picture of offended loneliness, sat on the
veranda, a dry cigar between his lips.

“Where is Madge?” Dearing asked, half standing, half sitting on the
balustrade in front of the old gentleman, and assuming a casual tone
which was far from natural.

“She hasn't been down at all to-day,” the General answered, pettishly.
“I wouldn't send for her. She knew I wouldn't knuckle like that, but she
knows I always expect to walk with her Sunday afternoons, and she stayed
pouting in her room. She resents what has been said about that blackleg
gambler, and wants to show it as plainly as possible, so there won't be
any mistake between her view and mine. She knows I don't intend to leave
any property to her if she keeps this up, but she doesn't care a rap.
She's dead in love with the scamp, and, bad as he is, she glories in the
opportunity to show her contempt for me and all that pertains to me.
She can't toss _me_ about like a ball, my boy! This thing has got to end
right here and now, or I'll see my lawyer to-morrow and put something on
paper that may never be wiped out while I am alive.”

“Well, give her till to-morrow, then,” Dearing said, with strange,
suppressed calmness. “Her very sullenness now may be a sign that she is
about to give him up. I've talked to her, and, while I am not certain
what she'll do, I have an idea that she may respect your wishes and
abide by your judgment.”

“I don't think so,” the old man said, with an anxious look into the face
of his nephew; “that is, not so long as the rascal holds her to
whatever understanding they may have between them. When I was a young
man”--Sylvester clinched his fist and pounded his knee, as if to
emphasize his words--“things like this did not hang fire. A man who
could make no showing as to his being a proper suitor for a girl
under age was given orders from her family to desist in his harmful
attentions, and if he refused he was promptly dealt with--that's all:
_dealt_ with!”

“Nowadays it's different, Uncle Tom,” Dearing said, with the tone of an
older man. “Shooting or threatening to shoot about a young woman is sure
to cast a blight on her reputation, and there generally is some other
method to--”

“You learned that up among those Yankees!” the General said, alluding to
the period his nephew had spent in a New York medical college. “But I am
miserable enough as it is without wanting you to stain your hands with
blood and have us all brought into court to justify your course. He is a
coward, I'm sure; no man has any pride or backbone who will cling on to
a respectable family, under the pretext of being in love, when his own
people have cut him off. His mother belonged to a good family, but he
hasn't inherited any refinement of feeling from that side of the house.”

“I don't think, to do Fred _full_ justice,” Dearing gently urged, “that
he quite realizes the seriousness of your objections to him. I really
believe, when he is told of the step you are about to take, that he will
act sensibly. He has a good side to him when he is thoroughly himself,
and I am going to look him up after supper and lay the whole thing
fairly before him.”

“Does Margaret know you--” The General's voice failed to carry further.

“Yes; I've told her what I intend to do, and I think that is one reason
she has remained in her room. She is hard hit, Uncle Tom. Girls never
can understand things of this sort. Their sympathies always go with
the unfortunate, and Madge knows Fred is down, and that most people are
against him.”

“Well, I hope you will accomplish something,” General Sylvester said,
hopefully. “You can straighten it out if any one can. I can trust you,
Wynn, and I am proud of you--proud of you in every way. I never regret
the loss of the old order of things when I think of what you are and
what you are bound to become as a leader of young men of your period.”

“We are certainly sharp enough to pull the wool over kind old eyes like
yours, Uncle Tom.” Dearing laughed as he leaned forward and laid his
hand on the old man's shoulder. “In your day young blades boasted of
what they did under cover of the night, but we thank the darkness for
its shelter and don't talk of our acts. Why, you old-timers didn't know
the first principles of devilment! If it were not giving away
professional secrets, I'd tell you things that would make your hair
stand on end. You've heard me say I believe in the good old-time,
psalm-singing, God-fearing religion--well, I do. The longer I live the
more I think we need it. Look what modern thought has done for Kenneth
Galt. He has read so much on science and philosophy that he has reduced
us all--good, bad, and indifferent--to mere cosmic dust. According to
him, we are simply mud babies energized by planetary force, and living
on the pap of graft. Ask him to account for good spiritual impulses, and
he will--if he admits there are any--show you conclusively that good
conduct is the mere evolutionary result of communal self-interest; men
came to believe murder was wrong only because they didn't want their
_own_ throats cut.”

“I have always wondered what Kenneth _does_ believe,” Sylvester said,
with his first smile. “He certainly is an interesting man; and he's
rich, and growing more so.”

“Yes; he was well provided for at the start,” responded Dearing, “and he
has invested wisely.”

“I have seen him talking to Margaret several times of late,” Sylvester
remarked. “That is one thing that irritates me. I don't care a red cent
about his cranky religious views; they will take care of themselves, for
he is a straight, safe, and honorable man; and if this harum-scarum Fred
Walton had not been taking up so much of her time, why--”

“You old match-maker!” Dearing laughed. “I'm going to stir up Aunt Diana
and get something to eat. I am as hungry as a bear.”

While he and his uncle sat together at the long table in the big
dining-room, Dearing asked the cook if she had notified his sister that
supper was served.

“Yesser, Marse Wynn,” the woman answered over the coffee-tray she was
putting down, “I sent Lindy up dar to her room, and she say young miss
didn't want er bite. I reckon she sho' is sick. She haint tetch er
mouthful since 'er breakfast.”

“Well, let her alone,” Dearing said, as his eyes met the wavering glance
of his uncle across the table. “She will be all right in the morning.”

The gloomy meal over, the General strode back to the veranda, and Wynn
went up to his room. He did not light the gas, as he intended doing, for
it occurred to him that there was really no need for it, and he sat down
in the darkness. He could see one of the windows of Margaret's room in
the ell of the building, across the open court. A dim light was burning
there, and the curtains were drawn.

“Poor child!” he muttered; “that fellow has hit her hard. Women have
a wonderful amount of sympathy for him. It may be that Mrs. Barry
is correct in her fears, and that Dora may be in love with him, too.
Beautiful, trusting Dora--even _she_ is suffering on his account. Yes,
I must see him. There is no other way.” Dearing stood up and went to
his bureau to get a fresh handkerchief, and while his hand was fumbling
collars, cuffs, and neckties, it touched the cool, smooth handle of a
revolver. He picked it up and held it for a moment reflectively, and
then laid it down.

“No, I'll not go to see him even with the thought that I may have to
use force,” he said. “My mission in life is to _cure_ men, not to
spill their blood. They say he sometimes goes armed, and if we met on
that sort of level there might be trouble.”

He closed the drawer, stood for a moment looking at the light in the
window of Margaret's room, and then, shrugging his broad shoulders, he
turned away. He met no one on the stairs, but as he passed out at the
front door he saw the flare of his uncle's cigar and the wrinkled,
brooding face and gray head and beard at the end of the veranda. Going
down the wide brick walk, which was edged by rows of well-trimmed
boxwood, he descried, near the gate, a willowy figure in white. It was
Margaret. She looked up as he approached, and in the piteous lines of
her face he read her final desperate appeal.

“I thought you were in your room,” he said, in an effort at gentle
deception. “Madge, old girl, I'll have to take you in hand.” He passed
his fingers playfully under her cold chin. “You are on a direct road to
a thirty-day course of that very tonic you despised so much last
spring. No dinner to-day and no supper to-night. I don't get any fee
for doctoring you, but I'm going to keep you in good shape as an
advertisement, if for nothing else. I don't intend to have my patients
throwing it in my face that they won't believe in me until I cure my own
family.”

She did not return his smile, and drew back from his caress as if she
half resented it.

“Are you really going to see Fred?” she asked, falteringly, her eyes
fixed coldly, half fearfully, on his through the dim, vague starlight.

“Yes, Madge,” he answered, simply. “I've thought it over deliberately
and calmly, with no feeling of ill-will toward him, and I can't see my
duty in any other way.”

“To-night?” She breathed hard, her hand on her breast.

“Right away, sister; that is, if he is in town.”

She moved a little nearer to him. He saw the hand which started toward
his arm tremble, as it diverted its course to one of the palings of the
fence, which it clutched in visible desperation.

“Do you realize,” she asked, “that to--to tell him what Uncle Tom
intends to do in case he and I don't give each other up may insult him?
He is not a man to care about a girl's fortune; he hasn't shown that he
wants his father's money. He knows that I don't let such things weigh
with me. What you are now starting out to do may be the immediate cause
of--of our both _defying you!_”

“Oh, I see,” Dearing said. “Well, in that case I shall have done all
in my power to protect your interests. I'll tell you one thing, though,
Madge, little girl: the matter looks black enough as it stands; but,
really, if I felt that you were going absolutely penniless to a man who
has shown himself as reckless of his own interests as Fred Walton has,
I'd be blue in earnest, and--and I don't know that I'd be quite able to
restrain my temper if such a reckless spendthrift were to thrust himself
between you and your natural rights, boldly robbing you, blind as you
now are, of what you ought to have, and which later in life you
will sadly need. I am not a fighting man, but--well, he'd better not
interfere with your material interests, that's all.”

She shrank back before the force and suppressed fury in his face and
voice, and now, her last hope gone, she simply stared, speechless. He
had put his hand upon the iron latch of the gate when she caught his arm
and clung to it convulsively.

“Oh, brother, you don't know Fred as I do!” she wailed. “He has some
faults, I'll admit; but he is true and noble at heart. You see, I've
heard him talk in a confidential way and you haven't. The last time I
met him he almost cried in telling me of his troubles. He does try very
hard to please his father. You see, I am convinced that he has just
reached a sort of turning-point, and I am afraid this very thing may
make him more desperate.”

“If he is sincere,” Wynn retorted, “and is any sort of man, he will
be glad of being warned against impoverishing the girl he professes to
love. You leave it all to me, sister. I am not going to be harsh with
him. I don't really dislike him, and he has nothing against me.” From
the expression of utter despair in her eyes he knew that she intended
to resist no longer. She lowered her head to the top of the fence, and
without looking at him, she asked, in a smothered voice: “What time do
you think you will--will be back?”

“I can't tell, Madge. I may not find him at once, you know.”

“I shall wait up for you,” she gulped. “I couldn't close my eyes until I
see you and know what he says. Oh, brother, I am afraid--”

“Afraid of what?” he demanded, quickly.

“I hardly know how to express it.” She looked up, and on her cheeks lay
the damp traces of the tears she had wiped away on her sleeve. “But he
is desperate. I am actually afraid he may try to--to do himself harm.
It looked, the other evening, as if he were constantly on the point of
telling me something about some crisis or other in his affairs which
has just come up. He would start out as if about to make a disclosure of
some horrible kind, and then he would stop and say: 'But I can't worry
you by telling you everything. It won't help matters to talk about my
trouble.”

“Poor chap,” Dearing said. “I will not be hard on him, sister; I promise
you that. I may find him at church; he sometimes goes to take Dora
Barry.”

“Yes; they are good friends,” Margaret said. “That is one thing I admire
in him. She is poor, and doesn't receive much attention. Fred takes her
to places and goes to see her out of pure kindness of heart.”

“Well, I'm off,” Dearing said, as he turned to leave. “Now you go to
bed, young lady, and forget about this disagreeable mess for to-night,
anyway. It may be all for the best.”




CHAPTER IV

|LEAVING Madge mute and motionless at the gate, staring through the
starlight after him, Dearing strode down the street past the fine old
home of Kenneth Galt, which was set well back in spacious grounds on
the left. Along the way were old-fashioned houses in bad condition, old
buildings which had been modernized, and which stood on well-kept lawns,
and others which had no touch of antiquity. After a few minutes he
reached a plain two-story frame house which had once been white, but
now showed little trace of its original paint. It was the home of
Fred Walton's father, Stafford's well-to-do banker, money-lender,
“note-shaver,” and all-round speculator in stocks, bonds, and real
estate.

“Fred may be here,” Dearing reflected, as he paused at the ramshackle
gate and viewed the forbidding old house as it loomed up among the
trees, fifty yards from where he stood; “but he'd certainly be excusable
for seeking a more cheerful place to spend an evening, considering that
meddlesome stepmother of his.”

The parsimony of old Simon Walton could not have been better illustrated
than by the fact that not a ray of light showed itself in all the rooms
of the house. It was said of him that, fond of smoking though he was, he
never lighted his pipe without getting a match and tobacco from some one
else. At all events, he was at home. And as he went up the uneven brick
walk, Wynn saw him seated on the front porch without his coat.

He was tall, lank, and raw-boned, and though nearly seventy years of
age, his brown hair and short, scraggy whiskers were devoid of the
slightest touch of gray. He was a man who, though outwardly sound
of body, brain, and limb, was not without certain haunting fears of
dissolution. He had had a slight stroke of paralysis which had left a
numbness in his right side, and he was constantly trying to obey certain
directions Dearing had laid down on the day his clerks had found him
unable to rise from his desk in his bank. Dearing's skill had put him
on his feet again, and the young doctor had tried diplomatically to show
his patient that the cause of the trouble lay in an overworked brain too
sharply centred on a none too worthy purpose. But in this he had failed.
Old Simon would have believed in any lotion, any surgical operation, or
any medicine prescribed by Dearing, no matter how costly, for that was
in the young man's line; but he declined to listen to any hint--from
such a source, at least--that his mental watchfulness ought to be
curbed. He had won by his method, and that was ample proof of its
correctness. He had risen from between the plough-handles, he told Wynn
with a satirical laugh, and men who had advised him to think less of the
almighty dollar and more of his God were in their mountain hovels giving
away advice for others to live by. The wise fellows who had said in his
youth that he was “as close as the bark on a tree” and “too mean to
live” were now ready to beg at his feet for money to enable them to
purchase food for their families.

“Well, here you are at last!” he thundered, as Wynn approached through
the gloom. “And it's high time, I am here to say! It doesn't take a
man two hours to go to that bank and bring back a simple statement like
that. I want to know to a fraction of a cent, too, just how that thing
stands, and--”

“Well, you don't owe _me_ a penny, Mr. Walton.” Dearing laughed. “I only
wish you did.”

“Oh, I thought it was Fred!” old Simon ejaculated, not a little
chagrined by his lack of hospitality. “Me and him have had a little
quarrel over his way of doing things, and I was looking for him to bring
some papers from the bank. He went off with the key an hour ago, and
hasn't showed up yet. Have you seen anything of him?”

“No; in fact, that's what I dropped in for. I wanted to speak to him.”

“Then I reckon he's not at your house calling on Miss Margaret. I
thought he might be there, or gone to take that other girl, the daughter
of that old picture-painter, to meeting. I picked up a note from her
to him the other day, making some appointment or other. I might know he
wasn't at _your_ house, though, after the talk I had with the General.
Huh! your uncle needn't be mealy-mouthed with me about what he thinks of
the scamp! In my day and time a fellow of that stripe would be egged out
of the community he lived in. But the blamed fools here in Stafford say
Fred's pardonable to some extent because I've saved up a few cents. Huh!
I'll show them and I'll show him a thing or two before I am through!
I've given him a good education at a fine, high-priced college, and put
him in the bank in a place of trust, and he is treating it as if it was
a front seat at a circus. Huh! they all laugh and call him the 'Stafford
Prince'; they say he is a high-roller; that he's invented a cocktail,
and lets bank-notes go like leaves in a high wind. They needn't say
it is due to the little I've made, either, for there's yourself, for
instance. You had money and property left you, but it didn't make a
stark, staring idiot out of you. By gum! I never see you or hear of your
fine operations without wanting to cuff that fellow behind the ear and
kick him out into the street. Came to breakfast this morning with his
eyes all bunged up and swollen. There is one thing about him that is to
his credit, I'll admit, and that is he won't lie when you are looking
him smack dab in the face, and when I asked him if he had been playing
poker he acknowledged it. Think of that! A boy of _mine_--of Simon
Walton's--playing cards for whopping big stakes when I have toiled and
stinted and saved as I have to gain the little headway I've got.”

“Well, I see he is not here,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “Perhaps I can
find him up-town.”

“Don't hurry; set down,” and the gaunt man stood up and pointed to
another chair. “I clean forgot to be polite, I'm so worked up. Take a
chair--take a chair. I simply want to see what it feels like to sit and
talk to a decent man under thirty.”

“No, I thank you, Mr. Walton, I really can't stay,” and Dearing laid his
hand gently on the quivering shoulder of the old man. “But I want you to
remember my warning about that little trouble of yours. You must not let
things stir you up like this. You can't stand it, you know, as well as
some other men can.”

“Show me how to help it--show me how to _want_ to help it!” spluttered
the banker. “I don't want to keep my temper! I don't want to hold my
tongue! I wish the law of the land would let me take him, big as he is,
and thrash him on the streets before the very folks that call him, as
some have, an improvement on his stingy old daddy. Once I thought I had
him. Once I thought I'd caught him dickering with bank funds, and I had
started to have him put in limbo when he showed me I was wrong. That's
the kind of man I am! I put honesty above everything else, and I won't
hide dishonor, even in my own blood.”

“Well, I'm off,” Wynn Dearing said. “I see I only keep you going on the
very topic I have warned you against. Good-night.”

As the young doctor was approaching the gate he saw a figure in gray,
enveloped, as to head and shoulders, in an old cashmere shawl, emerge
from a clump of plum-trees near the fence. It was Fred Walton's
stepmother, a tall, thin woman of more than sixty years of age, and even
dim as the starlight was he noticed the hardness of her features as she
clutched the shawl under her chin and eagerly peered out from its folds.

“Oh, we have had a day of it, Dr. Dearing!” she said, familiarly, and
with a dry, forced laugh. “When you came in at the gate just now I made
the same mistake Simon did--I thought it was Fred, and hung back at the
side of the house to hear the row. I reckon the boy has decided he's
had enough tongue-lashing for one day, and don't intend to sleep here
to-night. I don't blame his father one bit,” she ran on, volubly, “and I
have the first one to meet who really does. Fred certainly keeps himself
in the public eye. There is hardly a day that some fresh report don't
crop out as to his scrapes. And the match-makers! Great goodness! They
have enough to keep ten towns the size of this busy. They are eager to
see now which Fred will tie to for life: your sister, with all her money
and fine old name, or that strip of a girl who paints and teaches for
a bare living. Some say she is daft about him, and that if your uncle
kicks him out he will settle on her. That's what folks say, you know.
The truth is, I live sort of out of the way, and don't hear all that is
going the rounds.”

“That is a matter I am not posted on, Mrs. Walton,” Dearing said, as he
opened the gate and politely raised his hat in parting. “I must hurry. I
only wanted to see Fred a minute.”

As he neared the central square of the town the rays of light from the
church where he had that morning attended service streamed across the
green, and he approached the little edifice, ascended the steps to the
vestibule, and cautiously peered in at the worshippers, wondering if by
any chance Fred Walton might be there as Dora Barry's escort. But no one
of the numerous backs turned toward him resembled Fred's, and his glance
moved on to the pulpit. The choir was in full view, facing the door, and
beside the keyboard of the organ sat the girl who played it. Was it the
shadows from the gas above her, or was the tense expression in her eyes
and the droop to the sweet young mouth due to some trouble even greater
than any he had yet surmised? He shuddered as he turned away and pursued
his walk toward the square. He would look for Walton at the bank, and
try to divest his mind of the disagreeable duty he had to perform;
but Dora's face continued to haunt him. The mute appeal of her white,
shapely hands patiently folded in her lap, the suggestion of utter
despair in her whole bearing, clung to him and wrung his manly heart.
She had been his playmate when she was a tiny girl and he an awkward boy
in his teens. He had loved her gentle old father, with his long hair and
high, poetic brow, and had believed for years that Dora had inherited
his genius. The artist had gone back to Paris to study, intending to
send for his wife and child when fortune smiled, as he was sure it
would. But he had died there, and was buried by his fellow-students of
the Latin Quarter. They had written the fact to the wife and orphan, but
that was all. It was his child who was in trouble, and Dearing's heart
ached with a dull, insistent pain.

There was a light in the bank; he saw its gleam through the
old-fashioned panes of glass in front, but it went out just as he drew
near the door, which he saw was slightly ajar. As he stood wondering, he
heard some one coming. It was Fred Walton; he was smoking, and the flare
of his cigar lighted up his dark, handsome face for a bare instant. He
was tall, well-built, and strong of physique.

“Hello! Is that you, Fred?” Dealing called out. There was a pause.
Walton seemed to shrink back into the darkness for a moment; then he
said:

“Yes. Who is it?”

“It is I, Fred--Wynn Dearing.”

“Oh, it is you!” Walton drew the heavy door to after him as he came
out and locked it. Then they stood together on the sidewalk in the faint
rays from a gaslight on the corner near by.

“Yes, I've been looking for you, Fred. I went to your house; your father
told me you might be here. Can't we go in the bank?”

Fred Walton stared. His face was rigid; beads of sweat stood on his brow
and cheeks; the cigar in his mouth shook.

“It is terribly hot in there,” he said, after a pause. “I was looking
over the books, and--almost fainted. I didn't think it worth while to
unscrew the rear windows, and not a breath of air is stirring in the
beastly hole.”

“We might walk on to my office; it is always cool. I never bother to
shut the windows, even before a rain.”

“Yes, if--if you wish it, Wynn; that is, if you wish to--to see me.”

“Yes, I want to talk to you, Fred.”

They walked side by side along the pavement. Walton had his hat off, and
was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Once his foot struck against
some object, and he almost fell. Something like an oath of impatience
escaped his lips as he drew himself up and caught the slow, deliberate
step of his companion.

Reaching the door of his office, Dearing unlocked it, pushed it open,
and they entered the little reception-room in the dark. The doctor
struck a match and lighted a lamp on a table, and pointed to a
rocking-chair. “Take a seat, Fred.” A cold smile which gave his face
almost a wry look lay on his firm mouth as he himself sat down near a
table on which lay some books and magazines. He had not removed his eyes
from his companion, who, hat in hand, was settling heavily into the big
chair. “I've got an unpleasant duty before me, Fred--darned unpleasant,
because we've been friends all our lives, and--”

“That's all right, Wynn, go ahead.”

“It is about you and my sister, Fred.”

“I was afraid it was that, Wynn,” the young man muttered. “The thought
came to me when I heard your voice in the dark just now. Well, nothing
you can say will surprise me. I am prepared for anything--for the
very worst; in fact, I am prepared to have Marga--pardon me, your
sister--send me word that she herself wishes to see no more of me.”

“I have no such message as _that_, Fred, but still it is my duty to lay
the facts before you just as they are; and I am going to do it, with the
hope, old man, that you'll be reasonable and--help me out.”

In a calm voice, full of sincerity and stern conviction, Dearing then
recounted all that had taken place between him and his uncle, ending
with: “I give you my word, Fred, and the opinion of a physician who
knows the case, that my uncle is not only likely to worry himself into
the grave over the matter, but that he will absolutely, and at once, cut
my sister out of her rightful inheritance.”

“But she--surely she herself will tell General Sylvester that she is
willing to--forget me, and--”

Dearing, without looking directly at the speaker, shook his head. “It
is only fair to her to say that she is not made that way, Fred. She
believes in you; nothing on earth will change her; she believes you are
the soul of honor, and is ready to throw my uncle's money into his face.
That's why I came to you--to _you_. I thought, and Uncle Tom did, too,
that under the circumstances you might, you see, rather than stand
between her and--”

Dearing went no further. He was interrupted by the look of agony which
had clutched the lineaments of the listener like the throes of death.
Walton's hands, outspread till the fingers looked like prongs of
hard wood, rose to his face and covered it. Dearing saw a shudder of
restrained emotion rise in the strong frame and quiver through it. A
sound like a sob issued from the bent form. Neither spoke for more than
a minute. The step of a passer-by rang sharply on the still night air.
The tones from Dora Barry's organ swelled out in the distance and rolled
toward them, followed by the singing of the choir. Suddenly Walton rose,
and leaned on the back of his chair.

“It is all up with me, Wynn!” he groaned, deeply. “After to-night you'll
never be troubled by me in any shape, form, or fashion. I wish I could
be man enough to make a clean breast of it all to you, but what's the
use? It wouldn't do any good or help the matter. You'll know to-morrow,
as all Stafford will. I'll say this, though: I am wholly unworthy of
your sister's confidence and respect. To have paid her such attentions,
situated as I am situated, was an insult. I have committed an offence
known so far to no one but myself, and which can never be pardoned. I
am at the end of my rope, old chap. If I could undo my act by ending my
wretched life, I'd do it to-night. I love your sister as sincerely as
a man ever loved a woman, but I have no earthly right to think of her,
much less to consider myself a suitor for her hand. When she knows
the truth--the whole wretched truth--she herself will turn from me in
disgust, and blush with shame at the thought of ever having encouraged
me. You have the right, as a man and her brother, to kick me for my
presumption. I can't go into details. I could not bear to see your face
as you hear it, but it will be in every one's mouth tomorrow.”

“Oh, Fred, surely you--” Dearing started to say, but, raising his hand,
Walton interrupted him.

“Never mind, Wynn. I have said enough. I have no right to send your
sister even a farewell message, certainly not to tell her what my
feeling for her is at this moment; but it will be best for the General
to rest assured, so you may give him my word that I'll never cross her
path again. I am going away to-night, never to be seen here any more. I
am not man enough to face this town after my conduct becomes public.
I was weak. I fell--that's all. I don't know what will become of me. I
blame no one but myself, certainly not my poor old father. You will not
see me again. Goodbye. I need not wish you well; you will do well.
You were marked by Fate from the start as one of the lucky, _uncursed_
ones.”

The doctor stood up and extended his hand to detain him, but Walton had
turned hastily away. Dearing heard his dragging feet in the corridor and
then on the sidewalk.

“Poor chap! It is something very, very serious,” he mused. “Nothing
but terrible trouble would work a man up like that. I wonder if--” He
started and shuddered. Mrs. Barry's pale, troubled face of the morning
came before him, then Dora's downcast attitude as he had seen her in
the choir only a few moments before. He started, and his blood ran cold
through his veins. Could it be possible--could any man sink low enough
to--? No; he would not even think of it, else he would regret not having
killed the man as he sat bowed before him. No, it wasn't that--the human
monster did not live who could pluck and stamp upon that beautiful and
helpless flower of maidenhood. He extinguished the lamp, went out into
the dark street, and closed his door. The congregation was leaving
the church as he reached it. Among the last to go was Dora. He fell
in behind her, but made no effort to catch her up. She had shown no
willingness to talk to him that morning, and he would not disturb her
now. Perhaps the girl was really in love with Walton, and had gleaned
some inkling of the young man's trouble. Yes, that would explain her
present depression. He walked behind her till she disappeared at the
cottage gate; then he turned and went homeward past Kenneth Galt's
grounds. He saw a spark of fire moving about under the trees to the
right of the gloomy-looking residence which to-night seemed devoid of
any light, and knew that Galt was there smoking alone, as was his habit
at that hour. Dearing put his hand out to the gate-latch. Perhaps a chat
with his philosophic friend would help clear his brain of the maddening
thoughts which surged about him, but he paused.

“No; Madge will be up waiting for me,” he reflected. “I may as well meet
her and let her know the worst. Poor girl, she'll have to be brave!”

He moved on to his own gate. There was no one on the veranda, as
was often the case in warm weather, but in a little pagoda-shaped
summer-house on the lawn he descried a white object. It stirred as the
hinges of the gate creaked, and he entered, It was Margaret, and she
came to him like a spirit across the grass.

“I told you I'd wait,” she reminded him, and her voice sounded strange
and even harsh in its guttural tendency. “I thought you'd never come.”

Through all that had passed between him and Fred Walton that night
Dealing's anger and resentment had been held in check by sympathy for
the man in his desperate plight and despair; but now, as he saw the
evidences of his sister's agony written all too plainly upon her young
being, his indignation kindled. The scoundrel, the coward, was running
away to keep from facing public opinion, yet was leaving this poor,
crushed girl to suffer in consequence of his conduct!

“You ought not to have waited,” he reproached her, in a tone she had
never heard him use. “Your being here now, looking like this, is an
acknowledgment that you actually _care_ for the cowardly cur--you, who
ought to--”

“Brother, stop!” The girl clutched his arms. She breathed hard against
his breast as she leaned close to him. “'The cowardly cur,' you
say--_you_, who have never abused him before.”

“I wonder now that I let him go with a whole bone in his body,” Dearing
retorted, raspingly. “I didn't realize what I was doing, or I--”

“Oh, what _do_ you mean?” Margaret interrupted, giving him a quick,
impatient shake. “You needn't come here trying to make me believe vile
slander. It is easy enough for lies to get circulated in a town noted
for its tattling busybodies.”

“I've had his own deliberate confession,” Dearing answered. “With his
head hanging in shame and his face covered he told me he was forced by
some dishonorable act to leave town, never to return. He didn't tell me
what he had done; he said he'd rather not go into it, but that it would
all be out to-morrow. Of his own accord he proposed to give you up, and
said I might tell Uncle Tom that he'd never see or write to you again.
Whatever it is, you ought to have sufficient pride to--”

Dealing stopped short. With a low moan Margaret was reeling toward him,
and, as he caught her to keep her from falling, he saw that she had
fainted. Lifting her up, Dearing bore her into the house and up the
stairs to her room. He laid her on her bed, glad that his uncle and the
servants had not noticed the accident. He sprinkled her face with water.
She opened her eyes as he bent over her in the darkness, and recognized
him.

“You are all right now, Madge, darling,” he said, huskily, as he fondly
kissed her. “Be calm and go to sleep. You must not suffer on account of
this man. He is absolutely unworthy of your regard, and that ought to
settle it, so far as you are concerned.”

Margaret sat up, and put her arms about her brother's neck.

“I was afraid the other day that something was wrong--that something
terrible was about to happen to him,” she sobbed. “He was awfully
gloomy. He seemed to be on the point of confiding in me every minute,
but couldn't get it out. You say you have no idea what it is?”

“No; but he says it will be public property to-morrow. Try to forget it.
You must call your pride to your aid. Uncle was right in his objections
to him, and you were wrong. I neglected my duty in not seeing him even
sooner than I did. Now, good-night.”

Leaving her with a kiss on her cold cheek, Dearing, choking down a lump
in his throat, went to his own room. The windows facing the south looked
out on Kenneth Galt's grounds, and Dearing could still see his friend's
cigar intermittently glowing as the student, philosopher, and successful
financier strode back and forth.

“Who knows? Kenneth may be right, after all,” Dearing mused, bitterly.
“At such moments as this one wonders if there really can be a God who
is justly ruling the universe. What has poor little Madge done, in her
gentle purity, to merit this crushing blow? It was her very trusting
innocence that brought it upon her.”

It was one of Dealing's habits to say his prayers at night on retiring,
and when he had disrobed he knelt by his bedside. But somehow the words
failed to come as readily as had been their wont; he was trying to pray
for the relief of his sister, but reason kept telling him that it was
a futile appeal. God had not hindered the approach of the calamity;
why should mere human appeal immediately lift it? So he said his “Amen”
 sooner than usual, and with a brain hot over the memory of Walton's
looks and words, he rolled and tossed on a sleepless bed till far into
the night.




CHAPTER V

|WHEN Fred Walton left Dearing's office, he went along the street toward
his father's home. He walked slowly, absolute despair showing itself in
the droop of his powerful body, and in the helpless, animal glare of his
eyes. He had reached a point from which, the street being on a slight
elevation, he could see the old house in which he was born. He paused.
All about him was peace, stillness, and incongruous content. The town
clock, capping the brick stand-pipe of the waterworks, struck nine
solemn strokes, and he could feel the after-vibrations of the mellow
metal as the sound died away. He turned, leaving his home on the left,
and walked on aimlessly till the houses which bordered the way became
more scattered, and then he reached a bridge which spanned a little
river. A full moon was rising. Through the foliage of the near-by trees
it looked like a world of fire away off in space. Its red rays fell on
the swiftly rushing water, throwing on its surface a path of flaming
blood. He went out on the structure, and leaned against the iron
railing. Just beyond the end of the bridge rose a green-clad hill.
It had a high fence around it, and a wide gateway with a white,
crescent-shaped sign above it. It was the Stafford cemetery.

“Yes, I ought to see it once more before I go,” he said. “It will be
the last time--the very last; and surely, though I'll blush in her dead
presence, _thief_ as _I_ am, I ought to go.”

He crossed to the other side, and went into the gate of the enclosure.
Threading his way among the monuments, his brow reverently bared to the
solemn moonlight, he came to a square plot surrounded by an ivy-coated
brick wall with a granite coping. It contained several graves bearing
his name, but only one engaged his attention. He sat down on its
footstone, and, with his head still bare, he remained motionless for a
long time.

“She didn't know the son she used to be so proud of would ever come to
this,” he said, bitterly. “With all her hopes and prayers, she little
knew that I'd be an outcast--actually forced to flee from the law; she
little dreamed it would come to that when she used to talk of the great
and good things I was to do. Poor, dear, little mother! You'd rather
be dead than alive to-night. I wonder if it is _absolutely too late?_
Perhaps, far away, under a new name and among strangers, I may be able
to live differently. And if I could, she would know and be glad. Mother,
listen, dear!” A sob rose in him, and shook him from head to foot. “The
wrong I did was done when my brain was turned by liquor, and I did not
realize my danger till it was too late; I swear here--right here--to
you, dear little mother, that from this moment on I'll try to be better.
I may fail, but I'll try. I swear, too, that from this moment on I'll
bend every energy of my soul and body to the undoing of the thing of
which I am guilty.”

He stood up. Ten solemn strokes of the town clock rang out on the
profound stillness. The air was vibrant with a myriad insect voices from
the marshes along the river. Rays of lamplight shot across the shrubbery
between the shafts and the slabs of stone. They came from a window in
the cottage of the sexton of the cemetery. The lone visitor saw a shaggy
head of hair, a long, ragged beard the color of the clay beneath the
soil, and a rugged face, gashed and seamed by time. The old man was
smoking--placidly smoking. Even a humble digger of graves could be
content, while this young, vigorous soul was steeped in the dregs of
despair. Walton turned away, slowly retraced his steps to the outside,
crossed the river, and, careful to avoid meeting any one, he finally
came again to his father's house. It was dark.

“I might get in at a window and bring away a few things to wear,” he
reflected. “But no, I must not risk it. He might meet me face to
face and demand the truth. I'd have to tell him. Sharp of sight, and
suspicious as he now is, he would read it in my face, and order my
arrest. Yes, he would do it. He is my father, but he would do it.”

On he went, now headed for the square. Reaching the bank, the thought
occurred to him that, having a key, he would go in and write a note to
his father. A moment later he had locked himself within the stifling
place, and under a flaring gas-jet, and seated on the high office-stool
at a desk, he wrote as follows:

My Dear Father,--Surprised though you've never been at my numerous bad
acts, you will be now at what I am about to confess. For more than a
week I have been covering up a shortage in my account which amounts to
more than you can afford to lose without warning. I am five thousand
dollars behind, and am absolutely unable to replace it. I shall make no
excuses. Being your son gave me no right to the money, but taking it
at a time when I believed it would save me in a certain speculation in
futures, I told myself that I had the right, as your son and heir, to
borrow it. That I looked at it that way, and was half intoxicated at the
time the deed was committed, is all that I can say by way of palliation
of my offence.

You once said to me that if I ever did anything of this sort that you
would turn me over to the law exactly as you would any stranger, and
I understand you well enough to know that you will keep your word.
You would do it in your anger, even if you regretted it afterward; so,
father, I am leaving home to-night, never to return. Don't think I
am taking any more of your money, either, for I am not. I am leaving
without a penny. I don't know where I shall go, but I am starting out
into the world to try to begin life anew. You have always contended that
my hopes of inheriting your savings was the prime cause of my failure,
and that had I been forced to struggle for myself, as you had to do as
a young man, I should have known the true value of money. I believe you
are right, and to-night, as I am leaving, a certain hope comes to me
that maybe there is enough of your sterling energy in me to make a man
of me _eventually_. Perhaps it won't count much with you for me to say
that I am going to try to be straight and honorable from now on. You
never have had faith in my promises, but you have never seen me tried as
I shall be tried. I know how much I owe you to a cent, and as fast as I
earn money--if I _can_ earn any--it shall be sent back to you, and, if
I live, I shall wipe out the debt which now stands against me. I wish
I could put my arms round your neck to-night and beg your forgiveness
before I go, but you'd not trust me. In your fury over your loss you'd
not give me the chance I must have to redeem myself, and this is the
only way. But, oh, father, _do, do_ give me this last chance! For the
sake of my mother's memory, and your name, which I have tarnished, don't
try to hunt me down like a common thief! I want one more opportunity.
_Do, do_, give it to me! Good-bye.

Frederic.

Folding the sheets on which he had written, Walton put them into an
envelope and placed it on his father's desk. He was now ready to go, but
paused again.

“I can't write to Margaret,” he said. “I have promised not to. Her
brother will tell her enough, anyway, to make her ashamed that she ever
knew me; but there is poor Dora--my dear, trusting friend. I must not go
without a line to her.”

He seated himself again, and wrote as follows:

My Dear Little Friend,--You have said several times of late that you
feared I had some burden on my mind because I was not as cheerful as
I used to be. Well, your sharp, kindly eyes were reading a truth I
was trying to conceal. I have got myself into most serious trouble. I
haven't the heart to go into details over it; I need not, anyway, for
my father will let it out soon enough. Every tongue in old Stafford will
wag and clatter over the final finish of the town's daredevil to-morrow.
And it will pain you, too, for of all my friends, young as you are,
you were my soundest adviser. You used to say that I'd soon sow my wild
oats, and settle down and make a man of myself. You used to say, too,
that I'd finally win the girl who--but, disgraced as I am, I won't
mention her name.

I have lost her forever, dear Dora. She may have cared a little for me,
but she won't when she knows how low I've fallen. I am going far away
to try to hew out some sort of a new road. I may fail, as I have always
failed, but if I do, my failure will not be added to the list of my
shortcomings here in Stafford.

Now, dear Dora, forgive me for speaking of something concerning you. For
the last month, though I did not mention it, I have been afraid that all
was not going quite well with you, either. You almost admitted it once
when I caught you crying. You remember, it was the evening I met Kenneth
Galt and you in the wood back of your house--the evening your mother,
you remember, thought you had been out with me, and scolded us both. I
saw plainly that you did not want her to know you had met him, and so I
said nothing; but the thing has troubled me a great deal, I'll admit. I
really know nothing seriously against the man, but he has queer, almost
too modern, views in regard to love, and I think, dear Dora, that maybe
you have imbibed some of them. Secret association like that cannot be
best for a young girl, and so I feel that I can't go away without
just this little warning. He is a wealthy man of the world, and his
friendship with a sweet, pure girl like you are ought to be open and
aboveboard. You are rarely beautiful, dear Dora. Your painting shows
that you are a genius. You have a great future before you; don't spoil
it all by becoming too much interested in this man. It may appeal to
your romantic side to meet him like that, but it can't--simply _can't_
be best. Now, you will forgive your “big brother,” won't you? I may
never come back; I may never even write, but I shall often think
lovingly of you, dear friend. Good-bye.

When he had signed, sealed, and directed the letter, he put a stamp on
it and went out and closed the bank, pushing the key back into the room
through a crack beneath the shutter. He then slowly crossed the deserted
square to the post-office on the corner and deposited the letter. After
this he stood with his strong arms folded, looking about irresolutely.
In front of him lay the town's single line of horse-cars, which led to
the railway station half a mile distant. One of the cars stood in
front of him. It had made its last slow and jangling trip to meet the
nine-o'clock north-bound train. The track stretched out before him, the
worn bars gleaming like threads of silver in the moonlight. Casting one
other look about him, and heaving a deep sigh, he lowered his head and
started for the station.

“I think this is Jack Thomas' run,” he reflected. “If it is, he will
take me aboard.”




CHAPTER VI

REACHING the depot in the edge of the town where there were only
three or four cottages, a hotel of the lowest class, and a negro
dive masquerading as a restaurant, at which fried spring chicken, hot
biscuits, and a cup of coffee were advertised on a crude placard for
twenty-five cents, he met few signs of wakefulness. At a switch near a
water-tank with a dripping spout a watchman stood with a dingy lantern.
Walton moved over to him.

“South-bound freight on time?” he asked.

The man looked at him indifferently. “I heard her blow at the crossing,”
 he answered. “There! can't you hear her rumble?”

“Who's the conductor?”

“Jack Thomas, if he didn't lay over at Red Hill to spend Sunday with his
folks.”

“I want to speak to him. Where will his cab stop?” The man had filled
his short pipe, and he took the globe off his lantern to light it. “The
engine will water here at the tank,” he said, gruffly. “The cab will
stop down near the tool-house on account of the length of the train--a
lot of empty fruit-cars going South.”

“All right; thank you.” Walton moved away, and leaned against a stack
of cross-ties near the tool-house. He could now quite clearly hear the
rumble of the coming train. There was a wide stretch of old cotton and
corn fields, now barren and out of use, between him and the train, and
across them presently shot the wavering gleam of the engine's headlight.
On it came, growing larger and steadier till it had passed him, and with
the harsh creaking of brakes on massive, groaning wheels the locomotive
came to a stop. The side door of the caboose was open. A man holding
a lantern lightly swung himself to the ground, and peered up at a
brake-man on the roof of the car.

“Unwind her, and run to the other end!” he ordered. “You needn't hang
around my cab all night. I haven't a drop to drink.”

“All right, Cap,” and, jumping from car to car on the foot-boards
overhead, the brakeman disappeared in the cloud of steam and smoke which
the locomotive was belching forth.

“Hello, Jack!” Walton came forward.

“Hello! Good Lord, Fred, what are you doing down here this time of
night? I thought you fellows had a game on every Sunday. I was just
wishing I had enough boodle ahead to lay over and walk away with some
Stafford coin. I want to get even for the last hold-up you blacklegs
gave me.”

“I'm dead broke, Jack, old man,” Walton said, avoiding the eyes of
his friend. “I want to get to Atlanta before the morning train, and I
wondered--”

“If I'd take you? Of course I will. I'm sorry to hear you are broke,
though, for we might pass the time with a game. It's down-grade,” he
laughed, impulsively; “we might turn old No. 12 over to the fireman, and
get the engineer and brakeman to come in and try a round.”

“I wouldn't trust myself with three railroad men,” Walton tried to jest,
“even if I hadn't sworn off.”

“What! again? Oh, that _is_ a joke!” Thomas laughed. “You Stafford chaps
say you swear off, then practice night and day, and stick it to the
first galoot that comes along. Oh, I am on!” There was a sound of
rushing water from the tank ahead. In the dim light in the locomotive
they could see the fireman on the tender astride of the swinging pipe.

“I'm glad you will take me along, Jack,” Walton replied. “I want to
get to Atlanta, and haven't a cent on earth. The truth is, I am in bad
shape.”

“I've heard you sing that song before,” the conductor replied, with an
incredulous smile. He raised his lantern till the yellow light fell on
Walton's face, and he stared in astonishment. “Why, really, you _do_
look kind o' bunged up. What's the matter, old chap?”

“I'm simply down and out, Jack, that's the sum and substance of it. I am
down and out. When do you start?”

“In a minute. I've got to run clean round the train and examine my
door-seals. Climb in. I'll swing on as we leave the yard. Make yourself
comfortable. Huh! you are done for, eh? That _is_ a joke!”

Climbing the iron step, Walton found himself in the caboose. It was
dimly lighted by a lamp in a curved tin holder on the wall over a
crude desk with pigeonholes. Here the conductor kept a pencil tied to
a string, and some yellow blanks for reports and telegrams. There was a
hard, smooth, backless bench near the door, and a narrow cot with wooden
sides and ends. On an inverted box stood a tin pitcher, a wash-basin,
and a cake of coarse yellow soap. On a hook hung a soiled towel; a pair
of blue overalls, a white shirt, and a tattered raincoat were suspended
at the sport of the wind and motion of the car on other hooks along the
wall.

There was a harsh, snarling sound as the hinged water-pipe was drawn up
on its chains; the clanging of a bell; the shriek of the locomotive's
whistle; a quickening succession of jerks, communicated from bumper
to bumper, and the train was off. Walton was glad to be alone with the
desolate pain that clutched him now with renewed force. He wanted no
human eye to witness his misery. Away off there, beyond the hills,
in its shroud of mystic moonlight, lay the town he now loved with a
yearning which all but tore his heart from his body. He was looking at
the old place for the last time unless, unless--and his blood ran cold
at the thought--unless he was brought back by the officers of the law to
answer for his crime. Yes, that might be his fate, after all. A city so
well policed as Atlanta would prove a poor hiding-place for a penniless
fugitive. A telegram from Stafford would put the authorities on the
alert, and escape would be impossible. And no sentimental reasons would
check prompt action on the part of old Simon Walton. In his rage
over the discovery of the unexpected loss of such a large amount of
ever-needed cash, he would balk at nothing. Of family pride he had
little--certainly not pride strong enough to make him a party to the
concealment of crime, even in his own blood.

“If I have to be the daddy of a thief,” Fred imagined his saying,
“I'd rather be the daddy of one under lock and key, where he could be
controlled like any other sort of maniac.”

Yes, he must make good his escape, the young man reflected; there was
no other way. Escape meant a chance, at least, for reformation and
atonement, and he must reform--he must atone.

The train was rounding a curve. A sudden and deeper pain shot through
him, for on a hill, in a grove not far off, he saw the roof, gables,
windows, and walls of a country house he well knew. It was there, at a
house-party, that he had been thrown for the first time with Margaret
Dearing and had learned to love her. His eyes were blinded by tears he
could not restrain as he tried to descry the exact spot among the trees
where he and she had sat that glorious morning in early autumn.

“God have mercy!” He leaned against the side of the car and groaned.
Even now she knew of his ruin. Her brother had already prepared her for
the news, which would spread through the town like wild-fire. She knew,
and her proud brow was burning under the shame of having trusted a
coward and a knave to the extent of having had her name coupled with
his. He stood in the centre of the car, swayed back and forth by its
ruthless motion. Those merciless wheels, grinding so close beneath,
would end it all. It would be an easy thing to swing himself under
the car door till he was over the rail and then let go--_let go!_ He
shuddered, and turned cold from head to foot.

There was a thumping overhead as some one leaped from the roof of the
car ahead to that of the caboose. There was a scraping of soles and
heels on the tin covering, a step on the iron ladder by the door, and
the conductor lunged into the car.

“Got on by the very skin of my teeth,” he said, with a merry oath. “We
are on the down-grade, and we started quick. But why don't you take a
seat?” He raised his lantern, and the rays fell full on Walton's pallid
face. “Say, old man, are you as hard hit as all that?”

“It couldn't be harder, Jack,” Walton said. “I am at the end of my
rope.”

“Well, I am sorry--I'm real sorry,” the conductor declared. “I'll tell
you what to do. It's a tough ride to Atlanta, along with our stops and
sidings and waits on through trains. There won't be a soul in the bunk
to-night. Throw off your things and crawl in.”

“But that's _your_ bed,” Walton protested, thoughtful, even in his
misery, of his friend's comfort.

“Not for to-night it isn't,” Thomas affirmed, as he hung up his lantern
and drew a stool to the desk. “I've got to be up till daybreak. Crawl
in, I tell you!” Walton sat down on the edge of the cot, a trembling
hand went to his necktie. In the rays of the yellow light he looked as
though he were about to faint.

“Hold on, wait!” Thomas chuckled. “I'll physic you all right.” He raised
the top of his desk and drew out a flask of whiskey. “It is actually the
smoothest article that ever slid down a human throat,” he laughed, as
he shook the flask and extended it to his guest. “Take a pull at it, and
you will have dreams of Paradise.”

“I don't care for it right now, Jack,” Walton returned. “I may ask for
it later. Whiskey always keeps me awake.”

“Well, I've got to sit up,” the conductor said, “so here's looking at
you. I've got the dandiest thirst that mortal ever owned. You've heard
about the feller who told the prohibitionist that he didn't want to get
rid of his. Well, I'm that way about mine. If a man went round paying
for thirsts, he couldn't buy mine for all the money in the State.
I've got it trained till it walks a chalk-line. I go without a drink
sometimes for days at a time, just so she will get good and ripe and
have a sort of clinging rasp on her. But no joking, old man, I don't
like your looks. I've seen you kind of blue before, but I never saw you
plumb flabbergasted like this. You say you are broke. I don't happen to
have anything in my pocket right now, but I reckon I could draw a little
pay in advance from our agent in Atlanta, and--”

“I don't want to borrow any money, Jack, thank you just the same,”
 Walton said. “When I get to Atlanta I'll look around and see what will
turn up.” And, stifling a groan of despair, he sank back on the cot.

“All right, old man,” the conductor responded. “Now, go to sleep. You
need rest.” He turned the wick of the lamp down and pushed his lantern
into a corner, so that its light would not fall on the face of his
guest. Then he slid the bench to the open door, lighted his pipe, and
fell into a revery.




CHAPTER VII

|THE cot was hard and narrow, and it had sides of unpadded boards. For
hours Fred lay pretending to be asleep, that he might shirk the sheer
torture of conversation with his friend. Through partly closed eyelids
he watched the railroad man as he sat in the doorway looking out at the
rapidly shifting night view. When a station was reached the conductor
would spring up, and with his lantern swinging in his hand he would
descend to the ground and wave his light or call out an order to a
switchman or the man at the brakes. Then the creaking, mechanical
reptile would crawl along and speed away again. Several times the
miserable passenger dozed off into most delectable dreams. In them he
was always with Margaret in some fragrant spot among flowers, by flowing
streams, and in wondrous sunshine. Once he saw General Sylvester and his
grim old father in congenial converse together, while he and Margaret
stood hand in hand near by, and then his beautiful, haughty sweetheart
put her arms about the grizzled neck of the man who had never known
affection and kissed him. But she was fading away, as was the erect
old soldier, and the dreamer found himself before his father at the old
man's desk in the bank. And now Simon Walton's face was dark as night.
A ledger lay open before him. “Five thousand dollars of my hard-earned
money!” the old man shrieked. “And you deliberately stole it from my
vault! Thief! Thief! Thief!” Simon's lips continued to move, but no
sound save a dismal, mechanical rumbling issued. There was a long scream
of the steam-whistle, a thunderous bumping of cars one against another,
the rasping rattle of brake-chains, a glare of yellow light, and Fred
saw Thomas standing over him, his lantern's rays thrown downward.

“In the yard at last, old chap,” the conductor said, as he took his
lantern apart and blew out the flame, “but don't you get up. You haven't
had enough sleep, and it is only five o'clock. You didn't rest well in
that blamed bunk. You kept rolling and jabbering in your sleep. I've got
to run up-town, but the cab will stand right here on the side-track all
day, and you can leave it whenever you like. I'll be about the general
freight-office till noon, and if you want me, look me up.”

“All right. You are mighty good, Jack,” the wanderer said, appalled and
stupefied by his sudden awakening to the grim reality of his condition.

When the conductor had left, and unable, through sheer mental agony, to
go back to sleep, Walton crawled out of the bunk and stood up. His
legs, arms, and neck were stiff, and twinges of pain darted through his
muscles as he moved. Standing in the open door, he looked out over
the vast stretch of railway tracks. The gray light of dawn shrouded
everything. Over the tops of cars, heaps of old scrap-iron, blinking
vari-colored signal-lights, and bridges which spanned the tracks he saw
the spectre-like outlines of the State Capitol's drab dome, and farther
to the left the tall office-buildings in the centre of the city.

Just then a man came round the end of the car, and, with a start of
surprise, recognized him. It was a railway mail-carrier who had once
lived at Stafford. “Why, hello, Fred!” he cried, rubbing his eyes, for
he had just risen from his bed. “What are you doing down this way at
break of day?”

Walton hesitated; a tinge of color came into his pale face.

“Ran down for a trip with Jack Thomas,” he answered; “this is his cab.”

“Oh yes--I see. Where _is_ Jack?”

“Had to go up-town.”

“You haven't had your breakfast yet, I'll bet. Come on and take a snack
with me. There is a good all-night eating-house up by the Viaduct.”

“Thanks, I've got to hang around here for a while.”

“Well, so long!” the man said, with a backward look of perplexity, as he
moved away. “I'll see you uptown, I reckon.”

Walton stood down on the ground and looked about him; then he saw
something that drove him back into the car. It was a policeman in
uniform a hundred yards away. He seemed to emerge from the cattle-yard
on the left, and was walking along slowly, looking under cars and trying
their sliding doors. He would stoop to the cross-ties and peer carefully
at the trucks, and move on again to repeat the process at each car of
the long train, the engine of which was fired for leaving. Walton sank
to a seat on the cot; the man was searching for him. There would be no
escape. Presently a feeling of relief came to him in the reflection that
his fears were ungrounded, for his father, not having read the letter
he had left on his desk, could not yet know of his flight. The old man
never went to the bank earlier than eight in the morning, and it could
not now be later than five. Yes, the officer was looking for some one
else. The fugitive breathed more freely for a few minutes; then another
shock quickly followed the first. It was now plain--horribly plain. His
father, having sent him to the bank for a statement of his account the
evening before, had waited up for him, his impatience and suspicion
growing as the hours passed. Old Simon could not have slept while a
matter of that nature remained unsettled. He had waited, pacing the
floor of his room, till nine; till ten; till eleven; and then, full of
gravest alarm as to the safety of his funds, he had gone down to the
bank to ascertain the cause of the delay. In his mind's eye, Fred
saw the grim old financier as he stalked muttering through the silent
streets of the slumbering town. He saw him open the big door of the
bank, and heard his disappointed growl as he faced the darkness. Old
Simon, with fumbling hands, found and struck a match; then he groped his
way back to his office and lighted the gas. Fred saw him as he stared
round the room, and, with the gasp of an animal, pounced on the letter
he had written; he saw, as if he had been on the spot, the distorted,
terrified face of the bewildered old miser. Then what had he done? He
had gone quaking and whimpering to the home of the sheriff near by; he
had waked the officer by pounding on the door, and ordered the immediate
pursuit of his son as an absconding thief. The telegram had left
Stafford before midnight; it had passed the fugitive as he slept, and
the policeman now looking under the cars was only one of scores who were
bent upon hunting him down. Yes, it was all over. There was nothing left
now but to be taken back to Stafford, handcuffed as a common felon. He
crept to the car door and looked out. The policeman had paused in his
search, and was coming directly across to him. A feeling of odd and
almost soothing resignation came over the young man; at any rate, he
would not hide like a coward. He was guilty, and he would take his
punishment. So he sank upon the bench at the door and calmly eyed the
officer as he crossed the tracks, playfully swinging the polished club
which was strapped to his wrist.

“Good-morning!” the man said, looking up. “You are not the conductor of
this train, are you?”

“No,” Fred answered, wonderingly; “he's just gone up-town.”

The policeman swung his club. “Got a match in your pocket? I want to
smoke so bad I can taste it.”

Walton fumbled in his pocket and produced some matches, and, still
wondering, he reached over and put them into the extended hand. The man
in uniform was young, clear of skin and eye, and had a good face--a face
which Walton no longer dreaded, which, indeed, he felt that he could
like.

“Tough job I'm on now, you can bet your life,” the policeman said, as
he struck the match on the iron ladder of the car and applied it to a
half-smoked cigar.

“What sort of job is it?” Walton asked.

“Why, you see,” the man explained, “the railroads of the State have had
no end of trouble with hoboes here lately. The dirty tramps are forever
stealing rides. At this time of year they are as thick as flies on the
trucks, brakes, and bumpers. They fall off when they get to sleep, and
are killed; they break in the cars, and steal the freight; and a gang
of them have been known to throw rocks at the train-crew, and raise
hell generally. So, as a last resort, the roads determined to make cases
against every one that could be caught, and they are sending them up by
the hundreds, and for good long terms, too. They are never able to pay
the fines, you see, and they have to work it out in the coal-mines or
turpentine camps. Now and then a big mistake is made, of course; for
many a good man has been sent up for only trying to reach a place where
he could get honest employment. But the law is no respecter of persons.
Let a man without money to pay his fine be caught stealing a ride
through _this_ town, and nothing in God's world will save him. The
feathers of a jail-bird stick mighty tight, you know, and after one gets
out he never makes any headway.”

“They are not well treated, either, I have heard,” Walton put in.

“You bet they are not,” the policeman said, looking across the tracks.
“Gee! did you see that? I think I've got one now. I saw a fellow peep
out right over there.”

He darted off, club in hand, and Walton saw him disappear between two
cars, and heard his stern voice cry: “Come out of there, young man!
Don't make me crawl under after you! Come on, the game is up!”

Walton descended to the ground and crossed over to the policeman just as
a young man with a grimy face and tousled hair emerged from behind the
heavy wheels. He did not appear to be more than twenty years of age, and
his clothing, even to his hat and necktie, indicated that he was not an
ordinary tramp. He stared in a bewildered way at the blue coat, brass
buttons, and helmet-shaped hat.

