Elvenborn

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Elvenborn

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 Elvenborn

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.
in hope in some sort of faith, at least, but this lone widow, brave as
her front appeared, had neither.
“Oh, Edwin!” she suddenly cried out, “she was your idol, your little
pet; you used to say, as she sat on your knee in the firelight at
night, that she was born to be lucky and happy. You said her beauty,
genius, and gentleness would draw the world to her feet. You hoped
all that for her, Edwin, and yet there she is bowed down in the
greatest shame and sorrow that can fall to a young girl's lot. On the
day you left never to return, you told me of the great Virginia family
from which she was descended, and said that some day we'd be
grandparents of children that would make us proud. Poor, dear
Edwin!—that was only one of your pretty dreams—our grandchild, if
God lets it come, won't even have a name of its own, and may bear
this curse through a long life to its grave. Oh, Edwin!—my gentle,
loving husband—you are here by my side to-night, aren't you? You
are here putting your dear spirit arms about me, trying to comfort
me, and you will help her, too, dear husband, as you are helping me.
Hold up the sweet, stricken child. Fill her dark life with your own
unrealized dreams. Give her something—anything to help her bear
her burden! That's my prayer to you, Edwin—to you, and to God!”
She went to her bed and threw herself down. Tears welled up in
her, but she forced them back, and, dry-eyed and still, she lay with
her wrinkled face near to the wall.
 CHAPTER X

O
NE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece
and nephew sat on the front veranda to catch the cool
breezes which swept across the town and stirred the foliage
of the trees on the lawn. The old gentleman had been urging
Margaret to go to the piano in the big parlor and sing for them, but
she had persistently declined. Since Fred Walton's leaving, despite
her evident efforts to appear unconcerned, she had not seemed to
her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like herself, and they
were constantly trying to divert her mind from the unpleasant
matter.
At this juncture Kenneth Galt's carriage and pair of spirited blacks,
driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down
the street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the
gateway to the gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the
house, which was not very different from the Dearing home in size,
period, and architecture.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” the General exclaimed, suddenly. “Galt is
off to Atlanta, to see some more capitalists on our new railroad
scheme. You may think lightly of it, my boy, but as sure as fate we
are going to put that big trunk-line through—or, rather, Galt is. He
thinks it is in good shape, and that is encouragement enough for
me. He has handled my affairs ever since he hung out his shingle as
a lawyer, and as he made money hand over hand for himself, he has
for me too.”
“Yes, he has the keenest sense of values of any man in the State,”
Wynn agreed. “He has the full confidence of his clients, and he is not
afraid to back up his ideas with money; that is what makes a
successful speculator. He will put the road through if any one can.
Investors will listen to a man who has succeeded in everything he
has attempted.”
The carriage was now leaving the house, and when it had
regained the street and was about to pass, the General stood up and
waved his handkerchief. The carriage paused at the gate, and the
man under discussion sprang out, hat in hand, and hurried up the
walk.
“I have only a minute to get to the 8.40 train,” he informed them,
as he bowed to Margaret, and smiled cordially at Dearing.
Kenneth Galt was an interesting man from many points of view.
His intimate friends liked him because, to them, he sometimes
unbent and was himself; to strangers and mere acquaintances he
was cold, formal, and almost painfully dignified. To his many clients
he was seldom cordial or free, and never familiar. He had gleaned
the idea somewhere, from his or some one else's experience, that no
genuinely successful financier ever allowed himself to be taken
lightly, so he never jested about his affairs nor encouraged it in
others. He had set a high price upon himself and his chances of
success in life, and he held to it the more tenaciously the higher he
climbed. When approached for legal or financial advice his face was
as immovable as granite, and when he gave an opinion it always had
weight, for he was apt to be right. He was considered a man of
wonderful ability and power among men. He couldn't have been a
successful politician, for he could never have sufficiently lowered
himself to the level of the common people, so it was fortunate for
him that his ambition associated him with another and a more
lucrative class. He was interesting as any human enigma could be
which showed outward signs of hidden depth and strength. For an
orthodox community like that of old Stafford, his iconoclastic views
on some sacred subjects shocked many conservative individuals, but
he was so firm in his philosophy and frank in his open expression of
it, that he was forgiven where a weaker, less-important man would
have been adversely criticized. He had convinced himself, or been
convinced during the hours he had spent in his unique library, that
there is no such thing as a soul or a soul's immortality, and he was
proving, by his persistent effort to make the most of the present,
that in the very renunciation of the dogma he had discovered the
highest law of life.
“Well, you are off, I see,” the General said, “and I hope the parties
will not only be there, but with their check-books wide open.”
“Yes, I'll see what can be done,” Galt answered, somewhat coldly,
for it was against his policy to speak of business matters in any
social group. “I happened to have the land deed you wanted in my
pocket, General, and I thought I'd stop and hand it to you.”
“Oh yes, thank you,” Sylvester said. “I knew it was all right, but I
want to keep all my papers which you don't have need for in my
safe.”
“And how is Miss Margaret?” Galt now asked, as he turned the
document over to its owner, and bent toward the wistful face of the
young girl.
“Oh, I'm quite well, thank you,” she responded, forcing a smile.
“You are a fortunate man, Mr. Galt. My uncle doesn't praise many
people, but he can't say enough in your favor.”
“That's because he only knows the business side of me,” Galt said,
ceasing to smile, and drawing himself up.
“Well, I must be off. I see John lashing the air with his whip; he is
my time-table.”
“Yes, you'd better not lose your train,” the General put in. “I don't
want to be the cause of your missing that appointment. Get a
rosebud for his buttonhole, Madge. It may bring us good luck.”
“Yes, I will.” The girl rose languidly. “There are some pretty ones
near the gate.”
Galt gallantly assisted her down the steps, and, side by side, they
moved along the wide brick walk. Dearing heard his uncle chuckling
as the old man peered through the twilight at the couple, who now
stood facing each other over a bush of choice roses.
“Mark my words, my boy,” he said, “we may have to wait awhile
for it, but as sure as you and I are alive, that pair will some day be
more closely related to each other than they are now.”
