Part 14

The inanimate objects about him, the chairs, the table, the door towards which he was moving, seemed to have life.

“Well, good-day.” Old Floyd remained in the centre of the room, the books and letters held awkwardly under his stiff arm. “I see that you were not expecting this revelation, but you might as-well have been told to-day as later. I understand that the Duncans and Prices up your way are under wrong impressions about your social standing, but I didn't want to be the one to open their eyes. I really don't care myself. However, a thing like that is sure to get out sooner or later.”

“They shall know the truth,” said Floyd, with the lips of a dead man. “I shall not sail under false colors. Good-day, Mr. Floyd.”

Out into the broad, balmy sunlight the young man went. There was a despondent droop upon him. His step was slow and uncertain, his feet seemed to him to have weights attached to them. He walked on to the corner of the next street and leaned against a tree. From the city's palpitating heart and stony veins came the hum of traffic on wheels, the clanging of bells, the escaping of steam. Near by some one was practising a monotonous exercise on a piano. He looked up at the sky with the stare of a subject under hypnotic influence.

A lump was in his dry throat. He made an effort to swallow it down, but it stuck and pained him. Persons passing caught sight of his face and threw back stares of mute inquiry as they moved on. After half an hour of aimless wandering here and there through the crowded streets, he paused at the door of a bar-room. He recognized the big gilt sign on the plate-glass windows, and remembered being there years before at midnight with some jolly friends and being taken to his hotel in a cab. After all, whiskey now, as then, would furnish forgetfulness, and that was his right. He went in and sat down at a little round table in the corner of the room. On a shelf near him was a bowl of brown pretzels, a plate of salted pop-corn, a saucer of parched coffee-beans mixed with cloves. One of the bartenders came to him, a towel over his arm. “What will you have, sir?” he asked.

“Rye whiskey straight,” said the customer, his eyes on the sawdust at his feet. “Bring the bottle along.”

XXVI

TO Cynthia the day on which she expected Floyd to return from Atlanta passed slowly. Something told her that he would come straight to her from the station, on his arrival, and she was impatient to hear his news. The hack usually brought passengers over at six o'clock, and at that time she was on the porch looking expectantly down the road leading to the village. But he did not come. Seven o'clock struck--eight; supper was over and her parents and her grandmother were in bed.

“I simply will not go to meet him in the grape-arbor any more,” she said to herself. “He is waiting to come later, but I'll not go out, as much as I'd like to hear about his mother. He thinks my curiosity will drive me to it, but he shall see.” However, when alone in her room she paced the floor in an agony of indecision and beset by strange, unaccountable forebodings. Might not something have happened to him? At nine o'clock she was in bed, but not asleep. At half-past nine she got up. The big bed of feathers seemed a great, smothering instrument of torture; she could scarcely get her breath. Throwing a shawl over her, she went out on the porch and sat down in a chair.

She had been there only a moment when she heard her mother's step in the hall, and, turning her head, she saw the gaunt old woman's form in the doorway.

“I heard you walking about,” Mrs. Porter said, coldly, “and got up to see what was the matter. Are you sick?”

“No, mother, I simply am not sleepy, that's all.” The old woman advanced a step nearer, her sharp eyes on the girl's white night-gown and bare feet. “Good gracious!” she cried. “You'll catch your death of cold. Go in the house this minute. I'll bet I know why you can't sleep. You are worried about what people are saying about Nelson Floyd's marrying Evelyn Duncan and throwing you over, as he no doubt has many other girls.”

“I wasn't thinking of it, mother.” Cynthia rose and started in. “He can marry her if he wants to.”

“Oh, well, you can pretend all you like. I reckon your pride would make you defend yourself. Now, go in the house.”

In the darkness of her room Cynthia sat on the side of her bed. She heard her mother's bare feet as the old woman went along the hall back to her room in the rear. Floyd might be in the grape-arbor now. As her light was extinguished, he would think she had gone to bed, and he would not whistle. Then a great, chilling doubt struck her. Perhaps he had really gone to Duncan's to see Evelyn. But no, a warm glow stole over her as she remembered that he had declined to go home from church in the captain's carriage that he might walk with her. No, it was not that; but perhaps some accident had happened to him--the stage-horses might have become frightened on that dangerous mountain road. The driver was often intoxicated, and in that condition was known to be reckless. Cynthia threw herself back in bed and pulled the light covering over her, but she did not go to sleep till far towards morning.

