Part 16

Perhaps twenty minutes had passed since the clock struck, when a sound suddenly fell upon her ears that thrilled every muscle in her body. It was the far-off call of a whippoorwill! Was it the cry of the real bird or an imitation--_his_ imitation? She stood like a thing of stone, straining her ears for its repetition. There! There it was again, and nearer, clearer, more appealing. Ah, no creature of mere feathers and flesh could have uttered that tentative, soulful note! It was Nelson Floyd alive!--alive and wanting her--her first of all! Standing before her mirror, she tried to tie up her hair, which had fallen loose upon her shoulders, but her hands refused to do their office. Without a second's deliberation she sprang to her door, opened it, and ran on to the outer one. Passing through this, she glided across the porch and softly sped over the grass in the direction of the sound. She heard it again, in startling shrillness, and then, in the clear moonlight, she saw Floyd standing in front of the grape-arbor. As she drew near her heart stood still at the sight of the change which had come on him. It lay like the tracing of Death's pencil on his brow, in his emaciated features and loosely fitting, soiled, and unpressed clothing. For the first time in her life she yielded herself without resistance to his out-stretched arms. With no effort to prevent it, she allowed him to press his lips to hers. Childlike, and as if in fear of losing him again, she slid her arm round his neck and drew him tightly to her. Neither uttered a word. Thus they remained for a moment, and then he led her into the arbor and they sat down together, his arm still about her body, her head on his breast. He was first to speak.

“I was so afraid you'd not come,” he panted, as if he had been walking fast. “Have you heard of my trouble?” he went on, his voice sounding strange and altered.

She nodded on his breast, not wanting to see the pain she knew was mirrored in his face.

“Oh no, surely you haven't--that is, not--not what I learned in Atlanta about my--my mother and father?”

Again she nodded, pressing her brow upward against his chin in a mute action of consolation and sympathy.

He sighed. “I didn't think anybody knew that,” he said. “That is, anybody up here.”

“Mr. Mayhew went down and saw your uncle,” Cynthia found voice to say, finally.

“Don't call him my uncle--he's not that, except as hell gives men relatives. But I don't want to speak of him. The memory of his ashy face, glittering eyes, and triumphant tone as he hurled those facts at me is like a horrible nightmare. I'm not here to deny a thing, little girl. I came to let you see me just as I am. I fell very low. No one knows I'm here. I passed through Darley without meeting a soul I knew and walked all the way here, dodging off the road when I heard the sound of hoofs or wheels. I've come to you, Cynthia--only you. You are the only one out of this part of my life that I ever want to see again. I am not going to hide anything. After that revelation in Atlanta I sank as low as a brute. I drank and lost my head. I spent several days in New Orleans more like a demon than a human being--among gamblers, thieves, and cutthroats. Two of my companions confessed to me that they were escaped convicts put in for murder. I went on to Havana and came back again to New Orleans. Yesterday I reached Atlanta. I learned that the police had been trying to find me, and hid out. Last night, Cynthia, I was drunk again; but this morning I woke up with a longing to throw it all off, to be a man once more, and while I was thinking about it a thought came to me like a flash of light from heaven thrown clear across the black waste of hell. The thought came to me that, although I am a nobody (that name has never passed my lips since I learned it was not my own)--the thought came to me, I say, that there was one single and only chance for me to return to manhood and obtain earthly happiness. Do you follow me, dearest?”

She raised her head and looked into his great, staring eyes.

“Not quite, Nelson,” she said, softly. “Not quite.”

“You see, I recalled that you, too, are not happy here at home, and, as in my case, through no fault of your own--no fault, except being born different from others around you. I remembered all you'd told me about your mother's suspicious, exacting nature, and how hard you worked at home, and how little real joy you got out of life, and then it came to me that we both had as much right to happiness as any one else--you for your hard life and I for all that I'd suffered. So I stopped drinking. I have not touched a drop to-day, although a doctor down there said I really needed a stimulant. You can see how nervous I am. I shake all over. But I am stimulated by hope--that's it, Cynthia--hope! I've come to tell you that you can make a man of me--that you have it in your power to blot out all my trouble.”

“I don't see how, Nelson.” Cynthia raised her head and looked into his shadowy face wonderingly.

