Part 9

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Carter, trembling with nervousness, discovered that it was half past ten. “You go to bed,” she ordered shortly.

After her daughter went up-stairs, she sat for a long time, waiting. She was puzzled by the silence in the library. From time to time she went to the window and looked out anxiously; yet she had no real hope that her daughter-in-law would appear. She felt sure that Fanchon had run away, and the disgrace of it made her face burn. She turned the gas down and sat in semi-darkness, ashamed to look at her own image in the long mirror between the windows.

The Carters had always had such good wives, such loyal, faithful women. She had not failed herself, she had done her best, and William, her first-born, the pride of her heart--must he be disgraced?

She sat there watching and listening until nearly twelve o’clock. Still she heard occasional sounds from the library. Finally, worn out, she crept up-stairs to her room; but even there she continued to listen and tremble at intervals.

At last she heard the sounds of locking up the house and her husband’s heavy step on the stairs.

Mr. Carter came into the room and slammed the door. His wife had crept hastily into bed, and she lay there, shivering a little with dread.

“What did you say to him, papa?”

“Say? Not a blamed word!” Mr. Carter sat down and pulled off his boots, flinging one down with violence. “I guess I don’t have to say anything,” he remarked grimly. “I reckon the fool’s got about enough. Marrying a French ballet-dancer!”

Mrs. Carter drew a long breath.

“Where do you s’pose she is, Johnson?”

“How do I know? He’ll have to get a divorce--that’s as plain as the nose on your face. Then I suppose the donkey’ll want to marry Rosamond Silvertree, or Bloomie Bloomingkitten, or some other actress.”

“Oh, hush!” groaned Mrs. Carter, burying her head in her pillow with a sob. “I can’t bear it! Poor Willie!”

Mr. Carter restrained his tongue, but he flung the other boot into the corner with a bang more eloquent than words.

XIV

DOWN in the library William Carter waited alone. He was glad to be alone. Aware of his father’s attitude, he had dragged through a fearful evening. Mr. Carter had sat at the table, smoking and reading his newspaper. He had said nothing about the one subject that was uppermost in both minds; but at intervals he had lowered his paper sufficiently to fix a fierce eye on the clock and then to turn it significantly upon his son. Without meeting his glance, William felt it. With the tide of rage and grief rising in his own heart, that hostile eye--which seemed to say, “I told you so!” was intolerable.

He was thankful when his father’s stout figure disappeared into the front part of the house. He heard the vigorous locking-up without protest. It was evident that Mr. Carter had decided that Fanchon wouldn’t return that night, and he was bound to lock up as usual. In fact, he did it a little more violently than usual. It was an overt act which relieved his feelings. Then, carrying a pitcher of iced water, he went heavily up-stairs, and his son heard the sharp closing of his bedroom door.

It took no very vigorous imagination, either, to fancy his mother’s anxious inquiry for the truant, and the subsequent comment on the situation. Even in the solitude of the library William’s face burned. He was bewildered, too. He knew that he had reached a crisis, and he did not know how to deal with it. To do anything seemed only to publish his own misery. He had telephoned twice to the livery-stable already, and been assured that Mrs. Carter’s horse was still out.

He had no idea where she had gone, and to follow, even in a motor, would be senseless enough. It was a fine night; a full moon lighted the roads. If she meant to return, she could get home so easily that he could not believe she intended to do so.

As for Corwin, William had only seen the man two or three times, and was cognizant of the gossip only through his father. People didn’t talk to him.

His father had seen Corwin follow Fanchon, but had Fanchon planned it all? Or had the man--a hard, coarse-looking brute--pursued her without any invitation, without her consent? William Carter did not know; he only felt a blind rage that he had suddenly been forced to doubt his wife. It was hideous--simply hideous!

They had been quarreling lately nearly all the time--petty quarrels. Fanchon evidently hated the place, she seemed to hate even her husband’s people, and he had found her becoming wilder and stranger every day. He knew she longed to go back to Paris, or at least to New York; but William had never brought his mind to consider even the possibility that she was disloyal, or could be. He could not believe it now, but he found that the conviction was deep-rooted in his father’s mind, and he saw it in his mother’s kind, worried eyes.