The sun was up when she awoke. Her mother was standing near her, a half-repentant look flitting over her wrinkled face.

“Don't get up unless you feel like it,” she said. “I've done your work and am keeping your coffee and breakfast warm.”

“Thank you, mother.” Cynthia sat up, her mind battling with both dreams and realities.

“You don't look like you are well,” Mrs. Porter said. “I watched you before you waked up. You are awfully dark under the eyes.”

“I'll feel all right when I am up and stirring around,” Cynthia said, avoiding her mother's close scrutiny. “I tell you I'm not sick.”

When she had dressed herself and gone out into the dining-room she found a delicious breakfast waiting for her, but she scarcely touched the food. The coffee she drank for its stimulating effect, and felt better. All that morning, however, she was the helpless victim of recurring forebodings. When her father came in from the village at noon she hung about him, hoping that he would drop some observation from which she might learn if Floyd had returned, but the quaint old gossip seemed to talk of everything except the subject to which her soul seemed bound.

About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Porter said she wanted a spool of cotton thread, and Cynthia offered to go to the village for it.

“Not in this hot sun,” the old woman objected.

“I could keep in the shade all the way,” Cynthia told her.

“Well, if you'll do that, you may go,” Mrs. Porter gave in. “I don't know but what the exercise will do you good. I tell you, I don't like the looks of your skin and eyes. I'm afraid you are going to take down sick. You didn't touch breakfast and ate very little dinner.”

Cynthia managed to laugh reassuringly as she went for her hat and sunshade. Indeed, the prospect even of activity had driven touches of color into her cheeks and her step was light and alert as she started off--so at least thought Mrs. Porter, who was looking after her from a window. But what did the trip amount to? At Mayhew & Floyd's store Joe Peters waited on her and had nothing to say of Floyd. While the clerk's back was turned Cynthia threw a guarded glance in the direction of Floyd's desk, but the shadows of the afternoon had enveloped that part of the room in obscurity, and she saw nothing that would even indirectly reply to her heart's question. It was on her tongue to inquire if Floyd had returned, but her pride laid a firm hand over her pretty mouth, and with her small purchase tightly clasped in her tense fingers, she went out into the street and turned her face homeward.

The next day passed in much the same way, and the night. Then two other days and nights of racking torture came and went. The very lack of interest in the subject, of those about her, was maddening. She was sure now that something vital had happened to her lover, and Saturday at noon, when her father came from the village, she saw that he was the bearer of news. She knew, too, that it concerned Floyd before the old man had opened his lips.

“Well, what you reckon has happened?” Nathan asked, with one of his unctuous smiles. “You two women could guess, an' guess, fer two thousand years, an' then never git in a mile o' what everybody in town is talkin' about.”

Cynthia's heart sank like a plummet. It was coming--the grim, horrible revelation she had feared. But her father was subtly enjoying the blank stare in her eyes, the depth of which was beyond his comprehension. As usual, he purposely hung fire.

“What is it, Nathan?” his wife said, entreatingly. “Don't keep us waiting as you always do.” She looked at Cynthia and remarked: “It's something out of the common. I can see that from the way he begins.”

Porter laughed dryly. “You kin bet yore sweet lives it's out o' the common, but I hain't no hand to talk when my throat's parched dry with thirst. I cayn't drink that town water, nohow. Has any fresh been fetched?”

“Just this minute,” declared his wife, and she hastened to the water-shelf in the entry, returning with a dripping gourd. “Here, drink it! You won't say a word till you are ready.”

Porter drank slowly. “You may _call_ that fresh water,” he sneered, “but you wouldn't ef you had it to swallow. I reckon you'd call old stump water fresh ef you could git news any the quicker by it. Well, it's about Nelson Floyd.”

“Nelson Floyd!” gasped Mrs. Porter. “He's gone and married Evelyn Duncan--that's my guess.”