Dearing shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. “You don't
think so?” the General pursued, with the eagerness of a child who
has discovered a new toy. “They can't help it. He is much older than
she is, but it would be an ideal match. The fellow is actually a great
man. There is no curbing his ambition. He has accomplished
wonders so far, and there is no telling what his particular genius will
ripen into.”
“It may be as you say—in time,” Dearing answered, after a pause;
“but I'm afraid it will be years before Madge forgets Fred Walton,
and if he should take a notion to come back, as such fellows always
do, sooner or later, why, we'd only have our trouble over again.”
“But he told you he was going, never to come back?” the old man
said, with a touch of resentment even at the thought.
“Yes; he said positively that his conduct, whatever it was, would
keep him from ever showing his face in Stafford again.”
“I have been wondering what he could have done,” General
Sylvester said, musingly. “I dropped in on his father the other day
for no other reason than that he might let out some hint of the
situation, but he never said a word. A big change has certainly come
over him. His face was haggard and almost bloodless, and his eyes
had a queer, shifting look. I am sure he knows all about the affair,
whatever it is.”
“Yes; Fred said the old man knew, and would tell it, but it seems
he has not,” Dearing answered.
“Ashamed to let it be known, I guess,” Sylvester said.
Margaret and Galt had parted, the carriage was disappearing
down the street, and the girl was slowly strolling back. At a bed of
flowers about ten yards from them she paused and stood looking
down. Just then a loud, strident voice reached them from the side of
the house. It was from Mrs. Chumley, who had brought the
General's laundry home, and with her great empty basket was
making her way across the grass toward the front gate,
accompanied by old Diana, the colored cook.
“Oh, but I know it is true—every word of it!” The white woman
had raised her voice exultantly. “I was right there at the girl's elbow,
and heard Mrs. Barry accuse her of it. Dora admitted her ruin, and
laid it to Fred Walton. Now, I reckon folks will know why he had to
skip out by the light o' the moon without a bit of baggage.”
Instantly the two men were on their feet, Margaret's protection
foremost in their minds. There was no doubt that she had heard, for
she was standing facing the two women like a figure carved from
stone.
“Excuse me, Miss Margaret, I didn't know you was there,” Mrs.
Chumley said, as she walked on; “but it is the truth—the Lord knows
it is the truth.”
“My God, the brutality of it!” the old man ejaculated. “To think it
should come to her like that!”
“The scoundrel!” Dearing cried. “Now I understand fully, and if I
had known the truth, I'd have—” But he went no further, for
Margaret was slowly coming toward them. The grass she trod was
wet with dew, and ordinarily she would have realized it, and lifted
her skirt, but she now moved toward them like a somnambulist. At
the bottom step her foot caught, and as they both sprang to her
assistance she gave a forced, harsh laugh.
“How awkward I—I am!” she stammered. “I could never da—
dance the minuet with you now, Uncle Tom. I gave Mr. Galt a pretty
bud. He is such a flatterer—saying that I—saying that he—”
She suddenly pressed her hand to her head and reeled helplessly.
The strong arm of her brother went round her, and her head sank
upon his shoulder. His face was wrung and dark with blended fury
and anxiety, his strong lip was quivering.
“No, she is not fainting!” He spoke to his uncle, but for her ears,
with the intention of rousing her. “She is all right. Wake up, Madge!
I'll slap your jaws, old girl, if you play 'possum with me. You may
fool some folks, but not your family doctor.”
“No, I am not fainting. Who said I was?” and Margaret raised her
head, and drew herself quite erect. “I—I am going in to sing for
you.”
She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in
his voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear.
Uncle Tom wouldn't listen, anyway. He's simply daft about the new
railroad, and couldn't hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at
those damp shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room
and change them at once!”
“I did get them wet, didn't I?” the girl said, glancing down at her
feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her
brother stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight;
then he went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was
eager to take up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but
Dearing's ears were closed to what he was saying.
“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it
should come to her—to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful
ideals! And he could deliberately desert her! He could look another
man in the face and confess that he was without the courage to lift a
woman up after he had knocked her down.”
Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the
darkness before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary
light in Mrs. Barry's cottage. It was from the window of Dora's room,
and for an hour he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went
out; then he rose, and began to undress.
 CHAPTER XI

A
FEW days after the report of Dora Barry's fall had permeated
Stafford from the town's centre to its scattering outskirts, and
the beautiful girl's disgrace had been duly recorded as the
now certain explanation of Fred Walton's flight, it came to his
father's ears in a rather indirect manner. Old Simon was erroneously
supposed to have learned the truth, even before it became town-
talk; for it was vaguely whispered that the banker had been so
moved by Mrs. Barry's personal appeal to him in behalf of her
daughter that he had called in the sheriff with the intention of
having his son held to honor by sheer force, but for some reason
had refrained from taking action.
There are individuals in every community, too, who are bold
enough to mention a delicate topic even to those most sensitively
concerned, and as old Walton was going to the bank on the morning
in question Bailey Thornton, a man of great size, who kept a grocery
where the banker bought his supplies, essayed a jest as he passed
the old man's morning cigar to him over the showcase. The
bystanders thoroughly understood what was meant, as was evinced
by the hearty laugh which went round, but the old man didn't.
“Don't be hard on the boy, Mr. Walton,” Thornton added, and he
smiled broadly enough to explain any ordinary innuendo.
“Remember your own young days. I'll bet Fred came by it honestly.
The whole town knows the truth; there is no good in trying to hide
it. Tell him it is all right, and make him come back home.”
Old Simon grunted and walked on, flushing under the irritating
chorus of laughter which followed him out of the store. “Come by it
honestly!” he repeated. “What could the meddling fool mean? The
whole town knows the truth!”
 He fell to quivering, and almost came to a dead halt in the street.
Surely the circumstance of the bank's loss was not leaking out, after
all his caution? He decided that he would at once sound Toby
Lassiter. Perhaps Fred had confided in others. The bare chance of
the shortage being known and used against him by the rival bank
alarmed him. In fancy he saw the report growing and spreading
through the town and country till an army of half-crazed depositors,
egged on by his enemies, was clamoring at the door, and demanding
funds which had been put out on collateral security, and could not
be drawn in at a moment's notice.
