CHAPTER XVIII.

REALITIES.

There is no phase of life so steadfast and at the same time so tricksy and variable as what is called being in love: the current is all one way and yet its force appears to act in every direction. Love sets for itself impossible tasks with a perfect confidence, attempts any height, and, alas, too often is willing to delve in the mire and dregs of things with the hope of finding one glittering grain of its desire. No doubt supreme passion and supreme happiness lie far apart. Form, color, sound, perfume and whatever appeals through them, may constitute, we know not to what extent, the values of passion. Happiness is not so clothed that its substance is covered or its footing invisible. It appeals to the conscience more than to the senses. One may say: I am happy, and go delightedly through the giddy rounds of the little whirlwinds of pleasurable emotion, but he is all the time conscious of the vacuum and lack of equilibrium that have caused the unusual excitement. He is vaguely or otherwise mindful of the fact that he is indulging a delusion. His conscience argues that steadfastness, poise, evenness and certainty are the foundation stones of happiness. Too often these foundation stones seem to lie far away, so that, like the old poet, one cries out: "Oh, had I the wings of a dove!" Reynolds and Agnes had fixed their eyes on this distant place where, amid new scenes and strange people, the temple of their love might become the dwelling-place of immeasurable happiness. And why should they not realize this dream? They were young, strong and loving. He had wealth sufficient for a life of reasonable luxury, and was not their secret their own? Over and over again the argument was made and the pleasing conclusion reached.

It was a comfort to them both to reiterate their expressions of confidence in the future; for all the time there lurked a doubt somewhere on the outer boundary of their field of thought, a doubt each hoped the other did not know of. Not that either questioned the purity or perfectness of the other's love, that was impossible, but this dark secret of the past seemed to link them together on an insecure footing which might give way at any time, plunging them into an abyss of irremediable suffering. It mattered not how far away or how shadowy this doubt was, or how often it seemed to be utterly driven off, the lesion it caused to the tissue of their love-dreams was incurable and therefore dreadful, notwithstanding its obscurity. It might be forgotten for a time, even for a long time, but it could not be put away wholly and forever.

However, love takes all risks, braves all dangers, attacks every obstacle. There was no longer hesitation, even if the doubt would linger. They were impatient to embark upon their voyage to love's land, as they imagined it, somewhere beyond the sea. They laughed, they sang, they exchanged sweet, airy utterances of passion, as did the birds in the green mazes of the tree-tops above them. They made the most of the moments.

"'Clar' ter goodness!" muttered Uncle Mono, whose eyes were not so old that he failed to note the wooing. "'Clar' ter goodness! Ef de young boss haint a rus'ler den I dunno nuffin'. W'y he done kotch de pore leetle missus, same lak er hawk ketch um bird. She not hab time ter squeak 'fore she gone! Mebbe it turn out de bes' kin', I dunno, but seem lak dar's somefin' 'sterious sorter bodderin' my min' 'bout it. Wha' dat boss come f'om, anyhow? an' wha' he gwine ter go to, I'd lak ter know? But he's er rus'ler, sho's you bo'n, he is!"

General DeKay and his wife saw how matters were drifting, too, and they discussed the probable outcome with many doubts and misgivings. They were not persons fond of borrowing trouble, however, and they did not know of any objection to Reynolds. In fact, the General had grown to like him very much. Moreton had told them that Reynolds was wealthy and of a good family, and had let fall a great many apparently accidental references to his friend's good qualities. There seemed to be no foundation upon which to base an objection, no plausible reason for interference, so the love-passage was left to be worked out to its ending, whatever that might be.