“No, it ain't that,” declared Porter. “An' it ain't another Wade gal scrape that anybody knows of. The fact is nobody don't know _what_ it is. Floyd went down to Atlanta Wednesday, so Mayhew says, to lay in a few articles o' stock that was out, an' to call on that new uncle o' his. He was to be back Wednesday night, without fail, to draw up some important mortgages fer the firm, an' a dozen customers has been helt over in town fer two days. They all had to go back without transactin' business, fer Floyd didn't turn up. Nor he didn't write a line, nuther. And, although old Mayhew has been firin' telegrams down thar, fust to Nelson an' later to business houses, not a thing has been heard o' the young man since last Wednesday. He hain't registered at no hotel in Atlanta. One man has been found that said he knowed Floyd by sight, an' that he had seed 'im walkin' about at night in the vilest street in Atlanta lookin' like a dead man or one plumb bereft of his senses.”

Cynthia stood staring at her father with expanded eyes, and then she sat down near a window, her face averted from the others. She said nothing.

“He's crazy,” said Mrs. Porter. “I've always thought something was wrong with that man. His whole life shows it. He was an outlaw when he was a child, and when he grew up he put on high' an' mighty airs, an' started to drinkin' like a lord. He'd no sooner let up on that than he got into that Wade trouble, an'--”

“Some think he was drugged, an' maybe put out of the way on the sly,” said Porter, bluntly. “But I don't know. Thoughts is cheap.”

“Hush, Nathan!” Mrs. Porter said, under her breath, for Cynthia had risen, and without looking to the right or left was moving from the room. “This may kill that poor child.”

“Kill her, a dog's hind foot!” Porter sneered. “To be a woman yorse'f, you are the porest judge of 'em I ever seed. You women are so dead anxious to have some man die fer you that you think the same reckless streak runs in yore own veins. You all said Minnie Wade had tuck powdered glass when she was sick that time an' was goin' to pass in 'er checks on this feller's account, but she didn't die fer him, nor fer Thad Pelham, nor the two Thomas boys, nor Abe Spring, nor none o' the rest.”

“You ought to be ashamed of speaking of your own child in the same breath with that girl,” said Mrs. Porter, insincerely, her eyes anxiously on the door through which Cynthia had gone.

“I hain't bunchin' 'em together at all,” Porter declared. “I was only tryin' to keep you from layin' in a burial outfit that may go out o' fashion 'fore Cynthy wants to use it. You watch 'er an' you'll see 'er pick up' in a day or so. I've seed widows wear black so heavy that the dye in the goods seemed to soak into the'r skins an' drip of'n the'r eyelashes, an' them same women was wearin' red stockin's an' flirtin' em at another fool inside of a month.”

“You don't know what you are talking about,” responded Mrs. Porter. “It is going hard with her, but I really hope Floyd'll not come back to Spring-town. I don't feel safe with him around.”

“You don't want 'im here,” sneered Porter, “but yo're dead sure his absence is a-goin' to lay our only child under the sod. That's about as sensible as the stand a woman takes on most questions. As fer me, I confess I'm sorter upset. I'd about made up my mind that our little gal was goin' to yank that chap an' his boodle into this family before long, but it looks like I was off in my calculations. To look at her now, a body wouldn't think she was holdin' the drivin'-reins very tight. But come what may, storm, hail, wind, rain, or sunshine an' fine crops, I'll be the only one, I reckon, in this house that will sleep sound to-night. An' that's whar you are all a set o' fools. A person that loses sleep wonderin' whether another person is dead or alive mought be in better business, in this day and time, when just _anybody_ is liable to drap dead in the'r tracks. La, me! What you got fer dinner? I smell some'n' a-cookin'.”

And Porter went into the kitchen, got down on his knees at the stove, and looked into it.

“That's all right,” he said to himself, with a chuckle, “but she hain't put half enough gravy on it, an' ef I hadn't a-been here to 'a' turned it, it 'ud not 'a' got cooked clean through. If it's tough I'll raise a row. I told 'em to sell the tough 'uns. What's the use o' raisin' hens ef you have to eat the scrubs an' don't git half-pay fer the ones you send to market?”

XXVII

A WEEK went by. To Cynthia its days were veritable months of mental torture. Porter came in one day at sundown from the village. As usual, he had something to say regarding the all-absorbing topic of Nelson Floyd's mysterious disappearance. Through the day neighbors had been in with many vague and groundless rumors, all of which were later discredited, but Nathan Porter, sardonic old observer that hie was, usually got nearer the facts than any one else, and in consequence he was always listened to.