“For God's sake, don't send me up, policeman!” he pleaded, in a piteous
tone. “I am out of money, and want to get through by way of New Orleans
to Oklahoma. I am out of work and trying to reach Gate City, where I can
get a job.”

“I've got nothing to do with that,” the policeman said, curtly. “I'm put
here to arrest you fellows--that's my duty, and I've caught you in the
act.”

“O God, have mercy!” Walton heard the boy muttering to himself. “I can't
stand it! I'd rather die, and be done with it!”

He looked at the officer again, and his lips seemed to be trying to
frame some further appeal, but, as if realizing the utter futility of
such a course, he simply hung his head and was silent.

Walton, who liked the boy's looks, suddenly felt a rebellious impulse
rise and struggle within him. It was the quality which, in spite of his
faults, had endeared him to his many friends.

“Look here, old man,” he said to the policeman, “law or no law, duty
or no duty, you can't take the responsibility of this thing on your
shoulders. I'm a fair judge of men, and I am sure it would be wrong to
send this boy up. You know he is only doing what you or I would do if
hard luck drove us to it. Say, old man, I'm dead broke myself, I haven't
a dollar in my pocket, and I am out of a job besides; but I've got a
good solid gold watch in my pocket, and if you will let him go I'll give
it to you.”

The officer wavered; he stared, speechless, for a moment, colored high,
then shrugged his shoulders.

“I reckon my duty _does_ allow me to sorter discriminate,” he faltered.
“I haven't seen the chap actually riding, either. But I won't take any
bribes--I wouldn't take one from _you_, anyway. You are about as white
a chap as I've run across in many a day, and I'm going to drop the dang
thing. God knows, I don't want your watch! But, say, don't get _me_ into
trouble. I've got a family to support, and I must hold my job. Get the
fellow out of the freight-yards before the town wakes up. There are cops
on our force who would drag him in by the heels. Car-grease like he's
got smeared all over him is a dead give-away. Say, young man, take a
fool's advice: get out on the country roads. You'll make it all right
among the farms.”

“You won't take the watch, then?” Fred held the timepiece toward him,
its golden chain swinging.

“No, I don't want it. But hurry up! Get him out of the yards!”

“Come on, and I'll show you the way,” Walton said to the boy, when the
officer had gone. And without a word, so overjoyed was he by the sudden
turn in his favor, the begrimed youth dumbly followed his rescuer across
the tracks to a quiet little street bordered by diminutive cottages.

On they trudged through street after street till, just as the first
rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds, they found the open
country before them. For miles and miles it stretched away to blue hills
in the vague, misty distance.

“I can make out all right now,” the boy said, with a grateful glance at
his rescuer, as they paused. “I don't want to take you farther out of
your way. God knows, I'll not forget your kindness till my dying day.
You don't know what you've saved me from. I'd have killed myself rather
than be sent up. I've heard what those places are like. If you will tell
me your name and where your home is, I'll write back to you.”

Walton's eyes met those of his companion. “Huh!” he said, gloomily,
“I'm as homeless as you are, my boy. The truth is, I don't know where
to turn, myself, and really the thought of parting with you, for some
reason or other, hurts me. I need a companion worse than I ever did in
my life. Say, will you let me go with you?”

“_Will_ I?” and the grimy face filled with emotion, the big brown eyes
glistened with unshed tears. “God knows, I'd rather have you than any
one else, and I certainly am lonely enough!” The blackened hand went out
and clasped Walton's, and, face to face, these new friends in adversity
stood and silently vowed fidelity. “What is your name?” Fred asked.

“Dick Warren,” the younger said. “I am from Kentucky--Louisville. I've
got no close kin, and no money. I was a telegraph operator in Memphis
till a month ago, but lost my job. Long-distance telephone is killing
my business. I heard of Gate City--they say it is booming. I want to go
there.”

“I'll join you,” Walton said. “I've heard of it, too. Those, new towns
are all right.”

“You didn't tell me your name,” Dick suggested.

“Oh, I forgot; why, it's Fred--it's Frederic Spencer.” He had given
the seldom-used part of his Christian name, that of his maternal
grandfather. “Some day I'll tell you all about myself, but not now--not
now. Are you hungry, Dick?”

The boy nodded slowly. It looked as if he were afraid that an admission
of the whole truth might further discommode his new friend. “A little
bit,” he said, “but I can make out for a while.”

“We'll try a farm-house farther on,” Walton said, with an appreciative
glance at the weary face before him. “I'll have to have a cup of coffee
or I'll drop in my tracks.”

The sun, now above the tree-tops, was beginning to beat fiercely upon
them, and threatening much in the way of heat and sultry temperature
later in the day. The activity of his mind and sympathies in behalf
of his companion had in a measure dulled Walton's sense of his
own condition, but as he trudged along by his companion the whole
circumstance of his flight and the far-reaching consequences of his act
came upon him anew. The agony within him now seemed to ooze from his
body like a material substance, clogging his utterance and shackling his
feet.




CHAPTER VIII

|THAT morning, about nine o'clock, old Simon Walton rode down to his
bank in the one-horse buggy of antiquated type which had come into his
possession years before in the foreclosure of a mortgage given by a poor
farmer, and which, with its rusty springs and uncouth appearance, was
quite in keeping with the character of its present owner.

The bookkeepers were busy at their special duties, and scarcely gave
him a glance over their ponderous ledgers as he came in at the front
and walked to his desk in the rear. Hanging up his old slouch hat, and
seating himself in his big revolving chair, his eyes fell on a stack
of letters addressed to him. Rapidly shifting them through his stiff
fingers, his attention was drawn to the only one which bore no stamp or
postmark. He recognized the writing, and as he held it frowningly before
him, his confidential clerk, Toby Lassiter, a colorless and bald young
man of medium height, sparse mutton-chop whiskers, and soft, shrinking
gray eyes, entered with a slip of paper.

“The cotton quotations you wanted, Mr. Walton,” he said, in the discreet
tone he used to the banker on all occasions, lest he might by accident
expose to other ears matters his cautious master wished to be kept
private.

“Oh yes.” Then, as Lassiter was softly slipping away: “But hold on,
Toby! Have you seen Fred this morning?”

“No, sir, he hasn't been around yet. In fact, Mr. Walton, I wanted to
ask you. Only three of us carry keys to the front door--you and me and
Fred; and when I was opening up this morning I found that somebody had
pushed one of them under the door.”

“Well, I've got _mine_,” old Simon said, with a slow, wondering stare.
“Oh, wait! this note is from him; maybe he--” The banker, with fumbling
fingers, tore open the envelope and began to read. The waiting clerk
heard him utter a gasp. It was followed by a low, subdued groan, and
looking like a corpse momentarily electrified into a semblance of life,
the old man rose to his feet, the half-read confession clutched in his
sinewy fingers.

“He's gone!” he gasped. “He's taken five thousand dollars of the bank's
funds, and made off!”

“Oh, Mr. Walton, do, _do_ be quiet!” Lassiter whispered, warningly, as
he laid his hands on the arms of his employer, and gently urged him to
sit down. The banker obeyed as an automaton might, his wrinkled face
beneath his shaggy eyebrows wildly distorted, his lips parted, showing
his yellow jagged teeth, his breath coming and going in spasmodic gasps.
Every hair on his head seemed to stand dry and harsh by itself as he ran
his prong-like fingers upward through the bushy mass.

“Five thousand--five thousand--five thousand!” he groaned; “the low,
ungrateful thief; and at a time when he knew it would hamper us and
maybe bring on a crash. Look y' here, Toby, and be quick about it! Run
and get the sheriff--if you can't find him fetch the deputy! Then see if
the telegraph office is open. I'll jail that scamp before night! I want
my money! I want my money! He's no son of mine! I gave him fair warning,
as you know, to let up in his damnable course, and he snapped his
card-flipping fingers in my face. Hurry up! He can't be far off; we'll
nab him before the day is over. Run!”

But the clerk lingered. “Mr. Walton,” he began, falteringly, “I
never have refused to obey your orders, but Fred ain't quite as bad
as--really, you oughtn't to handle the boy that way. He's been a good
friend to me, and I'd hate to think I'd stand by and see you take a step
like this, mad as you are, when if you'd only be calm a minute, surely
you'd realize--”

“Am I the head of this bank or _you?_” old Walton broke in, as he rose
and stood quivering and clinging with both hands to the back of his
unsteady chair. “Go and do as I tell you, or, by the God over our heads,
I'll send you about your business!”.

“All right, Mr. Walton,” the clerk yielded, “I'll do it!”

White as death could have made him, Lassiter passed out at a door on
the side of the building and gained the street without being seen by the
workers in the counting-room.

“Poor Fred!” he muttered. “He's too good at heart to be treated this
way, and he's not a _real_ thief, either. Folks have told him all his
life that he had a right to more of the old man's money than he was
getting, and he didn't think it was stealing.”

On a corner he saw Bill Johnston, the sheriff, a man about forty-five
years of age, who wore great heavy top-boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and
had sharp brown eyes and a waxed and twisted mustache. With considerable
reluctance, Toby went up to him.

“Mr. Walton wants to see you, Bill,” he said. “He's in his office in the
bank.”

“Well, I can't come for ten minutes yet, anyway,” the sheriff said, not
removing his steady gaze from a group of men round a mountain wagon in
a vacant lot across the street, where, on a high hoarding of planks,
glaring new circus bills were posted. “The boys are about to smell out a
keg of wild-cat whiskey in that gang of mossbacks. They may need me any
minute. Tell the old man I'll be along as soon as I can.”

Lassiter went back to the bank and gained his employer's presence
without attracting the attention of any of the clerks. He found the
shaggy head prone on the desk, the long arms hanging down at
either side. For a moment Toby thought the banker was a victim of
heart-failure, and stood stricken with horror. But he was reassured by a
low groan from the almost inert human mass.

“Good Lord,” he heard the banker praying, “scourge him! Don't heed his
cries and promises! He has lied to me, he'll lie to you!” Therewith
Simon raised his blearing eyes, now fixed and bloodshot in their
sockets.

“Well?” he growled, impatiently.

“Johnston is coming right away,” Lassiter said, and he approached the
old man and leaned over him. “Mr. Walton, once when you were very mad
with the other bank, you remember, and was about to take action against
them, I got your ear, and showed you that in a suit at court you'd
have to make certain showings of a private nature that would injure our
interests, and you admitted that I was right, and--and decided to let
the matter blow over. You've said several times since then that I was
right, and--”

“Well, what the devil has that got to do with _this?_” Walton thundered.

“I'll tell you, Mr. Walton--now wait one minute, just one minute,”
 Lassiter urged: “you know how excitable depositors are. Don't you see if
the report goes out that you have actually turned Fred over to the law
for a big defalcation that folks will get the impression that you are in
a shaky condition? The other bank would make it appear ten times as bad
as it is, and we might have a frightful run on us. We are all right,
solid enough, the Lord knows, but money--_ready_ money--is hard to get.
There never has been a time when it would be as hard to stand under a
run as right now. We are getting ahead of the other bank, and they are
as mad as Tucker. They wouldn't want anything better than a chance like
this to--”

“You mean?--great God, Toby, you are right! It would ruin us--absolutely
wreck us! I see it--I see it as plain as day!”

There was a sound of heavy steps in the corridor outside.

“It is the sheriff,” Toby whispered, “but I didn't tell him what you
wanted. Don't act now, Mr. Walton; for God's sake, don't!”

“Tell him to wait a minute,” the banker panted. But it was too late; the
sheriff, with his usual lack of ceremony, was already pushing the door
open.

“Hello, old man!” Johnston said, and he came in with a swinging stride.
“I hope you are not scared about what I owe you; I'll get it up all
right. Money is owing to me, and--”

“No, it wasn't that--it wasn't that.” Walton's rigid face was forced
into a smile that fairly distorted it and set the observant officer
wondering. “The truth is, Johnston, I thought I needed your services,
but I find I'm mistaken. That's all, Johnston, I was mistaken. I've
decided to let it pass--to let it pass, you know.”

“All right, old man,” the sheriff replied, as his puzzled glance swept
the two disturbed faces before him. “I don't care just so you don't
garnishee my salary for what I owe you.”

Outside, as he joined a group of idlers on the corner, he remarked, with
a broad, knowing smile and a twinkle of the eye: “That old note-shaver
in there thinks he can fool me. He sent Toby Lassiter out just now as
white as a preacher's Sunday shirt to ask me to see him. I found him
looking like a staring idiot, and was informed that it was a false
alarm. False nothing! I'll give you boys a tip. I'll bet that gay and
festive Fred is up to some fresh devilment. You watch out and you'll
hear something drop, if I am any judge. I saw Fred last night headed for
the railroad. He didn't see me. I was hiding behind a fence, watching
him. I think he boarded a freight-train; I am not sure.”




CHAPTER IX

|AS was only natural in a town of the size of Stafford, the sudden
departure of Fred Walton, under circumstances no one seemed able
to explain, caused wide and growing comment. A railroad man who had
returned from Atlanta informed an eager cluster of idlers in the big
office of the main hotel of the place that Fred had been seen lurking
about the freight-yards in the city at early daylight, evidently trying
to avoid being seen. The report went out, too--and no less authority
accompanied it than the word of Fred's stepmother, who, admitting the
fact that she hated the young man, could not be charged with originating
a direct lie--that Fred had gone without “a thread to wear,” except what
he had on when leaving. The town did not need to be told that in that
detail alone lay ample evidence of the gravity of the case, even if
it were not said--on good authority, too--that old Simon Walton,
immediately on discovering the flight, had called in Bill Johnston
to consult with him. Had he taken away _money?_ That was the question
designedly put by Walton's business rivals, and that was the question
which one and all declared the old man and Toby Lassiter had promptly
denied. No, it was something else; that was quite plain.

Mrs. Barry heard the news at the fence the next afternoon from the
voluble tongue of a poor washerwoman, a Mrs. Chumley, who, since the
downfall of her only daughter, and the handsome girl's adoption of
a life of prostitution in Augusta, had lived on alone in a cottage
adjoining Mrs. Barry's, and who, as she cleansed the linen of her
neighbors for a living, besmirched their characters as her only
available solace. She was fond of hinting darkly that if disgrace had
come to her family by _discovery_, it hovered--ready to drop at any
minute--over the heads of people not a bit better, and who were far too
stuck-up for their own safety.

“You certainly ought to be glad the scamp's gone,” she remarked to
Mrs. Barry, as she leaned her bare, crinkled arms on the fence when she
unctuously told the news. “I never liked to see him hanging round Dora.
A body would see him one day over there at that big fine house with Miss
Margaret, whose high-priced ruffles I've got in the tub right now, and
the next bending his head to enter your lowly door. Things as wide apart
as them two naturally are won't hitch, neighbor, that's all--they won't
hitch.”

“Yes, I'm glad he's gone,” Mrs. Barry admitted, with the indiscretion
most persons had under the plausible eye and guiding tone of the gossip.
“Dora says he had a kind heart, and that she's sorry for him in all
his ups and downs; but, as you say, no good could come of their being
together so much, at least, and it is better to have it end.”

“The postman left a letter for you-all this morning, didn't he?” was a
question Mrs. Chumley had evidently been holding in reserve.

“No, there wasn't anything. Dora went out to the fence to see if he had
any mail, but he didn't.”

“Huh, that's strange!” Mrs. Chumley's purposely averted glance came
back to the wrinkled face of her neighbor, and remained fixed there in
a direct and probing stare. “That's queer, for I certainly saw him hand
her a letter over the fence as plain as I see that tub of suds. I saw
her reading it, too.”

“You must be mistaken.” Mrs. Barry's face had changed. There were
splotches of pallor in her gaunt cheeks.

“No, I couldn't be. I don't make mistakes in things of that sort--not of
_that_ sort.”

Mrs. Barry was silent. She was forced to admit that if any pair of
earthly eyes could detect a hidden thing those eyes were now eagerly
blinking under the sinister brows before her. As she stared into the
reddish, freckled face, certain long-subdued fears rose within her. She
felt faint, and had a sensation as if all visible objects were whirling
around her. Then she became anchored by something in the gossip's glance
which, had she has been less afraid, she would have taken as direct
insult. It was as if the washerwoman were saying: “Well, you know I can
sympathize with you. I have been through it all.”

“She came back in the house after the postman had gone on,” Mrs. Barry
faltered, “and told me there wasn't any letter.”

The poor woman felt that her defence, if defence it might be called,
was falling on wilfully closed ears, and again she was conscious of that
rocking, floating sensation. The round, red visage of the washerwoman
seemed to recede from her; there was a sound as of roaring water in
her ears. But through it all the insistent voice of her tormentor beat
into her consciousness.

“If she didn't show it to you, she _hid_ it; I'm dead sure of that. She
_hid_ it. I have been watching your girl, Mrs. Barry, for several weeks,
and I'm free to say that something has gone wrong with her. A body can
see it in the drooping way she has in moving about. The day you sent her
over for the salt I thought, on my soul, she'd drop in her tracks before
she left the kitchen. Maybe the letter was to tell her where the scamp
was going, or--or--well, there could be lots a fellow like that might
say at such a time. But I'll be bound, he was putting her off. They all
do. It is man-nature.”

“I am sure she didn't _get_ any letter,” Mrs. Barry said, and she now
tore herself away, conscious of her overwhelming disadvantage in the
adroit woman's hands.

“Well, you'll find out I'm right,” was the shot which struck her in the
back as she turned the corner of the cottage. “If you don't believe me,
you can ask the postman; there he is--coming down the street right now.”

But Mrs. Barry did not pause. She went into the house and closed her
door. She stood in the middle of the room like a creature deprived of
animation. Through the parted curtains of an open window she heard the
washerwoman call out to the man in uniform:

“I just had a bet up with Mrs. Barry, Sim Carter! She must think I'm
blind. I told her you left a letter at her house this morning, and she
says she never saw hair nor hide of it.”

“It is there all right,” the man laughed. “I gave it to Miss Dora.”

“That's what I told her. I say, Sim Carter, have they heard anything
more yet about--” But the postman was gone.

Through the window, by stooping and peering forth, Mrs. Barry could see
him crossing the street to the next house. With a heart as heavy as
lead she went into the parlor; Dora was not there. She passed on to the
kitchen; no one was there, either. There was something incongruous
in the contented aspect of the fat, gray cat lying and purring in the
sunlight on the door-sill. Bliss like that under the coat of a mere dumb
brute when she had this to bear--this lurking, insinuating, maddening
thing, which had been creeping slowly upon her night and day until it
had assumed the shape and size of a monster of mental and spiritual
torture.

She went on to Dora's room, where she found the girl seated on her bed.
The great, long-lashed, somnolent eyes, over the exquisite beauty of
which men and women had marvelled, were red as from weeping. She gave
her mother, as the old woman stood in the doorway, a weary, despondent
glance, and then, half startled, looked down. Mrs. Barry saw the charred
remains of a sheet of writing-paper in the open fireplace, and a fresh
pang darted through her.

“Did you need me, mother?” Dora inquired, softly, in the musical voice
so many had admired, and which to-day sounded sweeter, more appealing,
than ever before.

“Mrs. Chumley says you got a letter from the postman this morning,” Mrs.
Barry said, tremblingly.

The girl seemed to hesitate just an instant; then she nodded, mutely.

“Who was it from, daughter?”

“Mother, I don't want to say--even to you. I have reasons why--”

“It was from Fred Walton! You need not deny it.”

Dora made no protest; she simply dropped her eyes to her lap, and sat
motionless.

“You knew he had left, didn't you?”

“Yes, mother. I knew he was gone.”

“And while the whole town is wondering why he went, you know, I
suppose?”

“I don't feel that I have the right to talk about it, mother.”

“Well, I sha'n't urge you!” And the older woman shambled away, now
bearing doubts which were heavier and more maddening than ever.

“Something's wrong--very, very wrong--or she wouldn't droop like that,”
 she said. “Oh, God have mercy, I'm actually afraid to question my own
child! I am afraid to even do that!”

The sun went down, the night came on; workingmen, women, and children
passed along on their homeward way from the cotton and woolen mills,
carrying their dinner-pails. The very cheerfulness of their faces,
lightness of step, and merry jesting with one another sent shafts of
misery to the heart of the brooding woman. When she had put the supper
on the table she went to the daughter's room and told her it was ready.

“Some of your art pupils came to the gate just now, didn't they?” she
inquired.

“Yes,” the girl answered. “Sally and Mary Hill wanted to know if I'd go
sketching with them to the swamp to-morrow afternoon.”

“And are you going?”

“I told them I'd let them know in the morning.” Dora was at her place at
the side of the table, and she felt her mother's despondent gaze turned
on her.

“You told them you'd let them know! Why, don't you know already? I
thought you liked to go out that way. Some of your best studies were
made at the swamp.”

“I was feeling so badly,” the girl sighed, “that I didn't have the heart
to promise. I can never work to any advantage if I am not in the mood
for it.”

“Oh! _that_ is it!” They both sat down. “You ought to fight against
languor at this time of the year. I never let an ache or pain keep me
from work. Sometimes merely being busy seems to help one. Your father
used to stick at his easel as long as the light would hold out. He
used to say the time would come when the whole world would admire your
painting, and you really _are_ improving.”

Dora sighed, but said nothing.

Mrs. Barry passed her a cup of coffee. “Here, drink this down while it
is hot,” she advised. “I made it strong. It will do you good.”

“Thank you, mother, you are very kind to me.” Dora drank some of the
coffee, and daintily munched a piece of buttered toast. In the afternoon
light, which fell through a western window, Mrs. Barry saw a deeply
troubled look on the wan face--a certain nervous twitching of the
tapering fingers.

Presently Dora pushed back her chair and rose.

“I don't care for anything else,” she said, avoiding her mother's eyes.

“But you haven't eaten anything at all,” Mrs. Barry protested,
anxiously.

“I can't eat--I simply can't,” Dora said, with strange and desperate
frankness. “I'm too miserable. Oh, mother, mother, pity me! pity me!”

Mrs. Barry sat motionless, her head, with its scant hair, now supported
by her two sinewy hands. She saw her daughter turn away, and, with
dragging feet, go on to her bedroom.

“God, have mercy!” she moaned. “She's as good as admitted it. What else
could she have meant? Oh, God, what else--what else? She must know what
I am afraid of. Oh, my baby!--my poor, poor baby!”

She rose from her untasted meal and followed her child, not noticing,
in the gathering dusk, that Mrs. Chumley had entered the outer door,
and was treading softly and with bated breath in her wake. She found the
girl standing at a window, dumb and pale, looking out into the yard.

“You must tell me everything, daughter,” Mrs. Barry said. “I can't sleep
to-night unless you do. I am afraid I am going mad. Tell me, tell me!”

“Oh, mother, mother, how can I?”

“You are ruined!” Mrs. Barry groaned. “Tell me I am right--you are
ruined!”

With a cry, Dora turned and threw herself on the bed, and with her face
hidden in a pillow she burst into dry sobs.

“Make her tell you the whole thing,” Mrs. Chumley spoke up, as she stood
in the doorway. “Have it out of her, and be done with it; that's the
course I took.”

Mrs. Barry turned upon her, but no anger or resentment over the
intrusion stirred the dregs of her despair. A faint shock came to her
with the thought that now all Stafford would know the truth, but it
was followed by the realization that, after all, concealment would not
lessen in any degree the horror of the disaster.

“Come away!” she heard herself imploring the gossip. “Let her alone!
I won't have folks bothering her. She's got enough to bear as it is,
without having people prying. Come away, come away!”

Mrs. Chumley suffered herself to be led to the outer door.

“All right. I came over to return the cup of sugar you lent me; I left
it in the kitchen. I am much obliged, and I'm as sorry for you as one
woman could be for another. Good-night.”

Mrs. Barry went to the supper-table, and, as it was growing dark, she
lighted a lamp. She proceeded to wash and dry and put away the dishes.
No one would have suspected that such a deadening blow had been dealt
her to have looked in on her at this moment, as she moved dumbly about
the room, her head and face hidden by the gingham sunbonnet she had
put on. It was a badge of humility--a thing she vaguely fancied hid her
maternal shame from eyes which she already felt prying.

Her task finished, she stood for a moment hesitatingly; then she blew
out the lamp and crept softly to the door of her daughter's room.
Bending her head, she listened at the keyhole. No sound came to her
ears, and she softly lifted the latch and went in. Dora still lay on the
bed, her arms clutching the pillow, her face out of view in the darkened
room.

“Darling, I haven't come to scold you, don't think that,” the old woman
said, most tenderly, as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her
daughter's tear-damp hand. “This calamity has fallen on both of us, just
as the death of your dear father did so far away from home, and just as
many other hard things have come to us. I shall stand by you through it
all. It is not the first time a poor young girl has been misled. Nothing
is left for us but to do our duty to the best of our ability in the
sight of Heaven. I shall not press you to tell me a thing, either. My
knowing particulars wouldn't better matters at all. It is done, and that
is enough. Now, go to sleep, baby girl, and don't give way to despair.
Good-night.”

Dora sat up, extended her arms, and for a moment the two remained
locked in a tight, sobbing embrace. Neither spoke after that. Tenderly
releasing her daughter's twining arms, Mrs. Barry went out and softly
closed the door. In her own room, in utter darkness, she undressed.
Before retiring, and with the sunbonnet still on her head, she knelt
beside a chair in the room and started to pray, but somehow the needed
words failed to come. Prayer is born in hope in some sort of faith, at
least, but this lone widow, brave as her front appeared, had neither.

“Oh, Edwin!” she suddenly cried out, “she was your idol, your little
pet; you used to say, as she sat on your knee in the firelight at night,
that she was born to be lucky and happy. You said her beauty, genius,
and gentleness would draw the world to her feet. You hoped all that for
her, Edwin, and yet there she is bowed down in the greatest shame and
sorrow that can fall to a young girl's lot. On the day you left never to
return, you told me of the great Virginia family from which she was
descended, and said that some day we'd be grandparents of children that
would make us proud. Poor, dear Edwin!--that was only one of your pretty
dreams--_our_ grandchild, if God lets it come, won't even have a name of
its own, and may bear this curse through a long life to its grave. Oh,
Edwin!--my gentle, loving husband--you are here by my side to-night,
aren't you? You are here putting your dear spirit arms about me, trying
to comfort me, and you will help her, too, dear husband, as you are
helping me. Hold up the sweet, stricken child. Fill her dark life with
your own unrealized dreams. Give her something--_anything_ to help her
bear her burden! That's my prayer to you, Edwin--to you, and to God!”

She went to her bed and threw herself down. Tears welled up in her, but
she forced them back, and, dry-eyed and still, she lay with her wrinkled
face near to the wall.




CHAPTER X

|ONE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece and nephew
sat on the front veranda to catch the cool breezes which swept across
the town and stirred the foliage of the trees on the lawn. The old
gentleman had been urging Margaret to go to the piano in the big
parlor and sing for them, but she had persistently declined. Since Fred
Walton's leaving, despite her evident efforts to appear unconcerned,
she had not seemed to her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like
herself, and they were constantly trying to divert her mind from the
unpleasant matter.

At this juncture Kenneth Galt's carriage and pair of spirited blacks,
driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down the
street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the gateway to the
gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the house, which was not
very different from the Dearing home in size, period, and architecture.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” the General exclaimed, suddenly. “Galt is
off to Atlanta, to see some more capitalists on our new railroad scheme.
You may think lightly of it, my boy, but as sure as fate we are going to
put that big trunk-line through--or, rather, Galt is. He thinks it is in
good shape, and that is encouragement enough for me. He has handled my
affairs ever since he hung out his shingle as a lawyer, and as he made
money hand over hand for himself, he has for me too.”

“Yes, he has the keenest sense of values of any man in the State,” Wynn
agreed. “He has the full confidence of his clients, and he is not
afraid to back up his ideas with money; that is what makes a successful
speculator. He will put the road through if any one can. Investors will
listen to a man who has succeeded in everything he has attempted.”

The carriage was now leaving the house, and when it had regained
the street and was about to pass, the General stood up and waved
his handkerchief. The carriage paused at the gate, and the man under
discussion sprang out, hat in hand, and hurried up the walk.

“I have only a minute to get to the 8.40 train,” he informed them, as he
bowed to Margaret, and smiled cordially at Dearing.

Kenneth Galt was an interesting man from many points of view. His
intimate friends liked him because, to them, he sometimes unbent and was
himself; to strangers and mere acquaintances he was cold, formal, and
almost painfully dignified. To his many clients he was seldom cordial or
free, and never familiar. He had gleaned the idea somewhere, from his or
some one else's experience, that no genuinely successful financier
ever allowed himself to be taken lightly, so he never jested about
his affairs nor encouraged it in others. He had set a high price upon
himself and his chances of success in life, and he held to it the
more tenaciously the higher he climbed. When approached for legal or
financial advice his face was as immovable as granite, and when he gave
an opinion it always had weight, for he was apt to be right. He was
considered a man of wonderful ability and power among men. He couldn't
have been a successful politician, for he could never have sufficiently
lowered himself to the level of the common people, so it was fortunate
for him that his ambition associated him with another and a more
lucrative class. He was interesting as any human enigma could be which
showed outward signs of hidden depth and strength. For an orthodox
community like that of old Stafford, his iconoclastic views on some
sacred subjects shocked many conservative individuals, but he was so
firm in his philosophy and frank in his open expression of it, that
he was forgiven where a weaker, less-important man would have been
adversely criticized. He had convinced himself, or been convinced during
the hours he had spent in his unique library, that there is no such
thing as a soul or a soul's immortality, and he was proving, by his
persistent effort to make the most of the present, that in the very
renunciation of the dogma he had discovered the highest law of life.

“Well, you are off, I see,” the General said, “and I hope the parties
will not only be there, but with their check-books wide open.”

“Yes, I'll see what can be done,” Galt answered, somewhat coldly, for it
was against his policy to speak of business matters in any social group.
“I happened to have the land deed you wanted in my pocket, General, and
I thought I'd stop and hand it to you.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” Sylvester said. “I knew it was all right, but I
want to keep all my papers which you don't have need for in my safe.”

“And how is Miss Margaret?” Galt now asked, as he turned the document
over to its owner, and bent toward the wistful face of the young girl.

“Oh, I'm quite well, thank you,” she responded, forcing a smile. “You
are a fortunate man, Mr. Galt. My uncle doesn't praise many people, but
he can't say enough in your favor.”

“That's because he only knows the _business_ side of me,” Galt said,
ceasing to smile, and drawing himself up.

“Well, I must be off. I see John lashing the air with his whip; he is my
time-table.”

“Yes, you'd better not lose your train,” the General put in. “I don't
want to be the cause of your missing that appointment. Get a rosebud for
his buttonhole, Madge. It may bring us good luck.”

“Yes, I will.” The girl rose languidly. “There are some pretty ones near
the gate.”

Galt gallantly assisted her down the steps, and, side by side, they
moved along the wide brick walk. Dearing heard his uncle chuckling as
the old man peered through the twilight at the couple, who now stood
facing each other over a bush of choice roses.

“Mark my words, my boy,” he said, “we may have to wait awhile for it,
but as sure as you and I are alive, that pair will some day be more
closely related to each other than they are now.”

Dearing shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. “You don't think
so?” the General pursued, with the eagerness of a child who has
discovered a new toy. “They can't help it. He is much older than she
is, but it would be an ideal match. The fellow is actually a great man.
There is no curbing his ambition. He has accomplished wonders so far,
and there is no telling what his particular genius will ripen into.”

“It may be as you say--_in time_,” Dearing answered, after a pause; “but
I'm afraid it will be years before Madge forgets Fred Walton, and if he
should take a notion to come back, as such fellows always do, sooner or
later, why, we'd only have our trouble over again.”

“But he told you he was going, never to come back?” the old man said,
with a touch of resentment even at the thought.

“Yes; he said positively that his conduct, whatever it was, would keep
him from ever showing his face in Stafford again.”

“I have been wondering what he could have done,” General Sylvester said,
musingly. “I dropped in on his father the other day for no other reason
than that he might let out some hint of the situation, but he never said
a word. A big change has certainly come over him. His face was haggard
and almost bloodless, and his eyes had a queer, shifting look. I am sure
he knows all about the affair, whatever it is.”

“Yes; Fred said the old man knew, and would tell it, but it seems he has
not,” Dearing answered.

“Ashamed to let it be known, I guess,” Sylvester said.

Margaret and Galt had parted, the carriage was disappearing down the
street, and the girl was slowly strolling back. At a bed of flowers
about ten yards from them she paused and stood looking down. Just then
a loud, strident voice reached them from the side of the house. It was
from Mrs. Chumley, who had brought the General's laundry home, and with
her great empty basket was making her way across the grass toward the
front gate, accompanied by old Diana, the colored cook.

“Oh, but I know it _is_ true--every word of it!” The white woman had
raised her voice exultantly. “I was right there at the girl's elbow, and
heard Mrs. Barry accuse her of it. Dora admitted her ruin, and laid it
to Fred Walton. Now, I reckon folks will know why he had to skip out by
the light o' the moon without a bit of baggage.”

Instantly the two men were on their feet, Margaret's protection foremost
in their minds. There was no doubt that she had heard, for she was
standing facing the two women like a figure carved from stone.

“Excuse me, Miss Margaret, I didn't know you was there,” Mrs. Chumley
said, as she walked on; “but it is the truth--the Lord knows it is the
truth.”

“My God, the brutality of it!” the old man ejaculated. “To think it
should come to her like that!”

“The scoundrel!” Dearing cried. “Now I understand fully, and if I had
known the truth, I'd have--” But he went no further, for Margaret was
slowly coming toward them. The grass she trod was wet with dew, and
ordinarily she would have realized it, and lifted her skirt, but she
now moved toward them like a somnambulist. At the bottom step her foot
caught, and as they both sprang to her assistance she gave a forced,
harsh laugh.

“How awkward I--I am!” she stammered. “I could never da--dance the
minuet with you now, Uncle Tom. I gave Mr. Galt a pretty bud. He is
_such_ a flatterer--saying that I--saying that he--”

She suddenly pressed her hand to her head and reeled helplessly. The
strong arm of her brother went round her, and her head sank upon his
shoulder. His face was wrung and dark with blended fury and anxiety, his
strong lip was quivering.

“No, she is not fainting!” He spoke to his uncle, but for her ears, with
the intention of rousing her. “She is all right. Wake up, Madge! I'll
slap your jaws, old girl, if you play 'possum with me. You may fool
_some_ folks, but not your family doctor.”

“No, I am not fainting. Who said I was?” and Margaret raised her head,
and drew herself quite erect. “I--I am going in to sing for you.”

She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in his
voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear. Uncle
Tom wouldn't listen, anyway. He's simply daft about the new railroad,
and couldn't hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at those damp
shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room and change them at
once!”

“I _did_ get them wet, didn't I?” the girl said, glancing down at her
feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her brother
stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight; then he
went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was eager to take
up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but Dearing's ears
were closed to what he was saying.

“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it should
come to her--to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful ideals! _And
he could deliberately desert her!_ He could look another man in the face
and confess that he was without the courage to lift a woman up after he
had knocked her down.”

Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the darkness
before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary light in Mrs.
Barry's cottage. It was from the window of Dora's room, and for an hour
he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went out; then he
rose, and began to undress.




CHAPTER XI

|A FEW days after the report of Dora Barry's fall had permeated Stafford
from the town's centre to its scattering outskirts, and the beautiful
girl's disgrace had been duly recorded as the now certain explanation of
Fred Walton's flight, it came to his father's ears in a rather indirect
manner. Old Simon was erroneously supposed to have learned the truth,
even before it became town-talk; for it was vaguely whispered that
the banker had been so moved by Mrs. Barry's personal appeal to him
in behalf of her daughter that he had called in the sheriff with the
intention of having his son held to honor by sheer force, but for some
reason had refrained from taking action.

There are individuals in every community, too, who are bold enough to
mention a delicate topic even to those most sensitively concerned, and
as old Walton was going to the bank on the morning in question Bailey
Thornton, a man of great size, who kept a grocery where the banker
bought his supplies, essayed a jest as he passed the old man's morning
cigar to him over the showcase. The bystanders thoroughly understood
what was meant, as was evinced by the hearty laugh which went round, but
the old man didn't.

“Don't be hard on the boy, Mr. Walton,” Thornton added, and he smiled
broadly enough to explain any ordinary innuendo. “Remember your own
young days. I'll bet Fred came by it honestly. The whole town knows the
truth; there is no good in trying to hide it. Tell him it is all right,
and make him come back home.”

Old Simon grunted and walked on, flushing under the irritating chorus of
laughter which followed him out of the store. “Come by it honestly!” he
repeated. “What could the meddling fool mean? _The whole town knows the
truth!_”

He fell to quivering, and almost came to a dead halt in the street.
Surely the circumstance of the bank's loss was not leaking out, after
all his caution? He decided that he would at once sound Toby Lassiter.
Perhaps Fred had confided in others. The bare chance of the shortage
being known and used against him by the rival bank alarmed him. In fancy
he saw the report growing and spreading through the town and country
till an army of half-crazed depositors, egged on by his enemies, was
clamoring at the door, and demanding funds which had been put out on
collateral security, and could not be drawn in at a moment's notice.

As he was passing along the corridor by the counting-room, where,
beyond the green wire grating, the bookkeepers were at work, he
caught Lassiter's glance, and with a wild glare in his eyes he nodded
peremptorily toward the rear. He had just hung up his old slouch hat and
seated himself in his chair when the clerk joined him, a look of wonder
in his mild eyes.

“Say, Toby, sit down--no, shut the door!” Simon ordered; and when the
clerk had obeyed and taken a chair near the desk, the banker leaned
toward him.

“I want to know,” he panted, “if the report is out about Fred's
shortage?”

“Why, no, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said, astonished in his turn; “that is,
not to my knowledge. I haven't heard a word that would indicate such
a thing. In fact, they all seem so busy with--” But Lassiter colored
deeply, and suddenly checked himself.

“Well, _something_ is in the wind, I know,” Simon went on, his lip
quivering. “It may be that Thornton only had reference to the boy's
general extravagance, or he may have heard false reports about my own
bringing-up; but I am not sure, Toby, but that the thing we are trying
to hide is out.” Thereupon old Simon, his anxious eyes fixed on the
face of his clerk, recounted in detail all that the grocer had said, and
exactly how it had come up.

“Oh, I see!” Lassiter exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “He didn't refer
to _the money_, Mr. Walton. He meant--” It was loyalty to his absent
friend which again checked the conscientious Toby, who was trying to
reconcile two adverse duties, and now sat twirling his thumbs in visible
embarrassment.

“You see what?” old Simon demanded, fiercely. “Don't you begin shifting
here and there, and keeping things from me. I want to know what's took
place, and I _will!_ You and I have always got on harmoniously, but I
don't like your shillyshallying whenever that boy's name is mentioned.
The other day, when I sent for the sheriff--well, you happened to be
right in stopping me _that time_, I'll admit, but I want to know what
you think Bailey Thornton meant by what he said. Do you know?”

The clerk looked down. His face was quite grave and rigid.

“Mr. Walton,” he faltered, “I don't like to carry tales about matters
which don't concern me, and when a nasty report gets in the air I try to
keep from having anything to do with it.”

“I'm talking to you about _business_ now!” Old Simon raised his voice
to a shrill cry, which, had it not stranded in his throat, would have
reached the adjoining room.

“The report touches on my affairs here in this house, and if you don't
tell me, if you don't aid me with whatever knowledge you may have run
across, you can draw your pay and quit.”

Lassiter saw the utter futility of remaining silent longer, and with a
desperate look on his face he answered: “I didn't want to make the
poor boy's case any worse, Mr. Walton, and so I hoped it would turn
out untrue before it got to you; but they say the girl admits the whole
thing. The minister of the church where she plays the organ told me it
was true.”

“Girl? What girl?” the banker gasped. “Why do you take all day to get at
a thing?”

Then, as Lassiter told the story which was on every tongue, old Simon
stared, his mouth falling open and his unlighted cigar seesawing between
his jagged stumps of teeth.

“So you are plumb sure it wasn't the money that Thornton was talking
about!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief.

“Yes, I am sure of that, Mr. Walton. They have been so full of chatter
about the girl that not a word has been said about money, although some
think you actually furnished the ready cash for him to get away on.” The
two sat silent for several minutes; then, shaking his tousled head and
shrugging his gaunt shoulders in his faded black alpaca coat, the banker
said, with grim finality of tone: “He's a bad egg, Toby. That fellow is
rotten to the core. This last discovery really helps us hide the other
matter, but the two of them put together will wipe his name off the
slate of this town forever. He'll never dare to show his face here
again. He might have tried to get around me and live down the shortage,
but I reckon both things coming to a head at once kind o' broke his
courage, and he decided to skedaddle. I have no pity for the girl
neither--not a smidgin; a woman that would give in to a scamp like him
don't deserve any man's pity. Say, Toby, I'm a peculiar in some ways:
as long as I felt that I owed something to that boy as his father
his doings kind o' lay on my mind, but he has plumb cancelled that
obligation. I can get along without worry over him if he is put clean
out of my calculations, so after this I don't want no human being to
mention his name to me. I'll let 'em know that they can't joke with
me about it on the street. I want you to go this minute to Bailey
Thornton's store and ask him for my account up to date. Then I'll send
him my check, and do my trading with Pete Longley. He will be trotting
in to apologize, but keep him away from me. Huh! he can't sneer at me as
I walk along the public highways of this town; his account with us isn't
worth ten cents a month, and he's shaky, anyway. I wish I'd hit him in
the mouth as he stood there gloating over his dirty joke!”




CHAPTER XII

|KENNETH GALT came back from Atlanta at the end of the week. John Dilk
drove down, and brought him up from the station at dusk. Galt had just
alighted at his front steps, and the carriage had gone round the house
toward the stables in the rear, when he saw Margaret Dearing among the
flowers on the lawn adjoining. Through an open window, in the glow of
gas-light, he could see the supper-table waiting for him, and knew that
his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, had all in readiness for his evening meal.
He knew, too, that she was most particular about having his favorite
dishes served while they were hot, and yet he could not resist the
temptation to exchange greetings with this fair young girl whose genial
friendship and interest in his affairs had always appealed to him. The
prospects were very bright for success in his plan of building a railway
from Stafford to the sea, and he was still young enough to want to warm
himself in the smile of the girl's approval.

“Oh, you are back!” she said, cordially, as he strode across the grass,
and lightly vaulted over the row of boxwood which divided the two
properties. “Uncle Tom will be delighted.”

“Yes, and I am very tired,” he answered. He paused and shook her hand,
experiencing a decided shock as he noticed the unexpected pallor of
her face and the dark splotches beneath her eyes. “I was on my feet all
morning in Atlanta. I made a speech to-day at a luncheon, and then had
to ride up on a slow train.”

“And the railroad is almost a certainty?” she asked, forcing a wan
smile. “You are about to have your dream realized?”

“Almost,” he answered, modestly. “I think we may count on most of the
subscribers for the stock throughout the South, and the farmers who
have agreed to donate the right of way through their lands still seem
enthusiastic. The only thing we lack is the support of a certain group
of New York capitalists who are to put up the bulk of the funds and are
now considering our final proposition. If they should go in the road
would be a certainty.”

“My uncle is sure they can be counted on,” the girl went on,
sympathetically. “He declares no one but you could have won the
confidence of all those prim, old-fashioned ladies and pious elders, who
have never been willing to invest their savings before.”

Galt shrugged his shoulders and drew back somewhat into his habitual
mantle of reserve. “If we _do_ put it through,” he said, “they won't
regret it. Thorough confidence in an enterprise like this is necessary,
of course, and I am glad they trust me.”

“All Stafford was reading the articles in the Atlanta papers yesterday
about it,” Margaret said. “Uncle says when it is settled beyond a doubt
the town will give a torch-light procession in your honor.”

“There were many inaccuracies in the papers,” he informed her, as he
stood wondering over her evident dejection. “Did you read the articles?”

“Did I? Twice--once for myself and again for Uncle. I am sure he had
already been over them, but, like the child he is, he wanted to hear the
glorious news coming from the lips of some one else. I didn't like the
pictures of you, though--not a bit.”

“You didn't? Why?”

“Because they don't do you justice; they were so harsh and fierce. They
made your mouth look--what shall I say?--cruel?--yes, cruel and utterly
heartless. And we all know you are not so. Wynn says you have the
greatest fondness for children of any man he knows, and surely that is a
sign of a good heart.”

“There is one thing I am _now_ showing an extravagant fondness for,”
 Galt said, with a cynical laugh, “and that is, hearing you sound praises
that aren't deserved. So I am going to tear myself away from them and
run in to supper.”

“Poor girl!” he mused, as he walked away. “She looks pale and troubled,
and talks as if she were trying to hide something. She has altered,
even in the last week. I wonder if she really cared for Fred Walton? Who
knows? Women often like unworthy men. God knows, I ought to understand
that.”

After supper Galt went up to his sumptuous quarters on the floor above,
and, lighting a cigar, he threw himself into an easy-chair and began to
smoke.

“Yes, I must see her to-night,” he said, almost aloud. “I can't wait
longer. It has been more than a month now, and not a line from her. I am
winning the fight of my life, and I want to see her glorious face light
up as I tell her about it. She is the sweetest, dearest girl in the
world. Her great dreamy eyes haunt me night and day. I love her, God
knows I do. But it mustn't get out yet--not yet; not, at least, till my
road is built. We have a right to our secret, the sweetest that ever a
love-mad pair held between them. She trusts me, and for the present
no one need dream of our intimacy. The last time I saw her the little
darling had all sorts of fears in her dear little head, but such fancies
are only natural. I'll kiss them away, once she is nestling in my arms.
The dear little thing is jealous--actually jealous--of my success. She
said once that she believed I would desert her if it would serve my
ambition to do so. She doesn't know me. She has a wonderful brain, but
she reads me wrongly.”

The hours went by. The old grandfather clock in the hall below struck
nine and then ten, and he rose and slipped down the stairs into the
grounds below. Stafford was a town which went early to bed as a rule,
and Galt found a vast stillness all about him out under the mystically
shimmering stars. Softly treading the grass and furtively looking about,
he went down to a gate near his stables, passed through and closed it
without sound. Again looking up the little street cautiously, he went
on till he reached the rear gate of Mrs. Barry's cottage. Going in, he
walked through the widow's vegetable garden till he stood behind the
little coal-and-wood house not ten feet from the open window of Dora's
room. Here he paused, holding his breath in suspense. There was a light
in the room as from a low-burning gas-jet at the bureau in the corner,
and against the white window-curtain he saw the shadow of some one bowed
over a table. The outlines of the silhouette were familiar, and they,
set his heart to beating rapidly. Picking up some small particles of
coal, he shot them at the window from his closed hand with the nail of
his thumb. Sometimes they would fall short of the mark, but now and then
one would strike the glass and produce a faint clicking sound. The trick
was successful, as it had been before. The crouching shadow straightened
up, the distinct profile of Dora's face appeared for an instant, and
then lost its exquisite outlines in a blur of black which elongated
itself upward as the girl rose to her feet. The curtain was drawn, and
Dora, fully dressed, peered out. Stepping into open view, Galt signalled
with his hand for her to come out. He saw her shake her head excitedly
and stand motionless.

He signalled again and again, showing his impatience by the growing
rapidity of his gestures and the impassioned movement of his mute lips.
He heard her sigh, and then she nodded resignedly and retreated into the
room. Her light went out. She was coming; he knew she would join him if
her mother was asleep. And yet that sigh! What could it mean from her
who had always come so joyfully, so full of love and faith? Ah, he
had it! The gentle girl, not having seen him for several weeks, was
genuinely jealous of the weighty affairs which had recently absorbed so
much of his attention. All the uproar over his prospective success in
the papers, the graphic accounts of his high position, had made her
fancy, in her artistic sensitiveness, that circumstances were separating
them. Ah, yes, that was it! But he would set her right on that score,
as he always had done. He would convince her that their sweet secret was
their own, and assure her that it need not be long now before they could
announce their love to the world. Where could he look for a better or a
truer mate? The secret of their present, and perhaps imprudent, intimacy
would never be known. But for the time being, of course, he could not
think of marrying _any one_. Much depended, right now, on his remaining
exactly as he was--the suave bachelor whom certain prim and accurate
maiden ladies had intrusted with the management of their finances, and
reserved a right to decide, as members of some churches do in the cases
of their unmarried pastors, what manner of woman their paragon was to
choose, if any, as his partner in life. They would be unanimous in their
verdict against the artist's beautiful daughter, not being able to see
her worth and charm as he could see them. And to announce at the present
crisis that he had chosen such a wife would certainly be inadvisable.
He had become their idol, and his judgment told him he must retain their
good-will in all things--at least, till he was independent of their
support.

There was a low, creaking sound from the rusty hinges of the rear door
of the cottage, followed by profound stillness, and he knew she had
paused on the steps to see if her mother would wake. Then he breathed
in vast relief, for he saw her coming. She had thrown a light shawl
over her head, and as she passed from under the intervening arbor of
grape-vines and the moonlight fell upon her partly exposed face, he was
struck by its pallor, and by the desperate gleam in the eyes so steadily
fixed on him.

“Thank God, I see you at last, darling!” he exclaimed, passionately, as
he held out his arms. But to his amazement she drew back, warding off
his embrace with a hand that was firm, strong, and cold as ice.

“You must go--you must never come again!” she said, in a voice filled
with suffering.

The little wood-house was between them and the cottage, and some tall
trees bordering the little street threw a shadow over them.

“But, darling, what's the matter?” he cried. “What has changed you so
remarkably? Why, little girl--”

“Do you mean, you haven't--haven't _heard?_” She clutched the shawl
under her marble-like chin and stared at him, her pretty lips parted and
quivering piteously.

“Heard what?” he asked. “I have heard nothing--certainly no _bad_ news.
I've been away for a week, and only came home this evening.”

She lowered her head, and stood silent and motionless. He put his hand
on her shoulder and gently shook her.

“Tell me,” he urged, groping for an explanation of her agitation, “is
your mother ill again? Is she worse?”

“No, it isn't that--God knows even that would be a blessing. Kenneth,
I'm ruined!”

“You don't mean?--you _can't_ mean?--” He stood aghast before her,
quivering now from head to foot.

“Yes, there is no doubt of it. Mother suspected it, and was so miserable
that I had to admit the truth. It almost drove her crazy. She was
talking to me about it when that meddlesome woman, Mrs. Chumley, came
in and overheard it. She lost no time in spreading the report broadcast
over town. Everybody has known it for several days.”

“Oh, my God!” Galt pronounced the words in his throat. This thing, of
all unexpected things, had burst upon him at the very crisis of his
triumph, and it would ruin him--there was no denying that; it would ruin
him! In his fancy he saw his hitherto irreproachable character torn to
shreds by the men and women who, till now, had stood behind him. The
dream of his life might be carried out some day, but not by a man of
his stamp. He groaned aloud. For the moment it was impossible for him to
show sympathy where sympathy most belonged. He stood as a man stands who
loves life, and yet has been condemned to death. Love and the capacity
for self-sacrifice in Kenneth Galt were best nourished by hope and
happiness, and of these things he was now bereft.

“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best of
it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of each
other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I won't act the
part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling--”

“Say of _you?_” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned your
name. Not a soul--_not even my mother_--dreams that I ever met you in
secret. You are the last human being on earth that would be--be accused.
Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering deaths rather than
drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I know full well what
such an exposure would mean to you.”

A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of relief
seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by horror
now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned--you
say--You--didn't tell your mother--that I--?”

“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me when we
last met that even a bare report of our engage--our love for each other
right now would harm your plans. Do you think that I'd let a horror like
this come up against you? Even if you declared it was true, I'd say it
was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They declare it was
Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly. I've told them it
wasn't--told them and told them, but they won't believe me. They may
think what they please, but they sha'n't say it was _you!_”

“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that
reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's magnanimity
to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A storm of
incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in the coign of
immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the sweet, stricken
creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer derision of the escape
she was offering him, and for one blind instant he actually believed in
his own manhood.

“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his, and,
although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and tenderly
kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a scamp like
Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with yours? Never! I want
you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I succeeded with my paltry
enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come here to-morrow and we'll be
married, as we ought to have been months and months ago. Now, go to bed,
and let me see roses on your pretty cheeks in the morning.”

“You are speaking without thought--without knowledge of yourself.” The
girl sighed as she drew away from his embrace and forcibly put down his
detaining hands. “You see, I know you, Kenneth, better than you know
yourself. You love me in a way, I am sure; but when it was all over, and
you'd paid the debt you think you owe me, you'd blame me for being the
blight to your prospects that I would be. Listen! What is done is done.
Because I am disgraced is no reason you should be. You are a man whose
ambition is his life. Married to me, and hampered by the name I now
bear, you'd not only fail in your present enterprise, but you would be
held down to the end of life. Oh, I know you so well--so very well! The
praise and adulation of the prominent men and women whose friendship
you have are the very life-blood of your being. I've known you had
this weakness for a long time, but I had to bear with it as a natural
shortcoming.”

“How absurdly you talk!” he cried out, in dull, crushed admiration for
such logic in one so young and frail. “But I assure you, Dora, I'll not
listen to such silly stuff for a minute. You are going to be my wife.
Do you hear me?--my wife! We will let the blamed railroad go. I'll tell
General Sylvester in the morning that we are off for our honeymoon. Of
course he'll drop me like a hot potato, but he may do it for all I care.
You are more to me, darling, than he and all the trunk-lines in the
world. Yes, I am coming for you to-morrow--to-morrow afternoon at three
o'clock! Remember that--at three, sharp, and I'll--I'll bring a--a
preacher and--everything necessary.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Dora said, firmly. “You think at this
moment that you have the courage to do what you propose, but, Kenneth,
you _haven't_--you simply haven't! I know you better than you know
yourself. You will not come to-morrow _nor any other day!_ I'll never
see you again, nor do I want to. I had a kind of love for you that only
a woman could understand; you have had quite another sort for me. You
think yours is still alive, but it died of paltry fear, stifled by
avarice; mine was a girlish dream. I am awake now. Leave me, and don't
approach me again. I swear to you that your secret is safe.”

She moved away. He tried to stop her; but, with a warning finger on her
lips, she eluded his grasp, and hurried into the house.




CHAPTER XIII

|BRAVE, very brave, and sweet and noble!” he said to himself, as he
walked back toward the gate of his grounds; “but she certainly sha'n't
have her way. I'm not low enough for that, thank God! She is the only
creature I ever loved or could love, and she is mine by all the laws
of heaven and earth. She looked like a young goddess as she stood there
with that fire in her suffering face, and calmly consigned herself to
disgrace and oblivion that my sordid schemes might prosper. I am not
poor. I can make a living somehow, somewhere, if not in this sleepy old
town; and with her always by my side, why--” Across the lawn he saw a
light in a window of the Dearing house. It was in General Sylvester's
room. The old gentleman retired earlier than this as a rule, and Galt
told himself that his being up now was due to the almost child-like joy
over the encouraging condition of their joint enterprise. He saw the old
soldier's shadow as it flitted across the window, and knew that he was
walking about, as was his habit under stress of excitement.

“Poor old man!” Galt, now in his own grounds, leaned against the wall
of a rustic summer-house. A thought had struck him like a blow from the
dark. What would Sylvester say when he was told the truth? Galt saw the
look of sheer, helpless incredulity on the high-bred, war-scarred face
as the revelation was made, and watched it glow and flame into that
of anger, contempt, and bitter disappointment. The mere confession of
wrong-doing he might accept as frankly as it was offered, but that the
young man should allow such a mishap to drag his own proud name into
the mire and wreck the greatest enterprise that had ever blessed a
down-trodden community--well, he couldn't have believed such a thing
possible.

Heavily laden now with the fires of a purer passion burning low under
the shadow of his impending ruin, Kenneth Galt dragged himself slowly
along the walk toward his house. He was turning the corner to enter at
the front when he saw a carriage and pair at the gate. The moon had gone
under a thin cloud and the view was vague, but surely they were his
own horses, and the man on the driver's seat certainly looked like
John Dilk. Wonderingly, Galt went down to the gate. The negro was fast
asleep; his massive head had fallen forward, and the hands which held
the reins were inert. The gate rattled as Galt touched the iron latch,
and the man woke and looked about him.

“Oh, is dat you, Marse Kenneth?” he asked, sleepily. “Yes,” Galt
answered, rather sharply. “What are you doing with the horses out at
this time of night?”