Reynolds got ready to go to Birmingham. The DeKay place was about two hours' drive from Montgomery over a level country highway. So on the morning set for his departure a carriage stood ready at the gate in front of the lawn. He had taken formal leave of General DeKay early in the morning when that sport-loving planter was on the point of joining Lapham in an excursion for bass. The General had warmly urged him to return soon, so as to test the qualities of the fish in the Alabama, and he had readily accepted the invitation. Now he was lingering on the veranda with Agnes, who, dressed in a pale blue morning gown and flushed with the sweet emotions that filled her breast, was looking her loveliest. Her blue eyes had lost for the time all traces of the quiet sadness they had so long harbored, and were beaming with a tender, happy light. She stood up erect and strong, her slender figure, with its softly rounded outlines, poised with such grace as always suggests a reserve of abundant elasticity and youthful alertness. Whoever had studied her face at that time would have declared that its expression was in every way witchingly girlish, simply and charmingly beautiful, full of truth and earnest faith in the right; but he would not have called it an intellectual face, or one indexing a strongly developed character. She would make a good wife, he might have said, a trusting, gentle, ever-loving, ever-faithful companion, the comfort of a strong man, the sweet light of a home; but she could never be any thing more.

"A week, love, and then--" said Reynolds, pausing to look fondly down into her eyes.

"And then you will come back to me," she quickly replied, "I know you will, and I shall wait for you and think of you every minute of the time."

"Oh, you must not worry about me, or be impatient. The days will soon slip by. Take good care of yourself and----"

"You are the one who needs that advice," she urged, "for your wound is not entirely well, you know. Do be very, very careful, for, for--you are very dear to somebody now!"

He would have kissed her then, but Uncle Mono very unopportunely made his appearance around the corner of the veranda. Mono was old and wise. He knew that the departure of a guest from the house was the golden moment for a servant possessing his liberal opportunities. The lifting force of emancipation from slavery had not raised his pride above the level of those tricks which, in his days of bondage, had served to soothe his palm with pieces of silver, and even of gold sometimes, tossed from the lavish, careless hands of visitors whom he had waited upon. He came shambling along with his old hat in his hand, bowing very low and grinning the grin of the trickster who is sure that his trick must win. As he came near he said:

"Berry sorry yo' gwine away, boss, berry sorry. Hope yo' not fo'get ole Mono when yo' done gone. 'Cessful journey to yo', boss."

"Thank you, Uncle Mono, I can never forget you. Did you ever play base-ball, Mono?" said Reynolds.

"Nah, sah, do'n know nuffin' 'bout dat," answered the old man, shaking his head and executing some ludicrous grimaces. "I nebber plays nuffin' 'cep'n' de fiddle an' de banjer, an' I'se gettin' so ole an' 'flicted dat I can't play dem to no good. Old Mono mos' run he ye'thly co'se, boss."

"You're not springy and active, then, Mono. You've lost the use of yourself pretty nearly, I suppose?"

"Dat's it, boss, dat's it. Ole man all cripple up wid 'fliction an' ole age. No 'count any mo'. He done los' all he sperit."

"Well, Mono," said Reynolds very gravely, taking some pieces of money from his pocket, "if you'll catch this dollar when I throw it to you, I'll give you another."

Mono prepared to use his hat.

"No, no," exclaimed Reynolds, laughing, "I'll not have that! Put down your hat and use your hands. Now, here it comes."

No cat, leaping out of the summer grass to catch a low-flying sparrow, ever displayed more nimbleness and adroitness than did old Mono in catching that dollar. It fell upon his dusky palm with a clear slap and immediately found its way into his trowsers pocket.

"Yah, yah, yah! let de oder 'n come, boss, I's ready for 'm!" shouted the old fellow in great delight.

"You're an intolerable fraud, Mono," said Reynolds, tossing him another dollar, "your afflictions are of the kind the good people sing about, that 'are oft in mercy sent;' a few more of the same sort would make a famous acrobat of you."

"Fanky, boss, fanky; tole yo' dat yo' wus a rus'ler, did'n' I? Goo'by, boss, 'cessful journey to yo', sah."

"Good-by, Mono, we'll go a fishing when I come back," Reynolds called after him, as he rapidly retreated.

"All right, boss, I go wid yo'. I show yo' wha' dey is, sho's yo' bo'n. Goo'by!"