What had they heard? He did not know--at least he was sure he did not know it all. He saw something of it in Leigh’s white face to-night. The boy was fond of Fanchon. William felt relief to think that at least one member of his family liked her.

He watched the clock until the hands indicated midnight. Where could she be? He walked the floor again.

Unobserved, he could give way to his agony of mind. Had there been an accident? Had Fanchon been hurt?

The suspense was fast becoming a deep and keen agony. He was shaken. He knew that his thoughts had wandered to Virginia, to the peace he might have had. Had Fanchon seen it? Was she tormenting him in a wild fit of jealousy, or--intolerable and monstrous thought!--his wife in flight with a man who looked to him to be no more than a common gamester?

How still it was! Through the open window the soft night air poured in; and now it had a difference, a perceptible quickening, the keenness of the morning. It was nearly one o’clock.

He flung himself into a chair and waited, burying his head in his hands. He tried to think coherently, but he could not. Then a thrill ran through him as the telephone-bell rang at his elbow. He snatched up the receiver. A man’s voice called for Mr. William Carter--a gruff, half-drowsy negro voice.

“Yes, yes! What is it?” he questioned.

“De boss tol’ me to watch out fo’ dat horse Miz Carter hired, suh. I’s been up all night--dat horse jes’ come in dis minute. He’s drippin’, an’ he ain’t got no rider, suh.”

William dropped the receiver and stood motionless, as if turned to stone. Good God, how he had wronged her! There had been an accident!

A vision of Fanchon lying by the wayside, her lovely face cold in the moonlight, her helpless, pretty, idle hands flung out, pierced his heart. He groaned aloud. Then his sickened brain cleared and he roused himself. He must get help, hire a motor, and go out to search.

He raised his head sharply. His strained ear caught a sound at the front door. He crossed the room almost at a stride, switched on the light in the hall, threw back his father’s elaborate chains and bolts with a shaking hand, and flung the door open. On the threshold, deadly pale and dripping wet, stood his wife.

“Fanchon!”

His first impulse of wild relief was lost in another and a stronger feeling. The look on her face checked the words on his lips.

She came in slowly, reluctantly, putting out a small, groping hand. As the light from the hall lamp fell full upon her, he saw that she had lost her hat, and that her pretty hair clung in wet curls to her forehead. All the gaiety and frivolity of that Parisian habit was gone. It was torn and muddy and wet. But she did not go to him, she did not exclaim that she had been hurt and half drowned. She walked past him, a little unsteadily, and went into the library.

William shut the door and followed her. She had dropped into a chair and lay there, half reclining, her arm across the back and her face hidden on it. Her husband stood looking down at her in silence for a moment; then he turned without a word and went into the dining-room, poured some brandy into a glass, and brought it.

“Drink this!” he said peremptorily.

She lifted the glass slowly, and, without raising her eyes, tasted the liquor and then thrust it aside.

“I know what you think!” she said in a low voice. “It isn’t true--I’ve done nothing--nothing at all!”

His face hardened.

“Why do you say that, Fanchon? I haven’t accused you.”

She turned with a gesture of impatience.

“I know they have--your father and your mother!”

William, who had taken the glass from her, set it down on the table.

“You’re wet through,” he said coldly. “Go up-stairs and change. You can talk afterward--if you want to.”

“I don’t care if I’m wet!” she answered a little wildly. “I’d rather bear wet than your face!”

“I’m sorry my face is so unbearable. I had no thought when I saw you but anxiety. There’s been an accident. You haven’t even told me whether you’re hurt!”

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Fanchon. “The horse got down in the stream and wallowed. I had to get off to save myself, and when he came out he ran off.”

William lifted his eyes reluctantly to hers.

“That horse has just come in, Fanchon. I got a telephone as you came up the porch steps.”

She did not seem to grasp the significance of this. She put up a wandering hand and pushed back her damp hair.

“I can’t help it!” she said sharply. “It’s so--I never would have got here but for a motor. Some people--perfect strangers, too--were coming this way, and they brought me. We came faster than any horse could go.”

“Where were you? Where did the horse roll?”

“At Fanshawe’s Creek--you know, half-way to the Mountain Inn.”

William turned abruptly and walked across the room and back again.

“That wouldn’t take an hour and a half for a horse,” he remarked dryly. “It’s one o’clock, Fanchon.”