“Oh! oh! Le' me see, suh!” The negro's wits were evidently scattered.
“I sw'ar I dunno, Marse Kenneth. Bless my soul, you jump on me so sudden
dat I can't, ter save my life, tell you--Oh yes, now I know, suh! Why,
ain't you seed de Gineral since you got home, Marse Kenneth?”

“Why, no. Does he want me?”

“Yasser, yasser, he sho' do,” the negro answered, now thoroughly
himself. “He been searchin' fer you high and low, Marse Kenneth. He went
all thoo yo' house. He got some'n 'portant ter tell you. He ordered me
ter hurry an' get out de team, an' have it raidy fer you'n him. He just
run in his house er minute ago. Dar he is comin' now. He's dat excited
an' worried about not findin' you he can't hardly hold in.”

General Sylvester, as he stepped from the veranda, recognized Galt,
and hurried toward him, pulling out his watch and looking at it in the
doubtful light.

“Great heavens!” he cried, “we haven't a minute to lose. You've only got
twenty minutes to catch the 11.10 North-bound train! Run up and get your
bag! I saw it there, still unpacked, and you needn't waste a minute.
I've glorious, glorious news from New York--a wire from Alberts, Wise
& Co. They have got the right men for our deal, and with dead loads of
money. They are ripe for the thing, and the brokers wire that if you can
be there day after to-morrow morning you can close it. They say if you
are not there then that the money may be diverted to other deals, and
they advise all possible haste. So hurry. You must not miss the train.
Everything depends on it. Run, get the bag! John, _you_ get it! Quick!”

“No, I'll--I'll do it!” Galt gasped. “Wait, I'll be down in--in a
minute!”

“Then hurry. We can talk on the way to the station. My boy, we are
simply going to land it! The blessings of the widows and orphans, whose
property is going to bound up in value, will be on your plucky young
head. Hurry up!”

Galt moved away, as weak in action as a machine run by a spring of such
delicacy that it could be broken by the breath of an insect or the fall
of an atom. It struck him as ridiculous that he should be going for
his bag if he did not intend to use it; and to confess even now that he
couldn't make the trip would seem queer and cowardly, for he ought to
have explained at once. Ascending the stairs, he reached his room. He
turned up the gas, and his image in the big pier-glass between the two
end windows looked like that of a dead man energized by electricity.
There lay the bag by the bed, the black letters “K. G.,” on the
end, blandly staring at him. Galt looked at it, and then back to his
reflection in the mirror.

“My God!” he cried out, suddenly, “if I go to-night I'll be deserting
her forever, and she will have read me rightly! She would keep the
secret; no human power could wrench it from her. She would keep it; and
I--I, who have led her to her ruin, would be deserting her as only a
coward could! I am beneath contempt. And yet what am I to do? I am what
I am--what the damnable forces within me and my ancestors have made me.
Napoleon loved, and put aside and cast down for his ambition, and have I
not the same right for mine? I am not an emperor, but my ambition,
such as it is, is as sweet to me as his was to him. As she says--as the
gentle wilting flower says--I'd be miserable, _even with her_, under the
wreckage of all these hopes. She knows me; child though she is, she is
my superior in many things. She knows that the loss of this thing--now
that I've tasted the maddening cup of success, now that the poison of
fame and public approval is rioting in my blood--would damn me forever!
Accidents of this sort have ruined _weak_ men. _Strong_ men have lived
to smile back upon such happenings as the inevitable consequence of
the meeting of flame and powder, and have gone to their graves without
remorse. I've known such men. I've heard them say that no matter how
heavily nature may scourge the conscience of man for theft, for murder,
for any other misdeed, it yet deals lightly with this particular
offence. And why? Because there can be no charge of deliberation in an
act to which passionate youth is led by the very sunshine and music of
heaven. And yet I'll lose her. Great God, _I'll actually lose her!_ I
can never look into her sweet face again, or kiss the dear lips ever
whispering their vows of undying faith until hell opened her eyes to--to
my frailty. No, no, I can't desert her; I can't--I simply can't! I
_want_ her! I _want_ her. With all my soul, I _want_ her!” There was a
step in the hall below, and General Sylvester's excited old voice rose
and rang querulously through the still space below:

“In the name of Heaven, what's the matter?” he cried. “Come on! You may
miss the train as it is! _Come on!_”

“One second, General!” Galt cried out. “Wait!” He had not yet decided,
he told himself, and yet his cold hand had clutched the handle of his
bag. He lifted it up, swung it by his side, and, stepping out into the
corridor, peered over the balustrade down the stairs.

“We can't wait, man!” the General shouted from the walk outside.
“Hurry!”

“All right, I'm ready!” and Galt strode rapidly down the stairs, sliding
his hand on the walnut railing.

“Why, what is the matter with you?” Sylvester peered at him anxiously
in the moonlight as he emerged from the doorway. “You look white and
worried. You've done too much in Atlanta, with all those receptions and
banquets. Let's call a halt on the social end of the business till we
have clinched the thing good and tight. Put this New York deal through,
and we can dance and sing and cut the pigeon-wing as much as we please.
But you will pull it through, my boy, my prince of promoters, with that
wonderful say-little air you have. You are the man to make that crowd
of Yankees think we are granting _them_ favors instead of _asking_ for
them. If you don't miss connection and get there on time, you will win
as sure as you are a foot high.”

The General was pushing him into the carriage, and John Dilk, with whip
poised in the air, and a tight, wide-awake grip on the reins showed
readiness for his best speed record.

“Now, John,” Sylvester cried, “miss that train, and I'll break every
bone in your black hide!”

The negro laughed good-naturedly. It was exactly the sort of command he
loved to get from the old man who had done him a hundred services.

“You watch me, Marse Gineral,” he said, with a chuckle; “but you better
keep yo' mouf closed. Ef you don't, dis hoss in de lead will fill it wid
clay. He's de beatenes' animal ter fling mud I ever driv.”

On they sped, cutting the warm, still air into a sharp, steady current
against them. The General babbled on enthusiastically, but Galt failed
to catch half he was saying. To all outward appearances, he was being
hurtled on to triumph; in reality, he was leaving the just-filled grave
of his manhood. Before his humiliated sight stood a wonderful face
written full of knowledge of himself--a knowledge more penetrating than
that of the world-wise men who bowed before his prowess; a face, the
beauty and tenderness of which were ever to remain stamped on his
memory; a face wrung by a storm of agony, contempt, and--martyrdom!
And he was striking it! The pleading eyes, scornful nose, quivering,
drooping mouth were receiving the brunt of all his physical force! He
knew the cost, and was going to abide by it. A believer in the eternal
existence of the human soul might have paused, but Galt had always
contended that nothing lay beyond a man's short material life. And that
being his view, how could he suffer material glories like these to slip
through his fingers for the sake of a mere principle--a transient dream
of the senses? Yes, yes; and yet the pain, the crushing agony, the
maddened thing within him which all but tempted him to clutch the
chattering old tempter at his side by the neck and hurl him to the
earth!

And yet he nodded and said he was glad that the General had been so
thoughtful as to telephone the station-agent to secure the drawing-room
on the Pullman.

“We must not do things by halves,” the old soldier crowed. “The man who
is to have his own private car as the president of the great S. R. and
M. must not be seen, even by a negro porter, crawling into an upper
berth. Your plan of living high in order to be on a high level is fine
business policy. You haven't spared expense in Atlanta; you mustn't
in New York, either. Dine 'em, wine 'em; throw wads of cash at the
servants--do anything! They know who the Gaits of Charleston and
Savannah were before the War: let 'em see that the old blood is still
alive.”

They had been at the station only a minute when the train arrived. John
Dilk brushed by the porter at the step of the long sleeper, and proudly
bore his master's bag into the drawing-room. There was a hurried shaking
of hands between Galt and the General, and the train smoothly rolled
away.

Alone in the luxurious compartment, Galt sank down. The obsequious
porter stood awaiting orders, but the passenger scarcely saw him or
heard what he was saying. Galt was now fairly stupefied by the magnitude
of his crime. It flashed upon him as actually an incredible thing--his
leaving Dora with so much to bear!

He had taught her that their love, like that of their favorite English
novelist, had lifted them above mere conventional rules and ceremonies,
and rendered them a law unto themselves. But the awakening had come. She
had seen him in the garish light with which Truth had pierced his outer
crust and revealed his quaking, cringing soul. She would despise him,
the very murmuring of the ponderous wheels beneath him told him that,
and from now on he must avoid her. To offer her financial aid in her
coming trial would only be adding insult to injury, knowing her as
he knew her; so even that must be omitted--even that, while he was
accepting the price of her misery.




CHAPTER XIV

|THE morning sun beat fiercely down on Fred Walton and his new friend as
they trudged along the dusty road. The pangs of hunger had seized them,
and no way seemed open to obtain food short of begging it at one of the
farmhouses which they were passing, and that Fred shrank from doing.

“If I could have stopped in Atlanta long enough to have sold my watch
we could have paid our way for awhile,” he told his companion, “but I
thought we ought to be on the move.”

“Yes, of course,” the younger agreed, with a slow, doubtful look into
the other's face. “Will you tell me--I give you my word you can trust
me,” he went on--“if you have any reason, except for my sake, in getting
away from the city?”

“Yes, I have, Dick,” Walton replied. “I may as well admit it. I am in a
pretty tight place. Things are done by telegraph these days, and I don't
feel entirely safe, even here in the country.”

“Ah, I'm sorry, Fred!” the boy declared. “You have been so good to me
that it doesn't look right for anybody to be running you down like a
common--”

“Thief!” Walton supplied the word in a tone of bitterness. “That's
exactly what some would call it. But you mustn't be afraid of me, Dick.
I went wrong, and lost a good home and many friends by it. I've lost
something else, too, Dick--_some one_ else whom I once had as my own,
but who is now out of my life forever.”

“You mean--you mean--a sweetheart?” ventured the boy, as he put out a
sympathetic hand and touched the arm of his companion.

Walton nodded. He had averted his eyes, that his companion might not see
the tears which blurred his sight, but no word escaped his lips.

“I'm sorry,” Dick Warren said, simply, and his hand tenderly clung to
the dust-coated sleeve--“I'm sorry, Fred.”

“I wish you knew her, Dick,” Walton went on, reminiscently. “If you did,
I reckon you'd pity your pal. Here I am, a tramp, an outcast in dirty
clothing, and no money in my pocket. If you'd ever seen her, you'd never
dream that such a girl could have actually cared for a man like me. I've
got her photograph in my pocket. It is in an envelope. I have not looked
at it once since I left her. I may never again on earth.”

“But why?” the boy asked, wonderingly. “It seems like it would be
company for you, now that you and she are--parted.”

“She gave it to me in trust and confidence,” Walton answered, his dull
gaze still averted. “She wouldn't want me to have it now. I shall keep
it--I simply can't give it up; but I shall not insult her purity by
looking at it. I must harden myself, and forget--forget thousands of
things. You may see it if you wish.” Walton drew the envelope from his
pocket and extended it to his companion. “I'll walk ahead, and when
you've looked at it put it back in the envelope.”

“All right; thank you, Fred.” The boy fell back a few steps, and with
his eyes straight in front of him Walton trudged on stolidly. The boy
gazed at the picture steadily for several minutes, and then caught up
with his companion and returned the envelope. He was silent for a moment
then he said, with a slight huskiness in his young voice:

“Would you like for me to say anything about her, Fred?”

“Yes, I think I should,” Walton responded, slowly, as he thrust the
envelope back into his pocket. “Yes, Dick, I'd like to hear what you
think of her.”

“She is so sweet and gentle looking--so good--so very, very pretty! Oh,
Fred, I understand now how you feel! I don't think I ever saw a face
that I liked better. It may be because she is your--”

“_Was!_” Walton broke in. “Don't forget that, Dick.”

“I think a girl like that, with a _face_ like that, would forgive almost
anything in the man she loved,” the boy went on, in a valiant effort at
consolation.

“If she still loved him, perhaps; but she could no longer love him,”
 Walton sighed. “She belongs to a proud family, Dick, not one member of
which was ever guilty of such conduct as mine. She would shudder at the
sight of me, she would blush with shame for having cared for me. That's
why I came away. If I had not loved her, I'd have stayed and faced
my punishment.” After this talk the two trudged on through the garish
sunshine without exchanging a word for several miles. It was noon. They
had come to the gate of a farmhouse which bore the look of prosperity,
and they paused in the shade of a tree.

“We can't go farther without eating,” the boy said. “You don't like to
beg, but I don't care; I've done it hundreds of times, and don't feel
ashamed of it. I'm going to put on a bold front and tackle the kitchen
in the rear.”

“Don't ask for anything _for me_,” Walton said. “I'm not very hungry. I
can get along for some time yet.”

“Wait till I find out how it smells around that kitchen,”

Dick laughed. “I'm nearly dead.” The boy had opened the gate, and was
walking briskly toward the house, which stood back about a hundred yards
from the road. Walton saw him meet a great lazy-looking dog near the
steps and pat the animal on the head. Then the dog and boy went
round the building toward the kitchen. A moment later Walton saw Dick
returning, a flush on his face and empty handed. The dog paused near the
front steps, wagging a cordial if not, indeed, a regretful tail.

“The dirty red-faced scamp ordered me to move on!” Dick cried, angrily.
“He says the country is overrun with tramps, who won't work and who
expect to live on the toil of honest men.”

“Did he say that?” and Walton's eyes flashed. “I'd like to prove to him
that I'm no--But what's the use?”

“Look, he's coming!” the boy said, eagerly. “Maybe he's changed his
mind. A woman was listening to what he said. Perhaps she's told him
to call us back.” The fat, middle-aged farmer, bald, perspiring, and
without hat or coat, strode down to them, and languidly opened the gate.

“Say, I just want to tell you fellows _one more thing_,” he panted, as
he wiped his bearded chin with his pudgy hand, “and that is this: We may
look like a lot of galoots just out of an asylum along this here road,
but most of us have a grain of sense. Back here a piece a neighbor of
mine sent two able-bodied men like you two about their business a month
ago, and that night his barn was fired. Now, if you fellows try any game
of that sort on me, I'll--”

“Dry up!” Walton cried, as he suddenly faced him. “I wasn't begging of
you. I only let this boy go up to you because he is nearly starved. You
can't insult me--I won't have it! I am not a tramp. As proof of it, I
have a good solid gold watch here that I am willing to sell you or any
one else at any fair price you may put on it.”

“Huh! let me see it.” The farmer's eyes gleamed avariciously as Walton
took the watch from his pocket and extended it to him.

The man tested the weight of the timepiece by tossing it lightly in his
palm, and then he pried the case open with the stiff nail of his thumb,
and, with a critical eye, examined the works.

“Full-jewelled and good make,” he said; and then he gave it back. “I'm a
trader,” he went on. “I make money buying and selling any old thing from
a pickaxe to a piano, from a pet cat to a blooded horse; but I hain't in
_your_ market.”

“You say you 'hain't'?” Dick Warren mocked him, in fresh anger.

“No, I hain't,” the obtuse farmer repeated. “I did a fool thing like
that when I was a boy. I bought a bay mare from a man who rid up to my
daddy's barn without a saddle, blanket, or bridle--had just a heavy hemp
rope round her neck. I bit, and chuckled all that day as I rid about,
showing the gals how bright I'd been. Then the sheriff of the county
hove in sight, and--well, my daddy had to pay out a hundred-dollar
lawyer's fee to prove that I wasn't of age, never had had any sense, and
couldn't have knowed the mare was stolen property. So, you see, when a
fellow comes hiking along here without a nickel to buy a loaf of
bread, and lookin' like he's been wading through swamps and sleeping in
haystacks, and has a gold ticker that is good enough fer the vest-pocket
of Jay Gould, why, I feel like pullin' down the left-hand corner of
my right eye an' axin' him ef he hain't got a striped suit under his
outside one, hot as the weather is.”

“You blamed old--” Dick Warren began, threateningly, as he bristled up
to the farmer, his fists drawn; but Walton put out his hand and stopped
him.

“He's right, Dick,” he said, and there was a pained look about his
sensitive mouth. “The circumstances are dead against us.”

“Yes, I reckon they are, gents,” grinned the man at the gate. “Anyways,
I don't think you will find a buyer fer that timepiece. Good-day. There
ain't nothing in all this palaver fer _me_,” and his eye twinkled as he
finished. “My wife's got dinner waitin' for me: a good fat hen, baked
to a turn, with rich corn-meal stuffin', an' hot biscuits, coffee,
string-beans, and fried ham--the country-cured sort that you've read
about!”




CHAPTER XV

|I SWEAR, I'd enjoy firing _his_ barn!” Dick fumed, as the two friends
walked on through the beating sun. “I don't think I can stand much more
of it, Fred. I'm all gone inside. The lining of my stomach has folded
over.” They were passing the corner of a field where, in the distance,
they could see two men at work digging ditches to drain the boggy land,
and they paused again to rest under the shade of a tree.

“I guess they will stop soon and go home to a square meal,” Dick said,
bitterly; and then his roving glance fixed itself on a spot in the
corner of the snake-fence near by.

“By George!” he exclaimed, exultantly, “we are in luck! Gee, what a
pick-up!”

“What is it, now?” Walton asked. But the boy was bounding away toward
the fence. “You wait and see--gee, what luck!”

Walton stood and watched him as he climbed over the fence, dived into
the thick underbrush, and reappeared with a covered tin pail in his
hands. As he came back he unfastened the lid and laughed loud and long.
“Full to the brim!” he chuckled. “Meat, bread, pie, and a bottle of
fresh milk. We can leg it along the road a piece and sit down to it, or
stow it away as we walk. My dinner-bell's rung, old man.”

“Put it back, Dick! Go put it back!” Fred said, firmly, his eyes
averted.

The boy stared, a blended expression of surprise and keen disappointment
capturing his features.

“Do you really mean it, Fred?” he asked, his lip falling, the pail
hanging motionless at his side.

“Yes, it is not ours,” the other said. “Put it back before they see you,
and then I'll--I'll try to explain what I mean.”

The boy swore under his breath, and for a moment he stood gloweringly
sullen, but at the third command of his companion he retreated to the
fence and dropped the pail into its place. Then he came back, his head
hanging, his face still dark with disappointment.

“Huh!” he grunted, and started on without waiting to see if Fred was
ready to go. Walton followed, and presently caught up with him.

“I'm not a preacher, Dick,” he began, with a forced laugh, which was
intended as an opening wedge to the boy's displeasure, “I'm not one bit
better than you are. I've stolen a farmer's watermelons by the light of
the moon, and climbed his June apple-trees, and filled my pocket with
his prize fruit, and heartily enjoyed it; but somehow I feel differently
now. Dick. I'm older than you are, and reckless living has got me down
and stamped all hope out of me. I'm fighting for my life. I'm swimming
in a strange, swift stream, and my strength is almost gone, but I have
grasped at a straw; it may hold me up, it may not; but I hope it will.
That straw is the determination to live right--absolutely right--from
now on, no matter what it costs. I've done great wrong, and I'm sick
with the very thought of it. I want to try to do what is right, and if
I could influence you to feel as I feel about these things, I'd like it
mightily; it would strengthen me in my course. Two can succeed better,
even at a thing like that, than one.”

“But I'm _starving!_” the boy whimpered. “The world wasn't made for
anybody to starve in. The birds up there in the trees don't starve, and
God gave them as good right to live as you or me. Huh! when that beefy
chump back there sows his wheat they watch him with their keen eyes from
their nests in the trees, and when his hulking back is turned they chirp
with glee and pounce down on his seed and take it and flutter away with
it in the sunshine.”

“Dick, you are a bloody anarchist!” Walton laughed gently as he placed
his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder.

“I don't know whether I am or not,” Warren retorted, still ruffled. “But
the blamed bucket of grub may stay where it is. I wanted it for your
sake as much as mine, but I sha'n't ask you to sit down to other men's
dinner if you are going to ask the blessing over it. But you are too
dang particular. At least, I've got as much right to the stuff as they
have, for they can go home and get more, and I can't.”

“That is _one_ way to look at it,” Walton said, quietly, “and I thought
as you do once, but I don't now.” After this they trudged along for
several minutes in silence. The boy did not raise his eyes from the
dusty ground, but he put his hand on Walton's arm, and there was a catch
in his young throat as he said:

“Fred, somehow you make me think of my mother, When she was alive she
was always wanting me to be good. She used to talk to me when I was
a little tiny fellow. It was always that one thing over and over: 'My
little boy is not going to be a bad man when he grows up, is he?' That's
what she said time after time, and in a thousand ways she tried to
impress it on me. She worried a lot about me just before she died. You
see, my father--well, he didn't care what became of me, or her,
either. He drank like a fish, and went with idle men about the
loafing-places--in fact, he was shot and killed in a bar-room. I've
tried pretty hard to have faith in what my mother used to say about
God's mercy and all that stuff, but, Fred, God never answered her
prayers to look after _me_. If I haven't had to go it blind, I don't
want a cent. Selling papers on the street at night till nearly morning,
sometimes sleeping in a stairway, outhouse, or stable. Then I was a
messenger boy, for a little better wages, in a dead boy's uniform, and
finally became a tramp telegraph operator. But, Fred, you are true blue.
I don't want a better pal. The way you yanked out that watch and offered
it to keep me out of jail when it was the last thing you had in your
pocket--well, you can count on me, that's all. I won't try to stuff
another man's grub down your throat, either.”

A man was coming toward them on horseback, and as he drew near he reined
in and leaned forward on the neck of his horse. “Gentleman,” he began,
as he pulled at his scraggy beard and kicked his feet more firmly into
his wooden stirrups, “I don't know whether you fellows are interested
in the like or not, but I'm riding round here and yon trying to drum up
hands to gather and crate and ship my crop of early peaches. There is
such a demand for labor of that sort all through the peach section that
we are powerful short on help.”

The two pedestrians exchanged eager glances.

“Where is your place?” Fred asked.

“Why, it's a few miles to the right, over them hills,” the rider said.
“It's the Womack farm. That's my name. I've got a hundred acres of
dandy Elbertas, and they are ripening as fast as chickens in a
hatching-machine. They are a thing that has to be picked an' got off in
cold-storage cars at exactly the right minute or they ain't worth the
nails in the crates when they get to market. They say if all us early
fellows can manage to hit New York just right this year, we'll get three
dollars a crate, an' that will pay big, as times are now.”

“How far is it to your place?” Walton asked.

“Why, it's a little better than seven mile--on a beeline; but I reckon
by the nighest road it's a matter of ten or thereabouts. You fellers
look a little mite tired, but by stiff walking you could get there by
sundown. You can make good wages in a pinch like this if you will buck
down to it--I calculate three plunks a day for each of you.”

“And how long would the work last?” inquired Fred, as he and Warren
looked at each other, their pulses quickening, their eyes beginning to
glow.

“Well, I could hold you down for two weeks at least, for mine don't all
ripen at once; but after you was through on my land you could go farther
north and get more to do.”

“I think we'd better take you up,” Warren said. “I'd like that sort of
work.” He winked at his friend and rubbed his stomach. “I see myself
_packing_ good, ripe, juicy peaches right now, but not in crates. The
truth is, farmer, we are mighty hungry, and that is a long walk. Now,
if you had fifty cents about you that you'd be willing to let go in an
advance, why we'll buy a snack at some farm-house, and go right on to
you.”

The horseman's shrewd face fell. He leaned forward and ran his gnarled
fingers through the mane of his horse, and avoided the pair of anxious
eyes fixed on his. “I don't want to be blunt and hurt your feelings,
fellers,” he said. “But we never come together before--we are plumb
strangers, I might say; and, well, to tell the truth, last year I
started out on this same business, and to my certain knowledge not a
man, woman, gal, boy, nor baby that I advanced money to ever got to my
place, while all the others who wasn't paid was there bright and early.”

“But we are hungry and weak!” Dick Warren protested.

“Well, some o' them that I failed to get told the selfsame tale. One
said if I'd pay off the mortgage on his land, he'd bring his entire
family; but that wasn't _business_, and I refused. I'm making you
fellows a fair open-and-shut proposition. You hit my place before dark
to-night and tell my wife to give you a square meal--tell her I've hired
you to pick and pack, and that I said to stow you away somewhere for
the night. She will make room for you. Now, I hope I'll see you there.
That's as good as I can offer, as I look at it.”

“All right, we'll be there,” Walton promised. “And we will do the best
we can for your interests.”

“Very well, gentlemen, I'll expect to see you there when I get back.
So long.” And with his legs jogging the flanks of his mount, the farmer
rode away.

“We can make it, Dick,” Walton said, encouragingly. “Let's bend down to
it.”

“The thought of that meal is enough to keep me going,” the boy replied.
“What do you reckon she will give us? But stop! My mouth is watering at
such a rate that I believe I'll try not to think of it.”

It was long after sundown when the wayfarers reached the farm in
question. The house was a rambling, one-story, frame structure which
originally had been painted, afterward whitewashed, and rain and storm
beaten till not a trace of any sort of coating remained on the bare,
fuzzy, gray boards. At the gate, or bars, of the snake-fence, in front,
they paused, faint and exhausted, wondering if they would be bitten by
watch-dogs if they entered unannounced. On the grass under the trees in
the front yard a group of twenty or more young women and young men were
singing plantation melodies, and here and there couples were sitting
alone or strolling about, their heads close together.

“They are peach-gatherers,” Walton surmised. “Come on; there are no dogs
that I can see.”

Crawling through the bars, they went to the house. There was no light in
the front part, but a yellow glow shone from a window against the dark
foliage of the trees in the rear, and thither the wanderers directed
their lagging steps. Looking in at the open door of the kitchen, they
saw the portly form of the farmer's wife at a table washing dishes in
the light of a smoking brass lamp which had no chimney.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as her kindly eyes fell on them. “Not more pickers,
surely?”

“That's what we are, and as good as you ever laid eyes on,” Dick told
her. “Mr. Womack said you'd give us something to eat. We haven't had a
bite since yesterday.”

“Well!” The woman drew her hands from the big dish-pan and dried them
on her apron as she looked them over doubtfully. “Pete Womack goes crazy
every year at picking-time. He's filled the house, barn, and yard with
hooting and singing gals and boys, and furnished nobody to wait on 'em
but me. The gals all say they are too fagged out at night to lay their
hands to cooking or dish-washing, and yet, if you'll just listen and
watch, you'll see that they are all able to gallivant with the men about
the yard. Six couples met here for the first time last summer and got
married. They say there's some progress being made right now between
three or four, an' picking's just set in. I tell Pete he ought to start
a marrying-agency and take out a license to preach, so he can tie 'em on
the spot and collect two fees. Some of 'em are respectable and mean all
right, but Pete is so anxious to get his crop off on time that he's got
women in that bunch that--to _look_ at 'em--Well, it ain't any of _my_
business! I ain't set up as a judge, and as the saying is, I won't throw
no stones. But you say you are hungry, and I don't see how I could give
you a thing hot at this time of night. My fires are out, and--”

“Hot!” Dick shouted. “Why, I've got such a big storage capacity that I'd
be afraid to take it hot. It might generate steam and explode.”

The woman laughed. “Well, you _must_ be hungry,” she said. “Come on in
the dining-room and I'll lay it out in a minute. There is plenty of cold
stuff. I cook a lot ahead. You have to feed pickers like kings or they
won't stay. It won't take long to heat the coffee. But I reckon you want
to wash and wipe. You'll find pans and water on the shelf in the entry,
and a clean towel on the roller. I'll be ready when you are.”

“I'll see about that, old lady,” Dick challenged her, as he made a dash
for the near-by water-shelf.

Two minutes later the two wanderers sat down at a long, improvised
table, made of unplaned planks, in the dining-room. In the light of a
guttering home-made tallow dip the farmer's wife spread before them the
best meal that famished men ever feasted on. They saw roast chicken with
dressing, fried chicken with cream gravy, country-smoked ham in a great
platter of eggs; butter, hard and cold, from the spring-house; great,
snow-capped pound-cakes, biscuits, apple-sauce, jellies, jams, cold
buttermilk, and hot coffee.

“I don't know where I'm going to bunk you boys,” Mrs. Womack said, in a
motherly tone, as she stood behind their chairs, and, with unsuppressed
delight, watched them eat. “The women and gals have got every bed in the
house; and every spot on the floor, even to the kitchen, has been staked
off by the men.”

“What's the matter with the barn?” Dick mumbled, with his mouth full. “I
wouldn't want a better place this time of year than a sweet-smelling bed
of fresh hay or fodder.”

“There's plenty of room in the loft down there,” the woman replied; “but
somehow I hate to see nice-looking young men like you put in a place
like that.”

“It will do very well,” Fred assured her. “In fact, we would rather like
it.”

“Well, a little later, if you decide to stay, I may fix you a place in
the house,” the woman said; “but you got in too late to-night.”

“I'm dead tired and sleepy, Fred,” Dick said, when they had left the
table. “Let's turn in.”

Directed by Mrs. Womack, they went down to the barn, and from the big
cattle-room on the ground they climbed a ladder to the loft above. A
startled hen flew from her nest with a loud cackling as they crawled
through the hay and husks and leaves of corn to a square, shutterless
door, through which the hay was loaded to wagons below. They threw off
their coats and vests, and made pillows of them; then took off their
shoes, and lay down and stretched out their tired limbs.

Through the doorway they saw the fathomless sky filled with mysterious
stars. The chirping of some chickens, as they jostled one another on the
roost below, came up to them; the champing of the teeth of a horse, as
he gnawed his wooden trough; the snarling of a tree-frog; the far-off
and dismal howling of a dog, and--they were asleep.




CHAPTER XVI

|IT was not till early autumn that the two friends reached their far-off
destination. Fred's watch had been sold; they had saved the greater part
of their earnings from the various odd jobs at which they had worked,
and had made of their journey by rail. It was Walton's idea that they
must put their best foot to the front in Gate City, and start out with
a good appearance in their new home, and so the most of their funds were
promptly invested in new clothing. Notwithstanding their spick-and-span
appearance, however, luck seemed against them, for every application
they made for work--Dick as a telegraph operator and Fred as an
accountant--was refused them.

The city was a bustling new place with prosperity and activity in its
very air. There were great railway-shops, factories of several kinds,
and various other enterprises. It was a typical Western “boom” town.
Its buildings were modern, its streets regular and well-paved. Men and
women, as they drove through the streets in their carriages, thought
nothing of it if a mounted horde of yelling cow-boys galloped past with
their revolvers playfully flourished, nor saw anything unusual in
the gangs of blanket-draped Indians who hung about the bar-rooms,
dance-halls, or gambling-houses. The new-comers liked the place; Dick
believed they would eventually secure work, and Fred had the first sense
of security which had come to him since leaving Stafford. Here, under
his new name, in this remote place, he was sure he would meet with no
familiar face, nor catch any discordant echoes of the life he had left
behind him, and which he was trying to banish from his memory.

There was in the town a certain Stephen Whipple, a man about sixty-five
years of age, who had come from one of the Southern States shortly after
the Civil War. He had established himself, first, as a small grocer,
but, having acquired considerable wealth, he was now the owner of the
only wholesale grocery store in the place, an establishment which was
known for miles around.

He was an earnest member of the Presbyterian church of the town, and its
chief pride, owing to his influence in the community. It had been his
money which had built the church to which he belonged, and it was said
that he practically paid the salary of its eloquent young preacher.

In his great red-brick, four-story business-house on the main street
Stephen Whipple had his private office. It was in the rear of the
counting-room and was of unusual size, and by many deemed a curious
place. Indeed, it was put to strange, unbusiness-like uses, for it was
here that the owner of the establishment personally received all sorts
of applications for aid. There were half a dozen plain chairs in the
bare, uncarpeted room, and the Rev. Luke Matthews, who had the entrée to
the office at any moment, often found a motley gathering of supplicants
on hand, each patiently awaiting his turn to be beckoned to the seat
close to the portly, shaggy-browed merchant. There were individuals who
called the old man a deep-dyed hypocrite, for they held that no really
self-sacrificing toiler in the Lord's vineyard could have amassed the
great wealth old Whipple was known to possess. But this was disputed by
all the men in his employment, at least, for they were ready to attest
that Whipple had often held over important business matters till the
case of some suffering applicant could be investigated and relief
supplied. There were other uses to which this room was put. Old Whipple,
in order to render his pet church more attractive to the public,
selected and paid out of his own pocket the salaries of the best choir
in town. He was no expert musician, but he had them meet in his office
and practise on every Saturday afternoon, and he was always present,
seeing to it that refreshments were served and the singers made
comfortable.

It was one morning when Dick Warren and Fred Walton had been in the town
for a month, and had reached the lowest ebb of their resources, that the
minister dropped in to see the merchant. The Rev. Luke Matthews was of
unusual height, measuring six feet four, very slender in build, and of
markedly nervous temperament. He was under thirty, unmarried, wore his
black hair long enough to touch his shoulders, and had the thin-lipped,
unbearded face of an Edwin Booth. It was said of him that he couldn't
keep a coin in his pocket--that it was promptly given to the first
beggar he met.

“Well, brother, how are your bones?” was the halfjesting greeting he
gave the old man, as he bustled in, buttoning and unbuttoning his long
black coat and swinging his broad-brimmed hat at his side. “Not holding
court this morning?” He laughed as he looked over the empty chairs.

“No; I sent the last prisoner up for life an hour ago,” the merchant
responded, jovially. “Set down, set down!”

The long-legged man with the poetic face complied. “Well,” he said,
“you'll have to be a judge in that sort of tribunal so long as you
inhabit this globe.” He smiled, showing two fine rows of white teeth.
“It looks like the Lord is pushing you on to unlimited prosperity,
and your work for humanity will increase instead of letting up.
Say, brother, I know the sort of thing you glory in, and I've had
an experience--the sort of experience that makes a fellow feel like
preaching is worth while. It was exactly the kind of thing you are
interested in yourself.”

“What have you run across now?” Whipple asked, as he leaned his elbow on
his desk and rested his florid face on his hand.

“The genuine thing, brother--a genuine reformation in a young chap
hardly out of his teens. He's been coming to my special meetings for
young men, and, as I'm a close observer, I was attracted by his face.
It interested me more than that of any boy's I ever saw. Finally, I
ventured to approach him. I never scare them off if I can help it, but I
singled him out from the rest last Thursday evening and spoke to him. I
saw that he was greatly moved, and I invited him into my study, and we
had a good long heart-to-heart talk. Brother Whipple, I never felt the
glory of God bearing down on me in my life as I did while that boy was
talking--while he was telling me his past history. Crying like his heart
would break, he confessed to having been almost everything a boy could
be--a thief, a tramp, and an all-round, good-for-nothing idler, from his
childhood up to his sudden awakening to what was right.”

“Good, good!” Stephen Whipple ejaculated, his features working, his kind
old eyes twinkling.

“But now comes the climax to my experience,” the minister went on.
“You and I meet a converted person now and then, but we don't often run
across individuals in private life who are leading lives which convert.
The boy went on to tell me, brother, how he was rescued from arrest by
a young man who was a tramp like himself. They began searching for work
side by side. The boy told me how his new friend--without ever saying a
word that was preachy--gradually won him from his ingrained tendencies
and taught him the difference between right and wrong. He gave me scores
of touching and inspiring incidents that had happened between them
during their wanderings here and there, trying to get work. Somehow I
became even more deeply interested in the fellow I hadn't met than the
one I had in tow, and so I asked the boy if he would introduce me to his
friend. He hesitated for a while, and then finally agreed to take me to
the room they had together. It was away over beyond the railroads, in
the slums of our 'tenderloin' district. It seemed to be the only room
whose price they could afford, and they were unwilling to contract for
what they could not pay. It was an awful place, brother, up a narrow
flight of shaky stairs, in the attic of a negro shoemaker's house, in
the worst part of 'Dive-town.' The man, this Fred Spencer, when we came
in, was seated at the little dingy window reading a newspaper. He seemed
very much surprised, and flushed red as he stood up and shook hands. He
was fine-looking--strong and tall, well-clad and neat from his feet to
his carefully combed hair, but his great big sad eyes haunted me long
after I left him, and when he spoke his voice seemed to come from a
proud spirit that was crushed and broken. He began by saying that his
friend had spoken to him of my meetings, and that he was exceedingly
grateful for my interest and courtesy in calling. He tried to apologize
for the appearance of the room, and insisted on my taking the only chair
while he and his room-mate sat on the bed, which, by the way, was unfit
for a convict to sleep on. They used it together, and yet it was barely
wide enough for one. The straw in the mattress was crumbling to powder
and falling to the floor.”

“Poor chaps,” the merchant sighed, “and they have evidently seen better
days.”

“Spencer, the older one, has decidedly,” the minister answered. “He is
evidently Southern, for he has the soft accent of Virginia, I should
say, and the manner of the old aristocracy. I told him that I had heard
of his good influence over the boy, and he got redder than ever,
and tried to make light of what he had done, endeavored, in fact, to
convince me that the boy had only spoken as he had out of personal
friendship. Finally I offered my assistance toward finding employment
for them both, and Spencer showed real embarrassment--as if he did not
want to put me to any trouble in the matter.”

“He's tried to find work here, then?” Stephen Whipple mused, aloud.

“Yes, and been turned down on all sides. He has tried till he has lost
hope. He likes Gate City, but is afraid they will be driven to the road
again.”

“And to think that a fellow like _that_ can't find work,” Whipple
cried, indignantly, “when the world is full of grafters and panhandlers!
Brother Matthews, I am interested in those fellows, especially the
oldest one. My list is full, as you know, but I can manage to find
places for the right sort. Couldn't you send him to me right away? I'll
be here to-night after closing time. There won't be anybody else about,
and me and him can talk undisturbed. I'd like to help a chap like that.
You have got me interested. The world is too full of bad men who are
prospering for his sort to go unrewarded.”

“Well, I'll send him, Brother Whipple. God bless you, old man, you can
always be counted on!”

That evening the merchant sat in the light of his green-shaded gas-lamp
at his desk waiting for the expected caller. The outer door of the great
building, which opened on the main street, was ajar, and was plainly
visible to the merchant from his seat. Now, as he heard his visitor
coming, he rose to his feet, pushed his desk-chair back with his
ponderous calves, and stood smiling cordially. As the young man entered,
politely removing his hat, Whipple grasped Walton's hand and shook it
warmly.

“I'm powerfully glad to know you, Mr. Spencer,” he said, “I am, indeed.
I'm told you are a newcomer to our brag town, and as I'm one of the
pioneers, so to speak, I take a personal pride in the place, and I
want to see everybody that drifts this way anchored here for life. It
certainly is the town for fresh young blood. Even old men can make money
here, and I know the young can. Set down, set down! I'm glad you ran
across my long-legged jumping-jack of a preacher. He is a wheel-horse,
I am here to state. If all the churches in the world were led by men of
his stamp, infidelity would die of the dry rot or burn up with shame.

“I built Matthews' meeting-house, and if I hadn't found a man like him
to fill the pulpit I'd have turned the blamed thing into a warehouse to
store groceries in. But I found him, and he's doing mighty well--mighty
well! He isn't any of your ranting trance religionists; he's practical,
and, in one way, the funniest cuss you ever laid eyes on. Me and him
have big times in our way. He looks after the souls of men while I
sometimes help a little in patching up their bodies. He tells me that
you and a friend of yours haven't made any business connection yet. My
house is pretty well supplied, but this is our best season of the year,
and a good man always comes in handy. You look like you've got a good
head on them broad shoulders, and I want to give you a start, so if you
will show up here in the morning with your friend, I'll put you to work
in the office and stow him away somewhere.”

“You are very, very kind, Mr. Whipple,” Fred said, a gratified flush on
his face; “but you have had no recommendation of me, and--”

“I don't _want_ none,” the merchant said, firmly. “You see, I've already
heard about you. Long before me and you met you had cast your bread on
the water, and it has already come back. I've heard about you. Anybody
these days can bring a scrap of paper with indorsements scribbled on
it, but the best recommendation is the sort that crawls along ahead of
a fellow. Yes, I've heard about you, and, to be plain, that's why I sent
for you. Even if I didn't have no opening right now, it would pay me to
rub against men that--well, that believe like you do and act like you
have acted.”

“I suppose you mean”--Walton was quite embarrassed now--“I suppose
Mr. Matthews has been speaking of what my friend told him of our
ups-and-downs together; but really I couldn't let that sort of
thing stand as an indorsement of me, Mr. Whipple. Dick is young and
enthusiastic. It seems that he has never had a close friend before, and
he naturally exaggerates my--”

“Say, look here,” the merchant broke in, with a smile, “you really
don't know how funny that sounds. In this day and time, when a man in
my position has to set and listen to folks spout for the hour about how
good and worthy they are, why--well, to see a chap actually denying the
favorable things which have been said behind his back is a downright
curiosity. Why, the very fact that you are _talking_ this way shows
plain enough what you are. Along with what I've picked up about you and
the--the general look of you, now that you are at close range--why, if
you was to lay down a whole batch of written recommendations I'd chuck
'em in that stove. I'm a judge of human faces and of men, and I know you
_mean_ well, and that is all I ask.”

“It is very good of you, Mr. Whipple,” Walton said, his glance on the
floor. “I feel like we could get on together. I know I'd do my best to
please you.”

“Well, then, there is nothing more to be said,” old Whipple answered.
“Bring that boy in to-morrow morning, and we'll make some sort o' a
start.”

Fred sat silent. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the
genial face in the green light. “I must be frank and open with a man
as generous as you are, Mr. Whipple. If I am to work here we ought to
understand each other thoroughly. There are some things which you must
know about me, or I cannot consent to enter your employment, for it
would be deceiving you.”

“Oh, _that's_ it!” Whipple said, awkwardly. “Still, you mustn't feel
that I am requiring any explanations of--of a private nature, for I am
not.”

“You ought to know more than you do know about me, at all events,”
 Walton went on. “I'd feel better if nothing at all was hidden from your
knowledge. I haven't lived right, Mr. Whipple. I went wrong--frightfully
wrong. I got in debt--it is worse than that. I misappropriated a
considerable sum of money belonging to my father. He is a stern, hard
man, and demanded as much of me as he would have done of a stranger. I
left home to escape arrest. You may think I ought to have submitted to
the law. I simply couldn't, for I felt that my father, when his passion
cooled, would regret his step, and, moreover, I felt that, with my
freedom, I could apply myself and eventually restore the loss.”

“Merciful Father!” Whipple exclaimed, fervently. “Lord have mercy! To
think of a man blessed with a son holding the law over his repentant
head and chasing him from spot to spot over God's green earth! The child
he brought into the world and saw cooing in the cradle, a little, tiny
sprout of his own flesh and blood, made in the image of the Lord God of
Hosts! My boy,” the old man leaned forward, “shake hands with me. I've
often wanted to help young men in my stormy life, but, God knows, I
never felt the desire as strong as I do now. Just in this little talk
I've been drawn more closely to you than I ever was to a human being
before. You are the right sort, the genuine thing; if I was to turn you
adrift, I'd never get over it. I had a boy once, and I doted on him.
He died when he was a little toddling fellow, and since then I have
never been consoled. But his loss, and the memory of him, has warmed my
heart to young men wherever I meet them. You must come to me, my boy. I
feel sure we'll pull together. In fact, I'd want you at hand, for I'd
grieve to see you falter in your noble undertaking. God will bless your
effort as sure as the stars are shining up there in the heavens
to-night.”

“I haven't told you quite all yet,” Walton added, in a low tone. “To
protect myself, I took another name. My real name is--”

“Stop! Don't tell me. That won't make one bit of difference to me,”
 Whipple answered, with a sigh, as if he were thinking more of the young
man's former revelations than the one just made. “No doubt it is best.
You say you have determined to make good the loss, and if bearing
another name will help you out, then it can't be wrong. Go ahead, I'll
be your friend; I'll stick to you. I'm glad we came together to-night.
It makes me feel better. I've seen many sorts of human struggles, but
I never saw one that touched me down deep like yours does. Wait, let me
lock up, and I'll walk along a piece with you.”

Outside, after he had closed the heavy door, the merchant put his hand
on the arm of his companion, and they moved on down the street together.
Suddenly they paused. Whipple swept his fat hand in a slow gesture
toward the skies.

“My boy,” he said, fervently, “this is a wonderful, wonderful old world.
Life seems hard and harsh at times, but when the soul is right a man can
conquer anything. I have my fight to make; you have yours--stick to it,
and may the Lord be with you! Goodnight.”. .

PART II




CHAPTER I

|OLD Stafford had changed wonderfully in the six years which passed
after Fred Walton's flight. The building of President Galt's trunk-line
to the sea had marked the turning-point in the town's career. The older
portion of the place remained quite as it was, but new suburbs and new
centres of commerce had sprung up beyond the old incorporated limits.
Where farms, fields, and pastures had once been, now lay even,
well-graded, and electric-lighted streets. No small city in the South
had a better freight-rate to all points, and this had brought about the
establishment of various manufacturing enterprises which had greatly
increased the population. The clang and clatter of new growth was in the
air; speculation in building-sites was rife. The modest price of one day
was the jest of the next. Owning a great deal of the land along the new
railway, General Sylvester was now more wealthy than ever, and the new
interest in life had given him back his youth and health.

As for Kenneth Galt, he had scarcely spent a day in the town of his
birth since his hurried journey to New York to meet the capitalists
whose co-operation had made the road a certainty. His explanation to
Sylvester was that other points on the long line constantly demanded
his attention. His old home was still cared for by Mrs. Wilson as
housekeeper and John Dilk as gardener, and now and then a false
report had emanated from these proud and worshipful menials that the
distinguished owner was coming back to reside there permanently. Indeed,
he had promised General Sylvester to do so time after time, only to make
more delays and more excuses.

“He's coming this time sure,” the old soldier said to his nephew on the
veranda one day in the early part of the present summer. “I had a letter
from him this morning, in which he promised to come and spend the hot
weather here and take a good long rest. Mrs. Wilson said, also, that he
had written her about renovating his rooms, so I reckon it is settled.
And when he comes you will see that I was right about my prophecy
concerning him and Madge. He's a woman-hater, they say--won't have a
thing to do with society; and, quiet and reserved as your sister is, the
two will naturally drift together. I'll be glad to have him back. That
shady old place, with its early associations, will fairly make him over.
When I spent that week with him in Savannah I naturally expected to find
him at the top of the social heap, but he went nowhere at all, and even
seemed to shun the men who extended courtesies to him. He's had too big
a load on him; his face shows wrinkles, and his hair is turning at the
temples.”

“Yes, he is a strange chap,” Dearing answered. “I have been thrown with
him in Atlanta several times of late, and while he really seemed glad
to see me, and was cordial enough, in a way, I couldn't exactly make him
out. As usual, I found him moping over his favorite books, and every
bit as anxious, as of old, to prove that the grave ends everything. That
will ruin any man, Uncle Tom. When a fellow actually gets to fighting
the belief that we are more than sticks and stones he can't rise very
high in any spiritual sense. Why, Kenneth has even reached the point of
defending some of the lowest things that men do. He and I were walking
away out in the outskirts of the city one night. He had asked me to
go, because he wanted to avoid some clubmen who were bent on having
him preside at a banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce. We were all
alone, and it was dark. He had asked me, I remember, if any news had
come as to the whereabouts of Fred Walton, and I had told him that
nothing at all had been heard except that his father had cut him off
forever. To my astonishment, Kenneth actually sighed. Then I distinctly
heard him muttering to himself: 'Poor fellow. Poor chap! He's been
treated like a dog!”' “Huh, the idea!” Sylvester broke in. “Well, that's
like Kenneth. He is always ready to take up for somebody or something
that no one else believes in.”

“Well, feeling as I did, and knowing what I do of the case,” Dearing
continued, warmly, “I couldn't hold my tongue. I didn't leave a grain
of sand for Fred Walton to stand on, and it made me hot for Galt not to
agree with me. He made some weak remark about men obeying natural laws,
and being cursed with uncontrollable passions, and the like; but
I flatter myself that I silenced him. I gave him a picture of that
beautiful girl's isolated life with her son and old mother, wholly
ostracized in the only community they had ever known or loved. I saw,
then, that I had touched his sympathies in another direction.

“'You think,' he said, 'that Walton ought, even _now_, to go back and
marry her--_at this late date?_”

“I told him that I had grave doubts as to whether a woman who had
suffered as she had at a man's hands would ever want to see her betrayer
again, and he answered that he felt sure she wouldn't. Then he asked
about the boy. You know, he was always fond of children--that is
one redeeming quality he has, and it makes me hope that he isn't so
heartless as he would have us believe. He listened attentively to all I
said about Lionel, even asking me questions as to how the child looked
and how he amused himself. When I told him that the little fellow was
completely cut off from other children, and that his association only
with his mother and grandmother had made him act and speak more like an
older person than a child, he seemed actually shocked.”

“'You don't mean to tell me,' he said, 'that the people of old Stafford
would turn against a helpless child because of any fault or mistake of
its parents!'

“I explained to him that it was mostly due to the pride of his mother,
and to the natural fear that such an intelligent boy, and one so
sensitive and observant as he is, might learn of his misfortune and
suffer from it. That conversation raised Kenneth Galt in my estimation,
Uncle Tom. I know now that he has true feeling and sympathy for the
unfortunate, and that his ambition is not all there is to him.”

“I must confess that the child has greatly interested me,” the General
said. “From my window I can see him playing in that narrow yard, always
dressed neatly, and as strong and straight as an Indian in his bearing.
I have never seen him outside the fence. I have stopped to speak to him
once or twice in passing, and have been actually charmed by his face
and manner. I don't think I ever heard of a case exactly like his.
Of course, there have been thousands of children born like that in
straitlaced communities, but I never heard of one being brought up in
that prison-like way. It surely is wrong, and it will make the truth all
the harder to bear when it does come out, as it must sooner or later.
She is a wonderful woman--I started to say girl, for she seems almost
like a child to me with that sad, young face, and wistful, artistic
beauty. I have met her mother on the street a few times, her old face
thickly veiled, but I have not seen Dora or the child away from the
cottage.”

“As their family doctor,” said Dearing, “I urged Dora to go out herself
for exercise and to take the boy with her. At first she flatly refused.
I frightened her, however, by saying that the constant confinement would
injure Lionel's health. Since then she has taken him with her in fine
weather when she goes sketching in the woods and swamp back of the
cottage, but she is as shy as a fawn about it. I venture to say that no
one has ever met her on those excursions. I've seen mother-love, Uncle
Tom, in all its phases. I've met it at the death-beds of scores of
children, but the love between that unfortunate mother and child is the
prettiest thing on earth. No pair of lovers were ever more constant and
affectionate. Lionel is really a sort of psychological oddity in his
way. I have a theory that the mother's morbid suffering was in some
prenatal way stamped on her offspring.' He is queerly supersensitive for
one so young, and seems constantly afraid that he won't be liked. He
is rather fond of me--perhaps it is because I'm the only visitor at
the house; and when I take him in my lap to hold him, I can see that he
enjoys it as if it were an unusual luxury. He closes his eyes sometimes
and smiles, and says he wants to go to sleep that way. Then he will ask
me over and over again if I love _him_. After being told that I do, he
will detect some slight change in my face or voice and cry out, 'Now,
you don't like me--do you?' I am not sentimental, Uncle Tom, but that
little chap's condition has worried me a lot. I pity him as I've never
pitied a human being before.”

“I have often wondered whether Madge has taken notice of him,” General
Sylvester remarked, reflectively. “A woman is hard to read on the
surface, and while Madge never mentions Fred Walton's name any more than
if he were dead, I've been afraid that the mere sight of his child might
keep the old memory alive. Do you know, my son, a woman will condone
exactly that failing in a man more quickly than any other? I suppose
they lay most of the blame on the woman in the case. A high-strung
creature like your sister wouldn't for a moment consider herself a rival
of a fallen woman, and it may be that the explanation of her never
having shown interest in other men is that--”

“That she still cares for the rascal?” Dearing broke in, his face
darkening.

“Yes, and that she still clings to some sort of faith in his constancy,”
 the General added. “You can't crush love in a woman's heart so long as
she believes she is loved by a man who is longing for her and is kept
away by adverse circumstances. You see, if our dear girl attributes
Walton's predicament to a simple act of _low, impulsive passion_, and
believes that he loved her, and her alone, in a _pure_ way, why--”

“I see, I see, and I am afraid you may be right,” Dearing said,
bitterly. “And instead of curing her, the scoundrel's absence is only
making the thing worse. Did you tell her about Kenneth's coming?”

“Yes, only an hour ago, and it seemed to me that she was rather pleased.
She remarked that she was glad John Dilk had kept up the place so well,
and that the flowers would gratify him. I really fancied that she was
more pleased by the news than she was willing to show, for she changed
the subject by offering to play for me.”

At this juncture a woman came round the house hurriedly, wiping her red,
bare arms, and trying to adjust the damp dress she wore. It was Mrs.
Chumley, the washerwoman. Her tawny hair was disarranged, and her fat,
freckled face flushed with an excitement that was almost pleasurable.

“Oh, here you are, Doctor Wynn!” she panted. “I hain't been told to
come; in fact, them highfalutin' neighbors of mine never let a body know
anything they can get out of. But Mrs. Barry is having another of her
falling spells. She was on the side porch brushing little Lionel's head
when I heard her cry out to Dora for help, and then she struck the floor
of the kitchen with a thump you could have heard up here if you'd been
listening.”

“Well, I'll run down,” Dearing said to his uncle. “It may not be very
serious. She is subject to such attacks.”




CHAPTER II

|HURRYING down through the grounds, and vaulting over the low boundary
fence, Dearing approached the gate of the Barry cottage just as Dora
came out. Pretty as she had been in girlhood, she was rarely beautiful
as a fully developed woman. And to-day, as ever, Dearing stood before
her in absolute awe of her rare, exquisite, and appealing personality.

“She's had another attack, Wynn!” Dora said, with a brave effort to
steady her faltering voice. “I really thought she was dying, and I
suppose I screamed. She looked so bad for a few moments! Her face turned
purple, and she lost consciousness. She came to herself a moment ago,
and is still awake. Will you see her?”

He went to the sick woman's room on tiptoe. Seated in a chair at the
head of the bed, and waving a palm-leaf fan to and fro, to keep the
flies from his grandmother's face, was Lionel, his great, serious eyes,
so like his mother's, filled with anxiety. He rose as Dearing entered,
and moved round to the other side of the bed, but he still waved the fan
and stood staring anxiously.

“I thought I was gone that time, Doctor Wynn,” Mrs. Barry said, with a
wan smile, as he took her hand to test her pulse.

“Well, you certainly are far from it now,” he laughed, reassuringly. “I
believe it would take a regiment of soldiers to put you out of business.
That was only a fainting spell brought on by too close confinement to
the house. You must get out more; that's all you need. Now, take a good
nap and you will be all right.” He nodded and smiled reassuringly at
Dora, who stood at the foot of the bed. She followed him from the room,
seeing that he wished to speak to her.

“She is all right now,” he told her. “She is doing very well. It is only
a sluggish liver, due to lack of exercise. Let her sleep as long as she
will now, and I'll send you a tonic which will brace her up. There is
nothing really to fear. She has a splendid constitution in all other
respects.”

Dora sank into a chair as if utterly overcome with relief, and he stood
looking at her in blended admiration and sympathy.

Aside from her beauty of face and form, there was a ripeness of
intellect and character in her face, which had come to her from the
years of isolated suffering which she had undergone.

“You are so kind to me, Wynn,” she said, with a faint, sad smile. “You
have always been the best friend we ever had.”

“Why, what are you talking about?” Dearing said, lightly and with a
flush. “Any other jack-leg country doctor would have taken care of you
fully as well.”

“You have done hundreds of thoughtful things,” she cried. “You have left
nothing undone that could possibly help us. Oh, you are _too_ good! You
haven't allowed my poor mother to pay you one penny for your services
in all these years. She has tried and tried to make you take it till she
has almost given up in despair.”

“I haven't done anything really worth while, Dora,” he said, lightly.
“You see, you live right at hand, too, and it is no trouble at all to
jump over your fence and mine. I couldn't take money from a next-door
neighbor under those circumstances. You just wait until you really need
a doctor, and then I'll send in a bill as long as my arm.”

“You can't help being good,” Dora said, feelingly, her wonderful violet
eyes filling. “Your great heart simply went out to us in our trouble,
and you have determined to help us in every way possible. Mother thinks
all the world of you, and Lionel actually believes you are some sort of
god.”

“Well, he's badly fooled, I tell you!” Dearing laughed. “But speaking of
him, I must lecture you good and hard. You are not treating the child at
all right. He oughtn't to be cooped up here in this little yard like he
is. It is too small. A growing boy like that needs room, and plenty of
it.”