“I've come here to ask you to leave this spot with me forever. I've got unlimited means. Even since I've been away my iron lands in Alabama and coal lands in Tennessee have sprung up marvellously in value. This business here at the store is a mere trifle compared to other investments of mine. We could go far away where no one knows of my misfortune, and, hand-in-hand, make us a new home and new friends. Oh, Cynthia, that holds out such dazzling promise to me that, honestly, all the other fades away in contrast to it. Just to think, you'll be all mine, all mine--alone with me in the wide, wide world! I have no legal name to give you, it's true, but”--he laughed harshly--“we could put our heads together and pick a pretty one, and call ourselves by it. I once knew a man who was a foundling, and because they picked him up early in the morning he was called 'Early.' That wouldn't sound bad, would it? Mr. and Mrs. Early, from nowhere, but nice, good people. What do you say, little girl? It all rests with you now. You are to decide whether I rise or sink back again, for God knows I don't see how I could possibly give you up. I have not acted right with you all along in not declaring my love sooner, but I hardly knew my mind. It was not till that night at the mill that I began to realize how dear you were to me, but it was such a wonderful awakening that I did not speak of it as I should. But why don't you say something, Cynthia? Surely you don't love any one else--”

She drew herself quite from his embrace, but, still clasping one of his hands like an eager child, she said:

“Nelson, I don't believe I'm foolish and impetuous like some girls I know. You are asking me to take the most important step in a woman's life, and I cannot decide hastily. You have been drinking, Nelson, you acknowledge that frankly. In fact, I would have known it anyway, for you are not like you used to be--even your voice has altered. Nelson, a man who will give way to whiskey even in great trouble is not absolutely a safe man. I'm unhappy, I'll admit it. I've suffered since you disappeared as I never dreamed a woman could suffer, and yet--and yet what you propose seems a very imprudent thing to do. When did you want me to leave?”

“A week from to-night,” he said. “I can have everything ready by then and will bring a horse and buggy. I'll leave them down below the orchard and meet you right here. I'll whistle in the old way, and you must come to me. For God's sake don't refuse. I promise to grant any request you make. Not a single earthly wish of yours shall ever go unsatisfied. I _know_ I can make you happy.”

Cynthia was silent for a moment. She drew her hand from his clasp. “I'll promise this much,” she said, in a low, firm voice. “I'll promise to bring my decision here next Friday night. If I decide to go, I suppose I'd better pack--”

“Only a very few things,” he interposed. “We shall stop in New Orleans and you can get all you want. Oh, little girl, think of my sheer delight over seeing you fairly loaded down with the beautiful things you ought always to have had, and noting the wonder of everybody over your rare beauty of face and form, and to know that you are all mine, that you gave up everything for a nameless man! You will not go back on me, dearest? You won't do it, after all I've been through?”

Cynthia was silent after this burst of feeling, and he put his arm around her and drew her, slightly resisting, into his embrace.

“What is troubling you, darling?” he asked, tenderly.

“I'm worried about your drinking,” she faltered. “I've seen more misery come from that habit than anything else in the world.”

“But I swear to you that not another drop shall ever pass my lips,” he said. “Why, darling, even with no promise to you to hold me back, I voluntarily did without it to-day, when right now my whole system is crying out for it and almost driving me mad. If I could do that of my own accord, don't you see I could let it alone forever for your sake?”

“But”--Cynthia raised her eyes to his--“between now and--and next Friday night, will you--”

“I shall be as sober as a judge when I come,” he laughed, absorbing hope from her question. “I shall come to you with the clearest head I ever had--the clearest head and the lightest heart, little girl, for we are going out together into a great, mysterious, dazzling world. You will not refuse me? You are sent to me to repay me for all I've been through. That's the way Providence acts. It brings us through misery and shadows out into joy and light. My shadows have been dark, but my light--great God, did mortal ever enter light such as ours will be!”

“Well, I'll decide by next Friday night,” Cynthia said; “that's all I can promise now. It is a most important matter and I shall give it a great deal of thought. I see the way you look at it.”

“But, Cynthia,” he cautioned her, “don't tell a soul that I've been here. They think I'm dead; let them continue to do so. Friday night just leave a note saying that you have gone off with me and that you will write the particulars later. But we won't write till we have put a good many miles behind us. Your mother' will raise a lot of fuss, but we can't help that.”