As he was passing along the corridor by the counting-room,
where, beyond the green wire grating, the bookkeepers were at
work, he caught Lassiter's glance, and with a wild glare in his eyes
he nodded peremptorily toward the rear. He had just hung up his old
slouch hat and seated himself in his chair when the clerk joined him,
a look of wonder in his mild eyes.
“Say, Toby, sit down—no, shut the door!” Simon ordered; and
when the clerk had obeyed and taken a chair near the desk, the
banker leaned toward him.
“I want to know,” he panted, “if the report is out about Fred's
shortage?”
“Why, no, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said, astonished in his turn; “that
is, not to my knowledge. I haven't heard a word that would indicate
such a thing. In fact, they all seem so busy with—” But Lassiter
colored deeply, and suddenly checked himself.
“Well, something is in the wind, I know,” Simon went on, his lip
quivering. “It may be that Thornton only had reference to the boy's
general extravagance, or he may have heard false reports about my
own bringing-up; but I am not sure, Toby, but that the thing we are
trying to hide is out.” Thereupon old Simon, his anxious eyes fixed
on the face of his clerk, recounted in detail all that the grocer had
said, and exactly how it had come up.
 “Oh, I see!” Lassiter exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “He didn't refer
to the money, Mr. Walton. He meant—” It was loyalty to his absent
friend which again checked the conscientious Toby, who was trying
to reconcile two adverse duties, and now sat twirling his thumbs in
visible embarrassment.
“You see what?” old Simon demanded, fiercely. “Don't you begin
shifting here and there, and keeping things from me. I want to know
what's took place, and I will! You and I have always got on
harmoniously, but I don't like your shillyshallying whenever that
boy's name is mentioned. The other day, when I sent for the sheriff
—well, you happened to be right in stopping me that time, I'll admit,
but I want to know what you think Bailey Thornton meant by what
he said. Do you know?”
The clerk looked down. His face was quite grave and rigid.
“Mr. Walton,” he faltered, “I don't like to carry tales about matters
which don't concern me, and when a nasty report gets in the air I
try to keep from having anything to do with it.”
“I'm talking to you about business now!” Old Simon raised his
voice to a shrill cry, which, had it not stranded in his throat, would
have reached the adjoining room.
“The report touches on my affairs here in this house, and if you
don't tell me, if you don't aid me with whatever knowledge you may
have run across, you can draw your pay and quit.”
Lassiter saw the utter futility of remaining silent longer, and with a
desperate look on his face he answered: “I didn't want to make the
poor boy's case any worse, Mr. Walton, and so I hoped it would turn
out untrue before it got to you; but they say the girl admits the
whole thing. The minister of the church where she plays the organ
told me it was true.”
“Girl? What girl?” the banker gasped. “Why do you take all day to
get at a thing?”
 Then, as Lassiter told the story which was on every tongue, old
Simon stared, his mouth falling open and his unlighted cigar
seesawing between his jagged stumps of teeth.
“So you are plumb sure it wasn't the money that Thornton was
talking about!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief.
“Yes, I am sure of that, Mr. Walton. They have been so full of
chatter about the girl that not a word has been said about money,
although some think you actually furnished the ready cash for him to
get away on.” The two sat silent for several minutes; then, shaking
his tousled head and shrugging his gaunt shoulders in his faded
black alpaca coat, the banker said, with grim finality of tone: “He's a
bad egg, Toby. That fellow is rotten to the core. This last discovery
really helps us hide the other matter, but the two of them put
together will wipe his name off the slate of this town forever. He'll
never dare to show his face here again. He might have tried to get
around me and live down the shortage, but I reckon both things
coming to a head at once kind o' broke his courage, and he decided
to skedaddle. I have no pity for the girl neither—not a smidgin; a
woman that would give in to a scamp like him don't deserve any
man's pity. Say, Toby, I'm a peculiar in some ways: as long as I felt
that I owed something to that boy as his father his doings kind o' lay
on my mind, but he has plumb cancelled that obligation. I can get
along without worry over him if he is put clean out of my
calculations, so after this I don't want no human being to mention
his name to me. I'll let 'em know that they can't joke with me about
it on the street. I want you to go this minute to Bailey Thornton's
store and ask him for my account up to date. Then I'll send him my
check, and do my trading with Pete Longley. He will be trotting in to
apologize, but keep him away from me. Huh! he can't sneer at me
as I walk along the public highways of this town; his account with us
isn't worth ten cents a month, and he's shaky, anyway. I wish I'd hit
him in the mouth as he stood there gloating over his dirty joke!”
 CHAPTER XII

K
ENNETH GALT came back from Atlanta at the end of the week.
John Dilk drove down, and brought him up from the station at
dusk. Galt had just alighted at his front steps, and the carriage
had gone round the house toward the stables in the rear, when he
saw Margaret Dearing among the flowers on the lawn adjoining.
Through an open window, in the glow of gas-light, he could see the
supper-table waiting for him, and knew that his housekeeper, Mrs.
Wilson, had all in readiness for his evening meal. He knew, too, that
she was most particular about having his favorite dishes served
while they were hot, and yet he could not resist the temptation to
exchange greetings with this fair young girl whose genial friendship
and interest in his affairs had always appealed to him. The prospects
were very bright for success in his plan of building a railway from
Stafford to the sea, and he was still young enough to want to warm
himself in the smile of the girl's approval.
“Oh, you are back!” she said, cordially, as he strode across the
grass, and lightly vaulted over the row of boxwood which divided the
two properties. “Uncle Tom will be delighted.”
“Yes, and I am very tired,” he answered. He paused and shook her
hand, experiencing a decided shock as he noticed the unexpected
pallor of her face and the dark splotches beneath her eyes. “I was
on my feet all morning in Atlanta. I made a speech to-day at a
luncheon, and then had to ride up on a slow train.”
“And the railroad is almost a certainty?” she asked, forcing a wan
smile. “You are about to have your dream realized?”