A flame of red shot up in her white cheeks.

“I think he got into the water at about eleven o’clock. I tried to make him ford the stream, and he--he just got down and wallowed in the water. I had to get off.”

“You went out just after luncheon--while mother was at lunch, in fact--and you were coming home on those lonely roads at eleven o’clock at night, alone?”

She sat up in her chair at that, her flushed face turned fully toward him, and something like a flame kindling in her fawn-like eyes.

“Of course your mother told you!”

“Told me what?”

“About my talk with Corwin in the lane.”

William stared at her.

“My mother told me nothing. I didn’t mean to tell you, I didn’t mean to say anything,” he added grimly; “but since you’ve said so much, I will. I heard from father that Corwin followed you out on the turnpike to-day--to the edification of the town! Was he with you at the creek?”

Fanchon sat quite still, looking at him, her large eyes seeming to grow larger and darker in her white face. He returned the look as steadily, not in anger, but with a kind of grimness new in her experience with him. Neither of them moved, and the stillness in the room was so deep that they both heard the familiar sounds outside. The church clock struck in the distance, and some cocks crowed. The fresh breeze stirred the curtains in the window while the shaded lamp on the table flared up with the little gust. In the flare William saw the misery on his wife’s face.

“Fanchon, that man’s pursuing you--he’s a villain! What has happened? Tell me--I have a right to know!”

Something in his changed tone touched her. She sank back in her chair, covering her face with her hands.

“_Mon Dieu!_” she murmured brokenly, and then, as her emotions swept her away, she burst into wild and uncontrollable weeping, her sobs shaking her from head to foot.

Something in the passion of her tears, and in the crumpled helplessness of the small figure in the chair, touched William in his turn. He stood looking at her without moving, thinking unhappily. He had made a mess of it; but after all it wasn’t all her fault. It was his, and he still loved her. From what he had suffered to-night he knew that he loved her. Suddenly he bent over the small, writhing figure and spoke.

“Tell me, Fanchon,” he said hoarsely. “Must I thrash that villain?”

Very slowly she raised her head, very slowly and reluctantly she raised her tear-drenched eyes to his.

“I--I didn’t go with him, I didn’t want to see him--he followed me.” She hesitated, trembling. “I don’t know how to tell you. He overtook me and he made me come back. I’d lost my way. He made me go back to the inn--we ate dinner together.”

“You dined at a public road-house with that man--a man I wouldn’t ask to my father’s house?”

She nodded, biting her lips.

For a moment he was hot with rage; but he curbed it. He wanted to be just, and he was deeply moved. As she sat there she looked as she had looked once in Paris, when he had first seen her--a butterfly of a creature fighting to live, fighting hopelessly in the midst of glittering, sordid surroundings. He hadn’t been blinded, his eyes had been wide open, but he had fallen in love with her; and he had been moved, too, by compassion. He had snatched her out of that gay, hollow sham of a life, and he had meant to save her, to keep her safe. Yet, as she sat there now, she looked forlorn and helpless and beset.

“Fanchon,” he said gravely and gently, “tell me why you did this. You didn’t mean to do it, you didn’t set out to do it--why did you? See, I trust you--I’m asking you to tell me the truth.”

“I lost my way.” She repeated it as if she had a lesson by rote. “Corwin overtook me and made me turn back. I was hungry, and we ate dinner at the same table--in the public dining-room. Then--then I didn’t want him to ride back with me--and I went out of the side door and started alone. When I came to the crossing above Fanshawe’s Creek, I didn’t know which way to go, and I chose the wrong road. I rode so far that I got frightened. I asked at a house out there--a woman with a queer name--Quantah, I think. I had to come back to the crossing. Then, when I did get to the creek, the horse lay down in the water. I sat and waited, dripping, until a motor picked me up. That’s all.”

“No,” said William, “that’s not all. You’re afraid of that man, Fanchon!”

“I!” she laughed tremulously. “Why do you think that?”

He was watching her, and he saw her eyes change. He was right. She was afraid of Corwin.

“I don’t think it,” he said gravely. “I know it. Go on, Fanchon; tell me the rest.”

“I have nothing to tell,” she replied slowly, deliberately, but with shaking lips. “You--you don’t believe me, _n’est-ce-pas_?”