“Oh, you don't understand!” Dora sighed, while a look of deepest pain
tortured her mobile face. “I couldn't bear to have him running around
a neighborhood as--as heartless as this one is. He is so observant,
and has such an inquiring mind, and people are so--so cruel, so utterly
unforgiving. But you are trying to change the subject. You think I have
no money with which to pay a doctor's bill.” She laughed suddenly and
mysteriously as she went on: “I believe I'll let you into a secret. I'll
show you something. Come into the parlor.”

She led him, with graceful step and bearing, through the little central
passage of the cottage to the parlor door, and they entered together.
She laughed like a merry child; it was the sweet, rippling laugh he
remembered so well as belonging to his youth and hers, as she pointed
to the easel before a window. On it was a good water-color picture of a
child at play on the grass near a stream, with a pastoral scene sketched
in the background.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, admiringly, “that's the best you've shown me! It is
very, very good.”

“That's only one of many,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I wanted
something to occupy my mind after I gave up music, and I began these
studies merely as an experiment. I worked for a year while Lionel was
a baby just to--you know, Wynn--just to forget!” He was silent, being
unable to formulate any reply that was appropriate to the delicate
situation, and she went on simply, and still in the winsome tone which
had always appealed to him so strongly.

“Then--now comes the _best_ part--one day I happened to read the
advertisement of an Atlanta dealer who was in need of such things, and
I forwarded some sketches I had done. They were bad--oh, so bad--and he
wrote that he would not offer them to his customers, but he encouraged
me to keep on. Then I worked harder, and finally I sent him some
pictures of children--little pickaninnies, brown as chestnuts, little
white ragamuffins, babies in old-fashioned, crude, box-cradles like the
mountain people have, and he sold them. Think of that! He actually sold
them! I have not signed any of them. He has written me several times
begging that I should do so, but I have always refused. He has agreed
not to use my name at all, and I believe he has kept his word. The whole
thing has made me--_almost_ happy. Wynn, I saw your face after your
first successful operation, and didn't understand then what it meant
to you, but I do now. The day that dealer's letter came, and his money
followed by express, in a big wax-sealed envelope--well, it was the
happiest moment of my life-I sang; I talked to myself; I danced. I
told Baby all about it as I hugged him in my arms. I had, as they say,
discovered myself. Here I was, cut off from intercourse with everybody
in my home town, but God hadn't wholly forsaken me. He had given me
something to make up for what I'd lost--a way of speaking to the big
outer world.”

“I see, and I congratulate you with all my heart,” Dearing said, as he
stood watching the shifting tones in her expressive face. “I understand
you better now. I got in the habit of listening for your piano at night,
when everything was still, and I fancied I could read your various
moods. A long time ago you played too sadly; really it used to get next
to me, and make me worry about you; but of late there has been more
hope and cheerfulness in your music, and it did me a lot of good. I
understand you better now. I have always thought that creative work was
the most satisfying and uplifting occupation possible, and now I am sure
of it.”

“And I am getting better and better prices, too,” Dora said, modestly.
“My agent sends my things everywhere, even to far-off New York and
Boston. I don't do them so fast now, for I try harder and I think they
are better. Now, you will send me your bill, won't you?”

“I shall certainly be hoping that somebody will get really sick under
this roof,” he laughed, evasively, “for I'd like to get a whack at your
roll of cash, but so far my dealings have been only with your mother,
and she doesn't make it interesting. She was good to me when I was a
boy. I used to crawl over the back fence when she was making jelly and
jam in the kitchen, and I collected some fees then that did me more
good than any I have since received. She performed the first surgical
operation on me, too, that I ever had. I was barefoot, and while trying
to hide from some other boys I stuck a rusty nail through my big toe.
She heard me yelling and came to my assistance. She extracted the nail,
washed out my wound, filled it with turpentine--the only household
antiseptic used in that day--and bound it up for me. I have always
believed that she saved me from lockjaw.”

“The opportunity to earn money means more to me than you might think,
Wynn,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you know what my dream of
dreams is? It is to be able to go to Paris, and take Lionel and my
mother. She has always wanted to go, because papa was buried there. Do
you know, I feel that away off in a free, art-loving country like France
I could rear my child to manhood without his ever knowing about his--his
history. It seems to me that God has given me this talent for that
particular purpose. The only trouble is the delay. You see, it may be
years before I can save enough, and then it might be too late.”

“I see, I understand,” Dearing said, gravely; “and you'd never come back
to old Stafford again, I suppose?”

“Oh no,” she answered; “all this would have to be laid aside forever.”

“I shouldn't like to see you go,” he said. “I have--you see, I have
become attached to Lionel--he and I are great chums. But if you have
decided, and wish it so very much, why not? Look here, Dora, I have
money lying idle in the bank. I have absolutely no need for it, and--”

“Oh no!” she cried. “It is lovely of you to offer it, but I couldn't
think of taking it. I couldn't--I really-couldn't!”

“Not from your big brother?” he asked, his pleading eyes on her.

“No, not even from you, you dear boy. It is _my_ problem, Wynn, and I
must work it out alone--all alone.”

They had gone back to the porch, and the sight of the extensive grounds
around his house prompted him to say:

“I know now why you don't realize Lionel's need for more fresh air. You
have that absorbing occupation, and it keeps you from putting yourself
in the boy's place, as you might otherwise do.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, quite gravely. “It may be true, Wynn,
and yet what am I to do? I really can't bear to have him running about,
meeting other children. I could never answer his questions--never,
never! Some one would have to watch him, and mother and I both shrink
from going out in--in public.”

“I was thinking of that, too,” Dearing replied, “and that is why a
certain plan occurred to me. There is that big lot of mine right over
the fence. Nothing could possibly happen to him there. It is quiet, and
there are many things he could amuse himself with. It is really like
a little farm, you know. We have chickens, ducks, turkeys, puppies,
kittens, pigs, and horses, and even a cow and a calf about the barn,
to say nothing of the pigeons that nest in the hay-loft. To a child,
judging by my own memory of boyhood, it would be a regular paradise.”

“You don't mean that you would allow--that you would--” There was a
catch in the young mother's voice; a tinge of anxious pallor crept into
her appealing face. “Oh, Wynn, you are too kind! You are thinking only
of helping me. There is your uncle and your sister--I could not bear to
trust my darling where he might not be--wanted.”

“I know my uncle and sister better than you do,” Dearing said. “Margaret
has never seen Lionel that I know of, but she would love to make him
happy. As for my uncle, he greatly admires the little fellow, and would
be delighted to have him come and romp over the place to his heart's
content.”

“Oh, how you tempt me!” Dora cried, covering her face with her shapely
hands. “Of all things, I can think of nothing right now that I'd like
better than that. I have been trying to forget Lionel's confinement in
this little yard and house--trying to convince myself that he is wholly
happy only with mother and me, but it is no use. It is really pitiful to
think of. He has a wonderful imagination, and he sometimes sits here on
the porch and tries to picture to himself what the inside of a big house
like yours is. He thinks you all must be kings and princes like those in
the fairy-tales we read to him. He asked me one day if we'd ever have a
home like yours, and when I told him I didn't think so, he answered,
'Then God isn't so very good, after all, is He?' I tried to get him to
explain what he meant, but he only shook his head and went to play in
the yard.”

At this moment the boy himself came from his grandmother's room, along
the passage, and out to them.

“She is still asleep,” he announced, gravely. “I drew the netting over
her face, so that the flies won't wake her.”

“That's right--that's a good boy.” Dearing rested his strong hand on the
golden head and looked down into the child's face, and then he laughed
as he caught the boy's arm and taught him how to contract his muscles.

“You'll be able to protect yourself, young man,” he said. “You have a
splendid arm and fist already. I'd hate to have those knuckles try to
knock a fly off my nose and miss the fly. Say, kid, do you see that big
lot of mine beyond the fence? Well, you are going to play over there
from morning to night: climb the trees, build houses out of that pile of
old bricks. I'm going to have a swing put up for you to the highest limb
of that big oak, and I'll make you a see-saw and a flying-jinny, and you
may feed my puppies and cats.”

The boy's eyes danced as he stared eagerly. Dora was looking away, her
handkerchief pressed to her face.

Dearing saw a wave of emotion pass through her, but she remained silent.

“But I couldn't go over there!” Lionel sighed. “You are very kind, but
my mother always wants me to stay at home.”

“She is going to let you come, because I asked it as a special favor to
me,” Dearing answered. “I'm the doctor, you know, and my orders go on
this ranch.”

Wonderingly, the boy leaned across his mother's lap, and put his arm
around her neck.

“Is he joking, mother dear?” he inquired, and he held his breath in
visible suspense. “Does he really mean that I may play over there?”

“Would you like it, darling boy?” Dora asked. There was a tremolo in
her voice, and she kept her handkerchief to her eyes. The child started,
looked suspiciously at Dearing, and then, leaning toward his mother,
he firmly uncovered her face. He saw traces of tears, and stood erect.
There was a fierce, angry flare in his eyes, his lower lip quivered, as
he turned upon Dearing and blurted out:

“She is crying! What did you say to her?”

“Oh, I see!” Dearing jested. “You want to have it out with me, do you?
Well, you pick your weapons, old chap, and I'll be your man. I won't
take a dare from you or anybody else.”

Dora's arms enfolded her child and pressed his hot cheek passionately to
hers. “Yes, I was crying, my baby,” she gulped, “but it is because I
am so happy. It is very good of Doctor Wynn to ask you to go. Would you
like it?”

“If you wished me to,” the boy replied, slowly, as he still uneasily
studied her face.

“I should like it very much,” Dora said--“very, very much! You could
have such a splendid time over there.”

“Would you love me just the same--_just exactly_ the same--if I went?”
 the boy asked, anxiously.

“Just exactly the same.” Dora laughed as she caught Dearing's glance,
and remarked to him, in an undertone: “He is such a strange child!
Mother says she has never seen one so peculiarly sensitive and concerned
over trifles. He often comes in from his play for nothing else than to
ask me if I still love him. The slightest change in my manner or tone of
voice always brings out that one question. It is the last thing at night
and the first thing in the morning. If I am at all impatient with him,
when I am absorbed in my work, he will come and sit on the floor at my
feet, and nothing will satisfy him till I have taken him in my arms and
said over and over again that I love him.”

“It is his nature,” Dearing said, as he was turning to leave. “Well,
remember, my boy, that my gate is not locked, and if you don't come
over in my big lot, I'll come and ride you there on my back, like a
two-legged horse; and I might get scared and kick up my heels and dump
you over on your head.”




CHAPTER III

|ONE warm, fair afternoon in May, Kenneth Galt, at the earnest
solicitation of General Sylvester, came home. Under big captions the
Stafford papers had proudly given the particulars to the public. The
great man was slightly run down from the enormous duties which had
pressed upon him since the very beginning of his giant enterprise, and
was to take a long and much-needed rest in the town of his birth and
in the quiet old house where he had spent his boyhood. The mayor and
aldermen and a brass-band had met him as he stepped from his private car
at the station, and he was welcomed with spirited music and a short but
ponderous speech on the part of the mayor. Then John Dilk, in a new suit
of clothes and a much-worn silk top-hat, haughtily drove his master and
the doting General through the streets, across the square, and on to the
old Galt mansion.

The crowd which had followed the carriage from the station to the square
gradually dispersed, and the two friends were alone when they alighted
at the gate.

“Do you see those chairs and that table under the oaks on our lawn?”
 Sylvester asked, with the bubbling pride of a boy in a victorious ball
game, as they were strolling up the wide moss-grown brick walk.

Galt nodded, and smiled tentatively.

“Madge is going to give us a cup of tea outdoors,” Sylvester explained.
“It was her own idea. It is warm inside, and that is the shadiest,
coolest spot in Stafford. The tea will refresh us. Shall we go now, or
do you want to nose over the old house first?”

“I see Mrs. Wilson looking out from a window,” Galt answered. “I think
I'd better go in for a moment, anyway. The good old soul is in her best
bib and tucker, and might feel hurt.”

“Right you are!” the General said, approvingly. “You haven't risen
too high, my boy, to think of those dependent on you. Run in and take
possession, and I'll stir Madge up. A cup of tea of my particular blend
will do you good after your dusty ride.”

His niece was coming across the grass as the old gentleman reached the
tea-table. Her arms were full of fresh-cut roses, which she proceeded
to arrange in an old-fashioned silver punch-bowl in the centre of the
table.

“I suppose you heard the band and cheering?” the old man said, as he
stood watching her and rubbing his thin hands together in suppressed
delight.

“Oh yes,” Margaret laughed; “and from my window I saw you and your
conquering hero drive up in state. Well, did he accept our invitation or
shirk it, as they say he usually does with everything of the sort?”

“On the contrary, he seemed glad to be asked,” returned the General. “In
fact, it looks to me like he's happy to be home again, though one can
never tell. The active life of great success in any line estranges
men from the simpler things. Just think of it! The fellow has lived in
hotels, clubs, and that private car of his for the last six years. He
has not, if I remember correctly, been once inside his old home since
the night I sent him whizzing like a shot to New York. I do hope it
won't become irksome to him. He needs rest and quiet badly, as you will
see when he comes over. His face has a few new lines, and his eyes have
a shifting, restless look which they didn't use to show. Where are you
going to have him sit?” The old man was looking over the cluster of
chairs and cushioned stools.

“Oh, his lordship may take his high and mighty choice!” Margaret
laughed, teasingly. “Perhaps he'll unbend and sit on the grass like a
school-boy. He is, after all, only flesh and blood, dear uncle, odd as
the fact may seem to you.”

“Well, don't hurl that sort of thing at _him_,” Sylvester retorted,
rather testily. “After all, a man not much over forty, who succeeds in
an enterprise which belongs to the history of the land, and at the same
time puts money into your pocket and mine in big lumps and rolls, does
deserve consideration. Why, he has made you rich, Madge! He could have
located his terminal shops and round-house at the other end of town just
as well, but he put them on our land and asked no questions about the
price. By George, why _shouldn't_ we pet him a little when he has been
away all these years, and has come back broken down this way?”

“Oh, well, I don't think he needs it, that's all,” the young lady said,
pacifically. “A man like that is neither sugar nor salt. Only _weak_ men
want to be pampered and cajoled. Your railway magnate will take care of
himself.” Her eyes were resting on the figure of a child in a big swing
which Doctor Dearing had hung from the lower branch of a tall oak a few
yards away. It was Dora Barry's son. He was standing on the board
seat clasping the stout hemp ropes with his little hands and “pumping”
 himself into motion by alternately bending and straightening his lithe
body. His beautiful golden hair swung loose in the breeze, there was a
glow of health in his pink cheeks, and he was neatly dressed in white
duck, a flowing necktie, and tan slippers and short stockings which
exposed his perfect calves and trim ankles.

“Oh,” Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “I'm afraid he will fall! Wynn is
always doing such absurd things; the child is not old enough to take
such risks as that with no one to watch him.”

“I agree with you,” the General said, and he went to the swing and
persuaded Lionel to sit down. Then he pushed him forward, and left him
swinging gently.

“Just think of it!” Sylvester said, as he came back to his niece,
who sat now with her glance on the grass. “Time certainly flies. That
specimen of humanity has come into existence and grown to that size
since Kenneth was here. I don't think he ever knew the poor girl very
well before her misfortune, but he is sorry for her. I remember speaking
to him of her in New York one day, and I could see that he was quite
interested.”

“I think I see him coming now,” Margaret said, biting her lip. It was
the way she had always avoided any conversation which touched upon the
one sore spot of her life, and her uncle refrained, as he had always
done, from carrying the topic further.

“Yes, he is coming,” and Sylvester stood up and waved his handkerchief.
“Come and take the place of honor,” he said, picking up a downy pillow
and laying it in the big chair next to Margaret's. “I am glad there
never was a fence between your place and ours, for we can mix and mingle
as we did when your father and I were young bloods. I've made a mistake
many a night in having my horse put up in his stable after the dumb
brute had brought me home from a dance in the country with more
intelligence than I possessed.”

Galt laughed appreciatively as he bent over the fair hand of his hostess
and received her simple and yet cordial greeting. He had admired her
as a girl, and now in her ripened beauty, added grace, and dignified
bearing he found nothing lacking. As he watched her deftly lighting the
spirit-lamp under the swinging teakettle he recalled, with a certain
sense of delectation, a hint her uncle had given him in a jesting tone
and yet with a serious look.

“I may have you in my family one day, young man,” the General had said,
in some talk over their common business interests, “and in that case
I'll rule you with a rod of iron.”

After all, it would be nice, Galt reflected to-day, and a step of that
sort might ultimately quiet the dull aching of heart which had been
his for so many years. Few men had ever had to such a marked degree the
pronounced yearning toward paternity as had come to the lonely bachelor
since the chief mistake of his life. His love for children was more like
that of a woman who has tasted and lost the joys of motherhood than that
of a man of the world. He never saw a pretty child without looking at
its father with a sort of envious curiosity. Was the remainder of his
life to be passed without his possessing that for which he yearned more
than for any other earthly thing? He had heard, of course, of the birth
of Dora's child, but he had so persistently fought off the thought of it
and its attendant remorse that, like many another man so situated, his
sense of responsibility in the matter had become somewhat dulled.

He now ventured, during the General's jovial chatter, to glance across
the lawn toward the cottage below. It was there in the starlight that
he had seen the brave young girl for the last time. It was there. And
he shuddered under the scourging lash of the words with which she had
prophesied that he would fail to stand by her--fail to rescue her from
the abyss into which he had plunged her. He shuddered again. Hero as he
was in the sight of many, in Dora's eyes, at least, he could never be
aught but despicable. She had gauged his weakness better than he could
have done it himself. He had made a choice between honor and ambition,
and he had abided by it. Other men had cast such memories to the winds
of oblivion. Why had his clung to him with such damning tenacity? There
was never any satisfactory answer to the question, and now and then a
thought as from infinite space was hurled upon him with the force of
a catapult--it was the conviction that, girl though she had been, Dora
Barry's equal, in the intellectual and womanly things he admired, was
not to be found among all the women he had known. What was she like now?
What havoc had the tragedy and succeeding time wrought in the fair being
whom he had left stranded and storm-swept on that eventful night? Under
the low roof and in the tiny yard of the cottage just across the way she
and his child, according to Wynn Dearing's report, had been imprisoned
all those years. What a rebuke to his boundless egotism! He might remain
there for years, and neither of the two would intrude themselves upon
him. Oh yes, he told himself, he was safe enough on that score. She had
kept her vow of secrecy so far, and would do so to the end.

At this juncture there was a rippling scream of childish delight behind
him, and, turning, he saw Lionel, his face flushed, his great eyes full
of excitement, as he eagerly chased a black kitten round and round a bed
of rose-bushes.

“What a beautiful boy!” Galt exclaimed, beside himself in admiration.
“What a perfect figure! Whose child is it?”

The question was addressed to Margaret; but she hesitated, tightened her
lips, and looked down.

“Oh, it is one of our neighbor's,” the General skilfully interjected,
as he leaned forward and tried ineffectually to give his guest a warning
glance. “Wynn is a great hand at amusing the little ones. He thought
this child needed more exercise and fresh air, and he asked his mother
to let it play here.”

Galt was now watching the boy, and so intently that he only half heard
what the General said and quite failed to notice that his question had
embarrassed his hostess. “Catch it! Run round the other way, little
man!” he cried out, leaning forward with his cup in his hand. “There!
there it goes!” The child paused just an instant, and raised his
appealing, long-lashed eyes to the speaker; as he did so the kitten
bounded like a rabbit across the grass and up a tree a few yards away.

“Now, see what _you_ did!” Lionel cried, disappointedly, as he stood
panting, his silken tresses tossed about his face. “You let him get
away. I'd have had him if you hadn't spoken. But I don't care, I can get
him!” And he was off like the wind toward the tree, on a lower bough of
which the kitten was perched, blandly eying his pursuer.

“You are as fond of children as ever,” the General remarked, “and it
proves that your heart is in the right spot. Show me a man who has no
use for little tots, and I'll show you a man who will cheat you in a
transaction.”

“It certainly is a good quality,” Margaret said, as she proffered sugar
for his tea. “We naturally expect it of women, but it always seems
exceptional in men, especially men who have their time fully occupied.”

Sylvester laughed reminiscently.

“I've seen Kenneth stop on the street to chat with a dirty-faced newsboy
when the general superintendent of his road was waving an important
telegram at him; and I've seen the boy walk off with a quarter for a
penny paper, too.”

“I seem to be getting my share of compliments, at any rate,” Galt
laughed. “I'd call it flattery if I could accuse your hospitality of
anything not wholly genuine.”

“Uncle Tom certainly means what he says,” Margaret affirmed. Her glance
drifted in the direction the sporting child had taken, and she uttered a
sharp, startled scream.

“Oh, he'll fall!” she cried.

Following her eyes, the others saw that Lionel, still chasing the
kitten, had climbed the tree to its lower boughs ten or twelve feet
from the ground, and, with the prize still above him, sat in a decidedly
perilous position on a bending branch so intent on reaching the animal
that he was oblivious of his danger.

“Don't be frightened, I'll get him down,” Galt assured her, with an
easy laugh, and he sprang up and ran across the grass, saying, under his
breath: “Plucky little scamp! He'll break his neck!”

“Come down from there!” he called out, a queer recurrence of his own
childhood on him as he viewed the muscular boy and the plump, bare
calves above his short stockings. He was breathing freely now, for he
felt that in case of a fall he could catch the youngster in his arms.

“Oh, do let me get him!” Lionel cried, looking down appealingly, and
speaking with the accent which had always impressed hearers as so quaint
and odd in a child.

“No, you mustn't go a bit higher!” Galt said, assuming a youthful tone
of comradery that his words might not have any semblance of command.
“You are a dandy climber--almost as good as the cat, but he is lighter
than you are. You'll break that limb in a minute, and down you will
tumble!”

The boy looked at the bending bough and shrugged his square shoulders.
“I don't know but what you are right,” he said, with a wry face. “I
declare, I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm almost afraid to
move now.” Then he burst into a merry laugh as he glanced first at his
would-be rescuer and then up at the cat.

“Why, what is so amusing about it?” Galt questioned, fairly transported
by the boy's beauty, fearlessness, and vivacity.

“Oh, I don't know, but it seems funny--you down there, me up here, and
the cat above us both.”

Galt laughed till tears came into his eyes.

“You are certainly a marvel,” he said. “But you must come down. Slide
carefully toward the trunk of the tree and catch hold of it firmly.
You'll tear your clothes, but it is better that than--”

“I know an easier way!” the child cried. “I'll jump, and you catch me.”

“But I can't!” Galt answered. “You'd crush me to the ground, small as
you are!”

“No, I wouldn't!” Lionel laughed, with thorough confidence. “Doctor Wynn
caught me the other day when I jumped from the roof of the wagon-shed,
and you are stronger than he is. You are taller, anyway. Look, I am
coming!”

Fascinated by the child's voice and manner, and unable to protest
quickly enough, Galt braced himself, fearing that the swaying child
would fall. “One, two, _three!_ Lionel counted, and the little
white-clothed figure left the bough, shot through the sunlight, and
alighted in Galt's outstretched arms. There was a scream from Margaret,
the General stood up, a startled look on his gashed and seamed face. The
child's arms went round Galt's neck; his soft, warm cheek was pressed
against his, and, scarcely knowing why he did it, Galt embraced him in
a veritable qualm of relief. He put the boy down, but took his hands in
his and held them. He admired and loved children, but he had never been
so drawn to one before.

“He's all right!” he called out, reassuringly, to the others. “He didn't
get a scratch, but it's a wonder he wasn't lamed for life. He jumped
before I could stop him.”

Looking into the child's sensitive face, Galt noted, with surprise
and concern, that it was clouded over. “What's the matter?” he asked,
anxiously. “Did you hurt yourself? Did it jar you too much?”

“No, but I'm afraid you are angry with me,” the boy answered. “Are you?”

“Well, not exactly, but, you see, my boy--” Galt checked himself, for
the corners of the little fellow's mouth were drawn down and his eyes
were filling.

“You _are_ angry, and you don't like me a bit.” A sob rose in the breast
of the child and struggled outward. He drew his little hands from Galt's
detaining clasp and looked down. “I am very sorry; I'll never, never
do it again. I was bad. You told me not to jump, but I did. I am always
disobeying somebody. When Doctor Wynn told me a great, smart, rich man
was coming who had built a railroad, miles and miles through the woods
and under mountains and over rivers, I told him I'd be good and make you
think I was a nice boy, so that you'd like me; but now, you see, I went
and made you angry at the very start.”

“Well, what if I tell you this, you dear little chap,” and Galt paused
and took him into his arms again; “what if I tell you that it was
because I liked you very, very much that I tried to stop you? You see,
I was afraid you'd get hurt, and I liked you so much that I wanted to
prevent it. Will that satisfy you?”

“Oh!” Galt felt the little, warm arm steal round his neck confidently.
“Then you really _do_ like me, after all.” Galt laughed; he could hardly
understand the emotion that welled up in him--he laughed that he might
hide it even from himself. “I'll tell you _this_ much,” he said: “I
like _nearly all_ little boys, but on my honor I never liked a boy, on a
short acquaintance, in my life, so much as I do you. There, now, come on
and get a cup of tea!”

With Lionel in his arms, he went back to the table and sat down, keeping
him in his lap. There was a sensitive shadow on Margaret's features and
a certain awkward look of sympathy for her on her uncle's strong face,
but Galt failed to remark them.

“Does your mamma let you drink tea?” Margaret asked, gently. .

“No, I thank you,” the child answered. “She says it's too strong a
stim--stim--”

“Stimulant.” Galt supplied the word with a hearty laugh of amusement. “I
declare, for a child, you have the largest vocabulary--if you know what
that is--that I ever ran across. By-the-way”--and he drew the boy's
head down against his breast and ran his hand through the soft, scented
tresses--“you haven't told me your name yet. What is it?”

“Lionel,” replied the boy.

“Well, that is pretty enough so far as it goes, but what else?”

“What do you mean by 'what else'?” The child had hold of Galt's
disengaged hand, and was toying with it as if admiring its strength and
size, and he paused to look up into the dark face bending over him.

“Why, I mean, what is your _full_ name?” Galt said, smiling into the
rather grave faces about him.

“Lionel--just Lionel, that's all,” the child said, and he raised Galt's
hand in both of his own and pressed it. “Most people have two names,
but I've never had but one. I don't know why. Do you? I asked my mother
about it one day when Mrs. Chumley was talking mean to her about me, and
mamma went off to her room and cried. Grandmother told me never to speak
of it to her again. My mother has two names--Dora Barry.”

Kenneth Galt felt as though his soul had suddenly died within him. The
bonny head of his own child lay on his breast, its throbbing warmth
striking through to his pulseless heart. Margaret sat rigid and
speechless, and General Sylvester, in his desire to shield her, began
chattering irrelevantly.

The long shadows of the descending sun crawled across the grass toward
the hill in the east. The golden head remained where it lay, the tiny
and yet vigorous fingers twined themselves about the larger inanimate
ones. The eyelids over the boy's big, dreamy orbs wavered and drooped.
He was tired and sleepy. He heaved a long, fragrant sigh and nestled
more snugly into the arms that held him. A great, voiceless yearning
born of the long-buried paternal instinct fired the dry tinder--the
driftwood of years of misguided loneliness--in the man's being. A great
light seemed to burst and blaze above him. He sat with his gaze on the
old man's face, but in fancy he felt himself kissing the parted lips of
that marvel of creation--Dora's child and his.




CHAPTER IV

|SIX years had wrought a wonderful change in Gate City. It had increased
in size and importance. Stephen Whipple was still the only wholesale
grocer of the place, and Fred Walton had become his chief assistant. He
was known to be the old man's special favorite, and was living on the
footing of a son in the Whipple household.

On the day that Kenneth Galt had returned to Stafford, Fred and his
employer were seated in the old man's private office. Whipple had opened
his heart to him in regard to a certain financial development which had
gone against his interests. The old grocer's pride had been wounded as
it had never been wounded before. Since the starting of the business he
had been specially proud of the fact that he had been able to supply
the retail dealers of Gate City with the groceries consumed by their
customers as cheaply as any of the far-off markets could do, even with
the freight cost added.

But in competing with his rivals for the patronage of the town, an
ambitious retail dealer--a certain J. B. Thorp--to cut at Whipple, who
had refused him further credit, owing to Thorp's unwillingness to
meet his bills when due, began to advertise that the reason he could
undersell his rivals was that he didn't stop at home to buy his
supplies. This had evoked a sharp retort in “a card” in the town papers
from the offended Whipple, and it had brought out further and more
sarcastic allusions from Thorp. He said that it was as plain as the nose
on anybody's face that a man could not have waxed so rich as the money
king of Gate City had done except at the expense of the public, and he
scored a commercial triumph by giving therewith a list of his retail
prices for that day, which, on staple wares at least, were really as low
as Whipple's salesmen could give their customers at wholesale.

The publicity of the whole thing had a bad effect on the old man's
clientèle. The shrewd retailer chuckled with gratified revenge as he
saw the public fairly streaming his way. The stores which were being
supplied by Whipple were absolutely inactive. The clerks stood on the
sidewalk ruefully regarding the human current, and, by way of amusement,
laying wagers on the outgoings of Thorp's loaded delivery wagons, each
of which now bore an American flag, with a motto in big black letters:
“Live and Let Live! Down with the Money God of Gate City!”

Whipple's salesmen made their usual rounds among his patrons, only to
meet with utter stagnation on every hand, and returned with long faces
to report few if any sales. Consumers, quick to secure even an ephemeral
advantage, were easily convinced that Thorp was working for their
interests, and they stood by him.

“Oh, I reckon we can make shift some way, my boy,” the old man sighed;
“for our business out of town is widening and growing; but in all my
life I never was hit under the belt as bad as this, for I did want to
hold my own here at home. And to think that I am done, and done good, by
that measly Thorp, simply because we pinned down on him and forced him
to pay up. It hurts like salt rubbed in a sore to be treated this way,
after all I've done for the town. The boys say our best customers are
paying more money than we ask right now in the Eastern markets in the
effort to counteract Thorp's trickery. Do you know, I'd draw my check
this minute for ten thousand round dollars and pay it to anybody who
will show me a way to crush that sneaking scamp. Put the boys on their
mettle, Fred; tell 'em I said fresh ideas are better than stale ones,
and the man that helps me out of this tight hole will be well paid for
his trouble.”

“I was hoping that it would die out in a few days,” said Walton, “but
it has only grown worse. Thorp has got the upper hand, and the more we
fight him the bigger advertisement he gets out of it. Johnston and Wells
say they can't possibly make the payment they promised this month, owing
to the big slump in their sales.”

“Well, I didn't expect it!” Whipple groaned, his head resting on his
fat hand. “And the trouble is, the thing may drive many of our customers
clean to the wall. Thorp would sell groceries for no profit at all for
twelve months to swamp the others. The public are getting low prices,
the Lord knows, but it means the ruin of regular trade and the
desperation of good, energetic business men. Look here, Fred, we must
down that rascal, I tell you. Start the boys to thinking. Surely among
us we can turn up some plan or other.”

“I'll do what I can, Mr. Whipple,” Walton promised, as he stood up and
opened the door for the old man, who had desperately snatched his hat
from its hook on the wall and was ponderously striding out.

When he had left the store, Fred called Dick Warren to him from his high
stool in the counting-room. With his increased years and regular life
Dick had vastly improved in appearance. He hadn't risen so rapidly as
his friend, but he was a capable bookkeeper, a fine salesman, and a
steady, accurate worker, who earned a good salary.

“This thing has hit the old man hard, Dick,” Walton said.

“Anybody can see it by the way he walks with his head down like
that,” Dick returned. “The house can stand it, of course, with all its
out-of-town support, but Gate City trade was the old man's pet, and I'll
be blamed if it doesn't look like he'll never get any more of it. It
actually gives a store a black eye to have any of our brands on sale.
Jim Wilson said just now that he'd take a keg of our soda if we'd scrape
our name off of it. I gave him a piece of my mind, but he said we were
looking to our interests and he was looking to his. I had no idea the
people of this town could be such blasted fools!” and, considerably
disgruntled, Dick went back to his post.

Several days passed. The situation was no better. Thorp had induced one
of the railroads to build a sidetrack from the main line to a platform
in the rear of his store, and Eastern goods were being unloaded in
wholesale quantities right on the premises. He was also advertising for
a vacant house in which to accommodate the overflow of his business.
The only available one on the street belonged to Whipple, and that, of
course, he couldn't rent at any price.

Among those most concerned, though rather indirectly, was the Rev. Luke
Matthews. He was seeing his rich patron in a new light, for, now that he
was in trouble, old Whipple had less time to devote to the uplifting of
humanity, either spiritually or materially, and he often denied himself
to the minister's frequent calls.

“Just wait till I get my head above water,” Whipple said once, when
Matthews clutched his arm and essayed to speak of a matter concerning
the church. “I reckon I'm worldly minded, Brother Matthews, but a man
has to be tainted that way to fight worldly matters. Right now I am as
full of Old Nick as I ever was in my worst days. I know it; I feel it;
but, by gum! I am not ashamed. Day and night prayers wouldn't move a
rascally skunk like Thorp. He was my friend as long as he could suck my
blood, and now he is my worst enemy because I wouldn't let him.”

As the weeks passed, matters only grew worse for the wholesale store.
Its town customers dropped off till local business amounted to nothing
at all. One morning the merchant walked the full length of the main
street. He went up one side to the court-house at the far end, and then
slowly returned on the other side. On the way he met Matthews, who told
him something he had not heard, and he walked on, now more slowly than
ever. As he was passing through the counting-room on his way to his
private office he paused between the stools on which Fred and Dick were
seated. His face was ashen in color, his lower lip was quivering like
that of a weeping child.

“What do you think is in the wind now, boys?” he gulped, as he placed an
unsteady hand on Fred's shoulder.

“I have no idea,” Fred answered.

“All the balance have combined,” Whipple groaned.

“Who?--what?--how combined?” Fred asked, wondering if his old friend was
not actually losing his reason.

“Why, all the other retailers have formed a pool to beat Thorp, and in
doing it they have knifed me. They have formed a combine to buy their
stuff in St. Louis and New York in order to get car-load rates. They had
a caucus last night in the rear end of Thompson & White's shebang, and
the last one signed up. They don't buy a thing from us--the man who
spends a nickel at this house loses his membership. They are a lot of
sneaking curs, to pull me down and stamp on me just because that scamp's
upset business, but they done it. The thing will spread all over the
State, and I'll be laughed at as a doddering old idiot. Folks like
nothing better than to see a successful man get it in the neck.

“As I passed along the street just now they slunk away from their doors,
so I couldn't see 'em laugh. They call _themselves_ 'wholesale men'
now, and say they are going to oust me and Thorp both--make us count
cross-ties out of town. I've had insults in my time, but being yoked
with that skunk is a dose I can't swallow. I'm beat, and beat bad. If
there was a loophole to crawl out at--if I could take one single step to
defend myself--I'd give away half I've accumulated to be able to do it.
My money paid for two-thirds of the Belgian-block pavement around
the park; I gave more than half that was subscribed to the girls'
school-building, and paid, entire, for the wall round the graveyard, to
say nothing of what I put in the fire company, and new engines at the
gas-works. I done those things, boys, for the town they live in, and yet
they can drag my name in the mire and throw mud and slime on me.”

He turned suddenly and left them, striding on to his desk in the
adjoining room.

“Poor old fellow!” Dick said. “Nothing on earth could have cut his pride
more.”

“If he could only hit back in some substantial way,” Walton reflected,
aloud. “Think of some plan, Dick.”

“Think of nothing!” the younger man said, gloomily. “Of all things on
earth, I never could have dreamt of those fellows combining that way.”

A moment later a postman came in with a bundle of letters and handed
them to Fred.

“Looks like they are getting you fellows in the nine hole at last,” he
said, with a laugh. “Every grocer on the street is putting out a big
sign. One of them has got a picture of the old man with a handkerchief
to his eyes standing in a store without a single customer, while all the
crowd is headed for another place.”

“Oh, we'll have to wait and see,” Fred retorted, angrily. “I must give
these letters to Mr. Whipple.”

As he went in the old man's office, he found the grocer pacing up and
down, his hat in his hand, his brow dark with passion. He waved the
letters from him.

“Open 'em yourself,” he said. “I'm going home. I feel like a candidate
on election night who didn't get a vote in his own precinct. I don't
intend to stay down here where everybody can pick at me. I heard what
that whelp said to you and Dick. They are all gloating over me like
buzzards over a dead ox. When you come up to supper, bring the night
mail with you.”

He strode from the room, and Fred heard his despondent step on the
resounding floor all the way to the rear door of the long house.

Fred worked over his books and out-of-town orders till near sunset; then
he took down his coat and hat.

“It might work,” he mused. “At any rate, there can be no harm in asking
him about it.” He went out, and, turning into a quiet side-street, he
walked up to the comfortable home of his employer, which stood on a
slight elevation among the best houses of the place.

It occupied a small lot, as did its neighbors, and there were no grass
or flowers about it. It was built of yellow bricks, and had a porch in
front, against which, on a lattice, some vines were growing.

As he entered the gate an elderly woman approached the front door and
stood waiting for him. It was Stephen Whipple's wife, a gaunt woman in
a simple black dress without ornament, and wearing her iron-gray hair
brushed smoothly over her brow.

“You are earlier than usual,” she said. “I hope you have good news. I
don't think he can stand it much longer. I have never seen him so
much troubled in my life. His pride is cut to the quick. He has always
thought he could cope with trickery in any form, and being helpless
this way under the taunts of those men is fairly killing him. If he was
thoroughly at himself he might hold his own, but he is getting old, and
being mad this way really keeps him from using his best judgment.”

“No, nothing has turned up yet,” Fred told her; “but I thought I'd speak
to him before supper.”

“Well, he'll be glad to see you, anyway,” the woman said, plaintively.
“He thinks a lot of you, Fred--in fact, we both do. He has often said he
blesses the day you came to him. He is lying down on the lounge in your
room. Some of the neighbors were in just now chattering about the thing,
and he slipped up there to keep from hearing what was said.”

Fred found his employer stretched out at full length on a lounge in the
big, light room which he had occupied for over two years.

“Oh,” Whipple said, “it's you! Well, has anything turned up--I mean--but
I know nothing has. Nothing can succeed against a gang of plotting,
ungrateful dogs like they are. I've boosted 'em up through every panic
and hard spell that come, keeping some of 'em afloat when they didn't
have a dollar in their pockets, and now they not only knife me, but they
make a public joke of it.”

“Mr. Whipple, I've been trying to think of some way to--”

“Oh, you _have?_ Well, spit it out!--spit it out!” And the merchant
suddenly threw his feet around and sat up, clutching the edge of the
lounge with his big hands, while he stared anxiously from dilating eyes
that were all but bloodshot.

“Of course, I hesitate to--” Fred began modestly, but was interrupted by
Whipple.

“Hesitate!--hesitate the devil! It is always that way with you, although
you've got the safest, soundest judgment of any young man in the West.
You hesitated to tell me you thought San Antonio would be a good place
to put an agent, and it has proved the biggest opening we ever had. You
hesitated before advising me against that Eastern salt company that
had been sucking my blood for years before you came and smelt out their
thievery. You hesitated to--but, darn it, quit hesitating! This is no
time to hesitate; we are in a dirty fight, and twenty yellow dogs are on
top of us gnawing the meat from our bones.”

“Well, I've been thinking over it all, Mr. Whipple--” Fred was slightly
flushed--“and there is only one way I can see to make any move at all;
but that really does seem to _me_ to offer _some_ chance of--”

“Move? What is it? For God's sake, what is it?”

“Why, you know you own the large retail store building which was vacated
when Stimpson Brothers gave up, and you have not found a suitable
tenant, there being no one but Thorp who wants it. It is in the very
heart of the retail section, and the best-furnished building in town,
with the best show-windows, and--”

“Yes, yes; but what of that?” Whipple burst out, impatiently. “I don't
care a snap for the rent of a mere house when I am being literally
choked to death by a mob of devils.”

“It wasn't that,” Walton said; “but there are hundreds of your personal
friends in town who would gladly buy their home supplies from you if you
would only accommodate them. There are many first-class wholesale houses
which conduct retail stores in the towns they are in, and, you know,
none of them ever had a better reason for doing it than you now have. It
wouldn't hurt your trade out of town a bit, for your customers are not
concerned in this fight; and a big, first-class, up-to-date retail store
in the centre of town, supplied from our stock, would--”

Whipple sprang up. His eyes were dancing with delight. He leaned over
Walton and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Great God, why didn't _I_ think of that?” he chuckled. “My boy, you are
a dandy!--you are a wheel-horse! It will work like a charm. The thing
advertises itself. We'll make 'em quake in their socks. They will laugh
on the other sides of their faces now. And the beauty of it is, we can
flaunt the thing on the public ten days before they can receive their
first shipment; we'll bill the town in the morning, and cover the front
of the new store with black letters. Whoopee! whoopee!” And in his heavy
boots old Whipple actually executed a clumsy clog-dance. “And we'll
let Dick manage it,” he went on, as he paused panting. “That sort of
promotion would be a feather in his cap. As for you, you've got to pilot
the _big_ ship, my boy. A head like yours needs big things to deal with.
Lord, I see Thorp's face now, and, as for that other gang of cutthroats,
they will actually die of dry rot!”

Whipple gave another whoop, and shuffled his feet thunderously.

“What is the matter up there?” It was Mrs. Whipple's astonished voice
from below.

“Matter nothing!” her husband replied, as he leaned over the balustrade
in the corridor and looked down. “Put the best supper you can rake up on
the table. Kill the fatted calf, and don the royal purple! Me and this
boy is going to celebrate. He has saved the ship! Get out a bottle of
that grape wine, and let joy be unconfined. We're in the fight to stay
now, and we're going to have a feast--a regular war-feast!”




CHAPTER V

|ABOUT ten days after the happenings recorded in the foregoing chapter
old Simon Walton sat alone in his office. A typewriter was clicking in
the counting-room adjoining, its sound deadened by the closed door
and thin partition through which it passed. With noiseless tread Toby
Lassiter, now older, more careworn, more machine-like than ever, entered
and laid a bulky express envelope before his employer.

“What is this?” the banker asked, as he examined the heavy wax seals and
reached for his paper-knife.

“I don't know, sir; it came just now,” and Toby silently withdrew.

Walton clipped the twine, pried under the seals, and tore open the thick
paper. It contained money. Six five-hundred-dollar bills were drawn out
and laid on the desk. Wondering what it meant, the old man looked into
the envelope. There was a letter, and it covered several pages of paper.
A glance at the writing caused him a dull thrill of surprise. There was
no address from which it was written, and it bore no date. It ran as
follows:

My dear Father,--I am sure you will be surprised to hear from me. I
would have written before this if it could have done either of us any
good. As I wrote you when I left, I had determined to turn over a new
leaf, if such a thing were possible. It was an awful fight against big
odds.

Finally, however, I happened to meet--and it was when I had almost given
up--a rich man with a good heart who befriended me, and offered me a
position in his big wholesale store. I had a struggle with myself as to
what I ought to do in regard to revealing my past life, but I finally
decided to tell him the truth, and I am glad to say he overlooked it all
and became my friend and benefactor. I never knew it, when I was a wild,
headstrong boy, bent on ruining myself and you, but I now realize that
every growing soul needs some sort of incentive to endeavor, and I have
found two which have helped me a lot. The first was to refund by honest
earnings what I took from you, the next to prove my worthiness of the
trust my employer placed in me when all hope was lost. I see now that I
never could have overcome my bad habits if I had stayed on in Stafford.
It was getting out into the world and learning what it means to fight
adversity, with no one to lean on, that helped me. When I think over
what you, yourself, had to go through with to get your start in life,
and remember that I was deliberately throwing away the hard-won rewards
of your efforts, the blood of shame fairly boils in my veins.

I am sending herewith three thousand dollars, which are my savings up to
date. I had got together only twenty-five hundred, but when my employer,
at my suggestion, succeeded in putting a certain deal through the other
day which he considered advantageous to his interests, he insisted on
adding five hundred dollars to the amount which I had told him was going
to you. I am sending the money by express instead of by draft on
any bank, for I would still prefer for you not to know where I am at
present. When I have made the last payment on my debt (if you will let
me call it that), I may feel differently, but until I am able to clear
it all up I shall still hide from you and everybody who knew me in the
past. I do hope you will read these lines kindly. I have wronged you
(terribly wronged you), dear father, but I am trying now to live
right, and surely you will be glad to know that, even at this late day.
Concealing my whereabouts may anger you, I am well aware of that; but
the good man for whom I am working thinks it is best--for a while, at
any rate. Of course, if I could have a talk with you, I'd know
better how you look at the matter, but being so far away leaves me
no alternative than to let things remain as they are. Good-bye, dear
father. It has taken six years to get together the money I am sending,
but if I live and keep my health I feel reasonably sure that I can send
the balance, including the interest, within the next two years, for I am
doing much better than I was.

When he had finished reading the letter, Simon Walton laid it on the
desk before him and sat in deep thought for several minutes. Then, with
no visible trace of emotion on his wrinkled face, he took the money in
his hands, laid it on the letter, and rose and went to the door opening
into the counting-room. He stood looking at the workers for several
minutes, and then, happening to catch the glance of Toby, who was
dictating to a stenographer, he signalled him to approach. Handing him
the letter and the bills, he said, curtly:

“Credit the money on my private account, then read that letter carefully
and bring it back to me. Don't let anybody see it. It's private.”

“Very well, sir,” said the clerk. “I was just dictating a note to Morton
& Co., telling them that we can't possibly extend--”

“Never mind about that _now_,” Walton ordered, sharply. “Do as I tell
you!” And he turned back into his office, where he sat slowly nodding
his great, shaggy head, as was his habit when making up his mind over
any matter of importance.

“Huh!” he said, suddenly and with a sneer, “that's it! I can see through
a millstone if it has a big enough hole in it. Huh, yes, that's it! I'd
bet a yearling calf to a pound of butter that I am onto the game, and it
is one, too, that would take in nine men out of ten.” He tapped his brow
with his pencil and smiled craftily. “Deep scheme; good scheme; bang-up
idea! Might have pulled the wool over my eyes _once_. But a burnt child
dreads the fire, and I've certainly been burnt.”

The door creaked. Toby Lassiter, with the letter quivering in his
excited hand, approached. His lethargic face was filled with emotion;
his mild eyes were glowing ecstatically.

“I always thought--I mean I always _hoped_, Mr. Walton--that it would
turn out this way.” He started to say more, but checked himself as his
glance fell on the parchment-like face craftily upturned to his.

“Yes, I know, Toby!” Simon snarled, as he took the letter and put it
into his desk drawer. “You always thought the scamp had sprouting wings,
and now you are sure they are full size. That is why you have never
risen higher in life, Toby. Your eyes are too easily closed. Leave it to
you, and we'd never foreclose a mortgage on a widow with a full stocking
hid away under her hearth. Believing in heaven on earth has held many a
man back from prosperity.”

“Then you don't think--you don't actually believe that Fred--”

“Set down in that chair, Toby. Me and you are the only folks in Stafford
that know how that boy buncoed me, and I reckon it's only natural for me
to be willing to talk about it when there is anything to say. I endured
several years of that fellow's devilment, and I'm not calculated to be
fooled as easily as others might who never had him on their hands. You
see,” the banker went on, as his clerk lowered his thin person timidly
into a chair and leaned forward--“you will note that he writes that he's
got a good, substantial job with a rich man, who, while he knows all
about the boy's devilment here at Stafford, has completely overlooked
it. Huh! we all know the world is full of men of capital who are ready
to take in a runaway thief and hand over three thousand cool plunks to
him just to show good-will and the like! To begin with, Toby, _that_
is an underhanded slap at me; it is saying, in a roundabout way, that
a plumb stranger is giving a son of mine a chance that he never had at
home. But the tale, from start to finish, is a lie out of whole cloth,
as I have good and private reason to know.”

“Do you think so, Mr. Walton?” Lassiter's fallen countenance sank even
lower.

“Of course I think so, or I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about
it. I haven't been idle on this thing, Toby, though I never let anybody
know what I was up to. You see, I am an old man now, and in law I never
had but one heir to my effects, outside of my present wife, and it
struck me as pretty queer for that heir, disinherited on paper or not,
to keep absolutely out of sight and sound all these years when as big a
plum as I am supposed to be is still aboveground. You see, the scamp
has got what some folks would call a 'natural expectancy,' even on the
chance of breaking any will I might make, and you can bet there are
plenty of men slick enough to speculate on such chances, slim as they
might look to me or you. So you see, Toby, knowing all that, I kept a
sharp lookout for developments. I decided first of all to keep a watch
on the young woman he left high and dry and in such a miserable
plight. I used to sort o' saunter by her mammy's house once in a while.
Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of the girl by accident, but she kept as
well hid as any mole that ever burrowed in the ground. Sometimes I'd
see her--when she was to be seen at all--daubing away at some picture
or other on a peaked frame, and I must say that every time I'd see her
looking so neat and pretty, with her fine head of hair flowing over her
brow in that easy, fluffy sort of way, and them big, deep, babyish eyes
of hers--well, to come to the point, I began to think that it wasn't
quite natural for _any_ fellow to go clean off and leave such a
creature behind for good and all. You see, she's too good-looking, too
attractive, for any man to drop once he was favored, and--well, it made
me suspicious, to say the least. Then I begun to notice the child, who
was always hemmed up in that little pen of a yard, and never allowed
to stick his head out or have any playmates. I saw that he was always
rigged up as fine as a fiddle, looking as if he'd just come out of a
bandbox; and as I knew, from personal knowledge, that the old lady had
no income to speak of, except the rent on her barren little farm, I used
to wonder where the cash was coming from. Now and then I'd see Watts &
Co.'s delivery wagon leaving groceries at the back door, and I found out
through them, on the sly, that the grub bills was always paid. Then what
do you think I did? I did some bang-up, fine detective work, if I _do_
say it. I nosed around until I found out, through a clerk in the express
office here, that packages of money were coming pretty regularly to the
sly little lassie from somebody in Atlanta who called himself 'F. B.
Jenkins.' Whoever it was, was using the express to hide his tracks,
instead of sending bank-checks, which might come to my attention, as
Fred well knew.”

“So you think, Mr. Walton--you think--”

“I think Fred's letter is a lie out of whole cloth,” old Simon blurted
out. “I don't think he is at work; I don't think it was ever _in_ him
to work in any capacity; but I _do_ believe he has set out to make good
that shortage for a deep-laid reason. Some sharper or money-shark may be
backing him, or he may have had a temporary streak of luck at poker or
cotton futures, and has decided to invest something in me, as too big
a fish to remain unhooked. I don't swallow one word of his mealymouthed
tale. I'd bet my last dollar he's this F. B. Jenkins, and that he has
been hanging around Atlanta all these years, keeping himself out of
sight, and, like as not, coming here now and then under cover of night
to see that woman. That's why she has kept so close at home. They have
guarded the child, too, so that he wouldn't let the cat out of the bag.
Toby, if I wanted to--if I just _wanted_ to--I could put a watch on that
cottage and nab our man in less than a month. I say, if I just _wanted_
to.”

“Then you wouldn't arrest him, Mr. Walton?” Lassiter breathed, in
relief.

“Well, not now, at any rate,” Walton said, grimly. “We are too solid in
every way now for such a thing to do us any great financial damage, but
I don't fancy the idea of stirring up the stench again. He has put in a
pretty big amount to start with, and he won't lie idle after that. Mark
my words, we'll hear from Atlanta, and it will be apt to come through
the fellow that calls himself F. B. Jenkins.”




CHAPTER VI

|OH, here you are, you old agnostic!” Wynn Dearing called out jovially
to Galt, one afternoon when he found the railroad president walking to
and fro on the veranda of the latter's home. “If you say so, we'll go in
the house, and I'll make that examination here and save you the trouble
of coming down to my pigpen of an office.”

“You could do it here, then?” said Galt, a weary look on his pale face.

“Easy enough; I've got my stethoscope in this satchel. I've just been
across the street to see a negro with a whiskey liver. He is a goner, I
guess, but I have more hopes of you. Your trouble may be found in those
cigar boxes your railroad friends are sending you. If it is that, I'll
cut you down to one a day, and smoke the rest myself.”

They had gone into the big library, the walls of which were hung with
family portraits in oil, and lined with long, low cases filled with
Galt's favorite books.

“Take the big chair,” Dearing said, “and open your shirt in front.”

Galt tossed his half-smoked cigar through an open window and complied.
The examination was made, and questions in regard to diet and habits
were asked and answered. Dearing said nothing as he put his instrument
into the satchel and closed it. He stood over his patient, eying him
critically.

“It looks to me like you are fundamentally as sound as a dollar,” he
said, his fine brow furrowed, “but your case puzzles me a lot. To be
frank, you are entirely too thin, your cheeks are sunken, your skin is
dry, and your eye dull. You are very nervous, and are growing gray
hairs as fast as crab-grass. Somehow, I don't think you need any sort of
medicine. Now, if you were not absolutely the luckiest man in Georgia,
I'd think you had something to worry about. Worry has killed more men
than all the plagues on earth; but that can't be your trouble, for every
good thing in life has come your way. You had a great ambition a few
years ago, but you gratified it; surely you don't want to own any more
railroads.”

“No, one is enough,” Galt answered, with a faint, forced smile. “I can't
say that I am worrying over that.”

“Well, the condition of the minds of patients,” said Dearing, “is the
biggest thing doctors have to tackle. We can hold our own with a disease
of the body, because we can see it and, at least, experiment with it for
good or bad; but when the seat of the thing is in a man's soul, and he
won't uncover it, but keeps fooling himself and his doctor by looking
for it under his hide or in his blood or bones, why, we are at a
standstill. I had a patient once who certainly had me at my wit's end.
He was sound as you are physically, but he was restless, dissatisfied,
morbid, lonely, and utterly miserable. I exhausted every resource
on him. I sent him to specialists all over America, but they were as
helpless as I was. Finally, in sheer desperation, I took the bull by
the horns and asked him if he had anything on his mind of a disagreeable
nature. He hung his head, and I knew then that something was wrong. I
pumped him adroitly, assuring him that all private matters were held in
confidence by a physician, and he finally made a clean breast of it.
He was a rich man, but every dollar he owned had been accumulated from
money stolen from another man, and a man who had failed in life and died
in abject poverty.”

“Ah, I see!” Galt sat more erect, his eyes fixed on Dearing's face.
“That was his trouble; and what did he do about it?”

“Died hugging the rotten thing to his breast,” the doctor said; “and
that is the way with most of them. He couldn't face the music--he
couldn't confess to the puny little world around him that he wasn't what
it had always thought him. Perhaps he had gone too far to believe in the
cure that God has made possible for every poor devil in toils of that
sort. That's the trouble. Spirituality has to be practised to be a
reality. Faith cures of all sorts have their place in the world, for a
sick soul will certainly make a sick body.”

“So you believe in rubbish of that sort,” Galt said, contemptuously.

“To the extent I have indicated, yes,” Dearing replied. “I think I could
demonstrate scientifically that health of body and faith in something
higher than mere matter go hand in hand. Tell a weak man that his
body is sound, and he will gain strength; convince a man that he is
hopelessly old, and he will no longer be buoyed up by the hope of
life. Show him his grave, and he will begin to measure himself for it.
Therefore--and here is where I am going to hit you, you old atheist,”
 Dearing continued, half jestingly--“let a man constantly argue
to himself that life ends here on earth, and he will wither away
physically, as he already has spiritually; for what would be the
incentive to live if death ends all? I meet all sorts of men and women,
and the healthiest old codgers I run across are the old chaps who
believe they are sanctified. They may be as close as the bark of a tree,
absolutely proof against any sort of charitable impulse, but the belief
of their immortality keeps them pink and rosy to their graves; half of
them die only because they want a change of residence, and expect to own
a corner lot on the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. The preachers
teach us that we've got to go through a lot of red-tape to be saved, but
I believe the time will come when immortality will be demonstrated as
plainly as the fact that decayed matter will reproduce life in a plant.”

“Oh, life is too short to argue on these things,” Galt said, wearily.
“You have always seen the thing one way, and I another. I am in good
company. The greatest minds of the world have believed as I do. I can't
say that I _want_ to live forever.”

“Well, I do--I do,” returned Dearing. “There was a time, thanks to my
early association with you, by-the-way, when I doubted; but I always had
a frightful pang at the thought that the wonderful mystery of life must
continue to be a closed book to me. I fought it, Kenneth, old man--I
fought that thought day and night, because my soul was so enamoured
with the great secret that I could not give it up; and now--well, on
my honor, the faith in it has become my very existence. Without that
prospect I'd stop right here. I'd not care to move an inch. I'd as
soon cut your throat as to treat you as a friend. But I didn't come to
preach. What is that you've got stacked up on the table--drawings for
another trunk-line?”