“I shall not mention it to any one,” the girl agreed, and she rose and stood before him, half turned to go.

“Then kiss me, dearest,” he pleaded, seizing her hands and holding them tight--“kiss me of your own accord; you know you never have done that, not even once, since I've known you.”

“No; don't ask me to do that,” she said, firmly, “for that would be absolute consent, and I tell you, Nelson, frankly, I have not yet fully decided. You must not build on it too much.”

“Oh, don't talk that way, darling. Don't let me carry a horrible doubt for a whole week. Do say something that will keep up my hopes.”

“All I can say is that I'll decide by Friday night,” she repeated. “And if I go I shall be ready. Good-night, Nelson; I can't stay out longer.” He walked with her as far as he could safely do so in the direction of the farm-house, and then they parted without further words.

“She'll go--the dear little thing,” he said to himself, enthusiastically, as he walked through the orchard. When he had climbed over the fence he paused, looked back, and shrugged his shoulders. An unpleasant thrill passed over him. It was the very spot on which he had met Pole Baker that night and had been so soundly reprimanded for his indiscretion in quitting Nathan Porter's premises in such a stealthy manner.

Suddenly Floyd pressed his hand to his waistcoat-pocket and drew out a tiny object that glittered in the moonlight. “The engagement ring!” he exclaimed, in a tone of deep disappointment; “and I forgot to give it to her. What a fool I was, when she's never had a diamond in her life! Well”--he looked hesitatingly towards the farm-house--“it wouldn't do to call her back now. I'll keep it till Friday night. Like an idiot, I forgot, too, in my excitement, to tell her where we are to be married--that is, if she will go; but she won't desert me--I can trust her. She will be my wife--_my wife!_”

XXXI

THE next morning, after breakfast, Mrs. Porter told her husband to harness the horse and hitch him to the buggy. “I've got some butter ready to sell,” she explained, “and some few things to buy.”

“You'll gain lots by it,” Nathan sneered, as he reluctantly proceeded to do her bidding. “In the fust place it will take yore time fer half a day, the hoss's time fer half a day, an' the wear an' tear on the buggy will amount to more than all you git fer the butter. But that's the way women calculate. They can't see an inch 'fore the'r noses.”

“I can see far enough before mine to hear you grumbling at dinner about the coffee being out,” she threw back at him; “something you, with all your foresight, forgot yesterday.”

“Huh, I reckon the old lady did hit me that pop!” Nathan admitted to himself as he walked away. “Fust thing I know I'll not be able to open my mouth--women are gittin' so dern quick on the trigger--an', by gum, I _did_ forgit that coffee, as necessary as the stuff is to my comfort.”

When Porter brought the horse and buggy around a few minutes later his wife was ready on the porch with her pail of neatly packed butter. Cynthia came to the door, but her mother only glanced at her coldly as she took up her pail and climbed into the vehicle and grasped the reins.

Reaching Mayhew & Floyd's store, she went in and showed the butter to Joe Peters, who stood behind one of the counters.

“I want eighteen cents a pound,” she said. “If towns-people won't pay it, they can't eat _my_ butter. Butter for less than that is white and puffy and full of whey.”

“What did you want in exchange for it, Mrs. Porter?” the clerk asked. “In trade, you know, we do better than for cash.”

“I want its worth in coffee,” she said, “that's all.”

“We'll take it, then, and be glad to get it,” Peters said, and he put the firm, yellow lumps on the scales, made a calculation with a pencil on a piece of wrapping-paper, and began to put up the coffee. Meanwhile, she looked about her. Mayhew sat at a table in the rear. The light from a window beyond him, falling on his gray head, made it look like a bunch of cotton.

“I reckon he's keeping his own books now that Nelson Floyd's away?” she said, interrogatively, to the busy clerk.

“A body mought call it book-keepin',” Peters laughed, “but it's all I can do to make out his scratchin'. He writes an awful fist. The truth is, we are terribly upset by Floyd's absence, Mrs. Porter. His friends--folks that like 'im--come fer forty miles, clean across the Tennessee line, to trade with him, and when they don't see him about they go on with empty wagons to Darley. It's mighty nigh runnin' the old man crazy. He sees now who was butterin' his bread. Ef Nelson was to come back now the old cuss 'ud dress 'im out in purple an' fine linen an' keep 'im in a glass case.”