“Almost,” he answered, modestly. “I think we may count on most
of the subscribers for the stock throughout the South, and the
farmers who have agreed to donate the right of way through their
lands still seem enthusiastic. The only thing we lack is the support of
a certain group of New York capitalists who are to put up the bulk of
the funds and are now considering our final proposition. If they
should go in the road would be a certainty.”
“My uncle is sure they can be counted on,” the girl went on,
sympathetically. “He declares no one but you could have won the
confidence of all those prim, old-fashioned ladies and pious elders,
who have never been willing to invest their savings before.”
Galt shrugged his shoulders and drew back somewhat into his
habitual mantle of reserve. “If we do put it through,” he said, “they
won't regret it. Thorough confidence in an enterprise like this is
necessary, of course, and I am glad they trust me.”
“All Stafford was reading the articles in the Atlanta papers
yesterday about it,” Margaret said. “Uncle says when it is settled
beyond a doubt the town will give a torch-light procession in your
honor.”
“There were many inaccuracies in the papers,” he informed her, as
he stood wondering over her evident dejection. “Did you read the
articles?”
“Did I? Twice—once for myself and again for Uncle. I am sure he
had already been over them, but, like the child he is, he wanted to
hear the glorious news coming from the lips of some one else. I
didn't like the pictures of you, though—not a bit.”
“You didn't? Why?”
“Because they don't do you justice; they were so harsh and fierce.
They made your mouth look—what shall I say?—cruel?—yes, cruel
and utterly heartless. And we all know you are not so. Wynn says
you have the greatest fondness for children of any man he knows,
and surely that is a sign of a good heart.”
“There is one thing I am now showing an extravagant fondness
for,” Galt said, with a cynical laugh, “and that is, hearing you sound
praises that aren't deserved. So I am going to tear myself away from
them and run in to supper.”
“Poor girl!” he mused, as he walked away. “She looks pale and
troubled, and talks as if she were trying to hide something. She has
altered, even in the last week. I wonder if she really cared for Fred
Walton? Who knows? Women often like unworthy men. God knows,
I ought to understand that.”
After supper Galt went up to his sumptuous quarters on the floor
above, and, lighting a cigar, he threw himself into an easy-chair and
began to smoke.
“Yes, I must see her to-night,” he said, almost aloud. “I can't wait
longer. It has been more than a month now, and not a line from her.
I am winning the fight of my life, and I want to see her glorious face
light up as I tell her about it. She is the sweetest, dearest girl in the
world. Her great dreamy eyes haunt me night and day. I love her,
God knows I do. But it mustn't get out yet—not yet; not, at least, till
my road is built. We have a right to our secret, the sweetest that
ever a love-mad pair held between them. She trusts me, and for the
present no one need dream of our intimacy. The last time I saw her
the little darling had all sorts of fears in her dear little head, but such
fancies are only natural. I'll kiss them away, once she is nestling in
my arms. The dear little thing is jealous—actually jealous—of my
success. She said once that she believed I would desert her if it
would serve my ambition to do so. She doesn't know me. She has a
wonderful brain, but she reads me wrongly.”
The hours went by. The old grandfather clock in the hall below
struck nine and then ten, and he rose and slipped down the stairs
into the grounds below. Stafford was a town which went early to bed
as a rule, and Galt found a vast stillness all about him out under the
mystically shimmering stars. Softly treading the grass and furtively
looking about, he went down to a gate near his stables, passed
through and closed it without sound. Again looking up the little
street cautiously, he went on till he reached the rear gate of Mrs.
Barry's cottage. Going in, he walked through the widow's vegetable
garden till he stood behind the little coal-and-wood house not ten
feet from the open window of Dora's room. Here he paused, holding
his breath in suspense. There was a light in the room as from a low-
burning gas-jet at the bureau in the corner, and against the white
window-curtain he saw the shadow of some one bowed over a table.
The outlines of the silhouette were familiar, and they, set his heart to
beating rapidly. Picking up some small particles of coal, he shot them
at the window from his closed hand with the nail of his thumb.
Sometimes they would fall short of the mark, but now and then one
would strike the glass and produce a faint clicking sound. The trick
was successful, as it had been before. The crouching shadow
straightened up, the distinct profile of Dora's face appeared for an
instant, and then lost its exquisite outlines in a blur of black which
elongated itself upward as the girl rose to her feet. The curtain was
drawn, and Dora, fully dressed, peered out. Stepping into open view,
Galt signalled with his hand for her to come out. He saw her shake
her head excitedly and stand motionless.
He signalled again and again, showing his impatience by the
growing rapidity of his gestures and the impassioned movement of
his mute lips. He heard her sigh, and then she nodded resignedly
and retreated into the room. Her light went out. She was coming; he
knew she would join him if her mother was asleep. And yet that
sigh! What could it mean from her who had always come so joyfully,
so full of love and faith? Ah, he had it! The gentle girl, not having
seen him for several weeks, was genuinely jealous of the weighty
affairs which had recently absorbed so much of his attention. All the
uproar over his prospective success in the papers, the graphic
accounts of his high position, had made her fancy, in her artistic
sensitiveness, that circumstances were separating them. Ah, yes,
that was it! But he would set her right on that score, as he always
had done. He would convince her that their sweet secret was their
own, and assure her that it need not be long now before they could
announce their love to the world. Where could he look for a better
or a truer mate? The secret of their present, and perhaps imprudent,
intimacy would never be known. But for the time being, of course,
he could not think of marrying any one. Much depended, right now,
on his remaining exactly as he was—the suave bachelor whom
certain prim and accurate maiden ladies had intrusted with the
management of their finances, and reserved a right to decide, as
members of some churches do in the cases of their unmarried
pastors, what manner of woman their paragon was to choose, if any,
as his partner in life. They would be unanimous in their verdict
against the artist's beautiful daughter, not being able to see her
worth and charm as he could see them. And to announce at the
present crisis that he had chosen such a wife would certainly be
inadvisable. He had become their idol, and his judgment told him he
must retain their good-will in all things—at least, till he was
independent of their support.
There was a low, creaking sound from the rusty hinges of the rear
door of the cottage, followed by profound stillness, and he knew she
had paused on the steps to see if her mother would wake. Then he
breathed in vast relief, for he saw her coming. She had thrown a
light shawl over her head, and as she passed from under the
intervening arbor of grape-vines and the moonlight fell upon her
partly exposed face, he was struck by its pallor, and by the
desperate gleam in the eyes so steadily fixed on him.