“No.” Galt rose languidly and smiled. “I'll show you something very
pretty. You know I am fond of good pictures, and I flatter myself that
I have discovered a genius. There is an art dealer, F. B. Jenkins, in
Atlanta, whom I know pretty well, and he called me in the other day to
show me some water-color pictures by a young girl, who, it seems, is too
modest to allow her name to be used. Then, too, I think he regards her
as his find, and doesn't want other dealers to know about her. I bought
these.”

Galt opened a big portfolio, and began taking out the pictures one by
one. “Where has any one ever seen a child more lifelike than that one?
Why, it is actually walking away from the paper; and look at that one on
the fence, and this boy with the top and string!”

“Why, good gracious!” Dearing cried out, impulsively, as he stood
transfixed by surprise, “I know who did that work--I--” But he checked
himself suddenly.

“_You_ know who did it?” Galt said, facing him in surprise. “What do you
mean, Wynn. Do you really know anything about it?”

“I spoke without thinking,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “You know, a
physician sometimes runs across matters which he is obliged to regard as
confidential, and, since the--the lady doesn't want to be known, I
could not feel free to mention her name; besides, you know, I _might_ be
mistaken.”

Dearing turned from the pictures and moved toward the door.

“I am satisfied that you could tell more about it if you would,” Galt
said. “I really would like to know, for I have never run across pictures
I liked so well. And to think they are done by some young woman who may
not know how good her work really is!”

“I know nothing--absolutely nothing,” Wynn said, with a non-committal
smile. “But, if I did, I wouldn't trust it to you or any other man, so
there you are. Why haven't you been over? Uncle Tom and Madge look for
you every afternoon to join them at tea. You'd better come soon; they
are off for New York in a few days.”

“New York!” Galt exclaimed, in surprise.

“Yes; you know they go up there every summer for a ten days' stay,
visiting the Marstons. Old Marston was a colonel under my uncle in the
war. He went to New York after peace was declared and invested all he
had left. He is now a big tea-and-coffee importer, and worth a lot of
money. Mrs. Marston likes Madge, and gives her a big time once a year.
It is always a picnic for uncle and her. They start off like jolly
school-children. They have the time of their lives from the moment they
leave till they get back all tired out and coated with dust. Now, you
look after your health, Kenneth. Lie around this quiet old house and
take a good rest. Keep those bookcases with their lying contents closed,
and read sound, hopeful literature, and I'll see that you stay above
ground for a good many years to come.”

“If I could only get _you_ to read those books, instead of the
namby-pamby stuff issued by the Sunday-schools for the edification of
children who still believe in Santa Claus, you'd be a wiser man,” Galt
said, good-naturedly, as he accompanied Dearing to the door. “But, then,
I'd not have the fun of arguing with you.”

“I could put up as good an argument, even on your own side, as you can,”
 Dearing said, half seriously. “I could give one illustration which would
prove to men like you, at least, that the whole world is topsy-turvy,
and the Creator, if there is such a thing, more heartless than any man
alive.”

“You could? Well, that's interesting--coming from you, at least.”

“It was this,” Dearing went on, now quite serious, as he stood facing
Galt, swinging his satchel in his hand: “As I came in just now I saw
about thirty children--little boys and girls--over on Lewis Weston's
lawn. They were all rigged out in their Sunday clothes and playing
games, just as you and I did on the same spot when we were kids. It was
little Grover Weston's birthday, and his daddy, being our Congressman,
the undersized 'four hundred' were doing honors to the occasion.
Even from where I stood I could see the toys, wagons, tricycles, and
hobby-horses which had been presented to the little Georgia lord, and he
was strutting about thoroughly enjoying the limelight that was on him.
That was _one_ side of the picture. The other side was this: Down at
the lower end of our place stood a solitary little figure. Not one among
them all could hold a candle to him in looks or brightness of mind. You
know who I mean; it was the little chap you took a fancy to the other
day when he jumped into your arms from that tree. There he stood, his
bat and ball idle at his feet, watching every movement of the gay little
crowd across the way. I couldn't know what his thoughts were, but, as I
stood looking at him, I wondered what I should have thought at his age.
Was his growing and supersensitive mind already struggling with the
question of inequality? I remember that I, at his age, felt a slight
keenly, and if _I_ did, with my many advantages as a child, what must he
feel? There is an argument for you, Kenneth. The next time you want to
prove the utter heartlessness and aimlessness of God and His universe,
just paint that picture.”

Galt made no response. His blood seemed to turn cold in his veins as the
grimly accusing words fell from his friend's lips.

“But that is not the way I'm going to let the story end, in my fancy,
at least,” Dearing continued, after a pause. “Kenneth, old chap, I see
a silver lining peeping out from beneath even that poor child's cloud. I
see the hidden hand of God following the father who deserted his duty
to flee to some far-off hiding-place. I see that man hungering for
spiritual rest; I see his very crime humbling and sweetening his soul
and causing him to long for what he has left behind him. I see the
fortune that avarice is piling up in his father's coffers being
turned to good account. In short, I see that boy and his beautiful
child-mother, who never had a fault but that of blindly trusting, taken
away somewhere to ultimate happiness.”

“You think--you think--” Galt stammered, unable to formulate an adequate
reply.

“I think the man does not live who could have been loved and trusted by
Dora Barry and ever forget her. The man does not live who could be the
father of _such_ a child by _such_ a mother--such as she has grown to be
since her great misfortune--and not fight for her and her child with his
last breath.”




CHAPTER VII

|WHEN Dearing had gone blithely down the street, Galt strode up and down
the veranda, hot and cold, by turns, with fury and remorse.

“To think that any man could lecture me like that, while I have had to
stand and take it like a sneaking coward!” he fumed. “I am not a jot
worse than thousands of others who were led astray by passion. I had to
do as I did. I couldn't give up what I had sought so long, and fought
for so fiercely. She knew it; she admitted there was nothing else to
do. All these years she has not once reproached me, and she has kept her
word--the secret is ours. Wynn says she has advanced, that her solitary
life has only ripened her beauty of mind and body, and she is the mother
of my child--the little fellow I held in my arms the other day, the
outcome of a marriage as sacred under high heaven as any ever solemnized
at an altar.” He groaned as he remembered how he and Dora used to boast
that their superior mental attitude, and the height and glory of their
troth, as compared to the dull code of the vulgar herd, had made them
a law unto themselves. He had sown the seeds of such logic in the rich
soil of her trusting, girlish inexperience. He had led her, as a candle
leads a moth, on to the yawning brink of the abyss; he had closed her
gentle mouth, even as it uttered words of love and fidelity, and then,
by sheer brute force, he had flung her down to darkness and despair.
That was the truth he had not fully allowed himself to face in those
years of gratified ambition which had followed, and it was the truth
that Wynn Dearing, with his maddening manliness, had hurled into his
face to-day. And Dearing had argued that the end was not yet--that the
earthly struggle wasn't all there was to man--that to eat, procreate,
and live a certain span of years was not the solution of the problem of
existence. How utterly absurd! And yet what was his present ailment? It
was not of the body, as he had well known when Dearing was speaking of
his condition; and since it was not so, what was it? What force known to
science had kindled the raging fires within him, made him desire to
shim his own kind, and hate the success which, like a hellish
will-o'-the-wisp, had once blazed over him. There was nothing to do, of
course, but to continue the fight on his own lines, by the light of the
reason born in him. Of course, a man could be sad and gloomy over an old
love affair if he continued to brood over it--if he continued to allow
it to dominate him. Dora had accepted the inevitable, as any sensible
woman would have done, and it was left for him to go on his way
unmolested--free! General Sylvester wanted him to marry his niece;
she was his social equal, and in time would be as well off in point of
fortune. She was a beautiful, imposing, gracious woman, and would make a
wife any man would be proud of. Yes, his duty to himself was clear, and
dreams like young Dearing indulged in would have to be banished for ever
and ever. Yes, he would marry Margaret Dearing, and he and she would
travel the world over. He was ready to resign the active management of
the big enterprise he had created, and he would be free in every sense.
Yes, he would be free--just as other men were free.

He had stepped down on the grass of the lawn and strolled round
the house. Shouts and peals of childish laughter came from the yard
adjoining his on the left, and on the grass, engaged in a joyous game
of hide-and-seek, twoscore boys and girls ran merrily about. Galt walked
farther down toward the lower boundary of his premises, seeking with his
eyes an object he would not have confessed to himself that he desired to
see--the child Dearing had mentioned. Now he saw the boy, but he was not
within the Dearing grounds; Lionel had crossed over to Galt's land, and
stood shielded from the view of the merrymakers by a hedge of boxwood.
Galt saw him peering cautiously over the hedge, now stealthily lowering
his head, now eagerly raising it. He was neatly dressed in white, as
when his father had first seen him; there was a jaunty grace about the
flowing necktie and low, broad collar which could have been accounted
for only by the taste of an artistic mother. He held his broad-brimmed
straw hat in his hand, and the breeze swept his tresses back from his
fine brow.

Why he did it Galt could not have explained, especially on top of the
resolutions just formed, but he went down to him. Lionel's face
was averted, and he was not aware of his father's approach till his
attention was attracted by Galt's step on the grass. Then he started,
flushed, and with alarm written in his face he made a movement as if to
run away.

“Surely you are not afraid of _me?_” Galt said, reassuringly, and in a
tone which, for its unwonted gentleness, was a surprise to himself.

“I have no right to be on your land,” the boy faltered, his great,
startled eyes downcast. “Doctor Wynn said I must never leave his place.
But there wasn't any fence, and I--I saw the children playing over
there, and I wanted to get a little closer.”

“Well, you needn't be afraid; you have done no wrong,” Galt heard
himself saying, as undefined pangs and twinges shot through him. “You
may come here whenever you wish.”

“Oh, may I? Thank you. You are very good, and I thought you'd be angry.”

“Angry? How absurd! What in the world could cause you to think I could
be angry with a harmless little chap like you?”

“I don't know; but I did. I was sure at first that you liked me. You
know the day I almost went to sleep in your lap, when the pretty lady
and the old gentleman were at the tea-table? Well, I _did_ think you
liked me then, at first, you know, but when the doctor came and said it
was late for children to be out, you put me down quick, and got red in
the face, and never looked at me again.”

There was a rustic bench near by, and Galt sat down on it. He found
himself unable to formulate a satisfactory reply, and he was going
to let the remark pass unnoticed, but Lionel came forward now more
confidently, and sat on the end of the bench. A thrill akin to that
which he had felt when he discovered the identity of the child passed
over Galt. There was an indescribable something in the boy's great eyes
so like his mother's, in the artistic slenderness of his hands, in his
exquisite profile, that dug deep into the soul of the man who sat there
self-convicted of the crime of wilful desertion.

“Yes, I'm sure something was wrong that day,” Lionel said, tentatively.
“I can always 'tell when mamma is angry at me, and I knew you were, for
you didn't say good-bye. The others didn't, either, but I didn't care
for them. I like Doctor Wynn, and I like you, but that is all, except
Granny and my mother.”

“You like me, and why?” Galt questioned, almost under his breath.

“Oh, I don't know, but I do. I did when I first saw you looking up at me
in that tree, and then when you held me in your lap. I wanted to go to
sleep there, it felt so good--your arms are so fine and strong. Doctor
Wynn says your father was a great soldier, and that you have his sword
and a picture of him. Oh, I should love to see them! I'd like to be a
soldier. Some day, if I am a good boy, will you let me see the sword?”

“Why, yes, you may come--_now_, if you wish.”

“You are joking, aren't you?” Lionel asked, in surprise.

“No, I'm in earnest. Come on!”

“Really, do you mean it?”

“Why, of course. Come on!”

They started toward the house side by side. Suddenly Lionel remarked,
timidly, “You haven't said you like me yet, but I suppose you do, or you
wouldn't let me go with you in your house.”

“Yes, I like you--of course I do,” Galt answered, lamely and abashed.

“Very, very much, or just a little--which is it?”

“As much as any boy I ever met; there, will that do you, little man?”

“Have you met many? That's the question,” the boy laughed out,
impulsively, and then his face settled into gravity as he eagerly
waited.

“Yes, a great many,” Galt answered, as he wondered over the child's
peculiar persistency. Dearing had said he was supersensitive. Could
the trait be an unremovable birth-mark of the mother's unhappiness when
overwhelmed with the sense of utter desertion? If so, then there was
physical proof of the Biblical statement that the sins of fathers were
visited on their children. Galt shuddered and avoided the appealing face
upturned to his. Again he heard the musical voice, so like an echo out
of the dreamy, accusing past, rising to him.

“If you did like me, it looks like you would take my hand. I wish you
would.”

“There!” Galt forced a laugh as he took the soft, pulsating little
fingers into his. As flesh touched flesh a thrill as of new life
throbbed and bounded through him, and again he had the yearning to clasp
his son to his breast as a woman would have done. As it was, no lover
could have felt the touch of the hand of his mistress with keener, more
awed delight. At one time, in a talk with Bearing, Galt had argued that
even parental love was merely a physical function, like hunger for food,
but that had been before this perplexing awakening. They had reached the
front steps of the great house. An impulse he could not have analyzed
led Galt to think of lifting the boy from the ground to the floor of
the veranda, and he held out his arms. The child Sprang into them; his
little arm went round the man's neck, and thus the steps were ascended.
Was it a lingering pressure of affection in Lionel's arm that kept Galt
from lowering him to the carpet when they had entered the great hall? He
was sure he would put him down as they entered the library, but again
he refrained, for the magnitude and splendor of the room had actually
startled the child.

“Oh!” Lionel exclaimed, his eyes first on the great crystal chandelier,
then on the gilt-framed pier-glass reaching from the floor to the
ceiling.

“Why, what is the matter?” Galt asked, holding him tighter.

“I did not know it was so beautiful, so grand!” Lionel cried. “This room
alone is as large as our whole house. Ah! is that the sword your father
killed men with? And will you please let me see it? Could I hold it,
just once?”

“I am afraid it is too heavy for you,” Galt said, as he reached for the
heavy sabre in its carved brass scabbard and took it down from a hook
under his father's portrait. “It wasn't made for little hands like
yours. You'd have to grow a lot before you could use it.”

Lionel stood down on the floor as the sword was put into his hands. He
made a valiant effort to flourish the unwieldy blade as he thrust and
lunged at an imaginary enemy. “Boom! Boom!” he cried, his eyes flashing,
“Boom! t-r-r-r boom!”

“Oh, you've killed them--they are as dead as doornails!” Galt laughed,
impulsively. “Now your men will have a pretty time picking all those
corpses up in an ambulance.”

“Is that your father?” the boy leaned on the sabre to ask, as he looked
up at the portrait of the elder Galt.

“Yes. Does he look like me?” Galt answered.

“A little bit, maybe”--the child had his wise-looking head tilted to
one side as he had seen his mother stand in criticising one of
her pictures--“but I don't like it much. It is full of cracks, and
so--dauby.”

“'_Dauby_'? Where in the world could you have heard that word?”

“Oh, my mother says it often when she doesn't like one of her pictures.”

The child was now absorbed in the bronze dragon head supporting the
ivory handle of the sword.

“I see; perhaps you'd like pictures of children better,” Galt said,
and he took up one of the water-color sketches he had shown to Dearing.
“Here, look at this little boy.”

“Oh yes, that's me! Mamma says it is hard to keep them from all looking
alike. Sometimes I'm a boy--then I'm a girl, and even a baby--but they
are all me. Mamma says I'm her bread and butter. But I don't like to sit
for them; it is too tiresome to stay still so long. Sometimes she lets
me play in the yard, and watches me through the window; then I don't
mind it.”

“Do you mean to say”--Galt was grave, and his hands trembled as he
picked up another picture, this time the sketch of a boy riding on a
spring-board supported in the middle by a saw-horse, and fastened at the
end to a crude rail-fence--“do you mean that your mother really painted
this?” And as he spoke Galt recalled Dearing's evident recognition of
the work, and his prompt reservation in regard to it.

“Yes, and stacks and stacks of others,” the child said, abstractedly,
his little fingers toying with the handle of the sword again. “Is it
sharp enough to cut a man's head off?”

“Yes, yes.” Galt sat down in a chair, his mind now full of startled
memories--Dora's wonderful artistic taste, her early love of music,
books on art, and the drawings which she had spoken of timidly, but
never shown him. And this was her work--the pictures he had seen groups
of people admiring, as they hung in the shop-window in Atlanta--and
which he knew was the work of actual creative genius. And it had
come from the spirit he had crushed, exiled from humanity, and left
destitute! His ambition had won its sordid goal through the darkness of
damnation, while hers--unconscious of its own deity--was growing toward
the outer light, like a flower in a dungeon. And this was his child and
hers! Compounded in the winsome personality of the boy was all that
was good and noble of her, all that was bad and despicable of him, and
Dearing would say that it was not going to end with the temporary breath
which had been blown into the little form. The child was to live on and
perpetuate the qualities he had inherited. He was like a little God now,
in the likeness of the child-mother who had borne him, but 'the time
might come when he would take on to himself the cringing, soul-lashed
features of his father--be guilty of the same crimes against virtue
and eternal justice, and fight the same cruel battle between spirit and
flesh, between the forces of light and darkness. God forbid! “God!”--had
he actually used the word? Was there such a Being? He had sneered at the
thought all his life, but now the bare possibility cowed him.

Lionel, astride the sheathed sword, now half boy, half prancing steed,
came to him. “Whoa! Can't you stand still, sir? Watch him kick up! Look
out!” as he pirouetted about, “he'll get you with his hind heels! He
wants to run; something has scared him! Look how he's trembling!”

Galt laid his hand on the sunny curls, and drew the excited little
horseman to him, gazing into the dreamy, fathomless eyes so accusingly
like Dora's.

“I think I'd better hold you both,” he said, in an attempt at
playfulness. He had heard sordid business men who had children say that
there was no love like that of a man for an eldest son. This was his
eldest son, if not by the writs of man, by the mandates of something
infinitely higher.

“I wish I had a really-really horse,” Lionel ran on, plaintively.
“Grover Weston has a pony, but mamma says he can have everything because
his father is rich. I don't like him. He threw my ball back over the
fence the other day and called me names. I don't know what he meant by
them, but my mother said they were not nice, and told me not to remember
them. I've already forgot what he said. It was bas--bast--How funny! I
knew it once.”

Galt's inner being seemed to shrink and wither. Already the world's
persecution of the innocent had begun, and the sensitive, poetic,
imaginative child would grow up to a full realization of his social
shame. Nurtured in gentleness and refinement, he was yet to have the
scales which hid his humiliation from from his sight, and then he would
see; he would understand; he would know who to blame. And he _would_
blame, poignantly and justly. The time might come when this tender sprig
of himself, grown strong, and yet galled by his burden, might face his
father as the cowardly churl who had stamped the unbearable stigma upon
him and her. This child might live to curse him and spit upon him. The
world might forgive in the glow of his power and gold, but the one he
yearned for now, as he had yearned for nothing before, would go over his
infamous past as minutely as an ant over the bark of a rotten tree.

The child had put down the weapon of his honored ancestor, and now stood
with his little hands on the knee of his father, another side of his
personality uppermost.

“I don't care,” he said, in his charmingly premature way, “if Grover
Weston _doesn't_ like me, because you say you do. He's nothing but a
mean, horrid boy, while you are--”

“I am what, Lionel?” Galt's voice was stayed by huskiness in his throat,
and he put an unsteady arm round the little form, resisting the yearning
to clasp him tightly.

“Oh, you are everything--everything in the world. Doctor Wynn says you
are very, very rich, and that you love all little boys--that's why I
jumped that day. I wouldn't be afraid to jump from a higher tree than
that if you were there to catch me. Oh, I like to have people love me! I
like it better than anything.”

“And yet you _do_ want other things?” Galt said, tentatively.

“Oh yes.” The child, guided by the gentle pressure round him, slid
between his father's knees, and, putting his arm confidingly about
Galt's neck, he drew himself to a seat in the man's lap, and laughed.
“Mamma says I want the whole earth. I want a bicycle; and a gun; and a
pony; and roller-skates; and--”

“You certainly do want a _few_ things!” Galt tried to jest. “But we
can't have everything, you know, in this life.”

“Not unless we are rich; and we are very poor at our house; but when the
expressman brings the money for the pictures we are very glad. Then
we have a good dinner. Last time Granny got a dress, and I got several
suits like this one. Mother says some day we may go away off to another
country where I'll have children to play with. I think that would be
nicer than having toys.”

“Yes, yes,” Galt responded, from the depths of a new and rasping
remorse, as the boy reclined on his arm and stretched out with a
delicious sigh.

“You said you liked me,” the child said, quite seriously, “but you never
have kissed me--not once.”

“But men don't kiss little boys,” Galt answered, with a start.

“Oh, yes they do; Doctor Wynn has often kissed me, and hugged me, so!”
 Lionel put his arms round Galt's neck, pressed his soft, warm cheek
against the cold, rough one, and kissed it, once, twice, three times.

“And I've seen Mr. Weston kiss Grover when he runs to meet him at the
gate.”

“We've known each other such a short time,” Galt apologized, lamely, as
the hot blood coursed through his veins, and the child released him and
lay staring at him from his great, reproachful eyes.

“I don't care, you'd kiss me if you loved me as--as much as I do you.
Won't you, just one time? Then I'll go.”

“Yes, I'll kiss you--there!” Galt said, as he folded the child in his
arms and pressed his lips to the warm, pink brow.

“I had to make you!” Lionel said, as he stood down on the floor. “That
is the way I do when my mother is angry. I keep begging her to kiss me
till she does; then she laughs and hugs me tighter than ever. Granny
says I know how to manage a woman. Good-bye. I thank you for bringing me
to your house. Now I am sure you like little boys.”

After the child had gone, Galt walked up and down the veranda, his mind
upon problems he had never faced before. He was interrupted by General
Sylvester, who hurried across the lawn to speak to him on his way
down-town.

“I've only a bare minute,” the old gentleman said. “I suppose you know
we are off for New York. You'd better come along and help us have a good
time.”

“I am afraid Wynn would hardly prescribe a remedy so strenuous as that
in my case,” Galt returned. “You see, I was tied down there recently,
and got enough of it for a man who is said to need quiet and a change of
scene.”

“That's true,” Sylvester admitted. “It was only because we'd like to
have you so much that I mentioned it. But we'll take you in hand when we
get back. So you be ready, young man.”

When the old gentleman had walked away, with his springy, boyish step,
and the gate-latch had clicked behind him, Galt went back into the
library. He gathered up Dora's pictures with reverent hands, and took
them up to his bedroom. He arranged them in good positions, and stood
looking at them steadily.

“Yes, she's in them all,” he said. “Her weeping soul speaks out from
every one. She has done those things in spite of the disgrace and misery
that my cowardice has heaped upon her. What must she think of me--of me,
whom she once placed upon such a pinnacle? Her own purity created the
place for me in her heart which I once held, and from which her contempt
has long since banished me. I've lost her. I owe her the world, and can
pay her nothing--absolutely nothing!”

His attention was attracted to the children on Weston's lawn. They were
loudly laughing, shouting, and singing. He went to the window and looked
out.

“'King William was King James's son,'” they sang, as hand in hand they
circled round on the grass. Galt's eyes rested only momentarily on
the players. He was searching for some one else. Finally he espied the
object of his quest. Lionel--his son, a full-blooded Galt, and, for
aught he knew, the flower of the race--was hidden behind a tree peering
out like a half-starved urchin at a window filled with sweets. He stood
erect and motionless, as if hardly daring to breathe lest he be seen by
his social superiors.

“He is waking!” Galt exclaimed. “He is wondering and pondering. The time
will come when he will understand and remember, perhaps, that I kissed
him with the lips of Judas--I, who should have been his mainstay and
supporter--kissed him as he lay in my arms, conscious of my love and
ignorant of my weakness. No, I can't help him. Drawn to him as I am by
every fibre of my being, still I must deny him. The man does not live
who, in the same circumstances, could act otherwise. I haven't the moral
backbone. I simply haven't.”

Leaving the window, and sinking into a chair, Galt bent forward, locked
his cold hands together, and wrung them as a man might in the agony of
death.




CHAPTER VIII

|EVERYTHING is as merry as a marriage bell, and the goose hangs high!”
 Stephen Whipple quoted, with a hearty laugh, as he and Fred Walton sat
on the old man's veranda after breakfast one Sunday morning. “And I'm
a-thinking, my boy, that the suspended fowl is none other than our
fellow citizen, J. B. Thorp. He is as mad as a wet hen. He had us plumb
down, and, like the bully he is, was pounding the blood out of us with
no thought of letting up. Then the rest of the hungry pack of wolves
piled on top, and began to get in their work. I was so crazy I didn't
know my hat from a hole in the ground. Then your keen young brain turned
the trick, and here we are. Dick has got the dandiest retail store that
ever saw the light in a Western town, and it is literally packed and
jammed with customers.”

“I am certainly glad it turned out as it did,” Fred replied. “It has
been a great thing for Dick.”

The merchant was silent for a moment, and Fred saw him twirling his
heavy thumbs as he often did when embarrassed. Finally, after clearing
his throat and rather awkwardly crossing his legs, he said:

“I've got a silly sort of confession to make, Fred. I reckon nobody is,
on the outside, exactly what they are within, and I've got my faults
like other fellows. On the outside I'm as strait-laced as a hard-shell
Baptist, but I've always hankered after a periodical lark of some sort.
Once in a great while I've taken trips just for the pure fun' of the
thing. During the Centennial at Philadelphia I laid down everything and
went. I stayed a week, put up at a fine hotel, and lived as high as I
knew how. I saw all that there was to see. Then I struck work at one
time and went to the Mardi-gras at New Orleans, and then another time I
hiked off to the Cotton Exposition in Atlanta. I don't know why I'm that
way, but I am. It is my periodical spree, I reckon. You remember I told
you about my boy--the little fellow that passed away?”

“Yes, I remember,” Walton returned, sympathetically.

“Well, as he was growing up, I used to love, above all things, for
just me and him--just me and him, you know--to go to places together.
Sometimes it was a ride in the country, or fishing, or to do something
a little boy would like, but I always sort o' kept the thought before
me that when he'd reached man's estate, me and him would do some
sure-enough 'bumming,' as I used to call it--bumming to New York City,
where we could take in all the sights like two boys. It may sound silly,
but that was one thing I always had to look forward to; but then he took
sick and died, and it was out of the question. Since then I've never
counted on the New York trip.”

“It was sad,” Walton said, gently. “It is a pity he couldn't have been
spared to you.”

“Yes, but he wasn't,” the merchant sighed. “He wasn't, and this is what
I started out to say: Of all folks I have ever known since my boy's
death, you come nearer filling his place than any one else. No”--and
Whipple held up his broad hand--“don't stop me! I don't know how it
was, but in our first talk that night you kind o' got hold of my
heart-strings. I pitied you as I had never pitied a young fellow before
because of the fight you were making. I got interested in it, and
determined to help you win. I prayed for you. You were on my mind the
last thing at night and the first thing in the morning. You'd said you
wanted the money just to pay off the debt you owed your father, and I
would have planked the cash right down many and many a time if I hadn't
been afraid I'd spoil a thing that seemed to be of God's own making.
I used to sneak and look at your bank-account. That was mean, but I
couldn't help it. I saw your savings piling up week after week until
I forced that five hundred on you, and knew you had three thousand in
hand. Then, all at once, it sunk to nothing. Fred, my boy, I went home
that night, hugged the old lady, and cried. You needn't tell me what
became of that money. It went to your old daddy as fast as the trains
could take it.”

“Yes, I paid him, Mr. Whipple. I am still behind two thousand, with the
interest at the rate he charges his customers.”

“He's a money-lender then?” Whipple said, lifting his brows.

“Yes, he--” Fred hesitated a moment, and then finished, “He is a banker,
in a small town in--”

“Don't--don't tell me!” Whipple broke in. “Don't tell me a thing about
him! I'm human to the core. I don't know why it is, but for a long time
I have been jealous of his blood claim on you. He throwed you off, and I
want to think that I have some sort of right to you. He never loved you
as a natural father should, or he couldn't have driven you to the
wall like he did, forcing you to live off among strangers, away from
home-ties and all the associations of your young days. Oh, I know I have
your good-will, my boy! I heard about the way you stood up for me during
the strike my men tried to get up. One of the clerks told me of the
nightmeeting that was held, and how you sprang into their midst like
an infuriated tiger, and of the ringing speech you made about me and my
fair treatment of them, and how they finally begged you not to report
the matter and slunk away like egg-sucking dogs. You never would have
mentioned it, but it got to me--it got to me.”

“Oh, I only did my duty, Mr. Whipple.” Fred's face was dyed red. “I
thought they were unreasonable, and could not help putting in a word of
protest.”

“You were the only one in the entire bunch that did it, all the same,”
 Whipple said, huskily. “Oh, I know they poke fun at me and laugh at
my peculiarities, but I don't believe you ever did. I am coarse and
awkward--I don't have to be told that; but I try to be genuine and fair
to all mankind. But I've got away off from what I started to say. Fred,
there never was a time when I felt more like one of my periodical sprees
than right now. I have never been to New York, and I can't get over
wanting to take it in. My wife don't care to go. She says such trips
tire the very life out of her. She is younger than I am in years,
but she ain't in spirit. I want you to lay off work for a week and go
bumming with me. Somehow, I feel like if you'll go, it will be as if my
own boy had lived and grown up and was taking the trip with me. I want
to go by New Orleans and spend a day there, and then on to the East,
through Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. What do you say, Fred? The
expense is nothing. I want to celebrate. For a week I want to be a new
man, and have a high old time.”

“I should like it very much,” Walton said, “if you really want me to
go.”

“Well, pack your grip, and we'll be off day after tomorrow. We'll tell
the boys that we have to see our New York importers and our sugar men in
New Orleans, and they can guess the rest. Now, I'm going up to tell the
old lady that it is settled, and she can sleep or do any other old thing
she likes till, we come back. We'll have a rip-roaring time, Fred. We'll
go all the gaits, even if we get put in the lock-up.”




CHAPTER IX

|FRED and his jovial employer spent a ===day and night at New Orleans,
and early the following morning took a fast train for New York.
Ensconced in the luxurious Pullman, which contained few other
passengers, Fred felt that by remaining close in the car as it passed
through Georgia he would run little risk of being recognized by any
acquaintance or friend of the past. Nevertheless, as the train was
leaving Atlanta and speeding toward Stafford, he was literally besieged
with gloomy memories. Every station or familiar landmark along the
way brought back with crushing force occurrences he had completely
forgotten. Once or twice he fancied that Whipple was watching him with
an unusually sympathetic eye, but he put the thought from him. Never
having been told of the fact, how could the old man even suspect that he
was nearing the home of his childhood--the spot of his dreams? He had a
yearning to confide more fully to his kindly companion, but the thought
came to him that such a disclosure just now might throw a damper upon
a journey which he had determined should contain nothing but joy to his
benefactor.

It was six o'clock when Cherry Hill was reached. Only seven rapidly
shortening miles lay between him and his old home. Fred sat at a window,
pretending to read a newspaper. It struck him as highly incongruous that
Whipple should think no more of that particular town than of any of the
others through which they had passed when it means so much--so very
much--to him. The time-table told him that the train stopped only a few
minutes at Stafford, and he was both glad and disappointed--glad that
the short stop would render his detection the more remote, and sad that
he was not to see with his actual eyes the spot dearer to him than any
other. There was a prolonged scream from the locomotive's whistle at the
extreme end of the train. Could it be that the station was reached? No,
for through the gathering dusk Fred could see that the suburbs of the
town, as indicated by the electric lights in the distance, were still
half a mile away. Perhaps it was to take on water, he thought; but that
couldn't be the explanation, for the porter of the car had thrown up a
window and was looking out inquiringly.

“What is it?” he inquired of the porter, who had drawn his head back
into the car.

“I don't know, sir,” the negro answered. “Something must be wrong ahead.
We never slow up till we get to the crossing.” He hurriedly left the
car, and Fred followed. Outside there was a rushing to and fro of
trainmen with flags and lanterns, a jumble of calls in stentorian tones,
the slow clanging of the locomotive's bell, the exhausting of steam. The
porter ran to the porter of the car ahead, and came back to where Walton
stood waiting on the step.

“Freight-train knocked all to smash in the edge of town,” he explained.
“Nobody hurt, but it is sure to hold us here awhile.”

“We'll have to stop, then!” Fred exclaimed, fearing a vague something
which seemed to hover, like a threat, in the air about him. At that
moment he gave way to the superstitious feeling that it was the direct
hand of Providence which had delayed him there, of all spots on the long
journey.

“It looks like it now, sir,” the porter answered; and as he left, Walton
turned and saw Whipple close beside him.

“Why, it won't make any difference to us,” the old man said, in evident
wonder over his protégé's disappointment. “We'll be sound asleep in
our berths. I don't know but what I'd kind o' like _one_ night's rest
without so much jostle and motion. We can get a good breakfast in the
dining-car in the morning, and go on our way as smooth as goose-grease.”

“Yes, yes,” Fred said. But the thought had come to him that they might
be delayed till the next morning, and the idea of passing through his
old home in the broad light of day was far from pleasant. What if he
should actually meet his father or some officer of the law whose duty
it would be to arrest him, right when he had begun to hope that he might
ultimately earn his freedom?

Fred went back into the car, followed by the drowsy Whipple, and took
a seat by a window. It was open, and by leaning out he could see the
lights of Stafford. Under the skies he had known as a child, on the
same hillsides, they blazed and beckoned. Suppressing a groan, he told
himself that he would go to bed and try to sleep; but he delayed, held
in his place by some weird charm. At ten o'clock, when Whipple was
stowed away, Fred went out of the car once more. On the sidetrack he met
the conductor.

“How long shall we be here?” Walton inquired.

“Till three o'clock, sir,” the conductor said, as they walked along
toward the locomotive.

“I wonder if I'd have time to walk to town and look around,” Fred said.
“I don't feel like turning in right now.”

“Plenty, plenty,” the conductor answered. “It is only a mile or so to
the square.”

“Then I'll go,” Walton said, and he walked away, thankful that the night
was cloudy. On he went down the railway, in the streaming glare of the
locomotive's headlight, till he reached the first street leading into
Stafford. Ahead, in the light of many lanterns, a throng of trackmen
were at work on the wreck.

How changed was the landscape he had once known so well! Spots which had
been old barren fields, dismantled brick-yards, and stretches of
forest, were now, thanks to the enterprise of Kenneth Galt, filled with
cottages, cotton factories, iron-foundries, and other industries. To the
right, on a common, which used to be the ball-ground where the team, of
which Fred had been the popular captain, had played in his schooldays,
the round-house and machine-shops of the S. R. & M. had risen. New
thoroughfares had been opened, natural elevations graded away, and
uncouth gullies filled.

Taking the darker and quieter streets by choice, Walton strode onward,
headed toward the old part of town, his heart wrung with a pain more
poignant than any he had ever felt. Once, as he was passing through a
cluster of small houses which seemed inhabited by negroes, he saw a few
dusky faces he had known, and recognized some familiar voices coming
from the unlighted porches and open windows. On trudged the wayfarer,
his step slow, his feet heavy. Presently he came to a stone and iron
bridge which spanned a small arm of the river, and, crossing to the
other side, he ascended a slight elevation from which he had a view of
the entire town. It was a lonely, unimproved spot, where a few scrubby
pines grew and some gray primitive bowlders lay half embedded in the
ground. Farther along the brow of the narrow hill stood the old brick
school, which, as a boy, he had attended. A thousand memories flogged
his quickened brain--memories of those lost days, when his gentle mother
had dressed him and sent him off with a kiss and the admonition to be
a good boy. She was dead, she was gone forever, and her prayers in his
behalf had fallen on the deaf ear of Infinite Providence. He had not
been a good boy, and she had prayed in vain. Her grave was there beyond
the town's lights on another hill, and he who had been the sole hope
of her motherhood was an alien. He stifled a cry of sheer agony. In his
active life in the West he had, in a measure, dulled his senses to much
of the past, but here, in view of all he had lost, it was upon him like
a monster as long and broad as the universe, with a million sinister
claws sunken into his being. There below was the home which might have
been his; there, veiled from his sight by the kindly pall of night,
lived the men and women who might still have been his friends; there,
too, lived the girl, the one girl in all the earth, who--He groaned,
and, throwing himself on the ground, he folded his arms and sobbed. How
long he remained there he hardly knew, but it was late, for the lights
in the houses below were blinking and going out one by one. He was
tempted to steal down the hillside, now that deeper darkness offered
shelter, and wander through the streets he had loved so well--to wander
on till he could see his father's house. Perhaps he might even pass
Margaret's home without detection. It would be a risk, an awful risk,
he told himself, for he might be recognized, pursued, and even arrested.
His hungry heart told him to take the chance, his inbred caution warned
him strongly to return to the car without delay, and yet he lingered. He
fancied he could see, as his blurred eyes strove to probe the curtain of
darkness, the very spot his old home stood upon. Yes, he would risk it.
He had been away for years, and he might never return to the old town
again. Providence itself had caused the accident to which he owed the
opportunity.

Down the incline he went, into the quiet street below, and along it to
another which led toward his father's house. Once he saw a man and woman
approaching, and he stepped behind a high fence in the grounds of an old
mill. He crouched down, and heard their voices as they went by, but they
sounded strange to him. He followed now in their wake, and saw them turn
in another direction. Then he saw a man approaching, but he walked from
side to side of the pavement, as if he were intoxicated, and Walton
avoided him by crossing the street and pursuing his way on the other
side.

At last he was at his old home. The grounds were the same in size, but
the old house had been repainted, and trees which had been small and
slender were now large and dense. There was a heartless alteration in
the appearance of it all. The white paint on the house somehow made it
seem a veritable ghost of its former self; its whole aspect was cold and
forbidding. He opened the gate and entered. He was not afraid, for as
a boy he had gone into the grounds at any hour he liked; he had even
raised an unfastened window in the old dining-room, when he had mislaid
his key, and climbed in long after midnight.

There was a light in his father's room on the ground floor, but the
blind was drawn down. Fred could not look in from where he stood, so he
crept up close to the wall, and moved noiselessly along against it till
he could peer through the crack between the window-sill and the blind.
He started back, for in the light of the green-shaded lamp he saw his
father seated at a table reading a paper. How strange it seemed to see
him after all those years! And yet the banker had changed very little.
It was the same harsh, imperturbable face. In it lay no sign of concern
over the absence of the son who now loved him with a woman's tenderness.

“Poor, poor father!” the young man said, in his heart. “I never
understood you. I didn't know what life meant then as I do now. You are
living according to your lights. It was I who was wrong--wofully wrong.
God help me!”

With a low groan he crept away. Out into the street he went. He must
hurry now, for his time was limited. There must be no mistake about the
train. He must not let his employer suspect this stolen excursion of
his, for it would mar the pleasure of the old man's journey.

Fred now met and had to avoid few passers-by, and he hurried on to
Margaret's home, thankful that it lay in the direction of the waiting
train. The great structure was wholly dark, and there was no sign of
life about it. That was her window; he could plainly see it as he stood
at the fence. But what, after all, could it matter to him? Perhaps she
had not occupied the room for years. His heart seemed turned to stone as
the new fear sank into him that she might have married and moved away.
She had loved him once; he was as sure of that as he was of her honesty.
Yes, she had loved him! She had told him so with her arms tightly
clasped about his neck. His shameful conduct had separated them--that
and nothing else. With his head lowered he turned away, wholly
indifferent now as to whether he was seen or not.

Almost before he realized it the wrecked freight-cars were before him;
the track was being rapidly cleared; the headlight of the train that was
to bear him away was streaming on him with insistent fierceness.

“How long will you keep us waiting?” he asked the foreman of the gang,
who, in greased and blackened overalls, stood near an overturned truck.

“Only an hour or so longer. It is past one now,” was the reply.

The Pullman was dimly lighted from the overhead lamps which were turned
low, but the outer door was open, and, passing the porter half asleep in
the smoking-room, Fred went to his berth, drew the curtains aside, and
began to undress.

“Is that you, Fred?” a low, anxious voice inquired, and Whipple thrust
his shaggy head out from his berth.

“Yes, sir. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Whipple?”

“No; that is--” The curtains slowly parted, and the old man came out,
completely dressed, save for the absence of his coat, collar, and
cravat. He looked around cautiously, and seemed relieved to find that
they were the only passengers awake. He sank into a seat opposite Fred's
berth and sighed. “I've been awfully worried,” he said. “You see, my
boy, I missed you. I waited and waited and couldn't sleep a wink, and
the longer you stayed away the worse I got. You see, I have my clothes
on. I got up, and went out to the wreck, and tried to find you. I don't
know what got into me. I was worried--worried like rips.”

“I felt restless and--went for a walk,” Walton explained, lamely. “I
didn't know it was so late; besides, I thought you'd be sound asleep and
not miss me.”

“I reckon I'm old and childish,” Whipple said, with a forced laugh. “The
fact is, Fred, if the truth must be told, I reckon I feel powerful close
to you. I didn't know the thing had taken such a deep hold on me. I
reckon it is this trip with just you and me off together like two boys.
I've got so I think I can detect when you are happy and when you ain't
over your old trouble, and ever since morning I sort o' fancied you
looked uneasy and downhearted. Then when you went off, leaving me away
out here all by myself, why, somehow, I was afraid--actually afraid
that--”

“You were afraid that in my despondency I might injure myself,” Fred
broke in; “but you needn't ever--”

“I wasn't afraid of any such thing!” Whipple threw in, almost
indignantly. “I knew there was no such danger when you had fought the
fight you have for six years hand-running, and got as high up as you
have; but I was a little afraid--well, to be honest--I was afraid you
might have seen somebody on the train who you wanted to avoid on account
of matters long past and buried, and that you thought it might be
advisable to--to keep out of sight, that's all.”

“It wasn't that, Mr. Whipple, I assure you,” Walton answered, in a husky
voice, and he sat down opposite his friend and laid his hands firmly on
the old man's knees. “The time has come, Mr. Whipple, when I must
tell you more about my past life. After I have done so, you will fully
understand how I--”

“No, no, I won't listen!” Whipple raised his hands in protest. “I don't
want to hear a word. It wrings my silly old heart, anyway, to think of
what may lie away back there before you come to me. You seem to be a son
of my own, born to me in your terrible trouble, and I want to think of
you that way. I thought, at first, that it would be a pretty thing to
let you pay back the debt hanging over you with just your own earnings;
but I don't think so now. That amount of money would be nothing to me,
and you know it. You've seen me donate more than that to causes that
didn't interest me one-hundredth part as much as this does. My boy, when
we get to New York I'll draw the money, and you must take it and clear
yourself. I'll never rest till you do.”

“I can't do that, Mr. Whipple,” Walton said, in a grateful tone. “When
I left home I told my father the money should be replaced by my own
earnings, and it must be that way.”

“You can't keep me from raising your salary if I see fit and proper,”
 Whipple argued. “You are the best man I ever employed from any
standpoint, and you don't draw pay enough--not half enough.”

“I can't let you do it,” Walton said, with a grateful smile. “I am
already paid more than any other man in my position. To give me more
would be charity, and I don't want that. I want to pay my way out, Mr.
Whipple.”

“Well, you'll do it,” the old man gave in, fervently.

“If you was to be hampered now, my brave boy, I'd actually lose faith in
God and the hereafter. I honestly believe you'll get your reward, and
be reinstated in all you ever wanted. Now, good-night. Sleep sound, and
let's not allow this to spoil our good time. I reckon this trip has sort
o' turned your thoughts onto bygone days, but we'll have other things to
think of in New York. Good-night, my son, good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.”

The heavy curtains hid the portly old man, and Walton proceeded to
undress and lie down. But he could not sleep. What human being with a
normal heart could have done so under like circumstances? An hour later
the dull, rumbling movement of the car told him that they were off.
There was no stop at the station, but Walton propped himself upon his
elbow and raised the little window-shade and peered out as they passed
through the switch-yard of the town. On the platform a night-watchman
stood swinging a lantern. In the rapidly shifting glare of light Fred
recognized him. It was Dan Smith, a faithful negro who used to work
about the bank and whom Fred had known from childhood up.

“Poor old Uncle Dan!” the outcast said, bitterly, as the kindly features
were spirited away in the distance.' “You know why 'Marse Freddie'
had to leave, don't you? It was because he was a thief, Uncle Dan. The
little fellow you used to carry on your shoulders and be so proud of
grew up to be a thief--a _thief_, and he is hiding now from you and all
the rest!”




CHAPTER X

|THE two friends had been in New York five days, and in the continual
round of theatres, and in sight-seeing, with occasional call at some
establishment with which Whipple had dealings, they spent the time very
pleasantly. The pain caused by Fred's secret visit to his old home was,
in a measure, assuaged by his constant effort to be cheerful for the
sake of his benefactor's enjoyment. He felt that he was succeeding,
and the realization of the fact buoyed him up to further activity in
self-obliteration. On occasion, Whipple acted like a college boy off
on a lark. He passed funny criticisms on the persons they saw on the
streets and in the cars, and at the table of the café where they got
their meals he purposely blundered over the French words on the menu, to
the great mystification of the polite waiter, who found it impossible to
reconcile actual ignorance with the costly clothing Whipple wore and his
extravagant tips and liberal orders.

On the sixth morning of their stay in the metropolis they went down to
pay a promised visit to Lewis Marston, the importer of teas and coffees
from whom Whipple had received many a shipment and had met once or twice
in New Orleans.

“So _this_ is the Mr. Spencer you've written me about so often?” Marston
smiled cordially as he was introduced to Fred, and begged them to take
seats in the spacious office of which he was the only occupant. “Young
man, as we used to say in the South, your ears ought to burn, for your
boss has written me lots of good things about you. I remember he wrote
last winter that his business was growing out of all bounds, owing to
the fresh blood and modern ideas you had put into it.”

Fred flushed modestly as he released the hand of the portly, pink-faced,
side-whiskered old merchant.

“Mr. Whipple is noted for his generosity,” he said, lamely.

“Well, you are the only one of his force he has mentioned to me, at any
rate,” the importer said, persistently, “and I know he means it, for a
man who has ability and can be thoroughly trusted is hard to find these
days.”

The three sat and chatted for an hour, Marston being interrupted now and
then by a telegram or a question asked by some clerk who came from an
adjoining room, where there was a din of clicking typewriting machines.

“Now we'll have to go,” Whipple said, as he arose. “Fred has got some
letters of instructions to write home, and I'm due in Wall Street at
this very minute.”

“To write letters!” Marston cried. “Well, he needn't go away to do
that. Do you see that desk at the window? It is for the sole use of our
customers. There is plenty of stationery. Sit down, Mr. Spencer. I'll
have to leave soon myself. My wife is coming to get me to help her
select some Persian rugs, and you'll have the whole office to yourself.”

“A good plan, Fred,” Whipple exclaimed; “then we could meet at the Astor
House and take lunch together at one o'clock. I want to see what the old
place is like. My daddy stopped there once before the war.”

“That's the idea!” the importer chimed in. “Make yourself thoroughly at
home, Mr. Spencer. If you need anything, just tap that bell and the boy
will attend to you.”

When his employer had left, Fred sat down at the desk and began to
write.

“Oh, I forgot,” Marston said, apologetically, as he looked up from the
letter he was writing. “I will call a stenographer, if you'd like to
dictate your correspondence.”

“Oh, thank you,” Fred answered, “it won't be necessary; I have only a
few lines to write.”

He had completed the task before him, and was waiting for an opportunity
to leave without interrupting the merchant, who was busily writing at
his desk, when an office-boy came and spoke to Marston in an undertone.

“Oh, she's not alone, then!” the merchant said aloud, as he pushed back
his chair. “Send them up. I am not quite ready yet, and they will have
to wait.”

A moment later a cheery feminine voice--evidently Mrs.
Marston's--sounded in the corridor outside, where her husband stood
waiting for her.

“Well, I'm glad you came along, too, Miss Margaret,” Fred heard the old
man saying. “You must sit down in my dusty office for a moment.” He made
an effort at lowering his voice, but it was still audible. “There
is only one man there, but he is young and decidedly good-looking.
By-the-way, he is that Mr. Spencer, the phenomenal young business man I
told you about. Come in, and I'll let you entertain him till I can get
away. I've got to run down to the main salesroom.”

“And I've got to telephone the cook.” It was evidently Mrs. Marston's
voice again. “We are going back to lunch. The General has promised to
meet us there. Where is the booth?”

“At the end of the corridor,” Marston was heard directing her. “Now,
come on, young lady. By George, that _is_ a stunning gown! The new
railroad helped pay for that, eh?”

The thin canvas door was pushed open. Fred stood up; his eyes dilated;
his blood ran cold. It was Margaret Dearing to whom the voluble merchant
was casually introducing him.

Margaret started and paled.

“Mr. _Spencer!_” she echoed, then quickly averted her face from the
inattentive glance of her host.

Walton's eyes went down as he bowed, white and quivering. He could say
nothing.

“Now, I'll leave you two to get acquainted,” Marston said, quite
unconscious that anything unusual had happened, and, gathering up some
sheets of paper from his desk, he hastened away.

“Margaret!” Walton gasped, when they were alone in the awful silence of
the room.

“Mr. Spencer?--_Spencer?_” the young lady groped, as she gazed on him in
helpless wonder.

“God forgive me, I had to change my name!” he panted, as he stood white
as death could have made him under her timid, almost frightened stare.
“I had no other reason than that I wanted to live down my disgrace, and
it looked like it would be impossible otherwise. I was a drowning
man, Margaret, grasping at a straw; a new life opened out to me, and I
entered it with the hope that--”

“I understand!” the girl gasped, and she drew herself up in pained
haughtiness and twisted her gloved hands tightly in front of her. “But
need we--talk about it?”

“No, I haven't even _that_ right,” Walton declared, as he looked at
the woman, grown infinitely more beautiful and graceful than even her
girlhood had foreshadowed. “I promised Wynn the night I left that I'd
never insult you by coming in contact with you again, or even addressing
a line to you. I knew we had to part--that I could best serve you by
going away never to return. Your brother was right. He acted only as any
honorable man should in talking to me as he did. I was insane to aspire
to your friendship with that thing hanging over me; but it was the
insanity of love, Margaret--a love that never can die. I ought not to
say it now, but what does it matter? I am not fit for you to wipe your
feet on. I am still a fugitive from justice--a criminal living under an
assumed name.”

He paused, for she had collapsed limply into Marston's chair, and was
resting her white brow on her bloodless hand.

“Oh, don't--it is--is killing me!” she cried. “I had thought we might
never meet again. I was beginning to hope that, in time, the memory
of--of it all would be less painful, but it is revived again. Oh, it is
unbearable!” He took a deep, trembling breath, and moved a step nearer
to her.

“But even _you_ will grant that, by continued effort, I may purge my
soul of it--at least, in the eyes of God,” he said. “I don't mean that
I could ever ask you to receive me openly as an equal after what has
happened, but you will, at least, be glad that I am honestly striving to
lead a better life.”

“Yes, yes,” she said--“oh yes!”

“And I am not _wholly_ living under false colors,” he went on,
anxiously. “I have confessed the worst to my employer, and he is doing
all he can to help me. He trusts me. I don't like to say these things in
my own behalf, and yet surely you will forgive me for saying that I am,
at least, not living as I used to live.”

“You intend to make--make reparation?” she said, raising an awful glance
to his face.

“Of course. I have sent back all my savings so far--every dollar I could
get together; and before another year is past I hope to send enough, at
least, to--”

“Money!” she cried, almost in a tone of disgust--and as she spoke she
had a picture of a golden-haired child with a sunny face playing on the
lawn at her home--“money! As if that would count in a matter like--like
_that!_”

“It is all I can do now, Margaret!” he exclaimed, as he shrank under the
unexpected severity of her words.

“I presume so,” she answered, coldly, even sternly, and she fixed an
unreadable stare on his blighted face; “and yet if you could be back
at home, and see what I have seen, perhaps you'd realize that there are
things mere money cannot restore. I can't blame you wholly--to save my
life, I can't! The temptation was deliberately put in your track;
you were not born with the power to resist, and so you fell like many
another man has fallen, but you ought to have stayed on at Stafford and
done your duty--your _full_ duty!”

“I couldn't! I assure you, I _couldn't_, Margaret!” he went on, almost
piteously, his lips quivering under stress of the vast emotion let
loose within him. “My father would have punished me by law--would have
deprived me of every chance to atone in the way that I am now trying
to atone. But I have no right to talk to you this way. I am breaking
my promise to Wynn. By my own act, I have banished myself from you
forever.”

“Yes, forever!” she admitted, as her proud head went down. “There is
nothing either of us can do. We must try not to meet again, even by
accident. I must join Mrs. Marston now. I hear her in the corridor. You
are very pale, and she might wonder and imagine all sorts of things. I'd
have to introduce you, and I can't even remember your--your new name. I
will tell no one at home that I have seen you. You may trust that to me.
Your secret is safe. I can't recall the name of the place you live in. I
sha'n't try. I never have believed it was _all_ your fault--that is, not
_all_. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he repeated, huskily; and he saw her rise, and, without
extending her hand, or giving him another glance, she moved unsteadily
toward the door.

When she was gone he sat down at the desk and took up his pen, and with
an inanimate hand began to address one of his letters, wondering dumbly
that such mere details as a street and number and a man's initials could
rise to his memory at such a moment.

That evening, in the big drawing-room at the Marstons', General
Sylvester sat down by his niece.

“You look tired,” he said. “I think you show it more than usual; being
on one's feet all day is no little tax on the energy. By-the-way, we are
invited to a big reception for next Wednesday evening at the Langleys'.
It is given to some foreign statesman or other. I have the card
somewhere. You must look your prettiest and wear the dandy gown I
selected.”

“Why, it isn't for evening wear.” Margaret smiled faintly. “Besides, do
you think we ought to stay as--long as that?”

“As long as that?” he exclaimed. “Are you really thinking of going home?
Of course, it lies with you, dear. As far as I am personally concerned,
it doesn't matter one way or the other. Say, little girl, are you really
homesick?”

“I think I am, Uncle Tom.” She avoided his eyes, which were so
solicitously bearing down on her from beneath their heavy brows. “I
presume the novelty of this sort of thing soon wears off, and our home
is so soothing and restful.”

“Ah, I smell a rat!” the General said, teasingly. “I forgot about that
lonely bachelor neighbor of ours. We were to look after him, weren't we?
Well, we'll go back, and you'll encourage him a little more, won't you?”

The girl shuddered, an irrepressible sob struggled up within her, and
her head sank to her tightly clasped hands.

“Oh, how _can_ you say such a thing?” she asked, under her breath. “I
don't love him. I know I can never do so now, and to think of what you
want is--horrible!” To the old man's utter bewilderment she rose, placed
her handkerchief to her lips, and left the room.




CHAPTER XI

|KENNETH GALT was now living the life of a recluse in his old home.
The tendency to this sort of existence belongs to rare and exceptional
temperaments. He kept assuring himself that it was to be only for a
time, that when Sylvester returned with his stately niece he would crawl
out of his morbid husk and bask in their genial hospitality. Of course,
he told himself, this gloomy period of solitary self-accusation simply
must not continue. He had taken steps which no living man could retrace
in his decision in regard to Dora's fate and the fate of her child, and
there was nothing left for him to do but to try to forget his part in
the tragedy. If he now feared that he might never again have complete
peace of mind in regard to the girl's condition, it was due to his
present unwise proximity to her, and to his queer, almost ecstatic,
pride in his son. Some men are coarse enough to have a contempt for
the rights, social and otherwise, of their own children of illegitimate
birth; but Kenneth Galt, in despising many of the laws of man, gave
little Lionel the credit of being the product of a law he himself had
made, and which, therefore, was worthy of consideration. In some States
the declaration by a pair that they intend to live together constitutes
a legal marriage, and it was with that broad view that Dora, blinded
by faith in the superior knowledge of her lover, had unquestioningly
delivered herself. He shuddered as the conviction struck into him that,
under the same temptation that had swerved him from fidelity to their
pact, _she_ would have remained firm. She was scarcely more than a child
when he deserted her. What, he asked himself, had she developed into?
Dearing said she was more beautiful than ever, and as for her advance
in strength of mind and soul, there were her pictures to witness. And as
he looked at them day after day their subtle, creative depth grew upon
him. He had made a fair financial success; but what he had done, he now
told himself, was only what butchers and cobblers had accomplished. What
she was doing, in her exile from her kind, was the work of deathless
inspiration. Dearing had once aptly said that God used Evil as the
fertilizer to the soil of Good, and if so, to carry the analogy further,
Galt, in his craving for the praise of the world, and in his cowardly
shrinking from Right, was the impure soil in which the flower of Dora's
genius was being nurtured. Yes, there was no denying it. Fate was
playing a sardonic game with him. Dora, cloaked in suffering frailty,
and championed by Truth and Spirit, was pitted against him, the carping,
sourfaced apostle of man's puny material rights; she would go on, and he
would go on. What would be the goal, and which the ultimate winner? He
had argued that the grave and nothingness comprised the pot of dross
at the end of every life's rainbow; but was he right? Could that
mysterious, compelling sense of fatherhood; the thrill of boundless
ecstasy, when he held Lionel in his arms; the awful brooding over the
boy's future; the infinite rebuke of the child's fathomless eyes--could
such things be mere functions of matter?