The morning breeze was singing in the vines that clothed the heavy columns of the tall veranda, and its gentle current tossed some loose tresses across Mrs. Ransom's happy face. It was time for Reynolds to be on his road, but he faltered whenever he undertook to say the word of parting. Yet a minute or two, he would think: I will make up for the lost time when I get started. She had never appeared so beautiful as now, never so happy, never so loving.

"Walk down to the gate with me," he presently said: "it will give me a happy send-off on my journey, to look back and see you standing there watching me as I am going out of sight among the shadows of the wood."

They spent a long time passing over the space between the veranda and the gate. Here they paused to dally beside a bed of hyacinth or there to note how wonderfully large the violets were. A touch of childishness, or thoughtlessness (or was it that artlessness which comes of complete self-forgetfulness?) made their actions amusingly interesting to Mrs. DeKay, who watched them from the window.

The colored driver was perched upon his high seat in front of the DeKay landau and the team of chestnut mares was ready for the road. There was plenty of time left in which to reach Montgomery so as to take the north bound train.

"Agnes," Reynolds murmured, "you must be ready to set an early day for our marriage by the time of my return. We shall want to sail as early in June as possible. I have not yet spoken to your uncle and aunt, but I shall as soon as I return."

She was silent, but it was a silence just as satisfactory to her lover as any words could have been.

The barbaric imagination, always a part of the negro, must have been aroused in the driver as he lounged in his seat and gazed at the beautiful woman and the tall, strong man straying down the walk. Their figures were boldly relieved against the dull gray background of the old house, and framed in with vines and magnolia boughs. He had a vivid though savagely crude sense of the warmth and tenderness and freshness of the picture. His indolent, half-closed eyes and shining, jet black face were expressive of that dreamy phase of delight which is generated by mere passive receptivity. The delicate blue of Mrs. Ransom's dress, the charming bloom of her face and the supple grace and strength of her slender figure were to him as a star is to a poet, a mystery, a focus of unapproachable glory, never to be any nearer or any further away. He felt, without knowing it, all the æsthetic values of the scene before him; the cloudless, tender sky, the rich green of the magnolias, the wind-beaten and rain-stained old mansion all wrapped in semi-tropical vines, the flare of the sunlight and the soft glooms of the shade, and, beyond the house and the trees, the sheeny reeds and the broad, winding river, all these with the fresh perfumes and delicious spring wind, touched him and

"Passed like a glorious roll of drums Through the triumph of his dream."

He saw, he felt, he enjoyed--what more could his lazy, basking nature crave?

The parting was commonplace enough, a mere clasping of hands, strong, hopeful smiles and good-by. It could not be less, it might outwardly have been more, if the driver had not been there.

"You will come soon."

"Very soon--in a few days."

The carriage, a sort of open landau, began to move, and Reynolds sitting in the rear turned and furtively flung back a kiss.

She was already beginning to grow pale, but she touched her lips with her fingers and waved him adieu with a bright smile.

He kept his eyes upon her, as the distance gradually grew, and, so absorbed was he, it startled him when the vehicle suddenly came to a stand-still.

"Wha' do Gin'l DeKay lib?" called out the driver of a carriage whose way lay opposite to theirs.

"Jis back ya' leetle ways," answered Reynolds' driver.

"All right, I fought so; much 'bleeged."

Both carriages moved again. In passing Reynolds saw a slender, picturesque looking man, whose yellowish hair fell in profuse curls about his neck and shoulders. He wore a broad-brimmed, light colored hat and a close-fitting semi-military suit of gray.

It was a most irritating thing that this man and his vehicle should whisk into the line of Reynolds' vision and entirely hide Agnes from him. He craned his neck and tried to look over or past that wide slouch hat and those slender, curl-covered shoulders, but it was impossible.

"Damn the fellow!" he muttered. "Stop a moment, Dan," he called to the driver.

