The Desired Woman

"I'm ashamed of you both," Dolly said, with a frown. "We've got company, and you are both as black as the pot. If I were you I'd certainly stop at the branch and wash the dirt o...

"If you haven't got nothin' better to do," he said, "you might walk down with me to Dolph Wartrace's store, at the cross-roads. Thar will be a crowd thar to-day."

The next morning the new boarder waked at sunrise, and stood at a window of his room on the upper floor of the farmhouse and looked out across the fields and meadows to the rugg...

"Purty good, I reckon, if the drouth don't kill 'em," the farmer answered. The carrier drove on, and Tom slowly opened his letter and turned toward the house. He was a typical G...

Mostyn reached the city at five o'clock in the morning. The sun was just rising over the chimneys and dun roofs of the buildings. He lived in the house of his widowed sister, Mr...

The next day was Sunday. Mostyn did not see Dolly at breakfast. Drake sat at the head of the table as unconcerned as if nothing unusual had happened to him in the night. He spok...

Inside the bank that June morning the clerks and accountants on their high stools were bent over their ponderous ledgers, although it was several minutes before the opening hour...

Irene was on the train bound for Charleston. She was seated in one of the big easy-chairs in the parlor-car, idly scanning a magazine and looking out at the dingy and sordid out...

It was eight o'clock. Jarvis Saunders alighted from the train at Ridgeville, finding his horse hitched to a rack according to the instructions he had left with his overseer. Mou...

The next morning at the bank a financial disappointment met him. A telegram informed him of the sudden slump in some stocks in which he was interested. The loss was considerable...

Therewith Dolly rose and went to the platform. Silence fell on the room as she made a pretty, hesitating bow. To Mostyn she was a marvel of beauty, animation, and reserved force...

For Mostyn the week which ensued after his wife's secret elopement was a period of sheer mental torture. Every minute he expected the startling tidings to reach his friends and...

Irene and Buckton were still at the hotel in Charleston. On the second morning following the happenings of the foregoing chapter they were having breakfast served in Irene's lit...

Saunders spent the end of that week on his plantation in the mountains. On Saturday morning he dropped in at Drake's to see Dolly. John Webb came to the door in response to his...

The various rural Sunday-schools were holding an annual singing convention at Level Grove within a mile of Saunders's home. They were held once a year and were largely attended....

One cloudy night a few days later Mostyn was walking home from the river where he had spent the day fishing. Thinking that he might shorten the way by so doing, he essayed a dir...

A fortnight later Mostyn returned to Atlanta. He spent the first day at his sister's home trying to pass the time reading in her library, but the whole procedure was a hollow ma...

That afternoon, Miss Sally-Lou Wartrace, sister of the keeper of the store at the cross-roads, was at her brother's counter eagerly reading an Atlanta paper while he stood looki...

When Mostyn got back to the farmhouse he found no one at home, the entire family being at church. He strolled about the lawn, smoked many cigars, and tried to read a Sunday pape...

Mostyn took long solitary walks. His habit of morbid introspection had grown and become a fixed feature of his life. Even while occupied with business his secret self stood invi...

"I looked for you earlier," he said, turning his cigar between his lips and smiling cordially as he extended his hand. "You used to be more prompt than this. We won't stand form...

He went down to the lawn, lighted a cigar, and began to smoke, striding nervously back and forth. A smart pair of horses hitched to a trap whirled into the carriage-drive and st...

On the first morning after his permanent removal to his plantation Jarvis Saunders waked with a boundless sense of freedom from care, which had not been his since his boyhood. T...

Five years passed. Again it was summer. Mostyn with his wife and his only child, Richard, Jr., lived in the Mitchell mansion, which, save for a new coat of paint, was unchanged....

that last night. I see the wonderful eyes and mouth, the like of which I have never run across since. I am ashamed to think that I acted as I did, and she only an inexperienced...

With Irene's farewell note in his pocket and ever present to his mind, Mostyn spent the remainder of the morning on which it was received mechanically instructing the elated Del...

DEAR DICK,-I am going to leave Atlanta for good and all, never to bother you again (believe me, this is the truth), but I want to see you to explain in full. I shall be at my dr...

The next morning, as Saunders sat at breakfast in the cafe of his club scanning the morning paper, his attention was fixed by the big-typed head-lines of a report of the school...

"You are too strenuous," she smiled, as she dropped two lumps of sugar into his cup. "Entirely too much so. I saw from your face this morning that you are already undoing the ef...

One morning, during the middle of that week, as Saunders was on his way to the bank, he was surprised to meet Dolly coming out of one of the big dry-goods shops. She wore a new...

Mostyn remained in his office till eight o'clock that evening, writing letters about an investment in the West which had been threatening loss. Closing his desk and lowering the...

That afternoon when the bank was closed Mostyn went home. He walked for the sake of the exercise and with the hope of distracting his mind from the many matters which bore more...

The next morning, Saunders having left home on some business pertaining to the building of his new cotton-factory, Mostyn started out on one of his all-day rambles in the mounta...

That afternoon, in coming from a lawyer's office, Saunders saw Tom Drake standing in the crowd which was always gathered at the intersection of Whitehall and Marietta streets. F...

Saunders was reading a letter one morning as he walked along the shaded road from the store to his house. It was from James Wright, the cashier of the bank, who was giving him s...

One morning a few days later Mostyn entered the bank and went directly to his office. He had been seated at his desk only a moment when Wright, the cashier, came in smiling suav...

Half an hour later the little cast-iron bell in the steeple of the meeting-house rang. Tom Drake and his wife and John Webb left the farmhouse, and, joining some people from the...

J. Cuyler Mitchell got out of his landau in the _porte cochere_ of his stately residence on Peachtree Street, and, aided by his gold-headed ebony cane, ascended the steps of the...

Six years passed. It was autumn in the mountains. The air was balmy and crisp. The landscape was gloriously tinted by late wild flowers and the colors of dying leaves. A far-off...

It was a warm, sultry evening in the middle of the week. They had just finished supper at the farmhouse. Dolly, with a book, a manuscript, and a pencil, stood in a thoughtful at...

Alone in her room, Dolly stood at a window, her distraught eyes on the placid fields lying between the house and the mountains. She was still pale. The tips of her fingers clung...

The letter was written. It was full of manly sympathy and friendly assurances. It brought the afflicted banker three days later to the plantation. A delightful cool and airy roo...

That evening after supper Saunders and Mostyn were on the veranda smoking together. The exchange of remarks was formal, even forced and awkward. Presently Saunders said: "I saw...

As Mostyn's train ascended the grade leading up to the hamlet of Ridgeville, within a mile of which lay the little farm to which he was going, he sat at an open window and viewe...