“Do you expect Floyd to come back?” Mrs. Porter was putting the damp napkin back into her empty pail. Indifference lay in her face and voice but had not reached her nervous fingers.

“Mrs. Porter”--Peters spoke lower. He came around the counter and joined her on the threshold of the door--“I'm a-goin' to let you on to some'n' that I'm afeard to tell even the old man. The Lord knows I wouldn't have Mrs. Snodgrass an' her team git hold of it fer the world. You see, ef I was to talk too much I mought lose my job. Anyway, I don't want to express an opinion jest on bare suspicion, but I know you've got a silent tongue in yore head, an' I think I know, too, why yo're interested, an' I'm in sympathy with you an'--an' Miss--an' with all concerned, Mrs. Porter.”

“You said you were going to tell me something,” the old woman reminded him, her glance on the court-house across the street, her voice tense, probing, and somewhat resentful of his untactful reference to Cynthia.

“I'm a-goin' to tell you this much,” said Peters, “but it's in strict confidence, Mrs. Porter. Thar has been a lot o' letters fer Floyd on all sorts o' business affairs accumulatin' here. Mayhew's been openin' 'em all an' keepin' 'em in a stack in a certain pigeon-hole of the desk. Now, I seed them letters thar jest last night when I closed the store, an' this mornin' early, when I opened up an' was sweepin' out, I missed 'em.”

“Ah, I see!” exclaimed Mrs. Porter, impulsively. “Well, ef you do, you see more'n me,” Peters went on, “fer I don't know how it happened. It's bothered me all day. You see, I can't talk to the old man about it, fer maybe he come down here some time last night an' got 'em fer some purpose or other. An' then ag'in--well, thar is jest three keys to the house, Mrs. Porter, the one the old man has, the one I tote, an' the one Nelson Floyd tuck off with 'im.”

“So you have an idea that maybe--”

“I hain't no idea about it, I tell you, Mrs. Porter, unless--unless Nelson Floyd come back here last night an' come in the store an' got his mail.”

“Ah, you think he may be back?”

“I don't know that he is, you understand, but I'm a-goin' to hope that he ain't dead, Mrs. Porter. Ef thar ever was a man I loved--that is to say, downright _loved_--it was Nelson Floyd. La me! I could stand here from now till sundown an' not git through tellin' you the things he's done in my behalf. You remember--jest to mention one--that mother had to be tuck to Atlanta to Dr. Winston to have a cancer cut out. Well, she had no means, an' I didn't, an' we was in an awful plight--her jest cryin' an' takin' on day an' night in the fear o' death. Well, Nelson got onto it. He drawed me off behind the store one day--as white as a sheet, bless your soul! fer it mighty nigh scared the boy to death to be ketched at his good acts--an' he up an' told me he was goin' to pay the whole bill, but that I mustn't tell nobody, an' I wouldn't tell you now ef mean reports wasn't out agin 'im. I hardly knowed what to do, fer I didn't want to be beholden to 'im to sech a great extent, but he made me take the money, an', as you know, mother got well ag'in. Then what did he do but raise my wages away up higher than any clerk in this part o' the state gits. That mighty nigh caused a split betwixt him an' the old man, but Nelson had his way. I tried to pay some on the debt, but he wouldn't take it. He wouldn't even let me give 'im my note; he'd always laugh an' turn it off, an' of late it sorter made 'im mad, an' I simply had to quit talkin' about it.”

“He had his good side.” Mrs. Porter yielded the point significantly. “I never denied that. But a man that does good deeds half the time and bad half the time gets a chance to do a sort of evil that men with worse reputations don't run across.” Mrs. Porter moved away towards her buggy, and then she came back, and, looking him straight in the eye, she said, “I hardly think, Joe, the fact that those letters are missing proves that Nelson Floyd was here last night.”

“You don't think so, Mrs. Porter?” Peters' face fell.

“No; Mr. Mayhew no doubt took them to look over. I understand he and Pole Baker are trying to get track of Floyd. You see, they may have hoped to get some clew from the letters.”