He was in his library when these reflections were passing through his
brain, and his attention was attracted by children's voices somewhere
outside raised to a high pitch of anger. Stepping to a window, he looked
out toward the house of his neighbor, Congressman Weston. He was just in
time to see Weston's son, Grover, climb over the low paling fence, and,
with a loud and abusive threat, approach Lionel, who was shorter by a
head.

“You said I shouldn't say it again,” he cried, “but I do! She is not fit
for anybody to go with. My mother wouldn't notice her, and no other nice
lady would. People _don't_--they don't go near her!”

Galt's blood was shocked to stillness in his veins, and then, as if by
reactionary process, it began to boil. He saw the erect figure of his
son stand as if stunned for an instant, and then, like a young tiger,
Lionel sprang at the other boy, his little hands balled. Galt heard the
blows as they fell on young Weston's fat cheeks, and he chuckled and
ground his teeth in blended satisfaction and rage. He sprang through the
open window to the grass, and hurriedly skirted a clump of boxwood just
in time to see Grover Weston recovering from the unexpected onslaught
and beginning to rain blow after blow upon Lionel's white face. The
contest was close, despite the inequality in ages and sizes; but the
nameless scion of the Gaits, unconscious of his heritage of bravery, was
unconquerable. He was there to fight, justly roused as he was, to his
last breath. For one instant Grover tore himself from Lionel's bear-like
clutch, and stood glowering in sheer astonishment from his battered and
bruised face.

“You little bastard, I'll--” And he suddenly hurled his fist into
Lionel's face with all his force. It was a staggering blow, but Lionel
met it without a whimper or the loss of a breath. He sprang again at his
assailant, and, catching him around the neck with his strong left arm,
he battered the other boy's face with blow after blow.

“Hit him--that's right, hit him, Lionel!” Galt cried out, in utter
forgetfulness of his own incongruous position. “Beat his nasty face to
a pulp while you've got him! If you don't do it now, he'll down you when
he gets free. Give him his medicine, and give him a full dose. That's
the thing--trip him up!”

Without sparing an instant to look, but having recognized Galt's voice,
Lionel bent his wiry body toward accomplishing the trick advised. The
two combatants swung back and forth, still bound together by Lionel's
clutch, till finally they went down side by side. And then ensued
another struggle as to which should get on top.

“Throw your leg over!” Galt cried out. “Ah, that's a beauty! Now, beat
him till he takes it back!” Lionel needed no such advice. His little
fists moved like the spokes of a turning wheel. A shrill howl of defeat
rose from the conquered bully, and he uttered a prolonged scream of
genuine alarm. Then emerged from a side door of the Weston house no less
a personage than the Congressman himself, and he ran across the grass,
taking flower-pots and beds of roses at long leaps.

Reaching the fighters, he grasped Lionel by the collar of his blouse and
drew him off of his cowering son. And as he held him, squirming like a
cat, he turned on Galt. “Damn it, man!” he cried, in breathless fury,
“what do you mean by standing here and encouraging this brat to fight my
boy?”

“Why, I only wanted to see fair play, that's all,” Galt replied, a
dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I happened to hear your big bully of a son
dare the little one to fight him, and he brought it on by insulting
the little fellow's mother. God bless him, he didn't need my advice.
He could whip two such whelps as yours, and never half try! He hasn't a
cowardly bone in his body! He was all there!”

“Well, it seems to me, _you_ are in a pretty business!” Weston retorted,
white with rage.

“I might be even more active than I am, Weston,” Galt said, with cold
significance, “and if you are not satisfied with the part I have taken,
you only have to say the word. You know that well enough.”

The Congressman was taken aback. There was something in the unruffled
tone and meaning stare of his neighbor's eyes that perplexed and quelled
him. He now turned upon his sniffling offspring.

“You go in the house!” he said, angrily. “You are always picking at
some child under your size. I have noticed it.” Weston was a politician
before anything else, and the thought of turning against him a man who
controlled as many votes as did the president of the greatest railway in
the State was not particularly inviting.

“I didn't mean to offend you, Galt,” he said, as his boy limped away,
still mopping his eyes with his fists. “I reckon I got hot because
it was my own flesh and blood. Of course, it was natural for you to
sympathize with the smaller of the two.”

“That's the way _I_ felt about it, Weston,” Galt said, staring coldly at
the speaker. “I have nothing at all to apologize for.”

“Well, I'll see that Grover behaves himself better in future,” the
Congressman said, still with his political eye open to advantages. “Of
course, it would be natural for a child like mine to pick up remarks
floating about among older people in regard to the mother of--”

“We'll let that drop, _too_, Weston!” Galt snarled. His lip quivered
ominously as he glanced significantly at Lionel, who was listening
attentively, the blood from a bruised nose trickling down to his chin
and neck.

“All right, I understand,” the Congressman said; and he moved awkwardly
away, wondering what manner of man the frigid and reticent Galt was,
after all.

“I suppose I've got myself in a pretty mess,” Lionel remarked, ruefully,
when Weston had left him and his father together. “My mother has made me
promise time after time not to fight; but, you see, I did.”

“Yes, I see you did,” Galt responded, a lump of queer approval in his
throat.

“I couldn't help it--I really couldn't,” Lionel said, with a rueful look
at his hands, which were covered with the blood of his antagonist.
“I must be a bad boy; but oh, I couldn't let him say my beautiful
mother--my sweet mo--” He choked up. “I couldn't--I simply couldn't! She
is so sweet and good! I couldn't help it!”

“Of course not, but don't worry about it,” Galt said, sunken to depths
of shame he had never reached before. “You must try to forget it--forget
the whole thing.”

“I am afraid my mother will find out about it, and, you know, she
mustn't,” the child said, his great eyes filled with concern. “She would
ask what the boy said, and Granny says she must never be told nasty
things children say to me. Such things make her sad and keep her from
painting. She must not find out about this--this fight.”

“Well, she really need not know,” Galt said, as the heat of his shame
mantled his face and brow.

“But she _will_,” Lionel insisted, gloomily, “for she is sure to see
this blood on me. It is on my neck, and running down under my collar. Do
you suppose I could get it off without soiling my waist?”

Galt unbuttoned the broad white collar, and drew it away from the
child's neck.

“It hasn't touched it yet,” he said. “Wait a moment!” And he adroitly,
and yet with oddly quivering fingers, inserted his own handkerchief
between the collar and the trickling blood. “Now come into the house,
and I'll fix you up. Your clothes are a little rumpled, but when I have
washed the blood off no one need know about your fight.”

“Oh, that would be a _fine_ idea!” Lionel exclaimed, joyfully. He put
his little hand into his father's, and together they went into the
house. “She won't know, will she?”

“No, she need not know,” Galt said aloud; but in his thought he added:
“Lionel, you are a little gentleman. You are a living proof that blood
will tell.”

The lonely man's heart was warmed by an inward glow of pride which was
quickly succeeded by an icy breath of despair that seemed to blow over
him. This, he reflected, was only the introductory part of the vast soul
tragedy he himself had put on the stage of existence. The trials he had
encountered through young manhood were naught to those foreshadowed in
the unsuspecting and trusting face at his side.

“Here is the bath,” he said, as they reached the white-tiled room on the
second floor. “Now go in, and be careful to take off your blouse without
getting it bloody. If we are going to work this thing we must work it
right. Perhaps you'd better strip and bathe all over. It will make you
feel good anyway, after that fierce round of yours. Let me fill the
tub.”

“I think I'd better, maybe,” acquiesced Lionel. “Well, be careful,”
 Galt warned him, as he turned on the two streams of water and tested the
blending temperature.

“I really can't unbutton this collar behind,” Lionel said, with a touch
of manly shame over the confession. “My mother always does it. She has
never let me learn. I am big enough, gracious knows!”

“Wait, let me undress you!” the father said, as he hastily dried his
hands.

“I wish you would, if you'll be so kind,” Lionel said, in a tone of
reliance, which somehow reached an hitherto untouched fount of feeling
in the breast of his companion.

As the child stood before him, Galt, with throbbing pulse and reverent
fingers, found himself doing the duties of a mother to his offspring.
The flowing necktie and collar were removed; next the blouse and
underbody. Then a vision of inexplicable and awe-inspiring beauty
greeted the senses of the beholder, as the symetrical form, a veritable
poem in flesh and blood, stood bared to his sight. He laid the still
unsoiled garments on a chair, and lifted the boy in his arms to put him
into the water. The warm, smooth cheek touched his own; a tingling throb
of paternity--of starving, yearning fatherhood--shot through him as he
held the boy across his arms like a baby and lowered him slowly to the
water.

“Look out, I'll duck you!” he said, jestingly, and the boy replied with
a ringing laugh which held no hint of fear.

In the water the child lay with his face smilingly upturned.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed, “it feels good. This tub is big enough to swim
in--a little bit, anyway. Will you show me how to swim some day?”

“Yes, my son--yes, Lionel, some day, perhaps.”

“In _deep_ water--in a really-really stream that fish swim in?”

“Yes, Lionel.”

“Oh, that would be so nice! Couldn't we catch fish, too?”

“I think so--yes, of course, some day, perhaps.”

But would those delights, conceived for the first time to-day, ever be
realized? Galt asked himself, as keen pangs from some unknown source
darted through him. Sick unto death of the vapid adulation of narrow men
and women, would he ever experience the transcendental joy of intimate
and daily companionship with this human wonder, such as other fathers
enjoyed with their sons?

No, the question was already answered. The bliss--the queer,
Heaven-tending bliss of the present moment--was merely stolen. Was it
likely that any son at all would ever come to him--a son which he could
father in the broadest, holiest sense? No; and he started and fell to
quivering superstitiously. Even if he were married and another son was
given to him in lawful wedlock, could he dare--in the face of Infinite
Justice--dare to put _that_ child forward, acknowledge _that_ child as
his own, while _deserting, ignoring, denying_ Lionel?

“Great God!” his quaking soul cried out in sheer anguish. “Lionel,
my son; my boy, made in the image of her and me, he who trusts and so
innocently loves me! And yet it must be. Fate has ordained it. I have
his faith and love now, but later he may turn on me like an avenging
angel.”

“My mother soaps me all over before I get out. Must I do it?” the child
asked, as his merry, haunting eyes smiled up through their long, wet
lashes.

“It won't be necessary this time,” Galt said. “The blood is entirely
washed off. Get out and let me dry you with this big towel.”

“Ugh! it is cold.” The boy shuddered, as he stood out on the rug and
allowed himself to be enveloped from head to foot in the big Turkish
towel. He was soon dry, and as he stood, his soft skin flushed as
delicately pink as the inside of a sea-shell, Galt, making many an
awkward mistake, proceeded to dress him.

“Now let me brush your hair; at least, I know how to do that, young
man,” the father said, “but I think it ought to be wet more.”

“Oh no; it is too wet now!” the child declared, as he shook his locks,
the ends of which had been under water. “My mother combs it dry.”

“There, how will that do, Miss Particular?” Galt asked as he led the
child to a large mirror.

“I don't know; it looks funny, somehow”--Lionel made a grimace at his
image in the glass--“but it will have to do. I'd better hurry home. They
might miss me, and find out about the fight. I like you for that.”

“For what?” Galt followed him to the door, and as they started across
the grass toward the cottage he felt Lionel timidly reaching out for his
hand. He had evidently not heard Galt's half-whispered question.

“What was it you said you liked me for?” his father repeated, taking the
little hand and holding it tenderly.

“Oh, because you wanted me to whip him. He's rich and has everything,
and Granny says his father is a great man. I suppose if you liked Grover
the best you would have told _him_ how to fight.”

“You are smaller than he,” Galt said, lamely.

“Then it _wasn't_ because you like me?” Galt felt the little hand
stiffen, as if some impulse of dormant confidence in the tiny palm had
forsaken it.

“Yes, it was because I like you,” Galt said, warmly, and, obeying a
desire he refused to combat, he raised the boy in his arms and held him
tight against his breast. “If he had hurt you, Lionel, I don't know what
I should have done.”

“Then I'm glad I made him bellow,” the boy said, with a little laugh, as
he got down to the ground. “Something had to be done, you know, after he
said that about my mother.”

Yes, something had to be done, Kenneth Galt told his tortured inner
self, as he stood and watched the boy trip lightly homeward--some one
had to fight and struggle and smart as a consequence of the wrong that
had been done, and the duty had fallen on a little child. Through the
slow, weary years of perhaps a long life the fight just beginning would
go on, and the chief cause of it must shirk it all. Galt groaned,
and clinched his hands, and turned back to his desolate home. He had
contended that there was no such thing as spirit, and yet this remorse
raging like a tempest within him certainly had naught to do with matter.
He had argued that man, born of the flesh, could gratify all animal
desires and suffer no ill effects except those excited by physical fear;
but there was nothing to fear in this case. Dora's lips were sealed;
no one else knew the truth, or ever would know, and yet the very skies
above seemed turning to adamant and closing in around him.




CHAPTER XII

|DORA BARRY sat at her easel absorbed in the painting of a picture,
though the afternoon light was fading from her canvas in a way that made
the work difficult, when her mother came to the door and glanced in.

“I have kept a lookout for fully an hour,” she announced, “but I haven't
once seen Lionel. I am getting old and silly, I suppose, but I can't
keep from worrying.”

Dora got up quickly, her face full of alarm, and the two went to the
window of the dining-room and stood looking out for a moment.

“There! Isn't that--I see him!” Mrs. Barry cried out in relief. “Why,
he is with Kenneth Galt! He has him in his arms. There!--don't you
see?--just beyond the row of cedars. Thank Heaven! we had our scare for
nothing.”

But Dora, wide-eyed and astonished, was silent; her face was very grave.
Her mother ran eagerly to the door to meet the child, but Dora remained
as if rooted to the spot, her gaze fixed on the receding form of Galt.

“Why did he have him?” she whispered to herself. “What can it mean? He
was treating him kindly, and gently, too. I could see it in his face. It
was glowing as it used to glow when he was true to himself and to me. It
looked like Lionel's arm was round his neck. What can it mean?”

When the child had come in, Dora sat down and drew him into her lap
and held him fondly to her breast. “Mother was frightened,” she said,
cooingly, her lips on his brow. “She missed her little boy, and was
afraid something had happened to him.”

“Oh, I'm all right, mother,” Lionel said. “I can take care of myself;
you must never be afraid.”

“But how did you happen to be with Mr. Galt?” Mrs. Barry asked. “I
didn't know you knew him.”

“Why, why--” but Lionel went no further. He had never lied, and the
plan his sense of honor had laid for him was difficult to execute. His
grandmother repeated her question in more positive tones, but, with eyes
downcast, he refused to answer.

“Let him alone, mother,” Dora said, her face rigid. “It doesn't make any
difference.”

“It doesn't, eh?” the old woman exclaimed, in surprise. “Well, I think
you both are acting queerly. There is no reason why Lionel should not
tell us when and how he met Mr. Galt. I can see by his face that he is
keeping something back.”

But Dora was holding the child's head against her throbbing breast, and
she threw an almost commanding glance at her mother.

“Let him alone now,” she said, firmly, and with such a sharp tone of
finality that her mother stared at her in surprise and left the room.

That evening Dora prepared the child for bed. As she undressed him she
scanned each piece of his clothing most carefully. She found a green
smudge made from strong pressure against the turf in a most unexpected
place, high up on the child's back; she discovered the imprint of soiled
fingers on the broad white collar, and remarked the inconsistency of
this with Lionel's immaculately clean hands; the necktie had been loose
and awkwardly retied; and, most conspicuous of all, was the uncouth way
the golden hair was dressed. She noted all these things without comment;
but when the white bed-covers were turned down, and Lionel had said his
prayers and crawled in, Dora lowered the lamp and reclined beside him.
Outwardly she was calm. To the child's observation, no new thing had
happened in her even life, and yet her whole being was aflame, her soul
panting in suspense.

“Mother's little boy never has told her a story in all his life,” she
began, as soothingly as if she were crooning him to sleep. “Isn't that
nice? _Some_ little boys tell fibs to their mothers, but _my_ boy has
always told the truth, and mother is so glad.”

Lionel lay still. She kissed him softly and waited. At any other time
his little arms and lips would have responded, and she marked well the
change to-night. Lionel did not move or speak, but simply lay with his
old-young gaze gravely fixed on the ceiling where the lamp-chimney had
focussed a ring of light.

“You would tell _your_ mother everything that ever happened to you,
wouldn't you, darling?” she said, shyly pressing her cheek against his.
She felt him nod impulsively, but second thought seemed to seal his
lips. His was a tender age at which to begin the defence of a wronged
parent by pretext and concealment, but the burden was on his shoulders,
and little Lionel was manfully doing his best.

“There are two kinds of stories, and they are both bad,” Dora went on,
desperate over the delay of the divulgence which she thought could mean
so little to the child and yet so very much to her. “It is bad to tell
a lie, and it is bad to keep back anything at all from your mother,
because she is more to you than all the rest of the world. She is your
_mother_; she works for you; she loves you; she would die for you; and
if anybody--no matter who it is--were to want you to keep a secret from
her, it would be wrong--very, very wrong. It would make your mother very
unhappy; it would make her cry long after you were asleep to know that
her little son was keeping anything from her.”

She felt the little white-robed figure quiver. He raised himself on his
elbow and slowly sat up; his young face, in the dim light, was full of
struggle.

“Is that so, mother?” he asked.

“Yes, darling,” she answered. “There can be no secrets at all between a
mother and her boy. She must tell _him_ everything, and he must not
keep a thing back from _her_. How did you happen to meet--Mr. Galt
this afternoon?”

“_That's_ what you want to know?”

“Yes, dear--that's all. Surely, there can be no reason why your own
dear mother should not know a little thing like that. Surely he--Mr.
Galt--couldn't have told you not to tell me?”

The child was still for a moment. He folded his little arms over his
knee, clinched his hands, and sat avoiding her insistent eyes.

“Wait!” he said, finally. “I want to go to Granny.”

“You want to go to Granny, and leave your mother?” she asked, deeply
perplexed. .

“Just a minute,” he said, as he crawled over her and got down on the
floor. “I'll be back. I'll be right back, mother, dear.”

“It is something you will tell her, but can't tell me!” Dora cried out,
in half-assumed reproach. “Why, _Lionel?_”

“I'll be back,” he said, evasively. “There is no hurry.” And she heard
the patter of his bare feet along the corridor to his grandmother's
room.

Mrs. Barry always retired early, and she was now in her bed, but very
wide awake. Something in the incident had set her to thinking on new
lines. “Can it be? Can it be?” she kept asking herself, in great
excitement. “Why didn't I think of it?”

“Granny!” she heard Lionel call out from the dark, doorway.

“Yes, dear, what is it?” she asked.

“I want to come to your bed a minute--just a minute.”

“All right, come on, darling; don't stumble over anything.”

She heard him groping through the dark, and then felt his little hands
on her wrinkled face.

“Granny,” he said, a tremor in his voice, “you told me if anybody ever
said anything mean about my mother, that I must not let her know about
it--never at all.”

“Yes, darling, that would be a nice, brave little man, for you wouldn't
want to make her sad, would you?”

“Well, I had a terrible fight with Grover Weston over in Mr. Galt's
yard. Grover said a nasty, mean thing about her. You told me not to let
her know anything like that, and so did Mr. Galt, but mamma is begging
me so hard.”

“Oh!” The old woman lifted the boy over her into the bed, and put her
arms about him tenderly. “You can tell Granny about it, and then if she
thinks best perhaps you may tell your mother.”

He complied, and the wondering old woman, as she lay with the child
in her arms, heard the whole beautiful story in every detail, even to
Galt's display of affection, and as she listened cold tears welled up in
her old eyes and trickled down the furrows of her cheeks to her pillow.
When it was over, she led the child back to his mother.

“Don't ask him any more about it. Wait,” she said, in an undertone, and
with a significant gesture in the direction of her room. “Don't spoil a
beautiful thing. God bless him! he is right--young as he is, he is
right! The very angels of heaven are closing his sweet lips to-night.
Don't bother him.”

When Lionel was asleep Dora anxiously crept into her mother's room. A
lamp was now burning on a table, but Dora blew it out, and went and sat
on the edge of her mother's bed.

“I know your secret now,” Mrs. Barry faltered, with a suppressed sob in
her pillow. “All these years I have wondered over your great trouble,
and why you were not more open with me about it, but Lionel has made it
clear. I understand now.”

“Did Kenneth Galt tell my child that--” Dora cried out, in a rasping
undertone. “Did he dare to--”

“No, no, not that!” the old woman corrected. “He simply betrayed himself
in his conduct toward the boy. Listen! Lionel need never suspect
that you know what he did, but you must be told the truth. It is too
beautiful for you to miss.”

She told the whole story as it had come from the child's lips, together
with other things she had culled as to happenings between him and his
father on former occasions.

“Let them both alone,” she added, fervently, as she concluded. “The
little fellow, nameless and cast out as he is, has of himself won the
love God gave him the right to. It is his. Let him keep it, and I
pray Heaven that it may drag that haughty spirit down into the mire of
repentance. I've thought it all over. I remember the date well. I know
now why he deserted you; he couldn't face public exposure just at that
particular time. His temptation was great, and he fell. I believe he
loved you _then_, and that he does _yet_.”

“_Does yet!_” Dora sneered, and she put a protesting hand out to
her mother's as it lay on the coverlet. “Don't say that. He couldn't
now--after all this time.”

“But he _does_, he does--a thousand times more than he did, too,” the
old woman insisted. “He hasn't married; he is leading a lonely,
morbid life. He-is longing for you--though he may still dread public
opinion--and is adoring the child. He may resist longer, but in the end
he will succumb and crawl to your feet and beg for forgiveness. Watch my
prophecy. He'll do it!--he'll do it!”

“You don't know, mother,” Dora sighed, and she stood up and moved away
in the darkness. “You don't know.”

Dora went back to her room and stood looking down at her sleeping child.
Suddenly her eyes filled and her breast heaved high.

“Mother's little champion!” she cried, and she knelt down by the bed,
covered her face, and wept.




CHAPTER XIII

|THE July sun beat fiercely on the tin slate roofs of the houses forming
square of Stafford. It was noon, business was at a standstill. The
clerks and typewriters in Walton's bank yawning and fanning themselves
heat. The only occupied individual in the building was the banker
himself, who was crouched over his desk in his little office making
calculations on a pad of paper with a pencil. Toby Lassiter was at
the window of the receiving-teller when an old man came in at the
folding-screen door and asked if he might see Mr. Walton personally. It
was Stephen Whipple, and he carried a travelling-bag in his hand; he was
covered with dust, and marked in the creases of his face by drifts of
fine cinders.

“I'll see, sir, if you'll wait a minute,” Toby answered, with his best
window-manners; then he went to his employer, and returned to pilot the
caller back to the office.

“Stranded on a trip and wants a check cashed without identification,”
 was Toby's mental comment as he led the way. “Well, he's come to the
wrong man, as he will mighty soon find out.”

Whipple gave a searching glance at the man who was rising from the desk
with impatiently lifted brows. He put his bag down at his feet, but
failed to extend his hand, as Walton evidently expected him to do.

“Take a seat, sir, take a seat,” and the banker motioned to a chair near
the desk.

“Thanks.” The Westerner kicked his bag along toward the chair, and
sat down rather clumsily. He took out an enormous handkerchief, also
considerably begrimed, and mopped his perspiring face.

“You've got a hot town, sir,” Whipple said, introductively.

“Some say so, and some say not,” Walton replied, succinctly. “Well,
sir,” he continued, “is there anything I can do for you? The reason I
make so bold as to ask is because my clerk said you wanted to see me
_personally_.”

“Yes, it is of a sort of personal nature; at least, I reckon, you might
call it that,” and the merchant reached down and caught the handle of
his bag for no obvious reason than that he wanted to move it to a point
equidistant between his two splaying feet. Then he looked up, and there
was a decided flush of embarrassment in his face, which extended down
to the soiled collar on his pudgy neck. The banker, ever quick at
the reading of countenances, came to the conclusion that some sort of
unbusiness-like request in regard to needed funds was forthcoming, and
he was already framing his refusal.

“Well, sir--well, sir?” he said.

“The truth of the matter is that it is of _such_ a personal nature that
it is purty hard to know how to get started at it,” Whipple finally got
out. “Of course, I am a stranger to you, and I've come, too, without any
letters of introduction or papers of identification, and--is there any
danger of anybody listening?”

“None whatever--none on earth!” Walton sniffed, impatiently. “You can
talk at the top of your voice if you want to; the walls are thick;
besides, I don't have secrets, and I don't know as I am in the market
for any.”

“No, of course not, Mr. Walton.” The flush in the visitor's face was
dying out and giving place to an expression of rather anxious rigidity.
“Well, I am glad we won't be overheard, at any rate, for I want to talk
to you in behalf of your son.”

“Oh, that's it, huh? I see! I see!” And Walton swept the form before
him with eyes in which the lights of anger were slowly but positively
kindling. “It is about him, is it? Well, wait till I send this letter to
the mail. I'll be back, sir. I'll be back.”

“All right, Mr. Walton. There's no hurry.”

With the letter in his hand the banker rose as if from the sheer heat of
the growing anger within him and went out. Standing in the door of
the main counting-room he caught Lassiter's eye and signalled him to
approach. Giving him the letter, Walton said: “Mail that, and then come
back and keep a peeled eye on that fat chap at my desk. Do you remember
what I said when that three thousand dollars came from nowhere in
particular by express awhile back, along with the mealy-mouthed yarn
from Fred about changing his ways, and all that gush?”

“Yes, sir, I think so,” answered the startled Toby. “You said you
thought--”

“That it was a deep-laid plan amongst him and some other sharpers to
hoodwink me; and I told you, Toby, that I'd be willing to bet money that
it wouldn't be many days before somebody would hike along this way to
talk it over--some go-between, you understand. Well, he's in there now,
setting humped over his satchel like a spider watching a fly. He thinks
I'm the fly. I want to know what he's got to say. I want to see his
hand, you know, and I come out here to take a whiff of air and steady
myself so I wouldn't blurt out what I thought too quick and drive him
away. Keep your eye on him after he leaves me, Toby, and see which way
he goes. He looks to me like some shyster lawyer who has taken up the
matter and thinks he is smart enough to fool me. Somebody has invested
three thousand in this scheme, and the deal is to be clinched this
morning. Huh! I'll sorter tote 'im along, Toby, and see if I can get
onto his game,” and, with a sly and yet nervous wink, Walton turned
away.

“Yes, sir; all right now, sir,” he said, breezily, as he returned to
his desk and lowered himself into his chair. “We've got this room all to
ourselves, and are as snug as a bug in a rug, as the fellow said. Now,
fire ahead.”

“Of course, it must be a sort o' disagreeable subject for you to talk
about,” Whipple began, awkwardly, “and I'll admit to you, Mr. Walton,
that I thought over it a powerful long time before I finally made up my
mind to come.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Walton said, pulling his whiskers with his long
hand--“of course, you naturally would.”

“Especially as Fred had no idea of what I had in view,” the Westerner
said. “You see, I had to act wholly on my own responsibility.”

“Yes, I see--I see, sir.” It was only by an effort that Walton kept a
sarcastic ring of irritation out of his voice, and he stroked into
the roots of his beard a smile of contempt at such puerile attempts to
deceive.

“And that's what makes the whole thing so hard on me,” the merchant
went on. “You see, I took it on myself to act for Fred in, I might say,
actual opposition to his wishes and judgment.”

Whipple then proceeded to give a full and accurate account of his first
introduction to Fred and all that had happened to him since, withholding
only his own name and the name of the town he was from. And while he
talked, pausing to wipe his wet brow at times, or to clear his shaky
voice, the banker watched him as a cat might a mouse. He held a pencil
in his long, steady fingers, and kept the point of it on a pad of paper,
raising his shrewd glance and lowering it as suited his fancy. Had he
been an artist, old Simon might have sketched what to his understanding
was the most subtly designing face he had ever seen. Here was a man, he
told himself, who resorted even to the emotional methods of a ranting
revivalist to gain his nefarious aims. It was a wonderful conception,
but it wofully missed its mark, for it was being applied to a man who
had no emotions. It was being applied to a man, too, who was as eagerly
on the lookout for new tricks as a biologist for a new species of
insect. What a weakling the fellow was, for a man of that age, and what
fun it would be to suddenly undeceive him--let him know the manner of
man he was attempting, in such a shallow way, to bunco!

“Yes, I decided not to wait longer,” Whipple concluded, with a sigh. “I
didn't intend to act till the remaining three thousand was paid; but, as
I say, I--”

“It is only two, according to my calculations.” Walton thought he had
tripped him up, and smiled knowingly.

“Fred said he felt that another thousand, at least, was due as interest
at the rate you usually get.”

“Oh, I see; he's certainly liberal.” Walton smiled at his joke, and bent
his head over his pad to hide it.

“As I say,” the merchant resumed, “I intended to wait till the debt was
entirely paid, but things took a sudden turn that I didn't expect. I
offered to advance the money to Fred, but he wouldn't take it.”

“Oh, he wouldn't take it!” Walton said, with a hurried regret that Toby
was not present to enjoy the feast of stupidity being spread before
him. “I see; he didn't want it. That's a little bit like him.” Simon's
amusement showed itself now in his voice rather than in the visage which
he managed to keep unruffled. “But you say things had sorter taken a
twist around?”

“Yes; he was brave enough, and bearing up mighty well till me and him
took a trip, as much for pleasure as anything else, to New York, and we
passed through this very town, and--”

“So you passed through here?” Walton interrupted, and then to himself
he added: “I knew it. I knew Fred was hanging about Atlanta and sending
money to that woman. Huh, his fat agent is certainly giving the snap
away!”

“Yes, we passed through here one night, and, as our train was delayed
below town by a wreck ahead of us, Fred got out and walked around. He
was gone till after midnight, and when he came back to the Pullman where
I was I noticed that he was powerfully upset, and begun to suspect that
maybe this was his old home. He started to tell me about it then, but
I stopped him, and it was not till we had been to New York and got back
home that he finally told me your name and where you lived. As I said,
he has not been the same since then, and, to be honest with you, Mr.
Walton, I don't know of anything in the world that will restore his
peace of mind, except--”

“Except having me send for him,” Simon suddenly let himself go, “and
kill the fatted bull-yearling, and put a dinky-dinky cap on his brow,
and give him a key to the vault, and start in, hit or miss, exactly
where me and him left off!”

“You are hard on him, Mr. Walton,” Whipple gasped, fairly staggered by
the unexpected retort--“much harder, I must say, than I had hoped
to find you. He declared that you wasn't the sort that would forgive
easily, but, having been a father once myself, I didn't believe you
would, after hearing about your boy's life since he left you, refuse
to--”

“See here!” Walton interrupted, laying down his pencil and staring at
the visitor from eyes which fairly snapped with blended triumph and
rage, “you've held the floor long enough; now step aside and let me
take it. I don't know as I ever had the luck to run across just such
a specimen as you are. You've evidently had very little to do with
_business_ men. You seem to have as little common sense as a mountain
school-teacher or a young preacher on his first circuit. Here you come
with a long, roundabout, hatched-up tale that is so thin and full of
holes that a body could throw a straw hat through it. I'd have you
understand that this here house is a _bank_. My own granddaddy would
have to be identified, if he was alive, before he could cash a check
at that front window, and yet here you come--pitapat, pitapat, as
unconcerned as a house-cat looking for a place to lie down--back into
my private quarters, and propose something that may, or may not, involve
every dollar I own on the top-side of the earth. You do all that without
even taking the trouble to hint at who you are or where you hail from,
and--”

“I'm not afraid to give you my name!” the merchant gasped, taken
wholly off his guard by the withering attack. “It is Stephen Whipple,
sir--W-h-i-double p-l-e, Whipple!” he spelled, and he leaned forward
and pointed a stiff finger at Walton's pad. “Write it down. It might get
away from you.”

“Are you plumb sure it ain't _Jenkins?_” the banker grinned,
significantly.

“No; nor Jones, nor Smith, nor Brown. It's Whipple--Stephen Whipple. Put
it down on your paper. Huh, I'm not ashamed of it!”

“All right, there you are, in big letters.” Walton laughed, still
victoriously, as he pencilled the name on the pad. “Now, one other
formality, please--your postoffice address?”

“My post-office--” Whipple hesitated. His astounded gaze went down; he
was all of a quiver, even to his bushy eyebrows.

“Why, it's this way--this way--” he stammered, and, raising his helpless
eyes to the banker's taunting ones, he came to a dead halt.

“I think it _must_ be,” Walton chuckled. “In fact, it mighty nigh always
is that way when a feller gits in a corner. But surely, out of all the
places in the United States, you could think of _some_ town, railroad
station, or cross-roads store. A word as uncommon as _Whipple_ would be
hard for _me_ to think of in a pinch. It seemed to come handy to you.
Maybe you've used it before, or had some dead friend by that name.”

“You are not fair, sir!” The merchant was becoming exasperated by the
human riddle before him. “I told you I had come against your son's
knowledge or wish. He has kept his whereabouts from you up to now, and I
have no moral right to let it out. I reckon he is afraid you will hound
him down before he has a chance to pay back what he owes you. The Lord
knows, he has plenty of reason for being cautious, for, if I am any
judge, you are as hard and unforgiving as a stone wall.”

“I haven't seen any reason to forgive him, or bother one way or another
about it,” old Simon hurled into the flushed face before him. “I don't
see any difference between the way me and him stand now and six years
ago. I reckon he thinks I'm on my last legs, and that the three thousand
he got by some hook or crook--or _from_ some crook--would be well
invested as a gum-stickum plaster to put over my eyes before I am
put under ground. After he had staked that much, he thought some
oily-tongued friend of his might come and reconnoitre and report
favorable. Well, you've reconnoitred, Mr.--Mr. Whipstock, and you can
go back to Atlanta and tell him it is no go. You may tell him I am much
obliged to you all--whoever your gang is--for the three thousand on
account. I may be making a mistake now by shooting off my mouth so
quick, for if I had worked my cards right I might have secured another
payment by dropping a tear or two; but it is worth something to say what
I've said in the way I've said it.”

“So you don't believe what I have told you?” Whipple gasped, in
astonishment.

“Not a blessed word--not a syllable,” Walton laughed, and he threw
himself back in his chair in sheer enjoyment of his visitor's
discomfiture.

“You don't believe he is in my employment--you don't believe he earned
the money by faithful work which he sent you--you don't believe--”
 Whipple paused, at the end of his resources.

“No, I don't believe even _that_,” Walton jested. “But I'll tell you one
thing, and I mean it. I don't intend to have you coming around bothering
me with this matter any more at all. It is strictly my affair, anyway.
That boy was a bad egg when he was here, and from the looks of you and
your game I can't see that he has improved a dang bit. I don't say I'd
arrest him, neither; half the debt has been paid, if it _was_ paid for a
sneaking reason, and he can rove where he will. He is a good riddance. I
used to bother about what might become of him, but I don't now.”

“Say, look me in the eye!” Whipple suddenly demanded, and with a
fierceness that almost sent a shock of surprise through the banker.
“You've not believed what I have told you, it seems, because you thought
I was after your dirty money. Hard cash is the only thing you _can_
believe in, I see, and so I am going to use some of it to convince you.
You have no faith in your son--the only child God gave you, and who is
now honoring your gray hairs as they don't deserve to be honored, but,
thank Heaven! I believe in him from head to foot. Before I left Atlanta,
this morning, I prepared myself for some sort of emergency like this.”

Whipple took out a long envelope and threw it on the desk under the
banker's eyes. “That contains three thousand dollars--six bills of five
hundred each. Take them! Your boy's debt is paid in full. I may have
spoiled his chances with _you_ by coming here against his knowledge, but
he shall not lose by it. If I live to get back home I shall provide for
him in my will. I may look like a faker, but I flatter myself--from all
I have heard of you--that I am worth more to-day in the financial world
than you could be if you could live another twenty-five years. Good-day,
sir.”




CHAPTER XIV

|TAKING up his satchel, the merchant strode heavily from the room.
Doubting if he had heard aright, Walton tore open the envelope and
took out the bills. He spread them on the desk; he fumbled them with
quivering fingers; he took out a big magnifying glass and essayed to
examine them one by one, but his excitement and perturbation rendered
it impossible. Dropping his hand on his call-bell, he gave a sharp ring,
and Toby Lassiter came in quickly. Brushing the money toward his clerk,
Walton said:

“See if they are counterfeit. By gum!”

The clerk examined them with the glass while Walton watched him with
staring eyes.

“They seem to me to be all right, Mr. Walton,” Toby said, wonderingly,
as he laid the bills down.

“I reckon they are--my Lord, I reckon they are!” the banker said, in his
throat. “Credit it on my private account, Toby. Credit me with three--my
Lord, I didn't think--I had no idea that the dang fellow--no, I'll
attend to the money. Toby, you run out and see where he goes. He may
make for a hotel, or he may--but hurry!”

Twenty minutes later Toby came back and found Walton still at his desk,
the money before him; his face had taken on an ashen tinge, the eye he
raised had a lacklustre expression.

“Well?” he said, eagerly.

“I missed him for the first few minutes,” the clerk said. “He was on the
way to the train. I took the belt-line down. He was on the car ahead. I
was just in time to see him board the Atlanta special.”

“So he's gone?”

“Yes, he's gone, Mr. Walton.”

The old man stared helplessly for a minute into the puzzled face of his
clerk, and then he drew the pad to him on which he had written the name
of his caller.

“Me 'n' him had a tiff,” he said. “We had a sort o' tiff--I reckon you
might call it that--after he had told me a long cock-and-bull tale about
Fred reforming, and I laughed at him. I reckon I was rough. Then he
threw this money at me all in a chunk to settle off the boy's account,
and said it might talk plainer than _he_ had. Toby, it don't look
_exactly_ like a fake. Fakes ain't worked that way. You see, it was all
up between me and him, and there wasn't a thing he could gain by it, and
yet he yanked out this wad and threw it at me like so much waste paper.
He refused to say where he lives, but here's his name. Fred wrote that
the fellow he was with was a merchant, and a big one at that. I wonder
if there is any way of finding out just who and what the dang fool is?”

“You say you didn't get his address?” Toby inquired, as he helplessly
stroked his colorless face and sparse mustache.

“No.” The banker uttered something like a moan of self-disgust. “He
intimated that he kept it back to keep me from running the boy down.
I reckon I made a big fool of myself in the presence of a man that may
have unlimited capital for all I know. That's where my judgment slipped
a cog for once, I reckon. I set in to believe he was out after my money,
and went a little mite over the limit. He didn't _look_ rich, covered
with dust like he was, but he _may_ be--he may be all Fred has claimed.
Can you think of any way, Toby, to get a report on him?”

“I might take Bradstreet's by States,” the clerk suggested, “and run
through all the towns and cities far and near.”

“It would take a month to go through that big book,” Walton said,
dejectedly, “and I want to know to-day, right off. If--if I've made
a break as big as that, and--and gone and insulted a man who has
befriended my boy, and one who, in fact, says he intends to provide for
him liberally, why, it would be nothing but good business to make what
amend lies in my power. If the boy really _has_ built himself up, and
made good connections, and the like, why, you see, Toby, I ought not to
be the _first_--the very _first_--to--to damage his interests. What I
said, in my rough way, you see, might have a tendency to sort o' make
this Whipple--if he is all right--think twice before helping out the son
of a man who rode as high a horse as I was astride of just now. I must
have a report on him, I tell you.”

“I'll go through the book, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said. “It wouldn't
take so awful long. I would only have to run through the W's, you know,
and needn't look in the _little_ places. If he is in the wholesale line,
he must be in a town of over ten thousand.”

“That's a fact, that's a fact,” Walton agreed. “I reckon he didn't think
of that when he gave me his name, though I acknowledge I kinder gouged
it out of him when he was good and hot. Go bring the book here and set
at my desk. I'll not let the rest bother you. My Lord! my Lord! What a
mess!”

All that afternoon the clerk bent over the huge volume with its
closely printed columns on very thin paper. The closing hour came. The
typewriters and clerks went home and the front door was shut, but still
Toby read, patiently running the point of his pencil down column after
column. Night came on, and less than half of the book still remained to
be scanned.

“Go home to supper and come back,” Walton said, a strange light burning
in his shrewd eyes. “I'll meet you here. I want this thing settled. I
don't believe I could sleep with the doubt on my mind as to whether that
man was fooling me or not. It is a big thing--a powerful big thing. If
Fred has made himself of enough importance to have a man like that come
a long distance in his behalf, why, you see, I ought to know about it,
that's all--I ought to know about it.”

“Yes, you ought to know, Mr. Walton,” Lassiter said, as he laid a
blotter between the pages and reached for his hat. They went out
together and walked side by side to the corner, where the clerk had to
turn off.

“You sort o' believed in Fred all along, Toby,” the banker said,
tentatively--“that is, you used to talk him up to some extent.”

“I thought he was in earnest about what he wrote in that last good-bye
letter, Mr. Walton. It made a deep impression on me. It sounded
perfectly straight. And awhile back, when his _other_ letter came,
bringing all that cash, I was more sure than ever. Even when you said
you believed it was a trick, somehow I couldn't exactly look at it that
way.”

“Well, see if you can locate this Whipple,” Walton said, and, turning
off, he trudged heavily homeward through the gathering shadows.

He was on his way back to the bank about nine o'clock when he saw Toby
coming toward him. The clerk was walking rapidly, swinging his long arms
to and fro like pendulums.

“Well, well?” Walton exclaimed, as they met face to face on the sidewalk
in the flare of a gas-light.

“I have found him!” Toby chuckled. “There is no mistake. Stephen Whipple
is a whopping big wholesale grocer at Gate City, Oklahoma. He's rated at
over a million, with credit at the top notch.”

“You don't say!” A negro laborer with a bag of flour on his shoulder was
passing close by, and Walton laid his hand warmingly on the arm of his
clerk and drew him slowly along.

“You don't say!” he repeated, under his breath, as he clutched Toby's
thin arm, “and I talked to him like a dog--like a hound-dog. I did that,
when he could buy and sell me over and over. I sneered at him, and just
as good as called him a thief, when he was right then befriending the
son I'd cast off. Say, Toby, you've got a sight more sense than I have;
what do you think I ought to do about it?”

“I really don't know, Mr. Walton,” Toby replied, awkwardly. “Maybe it
would be a good idea for you to go out there. From the way Fred wrote,
it stands to reason he'd be glad to see you, anyway, and--”

“I couldn't do that, Toby,” Walton said, under his breath. “After the
stand I took and have held all these years, I couldn't go running after
him. I could do _some_ things, but I couldn't do that. Besides, you
see, Whipple would know we'd looked up his standing, and think I'd come
because he was rich. But, say, I have an idea, Toby. Don't you think you
could get on the train and go out there and take a look around?”

“Why, yes, if you advise it, Mr. Walton.”

“And you could go and hang about, in a quiet, know-nothing way, without
letting Fred see you, I reckon?”

“Easy enough, Mr. Walton, in a bustling place like that.”

“Well, then, I'll tell you what you do. Pack your grip to-night,
and take the eight-thirty train in the morning. Put up at some
out-of-the-way hotel, and lie low and pick up what information you can.
Don't go about Whipple's place of business; if Fred saw you, it would
spoil it all. I'll defray your expenses. You deserve a trip, anyway.
Of course, even if the boy has made such a good, comfortable nest for
himself out there, that woman business is still hanging over him, and he
wouldn't feel exactly like facing Stafford folks right now. But I reckon
he's been doing an honest man's part by her along with his rise. He's
been providing for her and the child pretty well, I'll be bound. And in
case he _does_ come back, even on a visit, we'll help him smooth over
the matter as far as is in our power. He ain't the first young chap
that's let his blood get the upper hand. Some of the great men of
history have made like slips along at the start. Yes, we'll try to
manage that some way. We might even get her and her mother to move
off somewhere. I don't know--I only say it _might_ be done. Folks in
a plight of that sort will do most anything when they are paid, and it
looks like Fred won't go a-begging. Now, good-bye, Toby. You've got a
job of detective work before you, but I believe you'll be smart enough
to put it through.”

“I'll do my best, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said. “Goodbye.”




CHAPTER XV

|IT was a delightfully cool and crisp morning for midsummer, and Doctor
Dearing was on the lawn between his house and Galt's, when he noticed
that the railroad president had come out into his own grounds for a
smoke. The two exchanged greetings through cordial signals, and Galt
crossed over and joined his friend.

“What news from New York?” he asked, as he flicked the ashes from his
cigar.

“They will be here to-morrow,” Dearing replied. “Madge has been homesick
for fully two weeks; but Uncle Tom made her stay longer, hoping that
she would become more interested in what was going on. They have had all
sorts of attentions paid them, but he writes me that he has never been
worried so much in his life over her. He says she enjoyed the first two
weeks thoroughly, but lately she has been actually depressed. He tried
everything imaginable, but home was what she wanted and would have.”

“And so they are coming?” Galt said, reflectively.

“Yes, they are on the way now. After all, what better could one ask for
than a snug retreat like this in hot weather? Madge is fond of home.
She doesn't care for giddy social things among a lot of money-spending
Yankees, and I admire her taste.”

“Yes, so do I,” Galt answered, and he smoked steadily, his eyes bent on
the ground. .

“I have an unpleasant job on hand,” Dearing remarked. “I have delayed
it several times, but I have decided to do it to-day and have it over
with.”

“What is it?” Galt asked.

“It is a slight operation I have to perform on little Lionel.”

“Operation? Lionel?” Galt started, and then checked himself and stared
blankly. “I didn't know there was anything at all wrong with him.”

“Oh, it is only a slight and common thing with children,” Dearing
explained. “Enlarged tonsils and adenoidal growth which must be removed.
Outwardly the little chap is as sound as a dollar, and, so far, his
wonderful strength has fought the thing off; but for a child so nervous
as he is, and high strung and imaginative, it might, later on affect him
seriously. Neglected cases have brought on permanent deafness and lung
trouble. It is inherited, as a rule; you, _yourself_, had something of
that sort, I think you told me.”

“Yes, yes,” Galt replied. Deep down within him something seemed to
clutch his vitals. In the ear of his naked soul an accusing voice was
sounding: “Inherited! Inherited!” The word rang out like a threat from
the Infinite--from the vast mystery of life which had of late been so
tenaciously closing around him. Even the pain Lionel was to undergo was
the outcome of another's sin.

“Oh, it is a very simple operation,” Dearing went on, “and in any
ordinary case I shouldn't give it a second thought; but, by George, I
have become attached to that little chap. He is the pluckiest little man
I ever knew. I had an exhibition of his grit one day that was ahead of
anything I ever saw in a child. He had fallen, and his upper teeth had
cut a deep gash in his tongue. They sent for me, and I saw that I'd have
to take a stitch in it to close the ugly gap. It was a ticklish job, and
I hardly saw how I could do it, for I didn't want to use an anaesthetic.
But I talked to him just as I would to a man, and he promised me he
wouldn't cry. He didn't. I give you my word, old man, he didn't whimper
as the needle went through, and even while I was tying the thread; but
I could see from his big, strained eyes that it hurt him like rips.
A child with grit like that, Kenneth, is bound to make a stir in the
world. I have noticed that you like him too, and I am glad you do. The
truth is, darn you, you are taking my place! I'm jealous; he thinks you
are a regular king. He is always talking about you.”

“When do you think you will do the--the operation?” Galt faltered, as he
averted his shrinking glance from Dearing's face.

“Why, I want to do it right off. It is like this: his mother knows it
has to be done, and has agreed to leave it entirely to me; but she is
very nervous over it. She has a vein of morbid superstition running
through her. She fancies that some disaster is bound, sooner or later,
to happen to him--in fact, as she has often put it to me, she hardly
believes that a just God would allow such a sensitive and ambitious
child to grow up to a full comprehension of his humiliation.

“I see--I see what you mean,” Galt managed to say, and his soul seemed
to writhe anew as he stood trying to make his words sound casual.

“So I thought,” the doctor went on, “that I'd like, if possible, to
get it over without her knowledge, or without her mother knowing of it.
Nervous people standing around, half frightened out of their wits, at
such a time, unsteady my hand and upset me generally. Now, as I have
everything in readiness up-stairs, I think, when Lionel comes over this
morning, as I've asked him to do, I'll talk him into it. Young Doctor
Beaman, my new assistant, is up-stairs sterilizing my instruments, and
he will give the chloroform. You see, it would be a pleasant surprise
and a relief to those doting women to suddenly find out that the thing
they have made such a fuss about is over and no harm done.” Galt made no
reply. He had seen a trim little figure darting across the lower end of
the lawn, and saw a flash of golden tresses in the sunlight, and knew
that Lionel was coming--and to what? Galt suppressed an inward groan.
The unsuspecting child was bounding along, joyous and full of life, to
the grim, inexplicable snare which had been set for him. Young as he
was, he was to be asked to be firm and brave, that his little form might
take on the semblance of death and submit to the knife, a thing at the
thought of which even strong men had quailed. And what might, after all,
be the as yet unrevealed outcome? One case in every ten thousand, at
least, failed to survive the artificial sleep, owing to this or that
overlooked internal defect. Would this child of malignant misfortune be
that one?

Lionel drew near, sweeping the two men with merry eyes of welcome.
There was an instant's hesitation as to which to greet first, and then
instinct seemed to swerve him toward Galt, his hand outstretched. With
a queer throb of appreciation, the father took it and felt it pulsate in
his clasp.

“Come here, Lionel, my boy,” Dearing said, with affected lightness of
manner. “You remember what I said one day about those ugly lumps down
there in your little throat which are going to get bigger and bigger,
till after a while you can't eat any jam and cake? You wouldn't like
that, would you?”

“I remember.” Lionel passed his tapering hand over his white throat. “I
can feel them when I swallow.”

“And that is why you have those bad dreams, and jump in your sleep, and
think you are falling,” Dearing added, adroitly. “You know you promised
to let me get them out.”

“Oh, not to-day!” the boy protested, throwing a wistful glance up at the
unclouded sky. “I was going to build a really-really house out of the
bricks at the barn. I have a stove-pipe for a smoke-stack. I'll show you
both. Come with me! Oh, it's great!”

“Not to-day. Lionel, listen.” Dearing drew the boy close to him, and
tenderly stroked back his hair from his fine brow. “Mamma, you know, is
terribly nervous about it. _Women_ are that way, aren't they? Men and
boys, like us, know better. She can hardly sleep at night for thinking
about it--even a little thing like that. We can do it now, and I can
run over and tell her you are sleeping like a kitten in my big bed
up-stairs, and she and Granny will be so glad. It won't hurt a bit, you
know, for the medicine will make you sleep through it all.” A shadow of
deep disappointment came into Lionel's expressive eyes. The warm color
of life in his face faded into tense gravity, and they saw him clasp his
little hands and wring them undecidedly.

“And you think to-day is the best time?” he faltered, on the edge of
refusal.

“The very best of all, Lionel,” Dearing said, gently. “You wouldn't be
afraid of me, would you?”

The child stared dumbly. To Galt's accusing sense the world had never
held a more desolate sentient being than this incipient repetition of
himself. The child had proved that he knew no physical fear. To what,
then, did he owe this evident clutch of horror? Could it be due to
some psychic warning of approaching danger, or was the sensitive child
telepathically governed by the morbid fears which, at that moment, were
raging in the heart of his father?

“Come, that's a good, nice boy!” Dearing urged. “I see you are going to
be a brave little man.”

“I'm not afraid it will _hurt_,” Lionel faltered, “but I don't like to
be put to--to sleep.”

“But it must be so, my boy,” the doctor said. “Come on. Mamma will see
us in a minute and smell a mouse.” For a moment yet the child stood
undecided, his gaze alternately on the two faces before him. Suddenly,
while they waited and his eyes were resting in strange appeal on Galt,
he asked:

“Will you come, too?”

A shock as if from some unknown force went through the man addressed,
but, seeing no alternative, he answered:

“If you wish it, yes, of course.”

“And _you_ think I ought to--to do it?”

“Yes,” Galt nodded, his head rocking like that of an automaton. “The
doctor knows best.”

“Well, then, I'll go,” the boy sighed, with another wistful look over
the lawn. “I'll go.”

As they were entering the house, by some strange mandate of fate or
instinct the boy again took his father's hand, and Galt held it as they
began to ascend the broad, walnut stairs. Argue as he would that the
operation was only a most ordinary thing, to Galt's morbid state of mind
it assumed the shape of a tragedy staged and enacted by the very imps of
darkness.

On the way up the boy tripped on the stair-carpeting and slipped and
fell face downward. He was unhurt, but Galt raised him in his arms and
bore him up the remainder of the steps into a big, light room off the
corridor.

“Here we are, Doctor Beaman!” Dearing cheerily called out to a slender,
beardless young man, who, with a towel in hand, was bending over some
polished instruments on the bureau. “This is the little chap who never
cries when he is hurt. He is a regular soldier, I tell you!”

“No, I'm not afraid,” the boy said, as he stood alone in the centre
of the room; but still, as his father noted, there was a certain
contradictory rigidity of his features which he had never remarked
before.

Galt told himself that the child's evident dread, vague as it was, was
also an inheritance; for he recalled how he himself had once taken ether
to have a slight operation performed. He had been a man in years at the
time, and yet the effect on his mind as to what might be the outcome had
been most depressing. That day, as he was doing now, he had looked upon
the drug-induced sleep as a dangerous approach to death; and now, as
then, he gravely feared that the tiny thread of reduced vitality might
be torn asunder. He stood dumb with accusing horror as the two doctors
hastily made their grewsome arrangements, such as securing warm water,
fresh towels and sheets, which, in their very whiteness, suggested a
shroud.

The noise made as they drew a narrow table across the resounding floor
into the best light between the two windows jarred harshly on his tense
nerves. These things were grim enough, but the wan isolation of the
waiting child, as he stood with that war against fear and shame of
fear going on in his great, fathomless eyes, so like those of his
artist-mother--that appealing little figure, nameless, disowned among
men, was stamped on the retina of Galt's eye for the remainder of his
life.

“Now, take off your waist and collar and necktie,” Dearing said to
Lionel--“that will be enough. We'll have you all right in a jiffy. You
are not afraid _now_, are you?”

Galt's heart sank like a plummet, for the child's lips moved, but no
sound issued. The little fellow turned his face away as he began to
undress. He removed the flowing necktie, but his little fingers could
not unfasten the stiff linen collar.

“Help him, Kenneth,” Dearing said. “My hands are full.”

Galt obeyed, his fingers coming into contact with the cold chin of the
child and the soft flesh of his neck. He felt like snatching the boy
from the damnable spot, as a mother might her young from the claws of
a wild beast. Yet, outwardly calm, he drew the sleeves of the child's
blouse off and laid it on a chair.

“Now we are ready for you, young man,” Dearing said, lightly. “I see you
are not afraid I'll hurt you.”

“No, I know it won't _hurt_,” Lionel said, “but--”

“Don't you begin butting me,” Dearing laughed. “You are not a goat like
the one that butted Grover Weston heels over head the other day.”

“If I shouldn't wake up--I mean if I really _shouldn't_, you know,”
 Lionel finished, with a faint effort to smile at the doctor's jest,
“won't you please not tell my mother too quick? She gets frightened so
easily, and, you see, if I didn't wake up--if I never woke again--”

“Ah, come off!” Dearing laughed, as he turned to his assistant. “Doctor,
this kid hints that we don't know our business.”

“But if I didn't wake, if I _didn't!_” Lionel insisted, “you'd not scare
her, would you? And--and”--his lower lip quivered--“wouldn't you tell
her that I wasn't a bit afraid, and that I didn't cry, and--wait! wait!
Won't you tell her that it didn't hurt a single bit, not even a little
_teensy bit?_”

“Yes, yes,” Dearing said, and, considerably taken aback, he stared at
Galt rather than at the insistent speaker. “I'll tell her you are the
best boy in the world--the best, the bravest, and the sweetest. And God
knows I'll mean it,” he finished, in a lower tone to Galt. “I've seen
thousands of kids, Kenneth, but this one gets nearer me than all the
rest put together. I swear I am almost tempted to throw the darn job up.
But, you see, it has to be done. Doctor,” turning to his assistant, “put
him on the table, and I'll tickle his nose and make him laugh. We'll
make him have the funniest dreams he ever had.”