“What's anybody heard now?” his wife asked him, as he came through the gate to where she and Cynthia sat on the porch.

“They've heard a lots,” he said. “Among other things, it's finally leaked out that Lee's surrendered an' the niggers is all declared free. Some say George Washington has jest crossed the Delaware in a tippy-canoe, an' that Napoleon discovered America, but I doubt it. What I want to know is whether supper is ready or not.”

“No, it isn't,” Mrs. Porter made haste to inform him, “but it will be in a few minutes. The table's set an' all is ready, except the bread isn't quite done. Now, what have you heard in town?”

“A body kin hear a lots,” Porter drawled out. “The trouble is to keep from listenin' to so much. People are standin' as thick about Mayhew & Floyd's shebang as flies over a fresh ginger-cake. You two are the only women in the county that hain't been thar, an' I'm proud of the distinction. Old Mrs. Snodgrass mighty nigh had a fisticuff fight to retain her corner in the store, whar she's had 'er distributin' office fer the last week. Joe Peters needed the space. He tried to put a coop o' chickens thar, but you bet the chickens had to go some'rs else. Mrs. Snod' said she was gittin' hard o' hearin', an' ef she wasn't right thar in the front she wouldn't git a thing till it was second-handed.”

“Oh, I get out of all patience with you,” cried Mrs. Porter. “Why does it take you so long to get to a point?”

“The truth is, thar ain't any rale developments as I kin see,” Porter gave in, reluctantly. “Old Mayhew, though, is back from Atlanta. He sets thar, as yaller as a pumpkin, without much to say. He's got a rope tied to every nickel he owns, an' he sees absolute ruin ahead o' the firm. He's depended on Nelson Floyd's popularity an' brains to keep things a-goin' so long that now he's like a loaded wagon runnin' downhill without a tongue, swingle-tree, or hold-back strop. You see, ef Nelson Floyd is dead, or put out o' the way--accordin' to Mrs. Snodgrass, who heard a Darley lawyer say it--why the young man's interest in the business will slide over to his new kin--a receiver will have to be appointed an' Mayhew closed up. Mrs. Snod' is authority fer the statement that Floyd's uncle has connived agin the boy to git his pile, an' bliffed 'im in the head with a sock full o' sand or some'n' equally as deadly. I dunno. I never knowed her to be right about anything, an' I hain't a-goin' to believe Floyd's dead till the report comes from some other direction. But this much seems to have foundation in fact: Mayhew _did_ go down; he _did_ make inquiries of the police; an' some _say_--now, mind you, I hain't a-standin' fer this--some say he paid out solid coin to git expert detectives a-holt o' the matter. They say the detectives run across a low-class hotel out in the edge o' town whar a feller answerin' Floyd's description had come in the night after the boy left here an' axed fer a room. They say he was lookin' awful--like he had been on a big jag, an' when they give 'im the pen to register he studied a minute an' then thro wed it at the clerk, an' told 'im he didn't have no name to sign, an' turned an' stalked out. That was the last seed of 'im.”

“An' that's all you heard,” said Mrs. Porter, in disgust.

“All but one thing more,” Porter replied. “Folks about here that has missed Pole Baker fer the last three days 'lowed he was off on another bender, but he was down thar in Atlanta nosin' around tryin' to find Floyd. Old Mayhew paid his expenses. He said Pole had a longer head on 'im than any detective in the bunch. Pole got back about two hours ago, but what he discovered not even Mrs. Snod' knows. Him an' Mayhew had the'r heads clamped together in the rear end o' the store fer an hour, but Joe Peters helt the crowd back, an' thar it stands.”

“Pig-oop-pig-oo! Pig-oop-pig-oo!” The mellow, resonant sound floated to them on the still air. Porter smiled.

“That's Pole now callin' his hogs,” he said, laconically. “The blamed fool told me t'other day he was goin' to fatten them pigs on buttermilk, but that sort o' fat won't stick any more'n whiskey bloat on a reformed drunkard. By the time he drives 'em to market they'll look as flabby as a ripe tomato with the inside squashed out. Speakin' o' hogs, I want you-uns to fry me a piece o' that shuck-sausage on the top shelf in the smoke-house. You'd better go git it now. Swallowin' all that gush in town has made me want some'n' solid.”