“Thank God, I see you at last, darling!” he exclaimed,
passionately, as he held out his arms. But to his amazement she
drew back, warding off his embrace with a hand that was firm,
strong, and cold as ice.
“You must go—you must never come again!” she said, in a voice
filled with suffering.
The little wood-house was between them and the cottage, and
some tall trees bordering the little street threw a shadow over them.
“But, darling, what's the matter?” he cried. “What has changed
you so remarkably? Why, little girl—”
“Do you mean, you haven't—haven't heard?” She clutched the
shawl under her marble-like chin and stared at him, her pretty lips
parted and quivering piteously.
“Heard what?” he asked. “I have heard nothing—certainly no bad
news. I've been away for a week, and only came home this
evening.”
She lowered her head, and stood silent and motionless. He put his
hand on her shoulder and gently shook her.
“Tell me,” he urged, groping for an explanation of her agitation, “is
your mother ill again? Is she worse?”
“No, it isn't that—God knows even that would be a blessing.
Kenneth, I'm ruined!”
“You don't mean?—you can't mean?—” He stood aghast before
her, quivering now from head to foot.
“Yes, there is no doubt of it. Mother suspected it, and was so
miserable that I had to admit the truth. It almost drove her crazy.
She was talking to me about it when that meddlesome woman, Mrs.
Chumley, came in and overheard it. She lost no time in spreading
the report broadcast over town. Everybody has known it for several
days.”
“Oh, my God!” Galt pronounced the words in his throat. This thing,
of all unexpected things, had burst upon him at the very crisis of his
triumph, and it would ruin him—there was no denying that; it would
ruin him! In his fancy he saw his hitherto irreproachable character
torn to shreds by the men and women who, till now, had stood
behind him. The dream of his life might be carried out some day, but
not by a man of his stamp. He groaned aloud. For the moment it
was impossible for him to show sympathy where sympathy most
belonged. He stood as a man stands who loves life, and yet has
been condemned to death. Love and the capacity for self-sacrifice in
Kenneth Galt were best nourished by hope and happiness, and of
these things he was now bereft.
“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best
of it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of
each other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I
won't act the part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling—”
“Say of you?” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned
your name. Not a soul—not even my mother—dreams that I ever
met you in secret. You are the last human being on earth that would
be—be accused. Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering
deaths rather than drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I
know full well what such an exposure would mean to you.”
A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of
relief seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by
horror now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned
—you say—You—didn't tell your mother—that I—?”
“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me
when we last met that even a bare report of our engage—our love
for each other right now would harm your plans. Do you think that
I'd let a horror like this come up against you? Even if you declared it
was true, I'd say it was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They
declare it was Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly.
I've told them it wasn't—told them and told them, but they won't
believe me. They may think what they please, but they sha'n't say it
was you!”
“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that
reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's
magnanimity to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A
storm of incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in
the coign of immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the
sweet, stricken creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer
derision of the escape she was offering him, and for one blind
instant he actually believed in his own manhood.
“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his,
and, although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and
tenderly kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a
scamp like Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with
yours? Never! I want you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I
succeeded with my paltry enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come
here to-morrow and we'll be married, as we ought to have been
months and months ago. Now, go to bed, and let me see roses on
your pretty cheeks in the morning.”
“You are speaking without thought—without knowledge of
yourself.” The girl sighed as she drew away from his embrace and
forcibly put down his detaining hands. “You see, I know you,
Kenneth, better than you know yourself. You love me in a way, I am
sure; but when it was all over, and you'd paid the debt you think you
owe me, you'd blame me for being the blight to your prospects that
I would be. Listen! What is done is done. Because I am disgraced is
no reason you should be. You are a man whose ambition is his life.
Married to me, and hampered by the name I now bear, you'd not
only fail in your present enterprise, but you would be held down to
the end of life. Oh, I know you so well—so very well! The praise and
adulation of the prominent men and women whose friendship you
have are the very life-blood of your being. I've known you had this
weakness for a long time, but I had to bear with it as a natural
shortcoming.”
“How absurdly you talk!” he cried out, in dull, crushed admiration
for such logic in one so young and frail. “But I assure you, Dora, I'll
not listen to such silly stuff for a minute. You are going to be my
wife. Do you hear me?—my wife! We will let the blamed railroad go.
I'll tell General Sylvester in the morning that we are off for our
honeymoon. Of course he'll drop me like a hot potato, but he may
do it for all I care. You are more to me, darling, than he and all the
trunk-lines in the world. Yes, I am coming for you to-morrow—to-
morrow afternoon at three o'clock! Remember that—at three, sharp,
and I'll—I'll bring a—a preacher and—everything necessary.”
“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Dora said, firmly. “You think at this
moment that you have the courage to do what you propose, but,
Kenneth, you haven't—you simply haven't! I know you better than
you know yourself. You will not come to-morrow nor any other day!
I'll never see you again, nor do I want to. I had a kind of love for
you that only a woman could understand; you have had quite
another sort for me. You think yours is still alive, but it died of paltry
fear, stifled by avarice; mine was a girlish dream. I am awake now.
Leave me, and don't approach me again. I swear to you that your
secret is safe.”
She moved away. He tried to stop her; but, with a warning finger
on her lips, she eluded his grasp, and hurried into the house.
 CHAPTER XIII

B
RAVE, very brave, and sweet and noble!” he said to himself, as
he walked back toward the gate of his grounds; “but she
certainly sha'n't have her way. I'm not low enough for that,
thank God! She is the only creature I ever loved or could love, and
she is mine by all the laws of heaven and earth. She looked like a
young goddess as she stood there with that fire in her suffering
face, and calmly consigned herself to disgrace and oblivion that my
sordid schemes might prosper. I am not poor. I can make a living
somehow, somewhere, if not in this sleepy old town; and with her
always by my side, why—” Across the lawn he saw a light in a
window of the Dearing house. It was in General Sylvester's room.