Doctor Beaman went to the boy and held out his arms, and Lionel was
lifted to the table and stretched out on the crisp sheet which had been
spread over it. Just then, happening to look round, Dearing saw Galt's
face, and hastily stepped to his side. “My Lord!” he whispered, “I see
this thing is going against you, old man. You are nauseated; you look
faint. Many men are that way--young students sometimes have to give up
surgery for that reason. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You like the
little chap, and your sympathies are worked up, that's all. But, really,
I don't think you ought to stay. I become nervous if others are, and I
must have a free hand. Besides, if you were to keel over in a faint
at an important moment I couldn't look after you. You'd better run
down-stairs and take a whiff of air. I'll call you when it is over.”

“Is he going?--must he go?” Lionel asked, as he turned his head and saw
Galt moving to the door. “Yes,” Dearing said, “but only down-stairs.”

“Oh,” the child exclaimed, regretfully, and averted his face, “I thought
he could stay!”

Down into the still silence of the great hall Galt went. There was
something heartlessly maddening in the calm, yellow sunlight on the
grass, which he could see through the doorway. The birds in the trees,
as they flitted about with twigs in their mouths and chirped in glee,
seemed mocking voices of despair from the deliberate tyranny of the
universe.

“God have mercy and spare him!” the man cried out from the depths of his
agony. “Spare him, O God, spare him!”

Unconscious of the incongruous prayer which had fallen from his lips, he
turned into the drawing-room, on the left of the hall, and sank into an
easy-chair, covering his face with his stiff hands. Suddenly he heard a
light step on the veranda, and, raising his eyes, he saw Dora standing
in the hall, glancing wildly and excitedly about her. Possessed by the
fear that she might call out, and thus make her presence known at that
most crucial moment, he rose and hastened to her. She did not see him
till he was close at her side, and then she turned and their eyes met.

“Where is Lionel--where is my child?” she panted.

He stood staring at her, unable to formulate a reply, and, brushing past
him with an air of contempt, which he read all too clearly, she turned
to the stairs, and started to ascend.

“Oh, you mustn't--you really mustn't!” he called out in protest, and he
put a detaining hand on her arm.

Shrinking from his touch, she stared at him piteously.

“Then they really are doing it!” she cried. “They are up there operating
on my child! I knew it when Doctor Beaman drove up, and Doctor Wynn came
and asked Lionel to play over here.”

Galt made no denial. He stood beside her, swept out of himself by the
sheer power of her astounding beauty, as he now beheld it for the first
time since their parting. In his wildest stretch of fancy as to what
the years might have brought her, he had not dreamed that she had become
such a flower among women. There was a seductive maturity of intellect
in her faultless face. The strange, appealing, and yet unreadable lights
of genius were burning in her dark, mystic eyes. He stood before her
with the smitten humility, the cringing shame, of a subject rebuked by
his queen.

“Yes, I am sure of it!” she moaned, and she lowered her glorious head to
the newel of the stairs and shuddered. “They are cutting my darling,
and I can't go to him. Doctor Wynn thought he'd spare my feelings--as if
that counted.”

She suddenly looked him squarely in the face, and he shrank before the
calm penetration of her stare. “We'll never see him alive again,” she
said, in a low, husky voice--“never again on earth!”

“Oh no, don't say that!” he cried, finding his submerged voice in the
agony produced by her suggestion. “God wouldn't be so unmerciful--the
child has harmed no one!”

“You speak of God,” she suddenly retorted, standing farther from him and
drawing herself erect. “The word was a joke with you once,” she added,
with a bitter sneer. “And I believed your puny theories, and blindly
followed out the deductions you made with your nose in the earth during
our vain dream of intellectual supremacy. But a change was wrought in
me. Into my wretched darkness Lionel came, and I saw and was convinced.
He was my living, pulsating, immortal link to the Infinite. But he is
not for the earth. He is above it. God allowed Christ to suffer the
pangs of a material existence for the salvation of the world, but He
is too merciful to let my sensitive darling face what he would have to
face. Lionel was sent to lift me, with his tiny hands, from the slough
into which I had fallen, but his mission is over--oh, God, it is
over! How can I bear it--how can I live without him? He is my life,
my _soul!_” She covered her tortured face with her bloodless hands
and remained still, save for the emotion which quivered through her
hysterical frame.

Galt stood gazing at her for a moment, an almost uncontrollable yearning
on him to clasp her in his arms and beg her forgiveness. He might have
done so but for the fear of offending her. He glanced up the stairs. How
still it was above! How like death! In his alarmed fancy he saw the two
doctors standing aghast over the still, senseless form of his child.
They had miscalculated! The physical examination had misled them; ether
should have been the drug employed rather than chloroform!

Uncovering her face, Dora read his thoughts. She uttered a low,
despairing wail, and they stood looking into each other's eyes. There
was a sound of sudden movement on the floor above. Some one was raising
a window-sash at the top of the stairs.

“I am sweating like an ox!” they heard Dearing say; and--could they
believe their ears?--he was actually laughing, and calling out to
Lionel: “I told you you'd not know when it was done. Now, lie down and
go to sleep. You are as sound as a silver dollar. It may sting just a
little tiny bit when you swallow, but that will be gone by to-morrow. Go
to sleep, and when you wake I'll have that tricycle ready.”

“Thank God--thank God,” Dora exclaimed, “he is saved!”

She started up the stairs, and in desperation Galt caught her arm. “Wait
one moment, Dora,” he implored, “I have something to say. You must hear
me. I am--”

“Don't stop me!” She shook his hand loose from her sleeve, and the
haughty look of contempt he had noticed before rose into her fathomless
eyes as she glanced back at him. “I am going up to him. I won't waken
him. I'll be very quiet, but I must be near him.”

Standing at the foot of the stairs, he saw her ascend and disappear
above. How beautiful she was! How rare and exquisite--how infinitely
removed from her kind. And that was Dora--the Dora of all that was good
and pure of his past, the guileless victim of all that was low, sordid,
and unworthy within him!




CHAPTER XVI

|TOBY LASSITER returned from the West one sultry evening at dusk, and
went straight to the house of his employer. He found the banker seated
on the front porch without his coat, and cooling himself with a big
palm-leaf fan. “So you are back?” he said, casting a furtive glance over
his shoulder into the unlighted hall. “Get that chair and pull it up
close. If my wife happens to come out while you are talking, sort o'
switch off to something else--the market reports--anything under high
heavens except what you went off for. She never took to Fred noway, and
anything in his favor or otherwise sets her tongue going. She thinks
he is plumb out of my present calculations, and any hint that he was
getting on his feet would give her tantrums. She is back in the kitchen,
seeing to the supper things. She is as close as the bark of a tree, and
is afraid that nigger woman will lug off supplies. I took her because
she was stingy. I sort o' admired it at first, but it ain't as becoming
in a woman as it is in a man. I don't know why, but it ain't. Well, fire
away. What did you do?”

“I went straight out to Gate City, Mr. Walton,” the clerk began, in the
tone of a man full of an experience. “I would have written home, but
I didn't get on to much of importance the first three days, and then I
knew I could get back about as quick as a letter could.”

“Yes, of course,” Walton said. “Well?”

“I found it about the most hustling town I ever struck, Mr. Walton. It
is wide open, I tell you. Of course, it isn't anything like as big, but
it was as busylooking on the main streets as Atlanta or Nashville. I
thought best not to be seen about the very _centre_, you know, so I took
board in a little hotel in what they call 'Railroad Town,' on the east
side, among the machine-shops. I pretended to be looking for a job.”

“You did, eh? You say you did?”

“Yes, sir; and I found that it was a pretty good trick, for it set folks
to chatting about the different enterprises in town. You may think it is
funny,” Toby laughed, impulsively--“I know I did when I finally got the
key to it--but I could hardly start any sort of talk with anybody who
didn't sooner or later ring in the wonderful rise of a certain fellow by
the name of 'Spencer,' who was in this same Whipple's employ. They all
said he'd come there without a cent--a ragged tramp, in fact; but that
he had taken hold in Whipple's big store, and forged ahead till he was
the old man's mainstay and chief manager. They told about all sorts of
deals that this 'Spencer' had helped Whipple put through. I got kind
o' tired of it all, and would every now and then ask if there wasn't
a young fellow by the name of 'Walton' working there; but they said if
there was they had never heard of him, and went on about Spencer. I was
beginning to think there might be something crooked in that fat man's
tale to you, and at one time I laid awake all night troubled powerfully.
You see, the fellow who called here and paid the three thousand might
have been just using Whipple's name and reputation to help him work some
scheme.”

“Oh, you thought that!” and Walton drew his brows together and bit his
lip.

“Yes; but not for long, Mr. Walton. The next day I ventured closer in to
the centre of the town, and was looking about on the main street at the
up-to-date improvements on all sides, when I saw a fellow thumping along
the sidewalk that looked so much like our man that I dodged into the
front part of a bar-room and waited till he went by. Then I pointed him
out to a policeman, and asked him who it was.

“'Why, that,' said the cop--'that is our big grocery king, Stephen
Whipple. He is a self-made man, and as rich as goose-grease. He built us
a fine church, a library out of white marble, and donated the land for a
city park, and done a lot of other things.'”

“Oh, he was all right, then!”

“Yes, sir, as I substantiated later,” Toby ran on, enthusiastically.
“But the best thing is to be told, Mr. Walton. A few minutes after that
who should I see but Fred himself rushing along the street with some
account-books under his arm, as if he was in a great hurry. He was
dressed as fine as a fiddle, and folks all along the street was bowing
to him as if he owned the town. I dodged back into the bar and let him
pass, and when I slipped out a minute later the same policeman nabbed me
and pointed Fred out as he was walking on. 'That,' said the policeman,
'is Mr. Spencer, the old man's adopted son--the young man he has just
taken into partnership. They are hanging a new sign down at the store
now.'”

“Adopted son!” fell from the-banker's lips. “Spencer was Fred's middle
name. Great Lord, Toby, do you reckon it's true?”

“True as gospel, Mr. Walton. I heard a lot about it on all sides, but I
saw enough with my own eyes to convince me that there was no mistake. I
went out to where the Whipples live one dark, cloudy night, and walked
clean round the house. I could see into the sitting-room, for it was
lighted up bright. Whipple was there, and a gray-haired, kind-looking
old lady that was his wife, I reckon, and Fred. They were all sitting
round a green lamp on a table. From where I stood, of course, I couldn't
hear a word that was said, but it seemed like Fred was telling some
funny yarn or other, like he used to do here at home, you know, and
both the old folks were laughing. I don't know when anything ever has
affected me as much as that sight did. I reckon I was homesick myself,
away out there playing the sneak, like I was, and it made me awful blue.
You know, sir, I always _did_ like Fred, and I don't believe many folks
ever knew how much he missed his mother. And somehow, when I saw him in
an entirely new home like that, away off from old ties, why--well--it
sort o' got the best of me. Maybe, as I say, it was because I was
homesick, but I never wanted to speak to anybody in all my life as much
as I did to him at that minute.”

The head of the banker went down, his chin rested on his breast, and
he was silent for a few minutes. Then he looked up, threw a cautious,
half-fearful glance back into the house, and rose to his feet.

“Let's walk down to the gate,” he said, in a low, unsteady voice. “I
want to talk, Toby, and yet I don't hardly know what a body could say.
I have faced lots of criticism and slurs in my day and time, and never
cared much what was said; but, between me and you, this thing strikes
me down deep. You see, it is pretty tough the way it turned out--this
having other folks give a body's son a home, and all that, and I hate
to think that folks here in Stafford will get onto it and chatter. I
understand 'em well enough to know, in advance, what they will say.
I don't care what they think about me losing money, and the like, for
that's just business. But the other thing cuts--it cuts deep. I reckon
the boy didn't get any too much attention at home after I married
the last time, and I reckon, if the truth was known, I was influenced
against him some by his stepmother's constant nagging about his ways. I
say I _reckon_ I was influenced, for I hardly think I'd have been quite
as tight on the boy if there had been just me and him left at home after
his mother died. My first wife was a good woman, Toby. I never knew how
good and loving she was till she was put away forever. But the town will
talk now good fashion. They will say Fred served me' right to go off and
get appreciated and loved by folks that was no blood kin, but who simply
took him on merits I was too mean to see. They will have the laugh on
me. They will call me an old hog, and I reckon I deserve it. You know,
yourself, that I come within an inch of clapping handcuffs on him. I'd
actually have done it if you hadn't shown me that it would go against my
pocket.”

“I think you look at it too seriously, Mr. Walton,” Toby ventured to
say, as the two leaned on the gate and looked down the gas-lighted
street. “You mustn't forget that Fred has been longing for your
forgiveness all these years. What he did was wrong, it is true, and at
present it may be the chief bar to his content. Besides, me and you are
the only persons who know about his shortage. You have never been a man
to talk of your private affairs, and, for all _this_ town knows or ever
_need_ know, you may have been in touch with Fred all these years. In
fact, they may not know but what the--the _other matter_ was the only
cause of Fred's leaving.”

“Toby, you are a good un! You'll do, you'll do! Of course, the woman
business is bad, but the world somehow don't condemn it as heavy as some
other things. No, you are right; this blasted town needn't know about
the trouble between me and him. He won't want to come back here nohow
till the other matter is arranged some way, and, between me and you, we
can sort o' spring his big success on the town--kind o' off-hand, you
know, as if it ain't nothing to wonder at.”

“A good idea, Mr. Walton!” Toby declared, enthusiastically. “It will set
'em wild.”

“But we'll leave the adopted-son part out, Toby.”

“Of course, sir; oh yes, sir; that needn't go in!”

“We might just tell about his being a partner in the business, or
something along that line.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And I'll go out there, Toby. It will be like pulling eye-teeth, but
I'll go. I'll knuckle, too, I reckon, to that fat chump. I'll make my
will in the boy's favor and show it to Whipple, with an itemized list
of my holdings, here and there. He won't sneer then, I reckon. Besides,
Fred won't go back on me. Blood's thicker than water, and if I have been
harsh--well, even if I _have_, my money will be as acceptable as that
old skunk's. Yes, I'll run out in a day or so. And, Toby, I'll not even
touch on the woman-and-child affair. He may think it never got out; he
may believe she's kept it quiet. In the letters he wrote me, he never
once alluded to it, and that shows he is not ready to admit it, anyway.
No, we won't push that on him at such a time; he never _would_ want to
come home if he knew there had been such an uproar.”




CHAPTER XVII

|SIMON WALTON had been away a week, and the force at the bank had not
heard from him, when one morning Toby received a telegram from him dated
that day in Atlanta. The carefully chosen ten words ran as follows:

“_Meet me with horse and buggy at afternoon up train_.”

So Toby went down to the old man's house, and, unassisted, got out the
gaunt animal and the time-worn vehicle with the dilapidated leather
hood, and drove to the station. He was in a fine glow of appreciation of
the compliment implied by the telegram's being addressed solely to him,
and by the additional fact that on returning from former journeys Walton
had either walked home or taken the cars. Toby told himself, with no
little unction, that it meant that his employer had something of a
confidential nature to impart.

The train had scarcely come to a standstill when Simon, who was on the
front platform of the first passenger-coach, sprang down, valise in
hand, and, looking much the worse for the dust and fine cinders that lay
on him like frost of the infernal regions, walked stiffly toward Toby
and the buggy.

“Well, I see you got my wire,” was his greeting, as he relinquished the
valise and allowed Toby to put it behind the seat in the buggy.

“Yes, I got it all right,” the clerk responded. “Shall we drive home or
to the bank?”

Walton waited till Toby was in the seat beside him; then he replied:
“Well, we may as well head for home, though I reckon we could take a
sort o' roundabout direction through the edge of town. I want to tell
you what I did out there, and we might not have as good a chance later.
My wife will be nagging the life out of me for particulars, and while
there are no particulars in this thing that she has any concern in, if I
was to be cornered somewhere with you right at the start she'd think it
strange. Then, on the other hand, if me and you slid off together the
very minute I got to the bank, the rest might think I was partial, and
so I thought this slow ride was the very idea.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Walton. I suppose you saw Fred?”

“Oh yes, but not the first shot out of the box.” Walton took off his hat
and wiped the perspiration from his brow, upon which lay the red imprint
of his hatband, and smiled sheepishly. “The truth is, Toby, the nigher I
got to that blamed town the sillier I felt, till by the time I was there
and duly quartered at what they told me was their best hotel I hardly
knew my hat from a hole in the ground. You see, my predicament was
peculiar, and would have been odd to _any_ man in the plight I was in. I
didn't know but two souls in the town. One of 'em was not only the great
high mucky-muck of the place, but a man I'd called a thief and a
liar and kicked plumb out of my sanctum when he had called to do me a
_favor_; and the other was--well, he was my only son, who I had treated
like a yellow dog. You see, I knew that downright apologies was what I
owed _both_ of 'em; but, Toby, let me tell you something odd--I don't
know how to account for it: but, as just and upright as I've always been
in my dealings in a _general_ way, I never, in so many plain words, ever
told a human being I was sorry. I have been that way, and was willing
to try to sort o' _look_ it, in cases where I was _dead_ wrong; but I'd
rather take a thousand lashes on my bare back any day than come right
out and beg a fellow's pardon.”

“I understand,” Toby said, sympathetically. “A great many folks are that
way.”

“Well, I don't think I'm like a great many folks,” Walton replied, as
his eyes rested on the back of his horse, “but I couldn't swallow that
pill. So there I was, registered at that fine joint, with a front room
all to myself, overlooking the street, and the clerks and nigger porters
looking at me, same as to say, 'Well, what is your game? Are you a
whiskey drummer, bank-examiner, detective, stock-drover, or escaped
convict?' I was like a fish out of water. I didn't know what to do or
how to make any sort of start. I sat round the office half the time, and
the rest I was flopping about in my room. The first day passed that way,
and the next night, in which I had hardly got a wink of sleep. There
was a bar-room and gambling-hell right under me, and I could hear some
whizzing thing and balls rolling, and a deep voice calling out in some
game or other. It was a gay town, and I was in the middle of it. The
next morning I determined I'd write Fred a note and let him know where
I was at, but I'd no sooner got it ready and backed and sealed than I
recalled that Fred wasn't using his own name, and that a note addressed
to him in the old style might cause talk, and so I tore it up. Then
I ventured out and, half-scared to death, actually walked by the big
store--on the opposite side of the street, though--and peeped in through
the windows. It was as busy as a beehive during a swarm, but I couldn't
see head nor tail of Fred. All at once I took the bit in my mouth and
started across the street to go in, but was stopped short. And what do
you reckon done it, Toby?”

“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton,” said the clerk, deeply interested.

“Toby, it was that new sign you spoke about--'Stephen Whipple & Son.' It
was on the front of the big red building, and seemed to me to be just so
many long, black letters stalking clean across the sky. 'Stephen Whipple
& Son,' and the last word, small as it was, overtopped all the rest.
The thing simply knocked me silly. Wasn't it Saint Paul (it was _one_ of
them fellows in the good Book) that fell down in some great light that
blazed out over him? Mine wasn't a light; it wasn't wind; it wasn't
a kick in the jaw from an army mule, but it hit me like all three
combined. I was mad; I was sorry; I was ashamed; but I couldn't walk
under that dad-blasted sign. It hung over them doors like a long white
sword of an enemy ready to chop me into halves.

“I whirled about and went back to my room and actually hid the rest of
the day, wondering how on earth I was going to do the job. Once I packed
up my valise and started down to pay my bill, with the intention of
shirking the whole thing; but I saw that wouldn't do. So I passed
another day. I read my Bible a little, and I reckon I prayed some. I
don't know, Toby, but I would have bowed down before a heathen idol to
have got help out of my predicament. I remembered what you said about
seeing Fred at Whipple's house, and the next night I went out and
inquired the way to his place. I found it, and, having nothing better
to do, I walked clean around it like you did. Nobody was in sight, but
I could see lights inside, and then the thought came to me that Fred, my
son, maybe, was at that very minute in there keeping company with that
old man and woman, and that made me feel as bad as the sign had. I tried
to argue that I'd been right in pinning down on the boy for what he had
done; but I knew there was no stability to my point, for that fat chap
had secured better results through a different method, and _he_ wasn't
no blood _kin_. So I went back to the hotel, and made another night of
it. I wasn't like you. I couldn't talk to strangers in an off-hand way
about it. I tried once to the clerk behind the counter, but I couldn't
make it go. He looked at me mighty curious, and I changed the subject. I
think I asked him if that State wa'n't heavy on hog-raising.”

“You were in an embarrassing position,” Toby remarked, as he shook the
drooping lines over the plodding horse's back.

“I never would have got out of it if it hadn't been by pure accident,”
 Walton said. “The office of the hotel was a sort of meeting-place for
the young men of the town of an evening, and there was a little smoking
and writing room off of it. I was sitting there on the third evening,
and the office was thronged with young chaps. Some sort of entertainment
was on hand at the opera-house across the street, for a band was playing
outside, and the young men in their best outfits were smoking and
chatting in the office, when who should I see come in but Fred. He came
in at the front door in a swallowtail suit with a light overcoat on his
arm, and I tell you the crowd all made way for him. Toby, I am an old
man; I've been through the rubs; I've seen near and dear comrades
shot down at my side on the field of battle; I have had all sorts of
experiences; but the sight of my boy there looking so much older and
more dignified than when I last saw him--a sort of king among his
kind--with this one and that one giving him the glad hand, and hailing
him right and left with words and smiles of welcome while I was slinking
off there--well, Toby, I don't want to live that over again; I don't;
as God is my Creator, I don't! I sat there watching him through the door
like--well, you'll have to imagine it, and draw your own conclusions; I
can't tell you how I felt. I was dumb; I was speechless. It was like
a double nightmare. I haven't shed enough tears in my life to drown a
gnat, but I wanted to cry good and hearty then.”

“And you met him--I know you did,” Toby broke in. “I see it in your
face.”

“Yes, as luck would have it, by accident; he left the others and come
right into the room, and I saw that he'd recognized me, for he turned
pale as death, and stopped in front of me. Then I saw him steady
himself, and a pitiful, resigned look come over him. If I live through
eternity, I'll never forget his first words. What do you think he said?”

“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton.”

“Toby, he said this--he said this, and the words will haunt me to my
grave. They will go with me into the very depths of my last abode. He
said: 'Oh, father, you have caught me! You have come to take me back!
Well, I am ready!'

“Toby Lassiter, talk about your--your hells on earth; talk about your
flames of despair, the worm that dieth not, and the like. I had 'em all.
I couldn't speak. I didn't even have the sense or power to shake hands,
and the poor boy misunderstood even that. He pulled up a chair, shaking
like a leaf. Nobody was in the room but us two. Then somehow I managed
to say that he was mistaken, and that I hadn't come there for _that_
reason. I wanted to talk to the point and justify myself, but I was
worse than a stuttering idiot at a spelling-bee. Like a fool, I started
in to say that I had heard a lot about the progress of the town, and he
thought I had some speculation on foot and had run on him by accident.
I no sooner saw that he thought that than I got tangled up worse
than ever. Nothing short of begging his forgiveness would set things
straight, and I couldn't have got that out to have saved my soul from
perdition.”

“That certainly _was_ awkward,” Toby burst out, like an enthusiast at a
play. “It was bad.”

“I reckon we never would have understood each other, Toby, but we
started to walk out together, and went along to a side street that run
into a park where it wasn't so light. Somehow we went inside, and before
I knew it I had laid my hand on his arm. I never had done a thing like
that in all my life, and all of a sudden we stopped and he looked right
in my face. It was too much for me, Toby. I couldn't hold in any longer.
But it didn't do any harm, for I saw he understood me, and that was
enough. He was the happiest creature I ever laid eyes on; he laughed and
cried and petted me, and said that he loved me a hundred times more than
he did old Whipple and his wife. Then we sat down on a bench under the
trees and talked it all over. He talked to me more openly than he ever
did before. He wanted to come home above all things, but he wanted to
put it off awhile. He told me about him and Margaret Dearing. She was
the only real sweetheart he'd ever had, he said, and he could never care
for anybody else. It seems that they met by accident awhile back in New
York, and she gave him to understand that she didn't care any more for
him. He said it was because she knew of his shortage at the bank. But I
told him how you and me had kept that quiet, and not to let that bother
him. But he told me something that we didn't know: he said he had
confessed it to her brother the night he left. He said a woman as
high and proud as she was never could overlook anything bordering on
dishonesty, no matter how much it was atoned for.”

“She wouldn't be so hard on him if _that_ was all, Mr. Walton,” Toby
said. “But, of course, she heard about the other thing; in fact, the
girl and the child are right there under her eyes.”

“That occurred to me while me and him was talking,” Walton said; “but
I simply couldn't bring up a nasty thing like that at such a time.
I thought that might as well rest; in fact, it looked to me like he
thought his name had never been mixed up with it. You see, Toby, maybe
the woman promised that it shouldn't get out, and has kept him from
knowing of the report in order to bleed his pocket. At any rate, he
don't seem to suspect what folks are saying here at home. I know he
wants to keep _me_ in the dark, for he boldly asked me about Dora Barry,
among other inquiries. I was astonished at it, but he wanted to know if
she'd ever got married, and when I told him no, he went on to say that
she was the best friend he'd ever had among the home girls, and that she
had a beautiful character, and the like. He went on to say that she was
the finest painter of pictures he had ever seen, and that when he left
he was sure she would make a great artist out of her turn that way. He
asked me if she had put her talent to any use, and I told him if she had
I hadn't heard about it. Then he said--he did--that he was going to sit
down and write her a friendly letter, and tell her where he was at, now
that me and him had made up. I thought he was piling it on pretty heavy,
you know, but I never let on.”

“That was best, of course,” Toby opined, reflectively. “Folks are not
apt to throw up a thing like that to a man who has turned over a new
leaf, and it may be many a year before he discovers how much has really
been talked on that line. But you didn't tell me, Mr. Walton. Did you
see Fred's--did you see Mr. Whipple?”

“It went powerfully against the grain, but I had to,” the banker said,
gruffly. “I was in for making a beeline back home without having to
swallow that dose, but Fred wouldn't hear to it. He said the old skunk
would feel hurt. I didn't care a dad-dratted cent whether he felt hurt
or not; in fact, I felt hurt to have him dragged in at all. I'm glad the
boy has landed in such a pile of clover, but I don't like Whipple any
too much, and I reckon that dang sign of his was my Belshazzar's warning
on the wall. But it is this way--well, you know what I mean. I reckon a
body can look at it from any direction--level, sink, or angle--and the
fact will still stick out that the boy is divided, and will have to
remain divided from now on. That ain't usual, Toby; it is crooked. It
sort o' gives the lie to my success as a father. I won't go into it any
further. The whole thing out there, though, would have gone off smooth
enough if that old cuss hadn't been in it. He had a slobbery way of
talking to Fred, and put his hands on him every chance he got. They
asked me out to dinner at Whipple's house to meet the old woman, but I
drew the line at that. I was sure she'd act the fool as bad, or worse,
than Whipple had, and so I wouldn't go. I never was mushy in that way
myself, and I can't stomach them that are. Whipple is going to leave him
all he's got, and I want Fred to get all he can of the good things in
life, but I'll be dad-blamed if I wanted 'em to come exactly that way.

“Whipple set there in his office and made out a list of his possessions,
and it looked to me like he was making everything look as big as he
could out of pure spite. Not once did he say--Toby, he didn't say a
single time that I had _any_ sort of justification in pinning down on
the boy like I did. He might have done it, but he didn't. He always
cocked himself up and talked in a roundabout, sneaking fashion, like he
was giving underhanded digs. Toby, I want the boy back here, that's
all. I want him back here in the bank to take my place after I'm gone.
I don't think I could stand it to be beat to a cold, dead finish by that
old chump in a fight of exactly this kind. Whipple said Fred could sort
o' play between the two places--stay awhile here and awhile there, but
I want to tie him down good and tight to old Stafford. I've got an idea
how to do it, Toby, and it ain't a bad one.”

“What is it, Mr. Walton?” the clerk asked, eagerly.

“Why, Toby, I ain't much at match-making, but I am going to try my
hand at the game. Now, if I could only persuade Margaret Dearing to be
sensible, like most women always have been in regard to the early slips
of the men they marry--if I could persuade her to overlook the only
thing that now remains against the boy--”

“They would get married, and both would prefer to live here!” Toby broke
in, eagerly.

“That's the point, Toby,” Walton said. “You've hit it. Now drive me
home.”




CHAPTER XVIII

|ONE afternoon, three days after this, Simon Walton drove down the
street to Dearing's, and, alighting at the front gate, he carefully
haltered his horse to the hitching-post with a rope he always carried
under the buggy-seat. Then he opened the gate and trudged up the walk to
the door.

Margaret saw him from the window of her room upstairs, and, thinking
that he had called to see her uncle or her brother, she hurried
down-stairs.

“Did you want to see my uncle?” she asked, sweetly.

“No, I didn't, Miss Margaret.” Walton had taken off his broad-brimmed
felt hat, and stood shifting it awkwardly from one hand to the other, a
look at once grave and agitated on his gaunt face.

“Well, my _brother_ is at his office,” the girl threw tentatively into
the pause that had ensued; “at least, he said he was going there when he
left here about two o'clock.”

“I didn't want to see him, _either_,” and the old man tried to smile,
but the effort was a grim failure. “The truth is, Miss Margaret, if I
may make so bold, I wanted to see _you_. There is a little matter I sort
o' thought you and me might talk over maybe to mutual gain and profit.”

“You want to see me, really?” Margaret started. “Well, won't you come
in?”

Walton glanced into the wide hall doubtfully and fanned himself with his
hat. “I don't know; it must be kind o' stuffy inside on a sweltering day
like this, ain't it?” he said, awkwardly. “Ain't there a place out under
the trees somewhere where we could set a minute? I was here one day with
the General, and round that way--” Walton nodded his shaggy head to the
right and broke off helplessly.

“Oh yes, and there are some chairs there, too,” Margaret answered. She
was now quite grave, and she led the way with a certain erectness of
carriage and with an air of restraint that was visible even to the crude
sensibilities of her caller.

The chairs under the trees were reached. Walton seized the most
comfortable-looking one, and for no obvious reason settled it firmly on
the sod. “Now,” he said, and with bended body he waited for her to take
it. When she had complied, he took a seat himself, dropping his hat on
the grass beside him, only to recover it without delay, that it might
rest on his sharp, unsteady knee. He looked up at the unclouded sky, at
the overhanging boughs of the big oaks under which they sat. He cleared
his throat, looked at Margaret, and then glanced over his shoulder at
the roof and gables of the old house.

“You said, I think, that you came to see me,” Margaret reminded him,
with as much voice as she could command, for all sorts of bewildering
possibilities were flitting through her brain.

“Yes, I did, Miss Margaret,” he said, with a slight start. “If you was a
man, now, I think we could get this thing over with in a short time;
but I never had much dealings with women--that is, except in a purely
business way. I can tell a woman she is over-checking, or offering me
bad security, or needs better identification than a pair of bright eyes
and rosy cheeks will furnish; but this thing that's riz between me and
you is plumb different. In the bank they come to _me_, but in this case,
you see, _I'm_ the supplicant. Miss Margaret, I've come to see you about
my boy--about Fred.”

“Oh, you want to find him, and you think that perhaps I--” She went no
further. Her first impulsive thought was that Walton had in some way
heard of her meeting with Fred in New York and had come to obtain
information as to his address.

“Oh no; I know where he is well enough.” The way seemed easier to the
old man now, and he went on rapidly. “He is at Gate City, Oklahoma, Miss
Margaret. He has been there all this time, and is doing mighty well; in
fact, he has gone and got rich. You know the West is a powerful field
for fresh, young blood to forge ahead in, and Fred struck it just right.
He is a partner in a whopping big wholesale business there. He has been
writing to me--that is, off and on. There _was_ a little cash difference
between his account and mine, and he finally made it good out of his
earnings. I--I never was much of a hand to talk my business, you know,
so I've never let on here at Stafford exactly how he _was_ making out,
but a time has come when I want to set him as nigh straight as possible
before the community he was born and raised in; in fact, I want him to
come home.”

“Yes, of course.” Margaret's cold, pale lips formally dropped the words
as her visitor paused and wiped his perspiring brow and fanned himself
with his hat..

“Yes, I've just been out there to sort o' settle up a little deal
betwixt me and the man--twixt me and Fred's business partner, and I must
say the whole outlook was good. You know I reckon that everybody in this
town sort o' thought before Fred went off that he never would amount to
much in a business way, but he is all right now. So, having nothing much
to do at the bank this hot day, why, I thought I'd drive up here and see
you about it.”

“See _me_ about it? I really don't understand,” the young lady faltered.

“Well, to come right to the point, Miss Margaret”--Walton avoided her
wavering glance for a moment as he kicked the toe of his boot into an
unoffending tuft of grass and fairly uprooted it--“out there in Gate
City one night me and Fred had a sort o' confidential talk about old
times, and one thing or other, and finally he broke down and told me how
much attached he had always been to you--never had cared for no other
woman, nor never would as long as the sun shone on the earth, and other
things to that effect.”

“Oh, Mr. Walton, please don't!” Margaret cried out; but there was a glow
of irrepressible delight rising in her face, and her beautiful eyes were
sparkling. “I don't think I want to talk about it.”

“I _have_ to,” the banker insisted, firmly. “I want him back here, Miss
Margaret; and, as it stands now, I'm afraid he never will come unless
you yield a point or two. He said his one and only spur to making a man
of himself had been the hope that--seeing that you hadn't yet chosen
a partner--that you might some day or other consider his proposal. He
says, though, that he met you in New York, awhile back, and that you
deliberately turned him down. He said he couldn't blame you, after all
that had happened, but he couldn't help thinking that maybe it would be
as well for him never to come nigh you again. That was the way, I say,
that _he_ looked at it, blue and down-in-the-mouth, as the poor fellow
was during our confab; but I threw out a straw to him, so I did, Miss
Margaret. I cited numbers and numbers of cases where young men had
eventually lived down early mistakes, and finally been reinstated,
to become, in the end, an honor to the land of their birth. He didn't
think, after the way you acted in New York, that there was any chance
for him at all, but, being anxious to make headway, I told him I was
sure you was too much of a Christian at heart to refuse a request like
his, offered in the spirit it is offered in. He's sorry for many things
that's he done, and wants to wipe 'em out.”

Old Walton's eyes shifted almost significantly from her face to the
low roof of Mrs. Barry's cottage, and instinctively Margaret's glance
followed; then, becoming conscious of the fact, she quickly looked down,
and a tinge of color climbed into her pale cheeks.

“I think we'd better not say any more about that, Mr. Walton,” she said,
more firmly than she had spoken since his arrival. “I am sure your son
understands how I feel.”

“That means a flat no, then,” the banker said, and with a heavy sigh he
slowly stood up. “Well, I've plead _his_ case as well as I know how, but
I hain't yet touched on _mine_. Miss Margaret, you could do me a big,
lasting favor if you'd let this thing go through. I'm a plain man. Folks
hain't never said I was much of a hand to show affection, and they are
right, I reckon; but the way matters stand now is getting me down, and
if you don't extend a helping hand I'm afraid I'll feel bad the rest of
my life. It ain't just _Fred_ that's concerned--it's me--_me!_ As long
as a father can make himself believe he is treating his son justly, he
can hold his head up and meet the eye of the world; but, if the truth
must be told, I reckon I didn't give Fred a good enough show. I driv'
him off, with threats of the law, and away off in a strange land, under
a new name, he forged ahead. He made friends by the stack, and the old
man--his partner that I told you about--loves him like he was his own;
in fact, he calls him his '_adopted son_.' Think of that! The only
child the Lord ever give me is now claimed by a blamed old cuss that
understood him better than I ever did! He has willed him all he's got,
and he's got plenty, too--a sight more than I'll ever have if I keep
on till the end of the chapter. I want to hold my own, Miss Margaret. I
hain't never been clean beat yet, and this, somehow, would be the worst
fall I ever had. I just can't stomach the idea! I want my boy to love
_me_, and lean on _me,_ and not on a fat, pudgy old idiot that never had
a thing to do with his baby days. I want that worse than I ever wanted
anything, and I don't see how I'm going to get it if you don't help a
little. If your pride won't let you do it for _him_, maybe it will for
an old chap like me, that is begging for one more throw of the dice. I
simply want him back, and he won't come unless you will let bygones be
bygones.” He paused. Something very much like strong emotion was in his
whole dejected attitude as he stood bowed before her. She started to
speak, but stopped, clasping her delicate hands undecidedly in front of
her. She stood silent for a moment, and then she said, softly:

“I see; it is hard on you. It is a pity you have to suffer on account of
it.”

“Promise me this, Miss Margaret.” Old Walton leaned forward eagerly.
“Promise that you will think it over for a day or so. It ain't a thing,
anyway, to be decided in a second, like buying a hat or a pair of gloves
of such and such a color or material. If you have to go plumb against
the boy, do it after mature deliberation. Won't you study over it a day
or two?”

“Yes, I can promise that,” Margaret consented. “I'll stop in at the bank
and see you soon.”

“Well, that's all a body _could_ ask,” Walton said, gratefully; and,
bowing low, he trudged across the grass to his horse and buggy.




CHAPTER XIX

|WHEN he had disappeared down the street, Margaret sat staring at the
ground, her color still high, her eyes holding a delicate, spiritual
effulgence, her breast rising and falling under stress of fiercely
contending impulses, my Christian duty to forgive,” she argued. “I know
he has repented, and he couldn't have been wholly to blame. His grosser
nature was tempted. He fell, but he loved _me_ in a different way. He
loves me still, or he wouldn't want me now. He showed it in New York. He
has suffered enough, and I ought to take him back. But can I? _Can_ I?
How could I forget, with her and his child right under my eyes? Perhaps,
if I went to see her, that might help me decide. I ought to have gone,
anyway. She really has had a hard life.”

With her hand on her breast, as though the thought had given her actual
physical pain, she bowed for a few minutes; then she calmly rose,
fastened the strings of her graceful hat under her pretty chin, and
walked deliberately down to Mrs. Barry's. Lionel was playing with some
colored building-blocks on the porch, and looked up in vast surprise.

“Where is your mother?” Margaret asked, timidly. “May I see her?”

“She is in the studio,” the child said. “She is making a picture.”

At this moment Dora stepped out into the hall from a room on the right,
and with a look of undisguised and almost perturbed surprise she came
forward.

“Oh, she _is_ beautiful--beautiful!” ran like a dart through the
visitor's brain. “She is a thousand times more now than she used to
be; she has grown, developed. Such hair, such eyes, such color, such a
perfect figure!”

“I think I heard you asking for me,” Dora said, calmly,
something--perhaps it was the sheer immunity of genius and conscious
purity of purpose--lifting her above the embarrassment of the situation.

“Yes, I came to see you,” Margaret said, bewildered by Dora's appearance
and the growing sense of her wonderful and forceful personality. “I
ought to have come before, I am well aware; but I hope you won't turn me
away.”

“Why should I, Margaret?” Even in the unruffled voice of the recluse
there was a mellow hint of oblivion to the social degradation the
outside world had draped her with. “Would you mind coming into my
workroom? It is about as cheerful as our stuffy little parlor.”

“Oh, you still paint?” Margaret cried, as she stood in the doorway
and saw the pictures leaning here and there and tacked to the wooden
partition.

“Yes, I had to have some occupation,” Dora responded, quite frankly,
“and I took it up. I think I should have died but for my art.”

“And did you really do all these?” Margaret stared in admiration. “Oh,
they are lovely, lovely!”

“I'm glad you like them,” Dora said, appreciatively. “I am sorry I
happen to have only these. Just last week I sent a box of the best away.
I may as well tell you that I sell them--or, rather, have them sold for
me.”

“Oh, you do, really? How nice!--how very nice!” Margaret sat down almost
in utter bewilderment. The whole thing was like a dream--the wonderful
intellectual poise of the girl-like artist; her beauty; her charm;
the far-away look of almost conscious superiority in the long-lashed,
indescribable eyes. “And you intend to go on with your art?”

“Oh yes, to the end--to the very end of life, and beyond, too, perhaps,”
 answered Dora, with a merry, philosophical laugh. “I am working toward
a glorious goal. Far-off Paris beckons me, Margaret, even in my sleep.
Mother and I read of nothing else now, and think of nothing else. We
study French in our poor way, and speak it together. Even Lionel lisps a
word of it now and then. Yes, Paris and my boy mean all to me now. This
has been a prison for our little family, but there the breath of art
animates all life. The people are not narrow; they rank essential purity
above the sordid hypocrisy of mere convention. There my boy might grow
up unconscious of--but you know what I mean.”

“Yes, yes,” Margaret said, a vast womanly sympathy springing up within
her that fairly swept her from the condemnatory position she had so long
held.

“And we hope to manage it very soon now,” the artist continued. “We are
hoarding up my earnings for that, and nothing else. Lionel has the soul
of a poet, artist, or musician, and in Paris he can grow and expand,
and there--there he will not have to face what would inevitably be his
portion if he remained here. His misfortune, if it can be called that,
was not of his making, and God will help me to wipe it out of his
consciousness--to blot it from his fair young soul.”

“Yes, yes,” Margaret said, helplessly, and she rose to go. There was
nothing she could say. Dora, in some unaccountable way, seemed beyond
her mental reach, a glorious, sublimated creature more of spirit than
of matter. The things she had striven for in her solitude had raised her
higher than her surroundings. From a narrow point of view she had
lost, from a higher and broader she had gained; she was the youthful
forerunner of a future army of women who would be judged by the radiance
of their souls rather than by the shadows of their bodies.

Dora seemed to feel her sudden nearness in spirit to her old friend. For
a moment she was silent. There was a clatter of blocks on the floor of
the porch, followed by the soft click-click of the pieces of wood as the
child put them together again from the heap into which they had fallen.

“I have always wanted to have a good, long talk with you about Fred,”
 Dora suddenly began, “but I hardly knew how to propose it to you
after--at least, after he went away so suddenly. I felt that I ought
to see you personally, and yet my pride would not let me. He had
his faults, Margaret, but there were many beautiful things in his
character.”

“I know, I know.” Margaret's heart fairly froze, and she stared coldly
and held herself quite erect. Was it possible that the woman would dare
to intimate that she cared to hear about that shameful intimacy? Had
her ideas of art, her dreams of France and bohemian freedom from
conventional laws, led her into the error of thinking that she, Margaret
Dearing, would for a moment listen to such a confidence?

“Only to-day I received a long letter from him,” Dora went on,
unobservant of the change that had come over her visitor. “Let me get
it. I am sure you will think more kindly of him when you have read
what he writes. His father has been out to see him, and they are quite
reconciled now. It has made Fred very happy. You see, there is no reason
now why he may not come home. I want you to see the letter, for he
mentions you in it, and I am sure, seeing how sweet and kind you are to
me, that--”

“I don't care to see it!” Margaret broke in, frigidly. “Please don't ask
me. I am just going. I only had a few moments. I thank you very much for
showing me your pictures.”

Dora dropped her eyes in surprise, for the gaze of her haughty visitor
was full of undisguised anger.

“I didn't mean to offend you,” she said, humbly, “and I hope you will
pardon me. I was only trying to do Fred a good turn, and I suppose I did
it awkwardly. It is very good of you to come. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” And Margaret swept from the room. As she crossed the porch
and passed the little architect of a church of no mean design, he raised
his eyes and said:

“Look, lady; that is the tower for the big bell (ding-dong!), and this
is the door--” But she paid no heed to him, as, with a shrug, almost of
disdain, she passed on to the gate.

“He is writing to her; he has been writing to her all these years,” she
said within herself. “Perhaps he has even met her--she may have been to
see him in other places. That is why she's lived so quietly--it gave her
the chance to go and come as she liked. Perhaps he has put those ideas
of Paris and free-love into her head. When he talked to me in New York
he didn't mean that--that he cared for me deeply. He meant only that he
wanted me and the rest of us here to overlook what he had done. When he
told his silly old father that he would not come back unless I forgave
him, he meant--he thought--he was trying to apologize--actually
_apologize_--for having made love to me. I have lowered myself by going
to her. It gave her that sly chance to stab me. She thinks I care. She
thinks that I have been crying my eyes out about him. They have talked
me over time after time. Oh, the shame of it--the utter _shame_ of it!”




CHAPTER XX

|MARGARET DEARING passed a restless, tumultuous night following the
disturbing visit to Dora. In the evening she had joined her uncle at a
game of whist in a nervous, abstracted way; she had played the piano in
a spiritless fashion for her brother, who had come in tired from a long
drive into the country, where he had performed a successful surgical
operation; and then she had gone up to her bedchamber and thrown off the
mask. She kept it off, for there was only the starlight to witness her
white, blank face and piteously staring eyes as she sat at her window
looking out. From the stretch of darkness below only one salient feature
presented itself: it was the steadily burning light in Dora Barry's
window. In her fancy Margaret saw the beautiful young mother bending
over a table writing--writing to Fred Walton in answer to the last
letter he had written. She rose suddenly, exasperated beyond endurance,
and threw herself on her bed.

She rose late the next morning and breakfasted in the big, sombre
dining-room after the General and Wynn had gone to town. The servant
said something she hardly heard, to the effect that Wynn had received
a letter which called him to Augusta, and that he might be absent for
several days. Breakfast over, Margaret strolled down to a favorite
seat of hers on the lawn. Why was it, she asked herself, with poignant
chagrin, that she welcomed the position as putting her into the full
view of any one chancing to look from Dora Barry's cottage? Had she been
very subtle in self-analysis and very frank touching her own desires,
she would have admitted the subtle suggestion of her attitude, her
apparent absorption in the magazine that she held in hand; must it not
convey to her watching neighbor a conviction that the conversation of
the afternoon just passed had been of no possible moment to her--that
it had, in fact, caused no ripple in the even current of her satisfied
existence.

Indeed, the pages of the magazine were held so firmly before her
unshifting eyes that she failed to notice that Lionel had crossed over
the fence and was coming toward her holding an envelope in his little
hand. He was dressed in a becoming gray suit, and his yellow, carefully
brushed tresses caught the morning sunlight till they seemed a mass of
delicate golden flames. The grass he daintily trod was wet with dew, and
opalescent jewels seemed to blaze and fall at his feet. Margaret saw him
from the corner of her eye as he timidly paused near her, and yet she did
not at first deign to look up. The grim thought fastened itself on her
distorted imagination that Dora was now watching, if at no other moment,
so she lowered the magazine to her lap, taking studied care to turn down
a leaf before glancing at the child.

“My mother sent this note,” Lionel said, when he caught her eye.

She took the envelope and opened it. It contained two separate
communications. The first was to her from Dora. The other was in Fred
Walton's well-remembered hand. Dora's note ran:

_Dear Margaret,--I want you to do poor Fred the simple justice of
reading his letter to me. I saw yesterday that you were angered by my
mentioning him, and I don't believe you could have been so if you had
the faith in him which he deserves. You may doubt him, for some reason
or other, but I am sure you could do so no longer if you would only read
the tender things he has written about you. Sincerely, Dora Barry._

Margaret read and reread the note. Her prejudice was still playing riot
with her better judgment, and, feeling sure that Dora's eyes were on
her, she scornfully swept both the communications from her lap to the
grass at her feet and turned to her magazine.

Lionel stared, a pained expression slowly capturing his mobile features
as he stood in rigid indecision for a moment; then, with a sigh, he
stooped down and picked up the sheets of paper which were being blown
about on the grass. The first page of Fred Walton's letter to Dora was
the last he secured, and, just as he was picking it up, Margaret, almost
against her will, dropped her glance upon it, reading the introductory
line at the top of the sheet.

“My dear old friend,” she saw quite plainly, in Fred's bold writing,
“You will be surprised to hear from me for the first time after all
these years--”

“_Old friend--after all these years!_” Those words, so contradictory to
what she expected, remained before Margaret's sight even after the child
had gathered the sheets in his offended arms and was turning away. What
could they mean? Surely that was not the way a man would begin a letter
to the woman he had betrayed and deserted. There must be some mystery,
and the child was bearing its solution away. Her desire to know more was
too strong to be resisted. Impulsively she cried out:

“Little boy! Lionel! Wait! Bring them back! I dropped them!” He turned,
a look of mystification on his face, and came back doubtfully.

“I haven't read them yet,” she explained, humbly enough, and she
extended her hand. “Let me have them.”

“I thought you were angry,” he said, staring at her. “I thought you
didn't want my mother's letter.”

“I'll read them,” she promised, tremblingly. “Wait, won't you? That's a
good boy.”

He stood beside her, studiously observant of the phenomenon of her
changeableness, while she literally devoured Fred Walton's letter. It
ran:

My dear old friend,--You will be surprised to hear from me for the first
time after all these years, and I have no valid excuse to offer. You may
or may not have received the letter I wrote you telling you that I was
leaving old Stafford forever. My bad conduct had driven my father to
desperation, and I had grave reasons to believe that he would actually
enforce the law against me. I had made up my mind to turn over a new
leaf and fight it out on new lines at home, when the last straw came to
break my purpose. Dear Dora, her brother Wynn approached me that very
night and told me that her uncle intended positively to disinherit her
if she kept faith in me. What was there for me to do? God knows I was
unworthy of her, and the next morning was to bring things to light which
would make her despise me; so I promised him then and there to go away
and never communicate with her again. No human being ever suffered more
keenly than I did at losing her, but I determined to fight my way to
reformation, and by my own toil to restore to my father the funds I had
misappropriated. After years of strife and hardship I have done it, and
he has fully forgiven me. He has forgiven me and wants me to come home.
_Home!_ Just think of it! To me old Stafford would be a heaven on earth.
I think I could fall face downward in the dear old streets and kiss the
very pavement. But I may not come yet. Somehow I can't, Dora. I believe
most of the old town will forgive me, but she won't. I know she won't.
Her ideas of honor are too high for that. The reason I am so sure is
that I met her by chance in New York not long ago, and she gave me
clearly to understand that I need never expect to regain her respect. I
made my own case out pretty black to her brother, and I suppose he gave
me my full dues in telling her about it. To my astonishment, my father
told me that he had not spoken of my shortage at the bank, and that
nothing had been said about it at home, but her brother told her.
She got the confession straight from me, and there could be no better
authority. I love her still, dear Dora, and more than ever. The very
gulf between her and me has only made her the dearer.

But I mustn't write so much about myself. My father says you are still
unmarried. He couldn't tell me whether you had carried your painting
further. I was sure it would do great things for you, and it is not too
late, even yet.

Another thing--I have always felt that I may have hurt your feelings
past forgiveness by advising you as I did in that last letter not to
trust too fully the man whom I mentioned. I now see that I had no right
to go so far. You were hardly more than a child then, but you knew how
to take care of yourself even with a man of the world like him, and I
had no right to warn you. But I was going away, dear Dora, and I was so
miserable about myself that I exaggerated your danger. I have seen
by the papers that he has made a great success in life, and that old
Stafford is very proud of him--

*****

Margaret folded the letter in her lap and sat aflame with joy, staring
with glowing eyes at the vacant air.

“Do you like it? Is it nice, lady?” the child asked.

“Yes, very nice, and I thank you,” she answered. The child said
something, but she did not hear it. The pent-up ecstasy within her was
like physical pain; she could have screamed to give it an outlet. She
felt a womanly yearning to embrace the boy, and would have opened
her arms to him had she not heard steps behind her. Looking over her
shoulder, she saw Kenneth Galt approaching.

“I dropped in at the front to see you,” he said, with a bow. “They told
me you were out here.” His eyes fell on the child, and a strange flare
of inexpressible tenderness lighted his lack-lustre eyes as he drew a
chair forward and sat down.

“Yes, I like it here,” she intoned, and her voice, in her own ears,
sounded far off, and as if it had taken on the timbre of a new and
exalted existence. She half feared that Galt would note it.

“You seem happy,” he said, thoughtfully, “and that is a condition that
is most rare with humankind. I certainly envy a happy individual.”

“Yes, I am very happy,” she said--“more so than I ever was in my life
before.”

“I certainly envy you,” he repeated, gloomily. “I have given up all hope
of even touching the hem of the good dame's garment.” The boy had gone
to him, and stood with his little hand on his father's knee, looking
with trustful adoration into the dark, saturnine face above him.
Something in the child's profile, now that Margaret held the glass of
revelation to her eyes, showed kinship to its paternal prototype, and a
dazzling dart of conviction flashed through her. At that instant she had
a motherly instinct to draw the child from the contaminating touch of
the man who had disowned it. His attitude of denial was a desecration to
the holiness of parenthood, and in her soul she resented it.

“Come to me, Lionel,” she said, gently. “I want you to kiss me. Won't
you, just once?”

The child stared as if scarcely believing that he had heard aright.

“What did you say, lady?” he asked, as he lingered hesitatingly.

She repeated her words more tenderly than before, and there was a mist
before her sight as he came toward her.

“Do you like me now?” he asked, wonderingly. “Yes, and love you very,
very much,” she answered, huskily.

“But you didn't ever so long at _first_; you didn't _yesterday_, when
I asked you to see my church. You didn't just _this minute_, when I
brought my mother's letter.”

“But I do now, ever and ever so much,” she said, adopting his tone, and,
taking him into her arms, she pressed him passionately to her breast
and kissed him on his brow, on his cheeks, and on his red lips. Then,
holding him in her arms, and with no word of explanation to Galt, she
rose. “Put your arms close around my neck,” she said, “and hug me tight.
I am going to run over and see your mother.”

The child complied, timidly, a delicate flush of appreciation on his
mobile face. Then she put him down, and, still not looking at Galt, she
said:

“No, you needn't come, Lionel; I'll only be there a minute to return the
letter. You may stay here and entertain your--your good friend.”

Galt, who had risen, stood looking after her for a moment, his
countenance dark with the ever-constant despair within him. He felt the
tiny, confident hands of his child as they pressed against his legs, and
looked down into the sweetly smiling, upturned face.

“They _all_ like me now,” Lionel said. “She was the only one that
didn't, but she says she does _now_. She kissed me. Did you see her? Oh,
she's so pretty! She is--no, she isn't, but she is _nearly_ as pretty as
my mother.”

Galt sat down and drew the boy first to a seat on his knee and then into
his arms.

“She knows the truth,” he said to himself, in a tone of desperate
indifference to fate. “Something in that letter told her.”




CHAPTER XXI

|AS she passed through the gate at the end of the lawn, Margaret looked
back and saw the child and its father seated together.

“Yes, he is the one,” she mused. “He of all men! And yet I might have
known it; he has adored the child since the moment he first saw it there
on the lawn.”

Dora saw her coming from her easel near the window of her studio, and
stood in the hall awaiting her. Her face was aglow with expectation.

Without any word of greeting Margaret simply ran to her and threw her
arms about her neck. “Oh, you are _so_ good, _so_ noble!” she cried.
“I see it all now, and I have been wofully wrong. Oh, Dora, I could
not have treated you as I have all these miserable years if I had not
thought--I actually thought--”

“I know now what you thought,” Dora broke in, a pained expression
clutching her lips, as she drew Margaret into the studio. “I don't
know why I did not think of it sooner, but I didn't. Away back when
my trouble was blackest I heard that Fred's name had been coupled with
mine. I denied it then, and thought that was the end of it. After that,
you see,” she went on, with a shudder of repugnance to the topic, “I
buried myself here so completely that no outside gossip reached my ears.
I had to guard my own secret, and I was afraid that even the slightest
agitation of the matter might disclose the truth. I--I would have died
rather than have had it known--all of it, I mean.”

“And yet you sent me this letter?” Margaret laid it on a table and stood
staring gratefully into the beautiful face. “You sent it, although you
knew that it might--at least--lead me to--to wonder who--”

“Yes, I had to do it,” the young artist interrupted, her glance averted.
“I could not bear to have you think Fred was anything but noble and true
and good. Margaret, I cried for joy over the fine news in his letter. I
couldn't believe you had snubbed the poor boy in New York for nothing.
I was puzzled for a while, and then the horrible truth dawned on me.
I hope he will never learn that he was so terribly misjudged. It would
hurt him more than all else that has happened to him. They said he was
bad, Margaret--wild, and a gambler, and all that; but to me he was like
a sweet, thoughtful brother. If I'd only listened to his advice, I'd
never have been situated like this; but I didn't. I thought I was very
wise then. I have Lionel now, of course. He seemed to come to me like an
angel of light out of a black sky of infinite pain. But if God will only
show me a way to save him from future trouble, I--I--”

“There, I have made you cry!” Margaret exclaimed, regretfully. “I am so
sorry!”