When her mother and father had gone into the house Cynthia hastened across the fields through the gathering dusk in the direction of Pole Baker's voice. He would tell her, she was sure, if anything of importance had turned up concerning Floyd, and she could not bear the thought of another night of suspense.

Presently, through the dusk, she saw Pole at his hog-pen in the edge of a little thicket behind his cottage.

“Pig-oop-pig-oo!” she heard him calling. “Dem yore lazy hides, ef you don't come on I'll empty this bucket o' slop on the ground an' you kin root fer it. I've mighty nigh ripped the linin' out o' my throat on yore account.” Then he descried Cynthia coming towards him over the dew-damp grass and he paused, leaning on the rail-fence, his eyes resting expectantly on her.

“Oh, it's you, little sister!” he exclaimed, pleasantly. “That's sorter foolish o' you gittin' them little feet o' yore'n wet in this dew. It may settle on yore lungs an' keep you from j'inin' in the singin' Sunday.”

“I want to see you,” Cynthia said, in a voice that shook. “I heard you calling your hogs, and thought I'd catch you here.”

“Well, little sister, I hain't very nice-lookin' in this old shirt an' pants of many colors, like Joseph's coat, but every patch was sewed on by the fingers o' the sweetest, most patient little woman God ever made, an' I hain't ashamed of 'em; but she is--God bless 'er!--an' she'd have a spasm ef she knowed I talked to you in 'em.”

“My father says you went down to Atlanta,” Cynthia said, falteringly, “and I thought--”

“Yes, I went down.” Pole avoided her fixed stare.

“You went to see if you could learn anything of Mr. Floyd's whereabouts, didn't you?”

“Yes, I did, little sister. I hain't a-talkin' much. Mayhew says it's best to sorter lie low until some'n' accurate is found out, an' while I did my level best down thar, I've got to acknowledge I'm as much in the dark as anybody else. In fact, I'm mighty nigh bothered to death over it. Nelson, poor boy, seems to have disappeared clean off'n the face o' the earth. The only thing I have to build on is the fact that--an' I hate to say it, little sister--the fact that he evidently _did_ start to drinkin' again. He told me once that he wasn't plumb sure o' hisse'f, an' that any big trouble or despair might overthrow his resolutions. Now, he's been drinkin', I reckon--an' what could 'a' been his trouble? I went three times to his uncle's, but the doctors wouldn't let me see 'im. The old man's broke down with nervous prostration from business troubles, an' they are afeard he's goin' to kick the bucket. Comin' back on the cars--”

Pole's voice died away. He crossed and recrossed his hands on the fence. He avoided her steady stare. His massive eyebrows met on his wrinkled forehead. It was as if he were suffering inward pain. “I say--as I set in the train on the way back tryin' an' tryin' to find some explanation, the idea come to me that--since trouble was evidently what upset Nelson--that maybe you mought be able to throw some light on it.”

“_Me_, Mr. Baker?”

Pole hung his head; he spat slowly. Was she mistaken, or had he actually turned pale? Was it that, or a trick of her vision in the vague starlight?

“Little sister,” he said, huskily, “you could trust me with yore life. I'd die rather than--than not stand to you in anything on earth. You see, if you happened to know any reason why Nelson Floyd--” Pole was interrupted by the loud grunting and squealing of his drove of hogs as they rushed round the fence-corner towards him. “Wait,” he said--“wait till I pour the'r feed in the trough.”

He took up the pail and disappeared for a moment behind the cow-house.

Cynthia felt a great lump of wondering suspense in her throat. What could he mean? What was coming? She had never seen Pole act so strangely before. Presently he came back to her, holding the dripping paddle with which he had stirred the dregs in the bottom of his slop-bucket. He leaned over the fence again.

“You see, it's this away, little sister,” he began, lamely. “You an' Nelson--that is, you an' him was sorter runnin' together. He went with you, I reckon, more, on the whole, than with any other young lady in this section, an', you see, ef anybody was in a position to know any particular trouble or worry he had, you mought be that one.”

“But I'm afraid I don't know anything of the kind,” she said, wonderingly, her frank eyes resting blankly on his face.