The mares were drawn up and the carriage came to a stand-still in a moment. Reynolds waited impatiently, hoping that some slight swerve in the road would give him one more glimpse of the blue dress and shining face. He felt that he could not thus abruptly and unauspiciously lose sight of her. But the road was straight and the vehicle kept well in the middle of it until it neared the gate of DeKay Place, where it turned and stopped.

Mrs. Ransom was there, with her face toward him. He snatched out his handkerchief and waved it rapidly to and fro, but before he could get any response from her, the young man had got out of his carriage and placed himself in front of her, so that she was completely eclipsed.

Reynolds uttered some phrase expressive of bitter disappointment. His driver turned a surreptitious look of wonder and inquiry upon him, but dared not speak when he saw that Reynolds was looking at what was going on at the gate. Naturally enough the negro shrewdly suspected that here was a little play of rivalry between two gentlemen, and that he had better not interfere.

As Reynolds leaned over the back of the seat and looked, there was a sudden movement made by the stranger that for a moment left Agnes in plain view, and he saw her throw up both hands and heard her cry out. Then the man clasped her and held her in his arms. Something in this scene startled Reynolds Strangely, he hardly knew why, and he hurriedly commanded the driver to drive back to the gate.

"Quick, Dan, make the horses go; hurry, I say!" he added in a voice rough with excitement. There was a cold feeling in his breast, as if a damp, chilling breath had blown through it, and a heavy weight seemed pressing on his brain.

In less than a minute the gate was reached and Reynolds had leaped to the ground. The man had let Mrs. Ransom go, and the two were standing facing each other. Both looked excited. She was very pale, but showed no sign of weakness, holding herself erect and steady. She turned her eyes upon Reynolds, as he came near, and made a movement with her lips, as if speaking, without emitting any sound. The man, who appeared to be an invalid, trembled a little and did not take his eyes off her face, even for an instant, but gazed at her with such yearning in his expression as would have touched the coldest observer. He had taken off his sombrero, holding it in his hand, and the light wind was tossing his long ringlets about his neck and cheeks. There was that peculiar droop to one of his shoulders, together with a hollowness of his chest on that side, which indicated that at some time in his life he had been desperately wounded.

"Agnes, Agnes, what is the matter?" Reynolds exclaimed in that startled, rasping voice which is common to all men when confronted by an overwhelming trouble. He asked this question involuntarily, aimlessly, for he well understood what all this quiet, terrible scene was about. He knew this man now. It was hard to comprehend how such a thing could be; but this was Ransom standing here, Ransom alive and confronting his wife. Agnes made two or three fruitless efforts before she was able to exclaim:

"Oh, John--Mr. Reynolds, go away! Go away! This is--this is my husband!" She did not say this demonstratively or noisily--her voice was low and quite calm, save that she seemed to falter a little. "Oh, I have always thought you were not dead and that you would come back!" she added, turning toward the man with something like a shudder in her tones.

"Ransom, is this indeed you?" demanded Reynolds, gathering enough force to crush down his bewilderment.

The man turned his eyes upon his interrogator for a second. His stare had in it a mingling of surprise and insolent bravado. Then with a slight start he ejaculated:

"Reynolds!"

Mrs. Ransom clasped her hands and looked helplessly and beseechingly from one to the other. Her lips quivered pitifully.

The two men stared at each other as if unwilling to accept the situation and yet unable to escape it. Each seemed waiting for the other to explain why he was there. It did not once occur to Reynolds that this man had the legal right to Agnes, and that henceforth she must be as lost as if dead. He went no further than to recognize that here was a mystery and a trouble. The catastrophe had been so peculiar and sudden, so lacking in those melodramatic features common to such scenes, that it had a dulling, numbing effect upon his faculties. Ransom was not so bewildered. It surprised him to see Reynolds and it displeased him as well, but he had prepared himself, before coming, for any kind of a scene with his wife; therefore, although excited, he was quite deliberate after the first little start of recognition had spent its force.

"I was not expecting to see _you_," he said with peculiar emphasis. "Nor you me, I suppose."