“I don't give way often.” Dora brushed the tears from her eyes. “It
is only when I think of what may come to my little darling. Perhaps we
shall get to Paris before he is old enough to understand, and then all
this will fade from his childish memory.”

“Yes, yes, you must go to Paris,” Margaret said. “I have more money than
I need. Dora, surely you would not refuse to let me--”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Dora cried out. “I couldn't think of it. What is done
must be done by _me_, by _my_ brain, and by _my_ hands. God will surely
let me atone in that way for my mistake. It is what I have prayed for
night and day all these years, and the reward surely can't be far off.”
 She forced a wan smile to her rigid face, and added: “Then, like the
Arabs, some night we'll fold our tents and silently steal away from old
Stafford. Only the grocer-boy and the postman will know, at first, and
then the last chapter of our life here will be written. It seems sad,
doesn't it?--but it is sweet, so very, very sweet and soothing.”

Margaret was crying. Without a word, she kissed Dora and went out. But
she did not return home at once. She kept on down the little street
on which the cottage stood till she came to another which led to the
square.

She passed the stores, bowing to an acquaintance in a doorway or in a
passing carriage, and went on to Walton's bank.

“Is Mr. Walton in?” she asked Toby Lassiter, at the cashier's window in
the green wire grating.

“He has just this minute stepped out,” Toby answered. “He will be right
in. Won't you go to his office and wait?”

“Thank you, yes,” she answered, and went back to the musty little room,
taking a chair near the old man's desk.

Without a moment's delay, Toby grabbed his hat and went out in the
street. He found the banker lounging around Pete Longley's grocery
store, where he had an attentive audience. Toby knew better than to
interrupt the old man when he was talking, so he waited for Walton to
finish his remarks, which, judging by the steady gleam of the banker's
eye, had some underlying motive; and, considering the fact that Pete
was a noted gossip, Toby decided that his employer was simply and
deliberately setting afloat certain reports that would be on every lip
before nightfall.

“Oh yes,” Toby heard him saying, “I never was a man to let my right hand
know what my left was doing in any deal whatsoever, and so, all this
time, I have kept my own counsel in regard to where Fred was at, and
why--why I sent him out there. He invested some of the scads that is
coming to him in that big boom town and turned his money over as fast as
a dog can trot. Boys, I'm actually ashamed to tell you fellows how rich
he really is. I reckon you'd get an idea of how he's fixed if I was
to say he has made more since he left here than I've raked and scraped
together all my life.”

“You don't say!” Pete Longley exclaimed. “Well, that certainly is fine.
I reckon he did it through his popularity. I never knew a chap that had
as many friends.”

“Well, he'll be back to shake hands with you all very soon now,” Walton
said, gratified at the way his fuse had ignited. “I've been out to see
him a time or two, but he has always been too busy to come this way;
but he'll get here--he'll lay everything down and head this way some day
before long.”

Just then Walton caught sight of the breathless Toby at his elbow; he
stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk, and bent down to hear what his
clerk had to say.

“She's waiting for you in your office, Mr. Walton,” Toby panted.

“Who?--not--”

“Yes, sir; I told her to sit down and I'd fetch you in.”

“Oh, Lord, I reckon I'll get it in the neck, Toby!” Walton's face was a
veritable mask of gravity and concern. “I reckon she's come to give the
boy his walking-papers. I have thought it over till my head swims. No
woman of her station and pride would ever let a man come back to her
while a thing like that is hanging over him. If the woman and the child
was dead and under ground, it might be different. She's come too quick
to bear good news--a woman would tussle over a thing like that for a
good month, and then ask for more time. No, the jig is up! I deserve it
for the string of lies I was wrapping round that gang to make my case as
good as possible.”

He moved slowly into the bank, hung up his hat in the little hallway
deliberately, and quite after the manner in which he went to meet
business proposals, with his rough face grimly set against rejections
and compromises. She was going to cast him down, but he'd show her that
he was game. She had practically closed the matter during his interview
with her, and had only delayed longer at his earnest request. No, she
shouldn't chuckle over his defeat. He didn't know but what he'd throw
out a hint that Fred wasn't really so very “rampageous” in the matter,
after all.

“Oh, how do you do?” he said, as he went in. She started to hold out
her hand, but, not looking for such a movement, he failed to see it, and
lunged toward his desk, where he sat and took up a pen.

“Well, I reckon,” he began, awkwardly, “you've' come to see me about--to
say whether or not--that is, you remember, I said if you finally
decided--”

“I _have_ decided, Mr. Walton.” She rose and came and stood over him.
Her voice was quivering; there was a blaze of burning joy in her face
and eyes, but he did not see it.

“Oh, you _have!_ Well, it's for you to say whether you thought best or
not. I reckon I went just a _little_ mite beyond my authority up
there, in my effort to conduct Fred's affairs for him, without, you
understand--without his _free_ consent. I only thought, maybe, if you
would signify your willingness to overlook certain rather shady things,
Fred might take it as a sort o'--sort o' all-round sign from _this_
end--a sort of index of public opinion bearing on his particular case,
and--”

“Yes, I have decided, Mr. Walton,” Margaret broke in. “I have come to
ask you to write to him. Tell him, please, that I'd like to see him.
I feel sure that when he gets home he and I will fully understand each
other.”

“Good gracious, Miss Margaret, you don't mean--” Simon stood up to his
full height, his old eyes blinking in astonishment.

“Yes, I do, Mr. Walton. I want to see him and talk to him. I don't know
how to say it to _you_, but I am sure Fred will understand. Tell him
that I--that I kissed you for his sake, there!”

And before Simon could avoid it she had thrown her arms around his
neck and actually pressed her lips to his grizzled cheek. To add to his
confusion, Toby hastily entered the room just as she was releasing her
dumfounded captive.

“Oh!” Toby gasped, his face ablaze with embarrassment, “I didn't mean
to; but the General is at the door in his carriage, and asked if you
were in here. Of course, Miss Margaret, I hadn't the least idea but--”

“Well, don't let it get out, for all you do, Toby,” Margaret laughed,
merrily. “Don't forget, Mr. Walton; by to-night's mail, sure!”

And the next instant she had floated out of the room, leaving the
red-face banker under the perplexed stare of his apologetic clerk.

“She oughtn't to have done that!” Walton growled, as he brushed the
shoulders of his coat where her gloved hands had rested and stroked his
tingling cheek. “She had no business going as far as that. Women are
such dad-dratted galoots when they get wound up in any matter. She seems
willing for him to come. I'm not able to understand it, and I don't
intend to try. They won't be long getting hitched if she goes at him in
a whirlwind like that. Good Lord, I wouldn't have my wife know what she
done just now for any man's pile! She'd make a scandal out of it, or
break her neck trying.”

“Well, it's safe in my hands, Mr. Walton,” Toby said, with unconscious
humor. “_I'll_ never tell it.”

“_You'll_ never tell it? Who the devil asked you to hide it?” Walton
stormed. “But I reckon she meant it to sort o' seal what she'd made up
her mind to agree to, and she really is swallowing a pill, Toby, from
any point of view. But it will make the boy powerful happy, and he
will be on the wing as soon as he gets my report. Huh! I see his old
stepdaddy's face now. He may try to keep him; but, shucks! I've got the
old duck where the feathers are short. I've started a bang-up report in
the boy's favor, Toby, and you can sort o' kick the ball along whenever
it comes your way. We needn't mention that nasty business to him,
neither; if Margaret can let bygones be bygones, surely the rest of us
can.”




CHAPTER XXII

|UNDER a growing weight of uneasiness, combined with a sense of utter
discontent with himself, Galt put Lionel down when he had half listened
to his accusing prattle for an hour, and sought the shadowy solitude of
his great house.

Yes, Margaret Dealing knew, he told himself. That was plain from her
change of manner. She knew the truth at last, and was now heaping upon
him the silent, womanly contempt which he so eminently deserved.

He sat at his open window and watched the shadows fall and sullenly
creep across the lawn as the sunbeams receded, and the twilight of
a close, sultry evening came on. He went down to supper when he was
called, but he ate little and his loneliness seemed more oppressive
there in the open gas-light, under the gaze of the observant and
solicitous attendants. Taking a cigar, he went outside and began to walk
up and down on the grass, now grimly fighting against the fate which,
like some grim sea-monster, was clutching him with a million penetrating
tentacles, and coiling round him as might some insidious reptile bent
upon retributive torture. How had he dared to question the predominance
of spirit over matter when this piteous appeal for the peace of his soul
was oozing from the very fibre of his being?

Presently he saw Wynn Dearing emerge from the front door of his home,
carrying a traveller's bag. Dearing rested the bag on the walk at his
feet and stood looking down the street. Then, with his arms folded, he
began to walk nervously to and fro.

“He is going away,” Galt speculated. “He looks excited. I wonder if
Margaret could have told him of her discovery?”

Galt stood still, held to the ground by the sheer horror of the thought.
Of all possible happenings, he had most dreaded his best friend's
discovery of that particular thing. The young doctor had turned toward
him and was approaching. He now held his head down and had clasped his
hands tensely behind him. Suddenly, when quite near, he raised his eyes
and recognized Galt.

“Hello, Kenneth!” he said. “I didn't know you were at home. Otherwise, I
should have run in and said good-bye.”

“You are going somewhere, then?” Galt said.

“To Augusta for a few days,” Dearing replied. “I got a letter offering
me a chance to do an important operation. I shall be glad to get away,
even for so short a time as that. I almost wish, old man, that I could
stay away forever. I used to love this town, but I hate it now. I hate
anything that is heartless and totally blinded by money and power to all
sense of justice and common decency.”

“Why, what's gone wrong?” Galt inquired.

“Wrong? The place is rotten to the core!” Dearing burst out. “Kenneth,
a thing is going to be countenanced by the citizens of this town that
would stain the character of the Dark Ages. Haven't you heard the news
that has set every tongue to wagging like a thousand bell-clappers?”

“No, I haven't heard anything out of the ordinary. You see, I am keeping
so close here at home that--”

“Well, old man, the lowest, poorest excuse for a man that old Stafford
ever produced is coming back,” Dearing broke it, furiously. “Fred
Walton, I mean. I didn't think he'd have the effrontery to show his face
here again, but he has decided to do it.”

“Oh!” Galt exclaimed. But that was all he said, for Dearing went on,
angrily:

“Yes, and the dastardly thing--the most outrageous fact about it all--is
that every soul in the place is ready to receive him with open arms.
He has made lots of money; he is rich; he has reformed, they say, and,
idiots that they are, they have forgiven him. I have heard his return
spoken of by a score of our very best citizens, and not one of them has
even mentioned the crime that lies at his door--the crime that stands
out to-day in a more damning light than it ever did. The brave, patient,
suffering little woman--who is as high above him intellectually,
morally, and every other way as the stars are above the earth--and that
glorious child are to have another slap from his dirty, egotistical
paw. He put her into prison and made her an exile with his nameless
offspring, and yet he comes back like a royal prince. 'Wild oats,' they
call his vile conduct, and they are ready to wipe it off his record.
That is modern mankind for you, and, Kenneth, this one circumstance has
come nearer to shaking my faith than anything that ever happened to me.
If God can allow an insult like that to come to Dora Barry now, after
all she has borne so sweetly, silently, and bravely, He can be no God of
mine. I'll be through with the creeds, I tell you. I'll join your gang
of scoffers and trot along wherever your black philosophy leads. Even my
uncle has no protest to make, nor my sister, who I thought had given the
scamp up in disgust. By George, she even looks happy over it! I don't
want to meet him face to face. I don't know that I could control myself.
She has given me no right to act as her defender; if she had,
Kenneth, I'd take up her cause if it ended my career here forever!”

“You? You?” Galt gasped.

“Yes, I. Listen, old man. You are my best friend, and I feel like
telling some one. I feel that it would be a sort of tribute of respect
to her worthiness. I presume you, like all the rest, think that I never
have had any preference for any particular woman, but I have had, and I
am not ashamed of it.

“When I was a boy of thirteen or so, and Dora was about eight, we used
to play together. Even at that age I had an eye for beauty, and she was
the prettiest child that ever lived. We called ourselves sweethearts.
Her old father used to get us to sit for him in his studio, and he would
talk to us as only such a beautiful soul could to children. He used
to sigh and say that she would be a pauper, and that I would grow up a
prince, for an artist could not leave his daughter money, and my
father was said to be well-to-do. Even at that early age I denied the
possibility of such a thing making any difference between her and me,
and when she grew up into such beautiful girlhood, and was studying art
under her father, I determined to make something of myself, aside from
the inheritance which was to come to me. So I went in for medicine and
surgery, and she kept to art, saying that she would earn a living for
her parents when they became old. But he died away off in Paris, whither
his dreams led him, while I was at college, and when I came home I found
that she had grown away from me. It was a great blow, for I had been
constantly thinking of her. To me she was the very glory of her sex,
and it was mostly her influence that made me what I am. I have seen many
women since then, but never her equal from any point of view. I went
with her occasionally after that, but it was more to become accustomed
to her loss than in the hope of winning her regard. Then the awful,
unmentionable thing came out. You know what I mean. That man had won her
confidence, won her heart--how, God only knows, but he had--and dealt
her a back-handed blow, and left her helpless, miserable. I tried then,
harder than ever, to tear her image out of my heart, but I couldn't. My
professional duties called me into the saddened home to which no other
soul was admitted. I saw that even in her blighted womanhood she was
fulfilling every promise given by her youth. Instead of sinking lower,
she was blooming like a flower under snow. I suppose I shall go through
the rest of my life with her personality woven into the very warp and
woof of my being. But knowing her has strengthened and broadened me. She
is beautiful, pure, and spiritual--God's denial of the social law held
over her. Only shallow men judge women by physical mistakes made in the
unselfish purity of over-confidence. She will never call on me for
the aid I'd gladly give, and I can't insult her strange widowhood by
offering it. She has her heart set on going to Paris to live and study,
as her father did. She thinks she can bury herself there before Lionel
is old enough to realize his condition, and that he may never know the
truth. It is a beautiful dream, but it can never be realized.”

A horse and buggy stopped at the gate, and Doctor Beaman, who was
driving, leaned over and called out, excitedly: “I'm fifteen minutes
late, Wynn; you may miss the train. Hurry! hurry!”

“That's a fact; I must go. Good-bye, old man.” Galt held on to Dearing's
hand firmly, almost desperately.

“Wait, I have something to say,” he began--“something that simply must
be said.”

“Good gracious, Wynn, hurry, hurry!” Doctor Beaman was heard calling
out, impatiently. “You don't want to lie over in Atlanta. I'll have to
go in a gallop, and _then_ may miss your train! Hurry!”

“Wait, just a moment,” Galt implored.

“Oh, I know you are sympathetic.” Dealing, misunderstanding, ran for
his bag, with the wordless Galt shambling along at his side. “I couldn't
have told you all that if you hadn't taken such a liking for the poor
little kid. Good-bye, good-bye, only don't join the gang of fools that
will laud that scamp to the skies when he comes--that is all I ask.”

“But you _must_ listen!” Galt cried out. “I must tell you now that--”
 But Dearing had darted away. The gate closed after him, and Galt saw him
climbing into the buggy even while it was in motion.

“Well, he'll know it soon enough,” the lonely man thought. “The facts
will come out now. Walton will hear the report when he gets back, and
Dora will declare him innocent.”

Galt went into the dimly lighted hallway of his house and ascended the
stairs. There was nothing to do now, he told himself. The world that had
admired him, the men and women who had entrusted him with the investment
of their savings in his various schemes, would stare and doubt their
senses. They would shun him--one and all they would shun him as they
would some loathsome thing; he had used their money well, but their
profit had been made by a man who had known no honor.

He entered his room, turned up the light, and critically examined his
ghastly image in the mirror on his bureau. What a gashed and blearing
mask to all that lay behind it! How could it go on? How could he bear
with it another day? Even if he could lay it aside in sleep to-night,
the heartless dawn would reveal it all the more relentlessly. Suddenly
out of the turmoil of his emotions a grim resolve rose and fastened
itself on him. His suicide would be his confession--his belated
exoneration of the man who so long had borne the stigma in his stead. In
a small drawer in the bureau lay a revolver. It was loaded in all of its
six chambers, and as he took the weapon out he almost fondled it in his
clammy hand. In the morning his servants would find his body, and
the truth would be out. He would close the door and windows that the
revolver's report might be smothered. But he started; there was the
child, his helpless child, to whom he had given life--and _such_ a life!

“Lionel, Lionel!” he said, aloud. “My son, my son, my beautiful brave
boy, who loves me in spite of what I have done against him! Will he
grow up and understand? Will he pardon his misguided father, or blush
for shame at the thought of him?”

With the revolver still in his hand, he sank into a chair near a window
and gazed out into the star-filled sky. Suddenly he started. Whence had
come the thought? He could not tell, but a new and dazzling conviction
was on him like light streaming through the gates of Paradise. Kill
himself? How absurd the thought! He might dash his bleeding, lifeless
body to the earth, but he, himself, would remain a deathless witness
to the act. Nothing in the shape of matter, no force known to science,
could possibly put out of existence the yearning for atonement within
him. Nothing so divine as that could die. Such a thing was from the
Eternity that had created Eternity. He threw the revolver on his bed,
and drew a deep, delectable breath. His now entranced vision seemed to
extend further out into the world-filled void above him. He stood up,
panting from the sheer ravage his new hope had wrought upon him.

“Eternity! Eternity!” he whispered, in reverential awe. “Now I
see--the scales have fallen from my sight. I see! Thank God, I see! I
understand!”



CHAPTER XXIII

|WHEN Kenneth Galt waked the next morning it was with the new sense of
having slept long and restfully for the first time in years. The sun
was streaming into his windows from the golden east; the cool air seemed
crisp and invigorating; in the boughs of the trees close by birds were
flitting about and singing merrily. The dew-wet sward, bespangled with
a myriad of sun-born gems, stretched away into the gauzy mist which hung
over the town.

“It is glorious--glorious!” he cried, in ecstasy. “She may refuse, but I
shall never desist till I have won her forgiveness.”

After he had breakfasted in the big dining-room, now no longer solitary,
sombre, or accusing, he went directly down to Mrs. Barry's cottage.
With a strange, buoyant lightness of step he entered the little gate,
fastened the latch with a calm hand, and went up the steps and rapped on
the closed door, seeing, as he stood waiting, the face of Mrs. Chumley,
as the washerwoman peered curiously over the fence at him from her
wood-pile, where she was wielding a gapped and dull-edged axe. The door
was opened by Mrs. Barry, who could not disguise her surprise.

“I have come to see your daughter, Mrs. Barry,” he said, humbly, as
he stood uncovered before her. “I hope she will receive me; I have
something important to say.”

“She's not here. But don't stand there,” the old woman said; “somebody
might see you and wonder. Come into the parlor.”

She led the way, and he followed.

“No, she is not here,” she repeated, when they were in the simply
furnished room. “She and Lionel went very early to the swamp over the
hill near the river. She had some sketching to do, and he wished to go
along. You say you want to see her. Of course, you understand that such
a request is unexpected, to say the least, and, as I am her mother--”
 The speaker seemed at a loss for words to express her meaning, and
paused helplessly.

“I am glad of this opportunity to see you first,” Galt said, humbly.
“Mrs. Barry, I've come to beg her, on my knees if need be, to be my
wife. Perhaps you may understand; I hope you do.”

“Oh!” And the old woman sank into a rocking-chair and stared up at him.
“Oh!” she exclaimed again, her wrinkled hand pressed against her
thin breast. “You mean that, do you, Kenneth Galt? Well, I have never
mentioned it to her, but I thought it might come. I read faces fairly
well, and I saw, even at a distance, the spiritual despair in yours.
Knowing what you were responsible for, I felt that your solitary life
in your lonely house would bring results, for good or bad. At first I
thought you might resume--might make dishonorable proposals; but when I
saw you and Lionel together so often I began to count on other things--I
began to _pray_ for other things. You don't look like a mean man,
Kenneth Galt; and I can't find it in my heart to reproach you. Besides,
it is pitiful to think about, considering the child's future; but she
may have you now right where you had her once.”

“You mean--you mean!” he exclaimed, aghast, as he bent over her chair
and stared into her calm face. “You mean that--”

“I mean that it may be too late,” she interrupted him.

“Too late?” He sank into a chair in front of her, and, pale and
quivering in every limb, swung his hat between his knees.

“Yes; she is my daughter, but she is above me in a thousand ways. She
suffered untold agonies after you desert--after you left Stafford, and
all through her trouble; but when the baby came, and we were all shut up
here away from human sight, the choicest blessings from on high seemed
to fall on her. With her close work in her studio, and her devotion
to the child, she grew into something more of heaven than of earth. I
suppose there is such a thing as rising too high to love, in a _human_
sort of way, and I tremble when I think of how she may now take your
proposal. I want her to be sensible and think of the boy's interests,
but the idea of helping him in _just that way_ may be--be repulsive to
her. She's done without your aid all these years, you see, Kenneth Galt.
She has leaned on a Higher Power than any earthly one, and has already
received her reward. You knew her as she was once, but not as she is
now. She was hardly more than a child then. Her father used to say she
would be a great genius, and I think she really is. Her isolation
from mankind has done her more good in one way than harm. It has put
something into her work that couldn't have got there any other way.
Only yesterday a letter came from a high authority on art--But I have no
right to speak of her private affairs. If she sees fit to tell you about
it she may. That's another matter. She has never been ashamed, as this
town, no doubt, thinks she is. She looked on what passed between you and
her before the trouble as a true marriage in the sight of God. It wasn't
the way persons generally look at such matters, but she wasn't a common,
ordinary person, and she didn't think the man she loved was--that is, I
mean she thought you looked at it _exactly as she did_. She took you
at your word. If what I say pains you, I'm sorry. I must be blunt to
express what is in me, for I have long ago justified her. If she had
been worldly minded, back there when she was glorying in the secret
between you and her, she would have had worldly caution and forethought.
You may get forgiveness even from her, Kenneth Galt, in time, but there
can be nothing quite as unforgivable in the sight of God, it seems to
me, as taking advantage of _just that sort of faith_.”

The light of hope had died out of Galt's parchment-like face. He dropped
his horrified gaze to the floor.

“I see,” he groaned. “I am too late!” and sat as if stunned. “I was
never up to her level. It was only her girlish fancy that told her I
was.”

“Oh, I don't know!” Mrs. Barry said, almost sympathetically. “Now that
you feel as you do, her old trust might come back. There is one thing
that has touched her, I'll tell you that much, for certain, and that has
been your love for Lionel. One day I caught her shedding tears over it
as she stood concealed by the window-curtain watching you play with him
in the swing. If anything ever brings her back to you, it will be that
one thing. He loves you, too; he is always talking of you, and, if I am
any judge, she rather likes to hear it. It may be that--it may not; I
never can be sure I am reading her right.”

He rose. “I am going to find her now,” he said. “At any rate, she shall
know how I feel. She may spurn me, but from this day on I shall devote
my life to her interests and those of our child.”




CHAPTER XXIV

|INTO the wood, a wild, unbrageous tract of land lying back of the
cottage, he strode, full of ponderous fears as to the outcome of his
undertaking, and yet vaguely buoyed up by the natural beauty on all
sides. Soon the town lay behind him; only the low hum of its traffic,
the occasional clanging of a locomotive's bell, the whistle of an engine
at a factory, the clatter of a dray followed him. The reverent, almost
peaceful thought was borne in upon him that the meandering, little-used
path he was pursuing had been traversed many times by Dora. In that
secluded and picturesque spot she had breathed in the inspiration which
had lifted her far above those by whom she had been misunderstood and
traduced. Along that path she and his child, perchance, had plucked
flowers through the years in which he had shunned them--denied them
before the world, whose good opinion he had coveted to his moral
undoing.

Half a mile from the cottage the path began to descend to the river
valley, a vast swampy tangle of dense undergrowth. Here in the marshes,
impassable during the overflow of winter and spring, but now dank, cool,
and seductive, were many nooks of indescribable beauty. Here moss-grown
willows bowed over seeping, crystal pools and silently trickling water.
There were the armies of cattails, the solitary clumps of broom-sedge,
the banks of delicate ferns, and the pond-lilies which had formed the
background of her pictures. There she had found the wild rose-bushes,
the papaw, the sumac, and the mazes of grape and muscadine vines into
the reproduction of which she had poured her crushed and yet awakening
soul.

Presently he came upon her seated on a mossy bank, her closed
sketch-book on her knee. She was not working, but, with the end of her
pencil at her parted lips, she sat watching Lionel, whom he could see
plucking flowers and colored leaves not far away.

“Now, don't go any farther, darling boy!” he heard her call out, in
tones the mellow sweetness of which shot through him like a delectable
pain. “You might wander away, and then mother's boy would be lost.”

Sheltered from her view by hanging vines and the lowering branches of
a beech-tree, Galt peered out at her. How could he have been so
blinded?--so densely unappreciative of her? Where in all his experience
had he known a creature so beautiful in soul, mind, and body? And yet
he had thrown her down and trampled on her and left her covered with
the mire and slime of his own making. He smothered a groan of blended
self-contempt and despair. Her mother had doubted his ever regaining
her regard, and Mrs. Barry knew her best. The girl had been at his mercy
once, and he had not hesitated to strike; now she had the upper hand.
What would she do? How would she receive his proposal?--what would she
say? Would her soulful eyes blaze under the fires of just retaliation?
Would her magnetic voice ring with the contempt she must so long have
felt?

[Illustration: 0008]

Noiselessly treading the dank, green moss which lay between him and
her, he was close to her before she was aware of his presence. Then she
glanced up and saw him; there was a fluttering, shrinking look in her
long-lashed eyes, in which he read the hurried hope that the meeting
was purely accidental; to his horror, he also read in the simple act of
reaching for her hat, which lay by her side, that she intended to avoid
any sort of intercourse with him.

With the agony of this fear sounding in his voice, he cried,
imploringly: “Please don't run away! I have been to your house to see
you; your mother told me you were here.”

“But she _wouldn't_,” Dora said, pale and surprised. “She knows that I
don't want to--to meet _any one_ here. It isn't fair, Kenneth--you know
it isn't! It is taking a mean, low advantage of me, after all that
has happened. It is cowardly, and I won't stand it. You will leave me
instantly, or _I_ shall go!”

“God forgive me, you are right, Dora!” he cried, in dismay. “But there
is something I must say, and even your mother thought I might venture to
see you.”

“If it is to offer me money for my boy, as you did in the contemptible
letter I burned unanswered, soon after his birth, you will be wasting
time,” she said, wrathful, in her cold, unrelenting beauty. “I can't
accept money, even for him, which was earned as the price of his
mother's public disgrace. He is mine, and he shall be mine to the end.
I can work for him till he is old enough to work for me. We don't need
you--neither of us do, Kenneth.”

“I have made you angry,” he said, quivering from head to foot, his
anguished eyes fixed on hers. “Listen, Dora. Last night I planned to
kill myself to get out of the agony into which my awakened love for you
and my new love for Lionel has drawn me. I was ready to do it, for to
that moment I had no fear of God or eternity; but a change came over me.
Hope dawned; I don't know why, but it did, and I made a determination to
spend the remainder of my life in your service, and in that of my child,
for he is mine as much as he is yours.

“Then my new hope seemed to fairly set the world on fire. It was showered
down from heaven like the forgiveness of God upon a blinded creature
buried in the mire of sin. Ever since I sold my honor the night my
ambition conquered me, I have been a cursed, isolated soul. It must have
been the hand of God that led me back here to Stafford. I love Lionel
with all my heart, and I know now, in spite of my contradictory conduct,
that I have loved you all this time. Last night Wynn Dearing told
me that it is your wish to go to Paris--you, your mother, and the
child--and the thought came to me that if you would be my wife we could
go and remain there a few years, and return here to spend the rest of
our lives, and thus regain the happiness we've lost. Oh, don't turn from
me, Dora! You must, oh, you must give me a chance! God knows it is my
duty, and you must not stand between me and that. I can wait for the
return of your respect, even if it is for years. But give me a chance!”

She had turned her face from him, and he could not tell what effect his
appeal had had upon her; but he saw that her soft, white fingers were
clinched tightly on her knee. Suddenly she looked him squarely in the
face.

“Oh, you make it so _hard_ for me!” she said, gently. “I knew you were
not a happy man. I saw the shadow of spiritual death in your countenance
the day I met you at Dearing's. Yes, the child is yours, as well as he
is mine. God has made him a part of you, as he is a part of me. And he
loves you, Kenneth, he loves you--and admires you above all men. Young
as he is, it would actually pain him to be separated from you. And you
are asking me to be your wife!” She shrugged her shoulders, her proud
lip quivered, and she looked away. “You are asking me, and _now!_”

“Yes, Dora, to be my wife before the world, as you have been in God's
sight all these years. I am willing to crawl in the dust at your feet.
You are far above me. You were that when I blindly deserted you, and I
can never be worthy of your forgiveness, but I would die for a chance to
serve you.”

“How sad it all is!” she sighed, her glance on the ground. “What a mere
blown-about straw I have been! What a grim thing for a proud woman to
decide! You deserted me once to save a paltry sum of money--a worldly
ambition; you want me back to _save your soul_--that expresses it,
Kenneth. But I can't consent. I am simply human--and a woman. My pride
won't let me--the pride that every woman has who holds herself erect.
You sold yourself once, and you are now asking me to do the same. Your
price was a successful railroad and the plaudits of a few people--the
price paid to me would be the future welfare of my child. I am expected
to salve the wounds of a torn and mangled womanhood with the realization
that I am providing for my boy. There is no pain keener than the fear
that one's offspring may suffer what we ourselves have been through, and
I'd give my soul to see Lionel happy in the time to come, but I can't
bring it about in the way you ask. I simply can't! I loved you, Kenneth,
before that unspeakable cloud fell between us, but I was only a girl
then, and during all the years that have passed since I have given
you no place at all in my heart. We are, in fact, meeting to-day as
strangers.”

“I know. I know it is true so far as it touches _you_,” he said, with a
deep sigh, “for your love died with your respect for me, but my love
has never died, Dora. I smothered it for a time, in my mad ambition, but
there was no act of yours to weaken it, and so it lived and grew till it
has overpowered me. I love you now, strange as it may sound to you, ten
thousand times more than I ever did. You may turn from me with a shudder
and as a thing to be loathed; but I shall never cease to watch over you
and strive to protect you.”

“I can't say any more,” she said, as she tied the tape round her
portfolio and gathered up her pencils. “I don't want to pain you; but
I can't do what you ask, even--even for Lionel's sake. He and I and
his granny _may_ go to Paris some day, but we don't want you with us,
Kenneth. I want to leave absolutely _everything_ behind. You must be
dead to us; there is no other way--no other possible way.”

He turned his fixed gaze away, that she might not see the look of agony
which had overspread his face. She sat still and silent for several
minutes; then he saw her draw herself up excitedly, look about
anxiously, and rise to her feet.

“Oh, where is Lionel?” she cried. “He was there in the bushes when you
came. Oh, he may have wandered off and be lost! There are some very
dangerous places along the river-bank!”

“I see him! Don't be alarmed!” Galt said, indicating a spot beyond a
clump of bushes. “He's all right; I'll bring him to you.”

“Thank you,” she said, coldly, and she sank back rigidly on the grass.

He returned a moment later with Lionel in his arms. She could see, as
she swept them with a hurried glance, that Galt was pressing the child
close against his breast with a look of despair in his white face.
Reaching Dora, Galt was lowering the child to the ground when Lionel
clung tightly round his neck, pressing his little hand against his
cheek.

“What is the matter?” Lionel asked, anxiously. “Mamma, he can't talk. He
tries, but he can't; he is trembling all over; he is about to cry. What
is the matter with him?”

Reaching up, and without a word, Dora took the child into her arms, and,
holding him across her lap as if he had been an infant, she bent over
his face to kiss him. Presently she looked up at Galt, and her proud lip
trembled as she said:

“Oh, Kenneth, fate is handling us strangely. I spoke harshly just now,
for I can see that you are suffering. I wish I could be less human.
After all my dreams, I am of the earth, earthy. I am no higher than a
worm of this soil, after all the heights I thought I had climbed. But
I can't help myself. I could never forget. I might try throughout
eternity, but I'd never, never forget--forget that I offered myself
wholly, body and soul, and that you refused to--to take me when I was
in trouble. It may be sinful to look at it so, but I simply can't see it
otherwise. You must really go now. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” he echoed, in his throat. “I am going away to-morrow, and I
promise never to intrude myself upon either of you again.”

“'Good-bye?'--you said 'good-bye!'” Lionel suddenly sat up in his
mother's lap and stared from his great, startled eyes, his beautiful
mouth puckered up and quivering.

“Yes, I have to go away,” Galt faltered, his glance averted. “I only
came to spend a short time at Stafford.”

“But you told me you never would go away from me,” the child persisted.
“Don't you remember the day I fell and hurt my knee, and you washed it
and put the medicine on it? Don't you remember you kissed me, and hugged
me, and wanted me to kiss you, and said if I'd promise to be your little
boy you would always stay with me? How can I be your little boy if--if
you go off?”

The eyes of the mother and father met in the strangest stare that ever
passed between two mortal creatures.

“I can always love you if I can't be with you,” Galt faltered, conscious
of the emptiness of his words. “I can always love you and think what
a plucky little boy you are, and--and--” His voice trailed away into
nothingness. A sob rose in his throat and choked him.

“But I want you to _stay!_” The child was crying now, with his chubby
hands to his eyes. Suddenly Dora, with a desperate movement, pressed him
to her breast.

“You must not play on his feelings that way!” she cried, fiercely,
casting a significant glance toward the town. “Go, please!”

He bowed low, a look of death on his face. She pressed the head of the
sobbing child to her breast, and firmly held it there with her beautiful
white hand. “Good-bye,” she said, with the dignity and calmness of an
offended queen. “Good-bye--forever!”

He turned and moved away. A few paces from her, before the trees had
obscured her from his sight, he looked back and saw her with Lionel in
her arms. Her exquisite face was pressed consolingly against the golden
head. She was whispering to the child and rocking back and forth, as if
he were a babe on her breast.




CHAPTER XXV

|ON his left, farther away from the town, and about a mile distant,
stood a small mountain. Dark-red as to soil, bristling with sandstone
bowlders, sparcely grown with pines and thorny locust-trees, and gashed
by rain-washed gullies, it rose majestically against the cloud-flecked
blue of infinite space beyond.

Hardly knowing why he did so, Galt turned his face toward it and strode
on, vaguely conscious that he was battling against the soul-calamity
which had beset him as a dumb beast might fight for its physical life.
Around the sloping base of the mountain lay old worn-out fields, now
given over to the riotous possession of anything which would take
root upon its soil. There was no path leading to the seldom visited
elevation, but with his eyes constantly on the solitary finger of earth
he climbed over the old rail-fence encompassing the land, and forged
his way through the dense undergrowth, now ploughing his feet through
a matting of heather and dewberry-vines, or plunging unexpectedly into
some weed-hidden spring or fresh-water stream. Between him and the
mountain ran a creek, and he suddenly found himself at a spot on the
banks of it, where, as a boy, home on his vacations, he used to fish.
But it had changed, he told himself, as everything else had changed--he
was a man now, but _such_ a man!

Crossing the creek on a foot-log formed from the fallen corpse of a
giant oak he had once known, he walked onward. The land was now sloping
sharply upward, and his way was less impeded. The air was becoming more
rarefied, the view on either side and behind him was unfolding more
rapidly in the hazy distance. The sun, which had been beating on him
mercilessly, was now behind a drifting cloud, and the cool breezes of a
higher altitude fanned his flushed face.

Finally he reached a flat, jutting bowlder near the top, and, exhausted
from the inconsiderate tax on his muscles, he sank down panting. There
lay old Stafford nearest at hand, and beyond stretched out the new
town under its web of smoke, the besmudged handwriting of mercantile
progress. His brain had fostered the idea, and made it practicable.
Reaching out southward, in the sunlight, like two threads of silver,
lay the great steel highway which his foresight and ambition had brought
into existence. His fancy pictured with lightning flashes the growing
villages and towns, as he had seen them on the opening day when he,
like an emperor of a conquered territory, had been escorted over it. The
moment had given him the thrill of gratified avarice and the empty glory
of conquest, but the eyes of the eager throngs which had gazed upon him
in wonder and envy that day saw nothing of the cancer which even
then was eating into the vitals of his higher nature. Then--But why
contemplate it? The juggernaut of relentless Right had ground him under
its wheels.

He locked his arms over his knees, lowered his head, and groaned in
sheer despair. If Dora had only given him a bare chance! But she hadn't,
and now, loved as woman never was loved before, desired in spirit and
body as woman never was desired by man, she had coldly, firmly put him
from her. The sight of her as she sat holding his child in her arms,
and spurning him as was her right to spurn him, would haunt him into and
through the Eternity which had now become such a hopeless reality.

Suddenly raising his eyes to the relentless blue above, he tried to
frame a prayer.

“O God, have mercy!” he cried. “Show me, a sinner, a way out of the
darkness of my damnation. Give them to me, that I may atone by my
conduct to them throughout my life. Soften her heart, O God, and open
her eyes to the depths of my woe! I have suffered, I will suffer on to
the end, but give me my wife and child!”

Noon came and passed, but he had no thought of thirst or of hunger. He
remained there on the rock and watched the sun go down, and saw the soft
veil of coming darkness thicken over the earth. Now old Stafford lay
in darkness, save for the dazzling circles of light where the arc-lamps
swung across the streets and were grouped like a constellation in the
square. He waited till the town clock had struck nine; then, still
without sense of fatigue or hunger, he went down, now with considerable
difficulty, owing to the darkness of the incline.

He managed to reach his front gate without meeting any one, and was
entering when he saw the figure of a woman emerge from the veranda and
come slowly down the walk. Could it be one of the servants? he asked
himself. But his answer was the recognition of the woman herself. It was
Mrs. Barry. She paused, unable, it seemed, to formulate what she had to
say, so sudden was the meeting, and his heart sank lower, as the thought
came to him that something might have happened to Dora or the child.

“I came to see you,” she began, pushing back the bonnet which had
partially obscured her face. “Your servants told me they didn't know
where you were.”

“You wanted to see _me?_” he gasped. “Has anything gone wrong?”

“No, it is not _that_,” the woman said, leading the way toward a clump
of cedars on the grass, as if from the sensitive fear of meeting some
one on the walk. “My daughter and the child came home at noon. I saw
from her looks that she was troubled over something, and that Lionel had
been crying, from the marks on his face; but I did not question either
of them. All this afternoon she did not speak of you, but to-night,
after she had put the boy to sleep, she came into my room and sat down
near me. I knew she was in awful struggle over something. She began
telling me, in a slow, halting voice, of all that you had said. She is
my only child, Kenneth Galt, but I don't understand her any better than
if she were not of my flesh and blood. I never fully understood her
father. I suppose no practical-minded person can comprehend those who
live in the imagination, surrounded by ideals which become real to them.
She began to go over the whole history of her trouble from the very
first, and she never left out a single detail. She summed it all up
in the most marvellous manner. My heart ached for her as it never had
before. She wants to do right, she says, and she knows what would be
right and self-sacrificing on her part, but she says she simply can't
conquer the offended pride within her. She has had trouble and we are
poor, but there never was born a queen with more pride of womanhood.”

“Yes, yes,” Galt gasped, as he stared at her. “I know; I know.”

“Then I tried to advise her,” Mrs. Barry went on. “At first it was like
talking to a person born deaf, but finally she began to listen, for, as
a last resort, I was holding up the child's interests. I spoke of what
a glorious thing a trip to Paris would be--to stay there as long as we
liked, and to be able to come home again, for we do love it here, and
I am sure the people would be kind in their view of it. I reminded her
that once, when we asked Lionel what he had rather have than anything
on earth, he had said that, _first_, he wanted a father like other
children, and, _next_, that he wanted to be where he could have
playmates.”

“Oh, I can't bear it, Mrs. Barry!” Galt groaned. “If there is anything
under high heaven I could do to rectify my mistake, I'd give my life to
do it.”

“I know it, Kenneth, and I am going to say something that may surprise
you. I don't harbor any ill-feeling toward you. I simply can't. Living
so close with Dora has lifted me up in spiritual things. I can't have
anything but pity for the consequences of sin and temptation. What you
did wasn't a proof that you didn't love my child. It only proved that
the temptation you had, at the moment of your fall, kept you from
realizing what you would lose. That's all. I believe you loved her then,
that you did even after you left her, and I am sure that you do now more
than ever; in fact, I made that plain to her. I think she sees it, too,
_in her way_; but it doesn't help her overcome her pride. I am sorry
for her--more so than I ever imagined I could be for a woman under any
trial. She is pulled many ways by duty, and she is fairly in an agony,
undecided as to--”

“_Undecided?_ Did you say that?” Galt leaned forward eagerly, his lips
quivering, as he waited breathlessly.

“Yes, she is undecided. You see, things have come to such a focus that
we must leave here. She has just learned that Fred Walton has been
falsely accused by many persons, and she always liked him. He is coming
back home, and she wants to clear his name, and yet she shrinks from
having her private affairs brought in public view again. She said,
herself, that if she could get her own consent to become your wife, then
everybody would understand the truth, and not blame him. Then there is
the child--”

“Yes, Lionel!” Galt panted. “We must save him, and we can--we can, if
Dora could only--”

“She knows that full well,” the woman said, passing her gaunt hand over
her withered mouth and swallowing the rising lump in her throat. “If
you only could have--have heard what I did to-night it would have wrung
tears from your eyes. Lionel had waked up, and she had to go to him. He
couldn't sleep for what was on his mind. Kenneth Galt, that little
angel was simply begging his mother not to let you go away--think of it,
actually pleading for you! He had heard you say you were going, and, in
some way, he fancied Dora could persuade you to stay. He cried till his
little pillow was wet. He told her he loved you, that you had said he
was your little boy, and that he wanted to be with you always. I heard
her pleading with him and arguing, but through it all his little voice
would continue to cry out that it should not be so--that he wanted
_you_, and that _you_ wanted _him_.”

“God bless him!” burst from the lips of the bowed man.

“Finally he dropped to sleep,” Mrs. Barry went on, “and slept, still
sobbing, as children do when wrought up high, and she left him and came
again to me. Poor thing! She was simply undone--conquered! She put her
head in my lap and burst out crying. She sobbed and sobbed a long time,
and then I asked her if she would let _me_ manage it. She knew what I
meant--exactly what I meant, for she became like a lump of clay in my
lap. For a long time she lay like that, hardly breathing. Then I told
her of what a wonderful influence she had been to me in opening my eyes,
old as I am, to the beauty of a higher, spiritual life, and that in
holding back, as she was now doing, and refusing to pardon a repentant
man, even when the happiness of her own child was at stake, she was
going backward instead of forward. She seemed to realize it. She sat up
straight, and the old light of sweetness and gentleness seemed to
dawn in her face. 'I'll simply put myself in your hands, mother,' she
said--'in your hands!'

“I broke down and cried in pure joy, Kenneth Galt. Then what do you
think? I heard her go back to her room, and knew that the child had
waked. I am not sure; but I think she waked him purposely, for she never
could bear to have him go to sleep unhappy. I heard her telling him
about the beauty of Paris--about its streets, its boulevards, and its
parks; its buildings; its statuary and pictures, and of the pretty
children who were to be his friends. She laughed like a happy
child--they were always like two children, anyway--when she told him
about crossing the ocean in a great ship, and of the high waves, deep
water, and big fish. But he stopped her with a question. What do you
think it was, Kenneth? He wanted to know if _you_ were going? I knew she
hesitated, her pride closing her lips, even there alone with her child.
She wouldn't answer his question. Then I heard Lionel say plainly, and
there was a strange sort of stubborness in his little voice: 'Well, I
don't want to go; he would not want me to leave him; he said so once;
he said he would never leave _me_, and I wasn't to leave _him_. Is he
going, mother?' he kept asking.

“Then I heard her say, 'Yes, darling, he is going--now you can sleep!'”

“She said that? Did she say that?” Galt cried, his whole despondent
being aflame.

“Yes; it is settled, Kenneth. Perhaps, in time, you and she will be
thoroughly happy together. I don't know, but I hope so.”

“Thank God!” Galt said, fervently, and, taking the old woman's hand, he
wrung it in an ecstasy of delight. “I only wanted a chance, Mrs. Barry.
I shall devote my life to all of you, and we can be happy--gloriously
happy over there. She shall be our queen, and Lionel our little prince.
I'll have this old house kept in order, and some day we'll come back to
it.”

“Then here is my plan,” Mrs. Barry said. “Meet us in Atlanta the day
after to-morrow, and we shall be ready to sail. I'll let you know what
hotel we go to. The news will come back from there, but we sha'n't be
here during the reception of it. Now, I'm glad, for your sake as well
as ours, that it is all going to turn out well. I want to see you happy.
You have suffered enough, and so has she. As for me, I never was so
happy in my life. I want to go to Paris for a while. My husband is
buried there, you know.”




CHAPTER XXVI

|ON the morning of the fourth day after the meeting of Dora and Kenneth
Galt, old Stafford was stirred to its outskirts by the return of the
most popular young man who had ever lived in the town. Fred Walton got
in an hour or so before noon.

He had sent a telegram to his father announcing his coming, but had
failed to mention the hour of his arrival, and so there was no special
conveyance at the station to meet him, though old Simon, in his Sunday
frock-suit and a fresh collar, with a five-cent shoe-shine and a
ten-cent shave at the barber-shop adjoining the bank, sat in the
counting-room waiting, not sure whether his son would get in during the
morning or by the afternoon train.

He was not long kept in doubt, for the electric trolley-car that whizzed
up from the station was fairly packed with individuals of both sexes and
all classes, who, it seemed, had ridden up chiefly that they might be
among the first to pay tribute to their old favorite and hear him talk.

It was all joyous and reassuring enough to Fred at first, and might have
continued so had the car not stopped at a crossing half-way between the
station and the square, and taken on Wynn Dearing, who, having returned
home, had been visiting a patient near by. The eyes of the two met. Fred
colored high; but with a hard, grave countenance Dearing simply turned
to the conductor, paid his fare, and sat down near a window, through
which he stared stonily all the way to the square.

The heart of the returning exile sank into a veritable slough of
despair. His admirers, packed about him, were stilled for a moment by
the “cut” he had received, and then, not being able to interpret it,
they valiantly passed it over, and showed by their excessive cordiality
that if one of his old companions had been coarse enough to snub him on
that day of all days, they remained true.

But the light and joy of it all was blotted out for the one most
concerned. He sat trying to answer the innumerable questions, trying to
return humorous sallies and references to the gay old days with smiles
that would reflect their good-will, but it was a poor effort at best.
He endeavored, in a miserable maze, to recall the exact words of his
father's hurried letter ordering him home, and his spirits sank lower
and lower as he made the effort. After all, he told himself, he had
misunderstood Margaret's message--the message which had raised him to
the very skies of delight. The letter, which he had read hundreds of
times, was in the pocket of his coat, and he could feel its now grim and
satirical pressure against his breast.

“She told me she wanted to see you,” old Simon had written, “and for me
to write you so. She said she was sure when you and her got together you
and her would understand each other perfectly. She was powerful flushed
and excited, and I could hardly make out just what she did or did not
mean. It was the way she _acted_ more than what she actually said in so
many plain words that made me believe she had concluded to let bygones
be bygones. So, if I was you, Fred, and still thought she would be a
proper mate, why, I should lay business aside and make hay for a while.
The sun seems shining up this way for you right now, and so, as I say, I
would come right on before some other cloud rises. Women are changeable,
and she may be no exception to the rule. I can't quite understand why
she shut off my proposition in your behalf when I went up to see her,
and then come down all in a tilt and hustle the next day, and did what
she did, and talked like she did. I am too much of a business man by
habit, I reckon, to encourage anybody in a deal that ain't fully closed,
signed, sealed; and delivered; so, you see, all I can say is to come on
and work out your own salvation.”

Now, sure that he had made a grave mistake, and with the heaviest of
hearts, Fred left the car at the postoffice, noting that Wynn Dearing,
with a hard, set face, was striding across the street to his office with
never another look in his direction.

“He is furious because I have come back,” Fred said to himself. “I
promised him I'd stay away, and I have broken my word. General Sylvester
is as much against me as ever, and so is Wynn. It is all up. I'll never
live it down. These persons who seem glad to see me have nothing at
stake, or they would snub me too. My father has forgiven me, but
that has nothing to do with Margaret. After he wrote as he did, I
hoped--hoped--well, I was a fool! I hoped too much. I'll go back West
and stay there. I'll see Wynn Dearing and tell him of my mistake. Surely
that will justify me if my--my presumption ends there.”

As he neared the bank he saw his father standing in the door, backed up
by all his clerks. The gaunt, grizzled visage of the old man, under its
half-sheepish look, was lighted up as it had never been in his son's
memory, and the faces around him were wreathed in welcoming smiles, but
it was a hand of lead that Fred extended, a smile that was dead lay on
his handsome face.

Dearing, to his surprise, on reaching his office after leaving the car,
found Margaret waiting for him. He stared at her almost fiercely for a
moment; then, as she avoided his eyes and was silent, he broke out:

“You have come down here to see him?”

“Yes, brother,” she answered, simply. “I want to be among the first to
welcome him home. He has suffered enough, and has proved his genuine
nobility. I can't explain everything just now, for I have no right to;
but you will know all that I know very, very soon.”

“I know this, Madge,” he said, and he sat down before her, looking like
a figure carved in stone, so ghastly pale and rigid was he. “I know
_this_: if you pardon that man for what he has done, I'll never speak to
you again. I can stand some things, but I can't stand that. No man can
marry my sister who has stamped _the very heart out of my life, as this
one has!_ Now, perhaps you understand.”

“Oh, brother, you mean that you love--”

He nodded, and his head sank to his chest.

“Then you must listen to _me!_” Margaret began. “But, no, you will have
to wait--I can't tell you even now--I can't explain.”

At this juncture there was a step on the floor of the front room. Some
one was approaching. It was a messenger boy with a telegram.

Dearing took it and tore it open. The letters on the yellow sheet swam
before his eyes, but he read the words:

_Kenneth and I are married; now you will understand everything. We are
all going to New York, then to Paris for a while. With love from mamma,
Lionel, and myself, good-bye. Dora._

Margaret had read the telegram over her brother's shoulder, and with a
woman's tact she signed the boy's book and led him to the outer door.
She stood there alone for several minutes, looking out into the street.
There was no sound in the office. She waited ten minutes, and then, with
a tear of sympathy in her eye, she went back to her brother and put her
arms about his bowed form.

As soon as was practicable, Fred led his father away from the clerks
back to the old man's office.

“Wynn Dearing refused to speak to me on the car as we came up,” he said.
“Father, I am afraid I misunderstood your letter, and have made an awful
fool of myself by coming. He will think, and his sister will think--”
 But Fred could go no further. He sank into a seat near the desk, and the
banker slowly lowered himself into his revolving chair.

“You say Wynn--you say her brother wouldn't speak to you,” he faltered.
“Now, I wonder if--I--I wonder--You see, I hardly knew what to think
when she popped in here like she did that day. What she said was all
so jumbled and roundabout that, as I wrote you, it was more the way she
_acted_ that made me draw my conclusions than her exact words on _any_
direct line.”

“Well, how did she _act?_” Fred inquired, despondently.

“Why, if you _will_ know--” old Simon was growing red in the face. “I
had no idea of telling it even to _you_, but the truth is she up and
kissed me--so she did! She gave me a smack right on the cheek!”

“She _kissed_ you?”

“That's what she did, by gum! And Toby come in just in time to make
her let go of my neck. So, you see, after I thought it all over, why, I
thought that maybe she regarded me as being a kin to her in some shape
or other, and meant that as a sort o' hint of what she was willing to
do.”

At this moment a voice was heard in the corridor. It was Wynn Dearing's,
and he was asking for Fred.

“I wonder if he's come here to pick a row,” old Simon asked, as his
startled eyes bore down on the face of his son. “If he has, I reckon we
can accommodate him. I ain't no fighter, but you are my own flesh and
blood, and considering the time you've been away, and what you have
accomplished, he hain't treated you right. Toby”--raising his voice and
going to the door and looking out--“show that fellow back here. Nobody
ain't hiding in this shebang, I am here to say, and if folks ain't
satisfied all round--clean all round--why--”

But Wynn Dearing was brushing past the old man through the narrow
doorway, his face pale, his hand extended to Fred.

“I have done you a great wrong, old man,” he said, in a shaking voice,
“and I have come to beg your pardon.”

“Oh, that's all right, Wynn,” Fred gasped, in surprise. “I am sure you
have treated me no worse than I deserve.”

“Oh yes, I have, Fred. I have worked against you ever since you left,
and I now find that you are wholly innocent of what I accused you of.
Let me talk it over with your father. Margaret is waiting at my office
to see you. I promised I'd send you to her.”

As if in a dream, Fred hastened out of the bank and went down to
Dearing's office. No one was in the front, but he found Margaret in the
back room standing at a window, looking out. She turned as he entered
and gave him both her hands.

“Oh, I'm so glad--so glad!” she cried, and he saw tears on her lashes,
and the handkerchief she held in one of her hands was damp. “Oh, Fred,
we have all treated you so badly, so cruelly, so unjustly, when you were
striving so hard! A great mistake was made. If I had known what I now
know when we met in New York, I would never have treated you as I did.
You were thinking of one thing and I of another.”

“I don't understand,” he said, groping for her meaning, his big, honest
eyes dilating.

“And I can't explain,” she said. “It really doesn't matter, anyway. I
don't want even to think about it--at least to-day, when I am so happy.
But I want you to know one thing: you see, Dora Barry showed me the
letter you wrote her, and I want you to know that I love you. I have
loved you every day, every minute, since you left.”

“You love me--you really care for me?” he said, deep in his throat.

“Yes; but come walk home with me, dear,” she said. “I want you all to
myself. I shall never get my own forgiveness for allowing myself to
misjudge you as I did. Let's not talk about it, but come on. Wynn may be
back in a moment, and I don't want any explanations now, anyway. I want
you wholly to myself.”

As they walked down the quiet street side by side he tried to speak, but
the happiness within him had risen to a storm, and he could only stare
at her in silent wonder, as if doubting his own good-fortune.

CONCLUSION

|ONE of the great ocean bound steamships was ready for sailing from the
New York harbor. On the deck, near the stern, somewhat removed from the
others and leaning against the railing, stood a man and a child and a
young woman so beautiful and so richly clad that the eyes of many of
the passengers and their friends, who had massed themselves on the pier
below, were fixed upon her admiringly.

“It is going to be a glorious voyage, darling,” Kenneth Galt said, as
he stroked the golden hair of the child. “The bay is as smooth as glass.
Look how the people are staring at you! You cannot dream how beautiful
you are. Are you happy, Dora?”

She looked down at the water, put her hand against the cheek of the
child, and smiled, a far-off look in her eyes. “Think, oh, think of what
it means to _him!_” Just then Mrs. Barry came from the luxurious suite
of state-rooms Galt had secured.

“Some one has sent a great bunch of flowers,” she said to her daughter.
“They were addressed to you. I asked the florist's man who sent them. He
said he didn't know, but that it was a telegraphic order from somewhere.
Go see them; they are simply beautiful. They perfume the whole place.”

Leaving the three together, Dora went to the suite of rooms. In the
one reserved for her, on a table, she found a great mass of damp, fresh
roses. The card accompanying the gift had slipped down between the
stems. She drew it out and read:

“Bon voyage!”

That was all. She sat down at the table, gathered a bunch of the flowers
in her hands, and buried her flushed face in them.

“Oh!” she cried, and then she burst into tears. “Bon voyage! bon voyage!
From you--dear, dear, dear Wynn! I know. I understand. I have known and
understood for years. I shall know and understand--always!”

The signal for leaving had sounded. She felt the ponderous throb of
the ship under her. She dried her eyes and walked out on the deck. Her
husband came to meet her. He took her arm, and they leaned over
the railing and looked down into the multitude of waving hats and
handkerchiefs.

“Who sent the flowers, darling?” Galt asked.

“There was no name attached,” she answered. “Look, Kenneth! Lionel is
trying to climb the railing--don't let him!”

Galt hurried away to do her bidding, and she gazed down into the water,
which was being churned into white foam.

“Bon voyage!” she said, bitterly. “Bon voyage!”

THE END







End of Project Gutenberg's The Redemption Of Kenneth Galt, by Will N. Harben