William, looking steadily into her face, made no reply. His changed, white face frightened her. She rose unsteadily to her feet, a forlorn little figure.

“I’m not afraid of Corwin,” she said angrily, “not a bit! _Ciel_, why should I be afraid of any one? I ask you that, _mon ami_!”

He still said nothing, his grave eyes on hers. Fanchon returned his look--tried to return it steadily. She had told him a falsehood. She had never been afraid of falsehood; it was an easy way of escape. But now, under his eyes, she flinched. She blushed scarlet, put out a wavering little hand, and tried to catch at his, but he moved away.

“Go up-stairs,” he said gravely, without anger, in the remote tone of a man who no longer cared. “You’re worn out; you’ll take cold. I told you so before. Go up-stairs to bed. Shall I rouse Miranda? Do you need help?”

“Help?” she shivered, but not with cold. “_Non, non!_ No help for me--here!”

As she spoke she turned, lifted the discarded glass of brandy to her lips, and drained it. Then, without looking at him again, she left the room.

The light was still on in the hall, but she felt her way to the stairs blindly. She was crying. She had not intended to lie to him, but it was so much easier than to tell the truth. She clung to the banisters for a moment, sobbing bitterly; then, dashing the tears from her eyes, she went on, aware that he was still standing motionless where she had left him.

As she dragged herself to the head of the stairs, she was suddenly aware of a figure in the upper hall. She stopped and looked around in a panic. She expected her father-in-law, but it was only Leigh.

“Are you safe?” he asked eagerly. “There’s been an accident--I knew it! You’ve been hurt, Fanchon?”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Where were you, Leigh?”

“I’ve been up all night. I knew William was, too, and I’ve waited.”

He was eighteen, but he looked younger, and his boyish face was white with anxiety. With a sudden impulse, Fanchon laid her hands on his shoulders.

“I’m safe--quite safe, dear boy!” she whispered, and, lifting her pale, beautiful face to his, she kissed him lightly on both cheeks. “Dear Leigh--dear brother!” she murmured. “I shall love you--_toujours_!”

Leigh, unused to being kissed, turned from white to red, but he felt as if he had received an accolade.

XV

THE only member of the Carter family who left the house with a cheerful face on the following morning was Daniel. There had been practically nothing said at breakfast. Fanchon kept to her room, William briefly explaining the accident at the creek and adding that his wife had a chill. Mrs. Carter went up to see her, but was refused admittance. So was Emily. Mr. Carter read the newspaper more thoroughly than usual, and Leigh ate in a dream.

Daniel, aware of the strained atmosphere, found difficulty in suppressing a smile. He had encountered, at intervals, the expressive whites of Miranda’s eyes. She had carried up Fanchon’s breakfast, and she knew Job Wills, the hostler at the livery-stable, who had come by in the morning, on his way home after an all-night shift. What Miranda did not know about Mrs. William Carter’s ride wasn’t worth knowing. Her eyes nearly upset Daniel’s gravity; but he finally left the house, feeling a little guilty. It was wrong to find amusement in an incident that seemed so tragic to the others. Daniel therefore suppressed the twinkle in his eyes and set out for Judge Jessup’s office.

His way lay through the church lane and down to the lower corner of the main street. It was a way that, at this season of the year, was full of blossoming. It was past time now for the early flowers, but an old-fashioned clustering yellow rose climbed over the Paysons’ fence and tossed its fragrance and its falling petals to the passers-by like the confetti at a carnival. A scarlet-hooded woodpecker was climbing the tall trunk of the old oak by the churchyard gate.

Daniel walked slowly. Rapid motion increased his limp, but when he moved in his usual leisurely way his step only halted a little. He was no longer thinking of his own family, nor of the whites of Miranda’s eyes. His mind had reverted, as it usually did, to Virginia Denbigh.

He was not startled, therefore, when he saw her standing at the corner of the church. She was not wearing her big hat to-day, but an odd little bonnet-shaped affair that showed her pretty hair and her white forehead, and she was dressed in pink. He thought it was the most lovely shade of pink he had ever seen.

She smiled as she saw him coming.

“I was waiting for you, Dan.”

He flushed, and his eyes shone.