The man's whole manner was sinister and crafty, and yet, at the same time, there was something subdued, something suggestive of long suffering and unmerited injury, in the expression of his face and the attitude of his person. He appeared to Reynolds' startled and distorted vision an incarnate accusation. The situation might have had a touch of the supernatural in it, if its realism had not been so peculiarly pronounced and unmistakable. The whole affair was a cold, dull, immitigable affair. It did not even rise to the level of romance. It had come as death comes, a stark, overpowering, repulsive result of perfectly inexplicable causes, bearing down before it every thought of resistance or escape.

Reynolds had ready no response. The predicament was one which seemed to him malign in its whole bearing, with no room for words of inquiry or of explanation. A sense of suffocation assailed him, as if all those dreams and hopes and delightful anticipations that he had been so luxuriating in lately, had fallen dead in a wilted heap upon his heart.

Ransom was a strangely handsome man, with a dash of devil-may-care blended with melancholy in his face. His features were clearly and finely cut, delicate but not effeminate, showing strong traces of suffering, with something of that cool nervousness (if one may so express it) in their play, so often noticed in the faces of gamblers and outlaws. He was rather above the medium stature, well-knit and graceful, erect (saving that slight peculiar droop of one shoulder), alert and well-poised. He turned from Reynolds to Agnes and with the utmost tenderness said:

"Come, little wife, I've a long story to tell you--a strange story. I have not been so bad as you think. I have been just the same as dead, four years in a Mexican prison."

It was not what he said but the way in which he said it, that made his appeal so very affecting. Reynolds felt a vague thrill of pity. At the same time there came upon him the first shock of genuine realization of the situation. The phrase "little wife," as used by Ransom, enforced its deep significance at once. It struck with a directness that gave no chance for evasion.

"Oh, Herbert, Herbert!" cried Agnes, suddenly making a step forward and casting her arms around Ransom's neck. "Oh, is it really, really you!"

The lithe little figure in its rustling blue gown shrank close to him and quivered in his embrace. He bent his head and kissed her again and again, his long bright curls falling across her upturned face.

Reynolds recoiled as if he had received a blow, then, steadying himself, he looked upon them as one might look into one's own grave. Ransom's voice, murmuring all manner of caressing phrases, was infinitely musical and sweet, but there was that in it which betrayed a weakness not wholly physical, a suggestion of irresponsibility and insincerity.

It may have been the effect of long imprisonment, the nature of his wound and protracted mental worry, or it may have been altogether owing to the interpretation he had instantly given to the relationship between Agnes and Reynolds; but from whatever cause, his face was luminous with a pale glow expressive of the most pathetic misery blended with exultation.

Reynolds stood like a bronze statue, his eyes burning with a dull fire and his face seamed and shriveled.

Ransom clung to his wife, stroking her hair and kissing her cheek. His ecstasy was genuine, but it lacked the force of lofty passion.

Presently Agnes freed herself from his embrace, quite as suddenly as she had sought it, as if some revulsion of feeling or some strong conviction of the impropriety of such extreme action had mastered her. She looked at Reynolds, and meeting his gloomy, despairing gaze, let fall her eyes, a quick blush covering her cheeks. In that moment all the force of her surroundings rushed furiously upon her. The blush gave place to a deadly paleness that appeared to affect her face as a white heat. She put up one hand quickly, as if to touch her forehead, but lowered it again, staggered and fell. Both men sprang to her assistance. Reynolds brushed the other aside, as he might have brushed aside some insect. Then lifting Agnes in his arms he bore her to the house. He did this in a mood that eliminated from his thought, for the time, all else save the woman he loved. He carried her without at all feeling her weight, and his movement was so swift that Ransom did not try to keep pace with him; but followed him with slow, feeble steps into the hall and thence into the parlor. But it had not been a swoon, only a mere vanishing from her of strength sufficient to stand. She raised herself to a sitting posture, so soon as Reynolds put her on a sofa, and looked at him with an immediate understanding of what had happened. Ransom had not yet come in.