The old gentleman retired earlier than this as a rule, and Galt told
himself that his being up now was due to the almost child-like joy
over the encouraging condition of their joint enterprise. He saw the
old soldier's shadow as it flitted across the window, and knew that
he was walking about, as was his habit under stress of excitement.
“Poor old man!” Galt, now in his own grounds, leaned against the
wall of a rustic summer-house. A thought had struck him like a blow
from the dark. What would Sylvester say when he was told the
truth? Galt saw the look of sheer, helpless incredulity on the high-
bred, war-scarred face as the revelation was made, and watched it
glow and flame into that of anger, contempt, and bitter
disappointment. The mere confession of wrong-doing he might
accept as frankly as it was offered, but that the young man should
allow such a mishap to drag his own proud name into the mire and
wreck the greatest enterprise that had ever blessed a down-trodden
community—well, he couldn't have believed such a thing possible.
Heavily laden now with the fires of a purer passion burning low
under the shadow of his impending ruin, Kenneth Galt dragged
himself slowly along the walk toward his house. He was turning the
corner to enter at the front when he saw a carriage and pair at the
gate. The moon had gone under a thin cloud and the view was
vague, but surely they were his own horses, and the man on the
driver's seat certainly looked like John Dilk. Wonderingly, Galt went
down to the gate. The negro was fast asleep; his massive head had
fallen forward, and the hands which held the reins were inert. The
gate rattled as Galt touched the iron latch, and the man woke and
looked about him.
“Oh, is dat you, Marse Kenneth?” he asked, sleepily. “Yes,” Galt
answered, rather sharply. “What are you doing with the horses out
at this time of night?”
“Oh! oh! Le' me see, suh!” The negro's wits were evidently
scattered. “I sw'ar I dunno, Marse Kenneth. Bless my soul, you jump
on me so sudden dat I can't, ter save my life, tell you—Oh yes, now
I know, suh! Why, ain't you seed de Gineral since you got home,
Marse Kenneth?”
“Why, no. Does he want me?”
“Yasser, yasser, he sho' do,” the negro answered, now thoroughly
himself. “He been searchin' fer you high and low, Marse Kenneth. He
went all thoo yo' house. He got some'n 'portant ter tell you. He
ordered me ter hurry an' get out de team, an' have it raidy fer you'n
him. He just run in his house er minute ago. Dar he is comin' now.
He's dat excited an' worried about not findin' you he can't hardly
hold in.”
General Sylvester, as he stepped from the veranda, recognized
Galt, and hurried toward him, pulling out his watch and looking at it
in the doubtful light.
“Great heavens!” he cried, “we haven't a minute to lose. You've
only got twenty minutes to catch the 11.10 North-bound train! Run
up and get your bag! I saw it there, still unpacked, and you needn't
waste a minute. I've glorious, glorious news from New York—a wire
from Alberts, Wise & Co. They have got the right men for our deal,
and with dead loads of money. They are ripe for the thing, and the
brokers wire that if you can be there day after to-morrow morning
you can close it. They say if you are not there then that the money
may be diverted to other deals, and they advise all possible haste.
So hurry. You must not miss the train. Everything depends on it.
Run, get the bag! John, you get it! Quick!”
“No, I'll—I'll do it!” Galt gasped. “Wait, I'll be down in—in a
minute!”
“Then hurry. We can talk on the way to the station. My boy, we
are simply going to land it! The blessings of the widows and
orphans, whose property is going to bound up in value, will be on
your plucky young head. Hurry up!”
Galt moved away, as weak in action as a machine run by a spring
of such delicacy that it could be broken by the breath of an insect or
the fall of an atom. It struck him as ridiculous that he should be
going for his bag if he did not intend to use it; and to confess even
now that he couldn't make the trip would seem queer and cowardly,
for he ought to have explained at once. Ascending the stairs, he
reached his room. He turned up the gas, and his image in the big
pier-glass between the two end windows looked like that of a dead
man energized by electricity. There lay the bag by the bed, the black
letters “K. G.,” on the end, blandly staring at him. Galt looked at it,
and then back to his reflection in the mirror.
“My God!” he cried out, suddenly, “if I go to-night I'll be deserting
her forever, and she will have read me rightly! She would keep the
secret; no human power could wrench it from her. She would keep
it; and I—I, who have led her to her ruin, would be deserting her as
only a coward could! I am beneath contempt. And yet what am I to
do? I am what I am—what the damnable forces within me and my
ancestors have made me. Napoleon loved, and put aside and cast
down for his ambition, and have I not the same right for mine? I am
not an emperor, but my ambition, such as it is, is as sweet to me as
his was to him. As she says—as the gentle wilting flower says—I'd
be miserable, even with her, under the wreckage of all these hopes.
She knows me; child though she is, she is my superior in many
things. She knows that the loss of this thing—now that I've tasted
the maddening cup of success, now that the poison of fame and
public approval is rioting in my blood—would damn me forever!
Accidents of this sort have ruined weak men. Strong men have lived
to smile back upon such happenings as the inevitable consequence
of the meeting of flame and powder, and have gone to their graves
without remorse. I've known such men. I've heard them say that no
matter how heavily nature may scourge the conscience of man for
theft, for murder, for any other misdeed, it yet deals lightly with this
particular offence. And why? Because there can be no charge of
deliberation in an act to which passionate youth is led by the very
sunshine and music of heaven. And yet I'll lose her. Great God, I'll
actually lose her! I can never look into her sweet face again, or kiss
the dear lips ever whispering their vows of undying faith until hell
opened her eyes to—to my frailty. No, no, I can't desert her; I can't
—I simply can't! I want her! I want her. With all my soul, I want
her!” There was a step in the hall below, and General Sylvester's
excited old voice rose and rang querulously through the still space
below:
“In the name of Heaven, what's the matter?” he cried. “Come on!
You may miss the train as it is! Come on!”
“One second, General!” Galt cried out. “Wait!” He had not yet
decided, he told himself, and yet his cold hand had clutched the
handle of his bag. He lifted it up, swung it by his side, and, stepping
out into the corridor, peered over the balustrade down the stairs.
“We can't wait, man!” the General shouted from the walk outside.