“I like that bonnet, Virginia. At first I thought I couldn’t like anything but the big hat, but this shows your hair. It’s like sunshine to-day.”

She laughed.

“My hat was a thousand years old! This is brand-new--I trimmed it.”

“I wish I could do anything so well,” he said in a tone of real regret. “I couldn’t.”

“Not even a speech to the jury?”

She laughed a little tremulously. Something in Daniel always touched her. She supposed it was his accident.

“Any one can address a jury,” he replied, “but no one but you could trim that bonnet, Virginia.”

“If you praise it so much, I shall never take it off.” She laughed again, but her eyes grew very grave and kind. “Dan, I heard you speak in court yesterday.”

He was startled.

“Really? Where were you, Virginia?”

“Oh, way back! I was passing the court-house, and I heard two colored men speak about it. One said: ‘Dan Carter, he’s makin’ a great speech, yessuh, he sho’ is. ’Pears like he’s got dat jury all bemuzzled!’” Virginia laughed delightedly. “I went in after that. It was so crowded I thought I’d have to stand, but Mr. Payson was there near the door, and he made some one bring a chair. I could just see the back of your head, Dan, but I heard.”

His face glowed now.

“How strange!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “I knew you were there. No, I didn’t see you, Virginia. I was speaking, and suddenly--well, I felt that you were there. I remember I half looked around. I thought you’d smile at me.”

She gave him a quick, startled look--a look that seemed to express some new perception of him; but his eyes were averted. He was smiling absently, as if talking to himself.

“I didn’t smile, Dan,” she said softly. “I was too deeply touched. I don’t know why we all felt that way, but we did. Yet when I took your speech to pieces in my mind I found how simple it was. You just told us that man’s story, but you told it so simply it went straight to our hearts.”

He smiled.

“That’s all I can do, Virginia. I’m a simple fellow--I can only tell the simple truth. There’s no cause for all this--this fanfare of trumpets in the newspapers, I mean--about my speech. Anybody could do it.”

She shook her head.

“Nobody else could do it. That’s just it. You’re like Lincoln, Dan. They say he thought nothing of the Gettysburg address. I believe he wrote it on his way there. I wish you’d tell me when you’re going to speak again. I want to be there; I want to hear you ‘bemuzzle’ the jury again.”

His eyes lit up.

“Will you come? Really?”

“Every time--if you’ll tell me. You can phone me, Dan.”

He drew a long breath.

“I shall make great speeches, sure enough, if you’re there! I couldn’t help it. Only I wish you’d sit where I can see you--will you, Virginia?”

She laughed.

“In which hat, Dan?”

He considered a moment.

“The old one, please! When I have dreams about you I see you in that hat.”

“I’m afraid it’s given you nightmare! I didn’t know it was as bad as that!”

She laughed again, a little tremulously. Suddenly she began to see what she had never quite seen before. Poor Daniel cared for her! She was afraid that he cared more than she had dreamed. It touched her so much that her eyes misted.

“Nightmare? Not a bit of it. I tell you what to do, Virginia--when you’re through with it let me have it. I’ll hang it up over my desk when I want an inspiration. A poor lawyer needs an inspiration. The law’s as dry as dust.”

She lifted her eyes reluctantly but smilingly to him. She had almost been afraid to meet them, but she was not now. Dan’s look was just the same look he had always given her--and she had never understood!

“I’ll give it to you for a waste-paper basket,” she said gaily.

Then she stopped, her hand on the stone gate-post of the old church. They had been walking slowly through the lane, and Daniel halted, surprised.

“Going in here, Virginia?”

She smiled.

“Yes. There’s to be a Sunday-school festival. Besides, they’ve just cleaned up the church. I took all our prayer-books away for the refurbishing; now I’m going to put them back in the pew.”

As she spoke, he glanced down at the armful of books she held. He had been to church with the Denbighs more than once, and he remembered the colonel’s big prayer-book and hymnal and the books for their guests. He had used that old red one himself. Then his eye fell upon two smaller ones of brown morocco with Virginia’s monogram on the clasp of the case.

“You’re still carrying your old set, Virginia,” he remarked thoughtfully. Here was a chance for a gift, perhaps. “They’re worn at the edges.”

She looked down, blushing suddenly.

“Are they? I hadn’t noticed.”