“That's a fact, Mrs. Porter,” and, grown quite thoughtful, the clerk was silent as he helped her into her buggy.

“Huh!” she said to herself, as she started off.

“Floyd's done a lot o' good deeds, has he? I've known men to act like angels to set their consciences at rest after conduct that would make the bad place itself turn pink in shame. I know your kind, Nelson Floyd, and a little of you goes a long way.”

XXXII

MRS. PORTER drove down the village street between the rows of scattered houses till she arrived at a modest cottage with a white paling fence in front and a few stunted flowers. Here she alighted. There was a hitching-post, with an old horseshoe nailed near the top for a hook, and, throwing the reins over it, she went into the yard. Some one came to a window and parted the curtains. It was Hillhouse. He turned and stepped quickly to the door, a startled expression of inquiry on his face.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “Really, I wasn't looking for anybody to drop in so early in the day; and this is the first time you've ever called, Sister Porter.”

With a cold nod she walked past him into the little white-walled, carpetless hall.

“You've got a parlor, haven't you?” she asked, cautiously looking around.

“Oh yes; excuse me,” he stammered, and he awkwardly opened a door on the right. “Walk in, walk in. I'm awfully rattled this morning. Seeing you so sudden made me--”

“I hope the Marshall family across the street weren't watching as I got out,” she broke in, as she preceded him into the parlor. “People talk so much here, and I wanted to see you privately. Let a woman with a grown daughter go to an unmarried preacher's house and you never hear the last of it.”

She sat down in a rocking-chair and looked about her, he thought, with an expression of subdued excitement. The room was most simply furnished. On the floor lay a rag carpet, with rugs of the same material. A cottage organ stood in one corner, and a round, marble-topped table in the centre of the room held a lamp and a plush-covered album. On the white walls hung family portraits, black-and-white enlarged photographs. The window looking towards the street had a green shade and white, stiffly starched lace curtains..

“Your mother and sister--are they in the house?” Mrs. Porter asked.

“No,” he answered, standing in front of her. “They went over to McGill's as soon as breakfast was finished. You know their little boy got kicked by a mule yesterday.”

“Yes, I heard so, and I'm glad they are not here--though you'd better tell them I came. If you don't, and the Marshalls happen to mention it to them, they might think it strange.”

“You wanted to see me alone, then?” Hillhouse put out his stiff, tentative hand and drew a chair to him and sat down in it.

“Yes, I'm in trouble--great, great trouble,” the old woman said, her steely glance on his face; “and to tell you the truth, I don't see how I'm going to get around it. I couldn't mention it to any one else but you, not even Nathan nor mother. In fact, you ought to know, for it's bound to worry you, too.”

“Oh, Sister Porter, what is it? Don't keep me waiting. I knew you were in some trouble when I saw your face as you came in at the gate. Is it about--”

“Of course it's about Cynthia,” sighed the woman--“about her and Nelson Floyd.”

“He's dead, and she--” Hillhouse began, but Mrs. Porter stopped him.

“No, that isn't it,” she went on. “He's alive. He's back here.”

“Oh, is that so?” Hillhouse leaned forward, his face white, his thin lips quivering.

“Yes, I'll tell you about it,” went on Mrs. Porter. “Of late I've been unable to sleep for thinking of Cynthia and her actions, she's seemed so reckless and despondent, and last night I left my bed and started to creep in and see if she was asleep. I had on soft slippers and made no noise, and had just got to the end of the hall, when her door opened and she went out at the front.”

“Gone? Oh, don't--don't tell me that, Mrs. Porter!”

“No, not that, quite; but wait till I am through,” Mrs. Porter said, her tone hard and crisp. “When I got to the porch I saw her just disappearing in the orchard. And then I heard somebody whistling like a whippoorwill. It was Nelson Floyd. He was standing at the grape-arbor, and the two met there. They went inside and sat down, and then, as there was a thick row of rose-bushes between the house and the arbor, I slipped up behind it. I crouched down low till I was almost flat on the ground. I heard every word that passed between them.”

Hillhouse said nothing. The veins in his forehead stood out full and dark. Drops of perspiration, the dew of mental agony, appeared on his cheeks.