“Hurry!”
“All right, I'm ready!” and Galt strode rapidly down the stairs,
sliding his hand on the walnut railing.
“Why, what is the matter with you?” Sylvester peered at him
anxiously in the moonlight as he emerged from the doorway. “You
look white and worried. You've done too much in Atlanta, with all
those receptions and banquets. Let's call a halt on the social end of
the business till we have clinched the thing good and tight. Put this
New York deal through, and we can dance and sing and cut the
pigeon-wing as much as we please. But you will pull it through, my
boy, my prince of promoters, with that wonderful say-little air you
have. You are the man to make that crowd of Yankees think we are
granting them favors instead of asking for them. If you don't miss
connection and get there on time, you will win as sure as you are a
foot high.”
The General was pushing him into the carriage, and John Dilk,
with whip poised in the air, and a tight, wide-awake grip on the reins
showed readiness for his best speed record.
“Now, John,” Sylvester cried, “miss that train, and I'll break every
bone in your black hide!”
The negro laughed good-naturedly. It was exactly the sort of
command he loved to get from the old man who had done him a
hundred services.
“You watch me, Marse Gineral,” he said, with a chuckle; “but you
better keep yo' mouf closed. Ef you don't, dis hoss in de lead will fill
it wid clay. He's de beatenes' animal ter fling mud I ever driv.”
On they sped, cutting the warm, still air into a sharp, steady
current against them. The General babbled on enthusiastically, but
Galt failed to catch half he was saying. To all outward appearances,
he was being hurtled on to triumph; in reality, he was leaving the
just-filled grave of his manhood. Before his humiliated sight stood a
wonderful face written full of knowledge of himself—a knowledge
more penetrating than that of the world-wise men who bowed
before his prowess; a face, the beauty and tenderness of which were
ever to remain stamped on his memory; a face wrung by a storm of
agony, contempt, and—martyrdom! And he was striking it! The
pleading eyes, scornful nose, quivering, drooping mouth were
receiving the brunt of all his physical force! He knew the cost, and
was going to abide by it. A believer in the eternal existence of the
human soul might have paused, but Galt had always contended that
nothing lay beyond a man's short material life. And that being his
view, how could he suffer material glories like these to slip through
his fingers for the sake of a mere principle—a transient dream of the
senses? Yes, yes; and yet the pain, the crushing agony, the
maddened thing within him which all but tempted him to clutch the
chattering old tempter at his side by the neck and hurl him to the
earth!
And yet he nodded and said he was glad that the General had
been so thoughtful as to telephone the station-agent to secure the
drawing-room on the Pullman.
“We must not do things by halves,” the old soldier crowed. “The
man who is to have his own private car as the president of the great
S. R. and M. must not be seen, even by a negro porter, crawling into
an upper berth. Your plan of living high in order to be on a high level
is fine business policy. You haven't spared expense in Atlanta; you
mustn't in New York, either. Dine 'em, wine 'em; throw wads of cash
at the servants—do anything! They know who the Gaits of
Charleston and Savannah were before the War: let 'em see that the
old blood is still alive.”
They had been at the station only a minute when the train arrived.
John Dilk brushed by the porter at the step of the long sleeper, and
proudly bore his master's bag into the drawing-room. There was a
hurried shaking of hands between Galt and the General, and the
train smoothly rolled away.
Alone in the luxurious compartment, Galt sank down. The
obsequious porter stood awaiting orders, but the passenger scarcely
saw him or heard what he was saying. Galt was now fairly stupefied
by the magnitude of his crime. It flashed upon him as actually an
incredible thing—his leaving Dora with so much to bear!
He had taught her that their love, like that of their favorite English
novelist, had lifted them above mere conventional rules and
ceremonies, and rendered them a law unto themselves. But the
awakening had come. She had seen him in the garish light with
which Truth had pierced his outer crust and revealed his quaking,
cringing soul. She would despise him, the very murmuring of the
ponderous wheels beneath him told him that, and from now on he
must avoid her. To offer her financial aid in her coming trial would
only be adding insult to injury, knowing her as he knew her; so even
that must be omitted—even that, while he was accepting the price
of her misery.
 CHAPTER XIV

T
HE morning sun beat fiercely down on Fred Walton and his
new friend as they trudged along the dusty road. The pangs of
hunger had seized them, and no way seemed open to obtain
food short of begging it at one of the farmhouses which they were
passing, and that Fred shrank from doing.
“If I could have stopped in Atlanta long enough to have sold my
watch we could have paid our way for awhile,” he told his
companion, “but I thought we ought to be on the move.”
“Yes, of course,” the younger agreed, with a slow, doubtful look
into the other's face. “Will you tell me—I give you my word you can
trust me,” he went on—“if you have any reason, except for my sake,
in getting away from the city?”
“Yes, I have, Dick,” Walton replied. “I may as well admit it. I am in
a pretty tight place. Things are done by telegraph these days, and I
don't feel entirely safe, even here in the country.”
“Ah, I'm sorry, Fred!” the boy declared. “You have been so good to
me that it doesn't look right for anybody to be running you down like
a common—”
“Thief!” Walton supplied the word in a tone of bitterness. “That's
exactly what some would call it. But you mustn't be afraid of me,
Dick. I went wrong, and lost a good home and many friends by it.
I've lost something else, too, Dick—some one else whom I once had
as my own, but who is now out of my life forever.”
“You mean—you mean—a sweetheart?” ventured the boy, as he
put out a sympathetic hand and touched the arm of his companion.
Walton nodded. He had averted his eyes, that his companion
might not see the tears which blurred his sight, but no word escaped
his lips.
“I'm sorry,” Dick Warren said, simply, and his hand tenderly clung
to the dust-coated sleeve—“I'm sorry, Fred.”
“I wish you knew her, Dick,” Walton went on, reminiscently. “If you
did, I reckon you'd pity your pal. Here I am, a tramp, an outcast in
dirty clothing, and no money in my pocket. If you'd ever seen her,
you'd never dream that such a girl could have actually cared for a
man like me. I've got her photograph in my pocket. It is in an
envelope. I have not looked at it once since I left her. I may never
again on earth.”