"Where is he--Herbert, my husband--where is he?" she asked.

"Oh, Agnes! Agnes!" cried Reynolds, taking her again in his arms. "It can not be so! you can not, you will not, you shall not give me up for him!"

She sprang away from him and stood up pale and firm before him.

"Do not touch me again," she exclaimed, in a way that sent the blood in upon his heart. "You have no right. He is my husband. You said he was dead. You said--you--you deceived me--told me a falsehood--you--"

"For heaven's sake, Agnes, hold--don't say that! I told you true. I thought he was dead--I thought I killed him--I did not dream of his being alive!"

Ransom was standing by now glancing keenly from one to the other. When he spoke it was directly to Reynolds.

"If my wife wishes to talk longer with you, well and good, sir, but if not, you must see the propriety of leaving her to me." His manner was suave, but there was a mighty meaning in his voice and a steely glitter in his eyes.

"Leave her to you!" said Reynolds in a white heat of fury, "never!"

"You _must_ leave me, and at _once_," said Agnes firmly.

He looked into her eyes as if trying to read the lowest lines of their meaning, but he found nothing to aid him. The love-light had faded and in its stead the cold beam of loveless duty shone out clear and strong. He saw that she was as hopelessly gone from him as if she lay dead in her grave. He stretched out his arms toward her, but quickly withdrew them, not, however, on account of a swift, facile movement of Ransom's hand to the place where a pistol is usually concealed by a man who carries one, for he did not see it, but because her eyes repelled him. There was nothing for him to do but to go away forever. He rushed from the room and from the house. Half way to the gate he stopped and turned about, fixing upon the weather-stained old building a gaze that it would have been awful to contemplate, so intense, so wild, so malignant. His hands were clenched, his lips, so compressed that they seemed welded, were cold and purple. For a mere point of time he was a murderer; but, despite the intervening wall of the house, he could see Agnes clinging to her husband and the mood was flung aside. Her husband! What right had he to survive that well-aimed shot? What right had he to escape from a Mexican prison and drag his wrecked body and withered soul back here to crush out such a love as that which but an hour ago had lighted up the whole world?

It was but a flash of desperate passion, that came and went in an instant, leaving Reynolds all the more helplessly bewildered. What could he do? He stood there rigid, breathless, choking in the impotence of utter irresolution.

Again he turned towards the carriage. Far and near in the tender foliage of the trees the mocking birds sang with lusty fervor. The sweet South breathed upon him the warm, odorous breath of love's own clime.

Dan the driver, from his seat on the carriage, had watched this melodramatic scene from first to last, so far at least as it was not shut out from his vision, with all the open-mouthed wonder characteristic of a negro under such circumstances. He well knew that the predicament was one of no ordinary sort, and that weighty interests were involved. He had expected every moment to see knives or pistols gleam and flash, but he had been so dazed and scared that he could not have moved to save his life. He sat there gripping the lines and leaning forward in an attitude of painful rigidity, his shoulders elevated and his chin thrust out, lost to every thing but the excitement that had taken possession of him.

Uncle Mono, in blissful ignorance of the drama, was down in the little plat of ground devoted to his melon vines, stirring the sandy loam with a hoe and singing a lively camp-meeting song. The two silver dollars given to him by Reynolds had made him very happy indeed.

Reynolds took no note of any thing around him. The sunshine, the bird-songs, the voice of the merry old freedman and the dying rustle of the now almost motionless air did not reach his senses. Again and again he stopped as if to rush back, his arms twitching, his face rigid, but all the time he was half aware that fate was binding him more firmly each moment. Already the sweet life of the past month had receded into the far, hazy distance, as if its sphere had whirled away to the remotest region of space, almost beyond the reach of his vision, and with it all the best of his nature, leaving him groveling and baffled, a clod on a barren field.

"Drive me to Montgomery as fast as you can go, Dan," he said to the driver as he reached the gate and entered the landau.