“But why?” the boy asked, wonderingly. “It seems like it would be
company for you, now that you and she are—parted.”
“She gave it to me in trust and confidence,” Walton answered, his
dull gaze still averted. “She wouldn't want me to have it now. I shall
keep it—I simply can't give it up; but I shall not insult her purity by
looking at it. I must harden myself, and forget—forget thousands of
things. You may see it if you wish.” Walton drew the envelope from
his pocket and extended it to his companion. “I'll walk ahead, and
when you've looked at it put it back in the envelope.”
“All right; thank you, Fred.” The boy fell back a few steps, and
with his eyes straight in front of him Walton trudged on stolidly. The
boy gazed at the picture steadily for several minutes, and then
caught up with his companion and returned the envelope. He was
silent for a moment then he said, with a slight huskiness in his
young voice:
“Would you like for me to say anything about her, Fred?”
“Yes, I think I should,” Walton responded, slowly, as he thrust the
envelope back into his pocket. “Yes, Dick, I'd like to hear what you
think of her.”
“She is so sweet and gentle looking—so good—so very, very
pretty! Oh, Fred, I understand now how you feel! I don't think I ever
saw a face that I liked better. It may be because she is your—”
 “Was!” Walton broke in. “Don't forget that, Dick.”
“I think a girl like that, with a face like that, would forgive almost
anything in the man she loved,” the boy went on, in a valiant effort
at consolation.
“If she still loved him, perhaps; but she could no longer love him,”
Walton sighed. “She belongs to a proud family, Dick, not one
member of which was ever guilty of such conduct as mine. She
would shudder at the sight of me, she would blush with shame for
having cared for me. That's why I came away. If I had not loved her,
I'd have stayed and faced my punishment.” After this talk the two
trudged on through the garish sunshine without exchanging a word
for several miles. It was noon. They had come to the gate of a
farmhouse which bore the look of prosperity, and they paused in the
shade of a tree.
“We can't go farther without eating,” the boy said. “You don't like
to beg, but I don't care; I've done it hundreds of times, and don't
feel ashamed of it. I'm going to put on a bold front and tackle the
kitchen in the rear.”
“Don't ask for anything for me,” Walton said. “I'm not very hungry.
I can get along for some time yet.”
“Wait till I find out how it smells around that kitchen,”
Dick laughed. “I'm nearly dead.” The boy had opened the gate,
and was walking briskly toward the house, which stood back about a
hundred yards from the road. Walton saw him meet a great lazy-
looking dog near the steps and pat the animal on the head. Then
the dog and boy went round the building toward the kitchen. A
moment later Walton saw Dick returning, a flush on his face and
empty handed. The dog paused near the front steps, wagging a
cordial if not, indeed, a regretful tail.
“The dirty red-faced scamp ordered me to move on!” Dick cried,
angrily. “He says the country is overrun with tramps, who won't work
and who expect to live on the toil of honest men.”
 “Did he say that?” and Walton's eyes flashed. “I'd like to prove to
him that I'm no—But what's the use?”
“Look, he's coming!” the boy said, eagerly. “Maybe he's changed
his mind. A woman was listening to what he said. Perhaps she's told
him to call us back.” The fat, middle-aged farmer, bald, perspiring,
and without hat or coat, strode down to them, and languidly opened
the gate.
“Say, I just want to tell you fellows one more thing,” he panted, as
he wiped his bearded chin with his pudgy hand, “and that is this: We
may look like a lot of galoots just out of an asylum along this here
road, but most of us have a grain of sense. Back here a piece a
neighbor of mine sent two able-bodied men like you two about their
business a month ago, and that night his barn was fired. Now, if you
fellows try any game of that sort on me, I'll—”
“Dry up!” Walton cried, as he suddenly faced him. “I wasn't
begging of you. I only let this boy go up to you because he is nearly
starved. You can't insult me—I won't have it! I am not a tramp. As
proof of it, I have a good solid gold watch here that I am willing to
sell you or any one else at any fair price you may put on it.”
“Huh! let me see it.” The farmer's eyes gleamed avariciously as
Walton took the watch from his pocket and extended it to him.
The man tested the weight of the timepiece by tossing it lightly in
his palm, and then he pried the case open with the stiff nail of his
thumb, and, with a critical eye, examined the works.
“Full-jewelled and good make,” he said; and then he gave it back.
“I'm a trader,” he went on. “I make money buying and selling any
old thing from a pickaxe to a piano, from a pet cat to a blooded
horse; but I hain't in your market.”
“You say you 'hain't'?” Dick Warren mocked him, in fresh anger.
“No, I hain't,” the obtuse farmer repeated. “I did a fool thing like
that when I was a boy. I bought a bay mare from a man who rid up
to my daddy's barn without a saddle, blanket, or bridle—had just a
heavy hemp rope round her neck. I bit, and chuckled all that day as
I rid about, showing the gals how bright I'd been. Then the sheriff of
the county hove in sight, and—well, my daddy had to pay out a
hundred-dollar lawyer's fee to prove that I wasn't of age, never had
had any sense, and couldn't have knowed the mare was stolen
property. So, you see, when a fellow comes hiking along here
without a nickel to buy a loaf of bread, and lookin' like he's been
wading through swamps and sleeping in haystacks, and has a gold
ticker that is good enough fer the vest-pocket of Jay Gould, why, I
feel like pullin' down the left-hand corner of my right eye an' axin'
him ef he hain't got a striped suit under his outside one, hot as the
weather is.”
“You blamed old—” Dick Warren began, threateningly, as he
bristled up to the farmer, his fists drawn; but Walton put out his
hand and stopped him.
“He's right, Dick,” he said, and there was a pained look about his
sensitive mouth. “The circumstances are dead against us.”
“Yes, I reckon they are, gents,” grinned the man at the gate.
“Anyways, I don't think you will find a buyer fer that timepiece.
Good-day. There ain't nothing in all this palaver fer me,” and his eye
twinkled as he finished. “My wife's got dinner waitin' for me: a good
fat hen, baked to a turn, with rich corn-meal stuffin', an' hot biscuits,
coffee, string-beans, and fried ham—the country-cured sort that
you've read about!”