The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

He had just finished this important sentence when the sound of a footstep behind his chair caused him to turn suddenly.

Cleo had entered the room and stood glaring at him with a look of sullen defiance.

By a curious coincidence or by design, she was dressed in a scarlet kimono of the same shade of filmy Japanese stuff as the one she wore in his young manhood. His quick eye caught this fact in a flash and his mind took rapid note of the changes the years had wrought. Their burdens had made slight impression on her exhaustless vitality. Whatever might be her personality or her real character, she was alive from the crown of her red head to the tips of her slippered toes.

Her attitude of tense silence sparkled with this vital power more eloquently than when she spoke with quick energy in the deep voice that was her most remarkable possession.

Her figure was heavier by twenty pounds than when she had first entered his home, but she never produced the impression of stoutness. Her form was too sinuous, pliant and nervous to take on flesh. She was no longer the graceful girl of eighteen whose beauty had drugged his senses, but she was beyond all doubt a woman of an extraordinary type, luxuriant, sensuous, dominant. There was not a wrinkle on her smooth creamy skin nor a trace of approaching age about the brilliant greenish eyes that were gazing into his now with such grim determination.

He wheeled from his machine and faced her, his eyes taking in with a quick glance the evident care with which she had arranged her hair and the startling manner in which she was dressed.

He spoke with sharp, incisive emphasis:

"It was a condition of your return that you should never enter my room while I am in this house."

"I have not forgotten," she answered firmly, her eyes holding his steadily.

"Why have you dared?"

"You are still afraid of me?" she asked with a light laugh that was half a sneer.

"Have I given you any such evidence during the past twenty years?"

There was no bitterness or taunt in the even, slow drawl with which he spoke, but the woman knew that he never used the slow tone with which he uttered those words except he was deeply moved.

She flushed, was silent and then answered with a frown:

"No, you haven't shown any fear for something more than twenty years—until a few days ago."

The last clause she spoke very quickly as she took a step closer and paused.

"A few days ago?" he repeated slowly.

"Yes. For the past week you have been afraid of me—not in the sense I asked you just now perhaps"—her white teeth showed in two even perfect rows—"but you have been watching me out of the corners of your eyes—haven't you?"

"Perhaps."

"I wonder why?"

"And you haven't guessed?"

"No, but I'm going to find out."

"You haven't asked."

"I'm going to."

"Be quick about it!"

"I'm going to find out—that's why I came in here to-night in defiance of your orders."

"All right—the quicker the better!"

"Thank you, I'm not in a hurry."

"What do you want?" he demanded with anger.

She smiled tauntingly:

"It's no use to get mad about it! I'm here now, you see that I'm not afraid of you and I'm quite sure that you will not put me out until I'm ready to go——"

He sprang to his feet and advanced on her:

"I'm not so sure of that!"

"Well, I am," she cried, holding his gaze steadily.

He threw up his hands with a gesture of disgust and resumed his seat:

"What is it?"

She crossed the room deliberately, carrying a chair in front of her, sat down, leaned her elbow on his table and studied him a moment, their eyes meeting in a gaze of deadly hostility.

"What is the meaning of this long absence you have planned?"

"I have charge of this campaign. I am going to speak in every county in the state."

"Why?"

"Because I'll win that way, by a direct appeal to the people."

"Why do you want to win?"

"Because I generally do what I undertake."

"Why do you want to do this thing?"

He looked at her in amazement. Her eyes had narrowed to the tiniest lines as she asked these questions with a steadily increasing intensity.

"What are you up to?" he asked her abruptly.

"I want to know why you began this campaign at all?"

"I decline to discuss the question with you," he answered abruptly.

"I insist on it!"

"You wouldn't know what I was talking about," he replied with contempt.

"I think I would."

"Bah!"

He turned from her with a wave of angry dismissal, seized his papers and began to read again his instructions to Tom.

"I'm not such a fool as you think," she began menacingly. "I've read your platform with some care and I've been thinking it over at odd times since your speech was reported."

"And you contemplate entering politics?" he interrupted with a smile.

"Who knows?"

She watched him keenly while she slowly uttered these words and saw the flash of uneasiness cross his face, "But don't worry," she laughed.

"I'll not!"

"You may for all that!" she sneered, "but I'll not enter politics as you fear. That would be too cheap. I don't care what you do to negroes. I've a drop of their blood in me——"

"One in eight, to be exact."

"But I'm not one of them, except by your laws, and I hate the sight of a negro. You can herd them, colonize them, send them back to Africa or to the devil for all I care. Your program interests me for another reason"—she paused and watched him intently.

"Yes?" he said carelessly.

"It interests me for one reason only—you wrote that platform, you made that speech, you carried that convention. Your man Friday is running for Governor. You are going to take the stump, carry this election and take the ballot from the Negro!"

"Well?"

"I'm excited about it merely because it shows the inside of your mind."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. It shows either that you are afraid of me or that you're not——"

"It couldn't well show both," he interrupted with a sneer.

"It might," she answered. "If you are afraid of me and my presence is the cause of this outburst, all right. I'll still play the game with you and win or lose. I'll take my chances. But if you're not afraid of me, if you've really not been on your guard for twenty years, it means another thing. It means that you've learned your lesson, that the book of the past is closed, and that you have simply been waiting for the time to come to do this thing and save your people from a danger before which you once fell."

"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.

"I haven't decided—but I will to-night."

"How interesting!"

"Yes, isn't it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I'm going to face life now as it is, not as I've hoped it might be."

"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal——"

"And I didn't believe it! Now I'm going to face it if I must——"

She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she slowly went on:

"I'm not the kind to give up without a fight. I've lived and learned the wisdom of caution and cunning. I'm not old and I've still a fool's confidence in my powers. I'm not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown woman—and so I warn you——"

"You warn me"—he cried with a flush of anger.

"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I'm at least human, and I'm going to be treated as a human being."

"And may I ask what you mean by that?" he asked sarcastically.

"That I'm going to demand my rights."

"Demand?"

"Exactly."

"Your rights?"

"The right to love——"

Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:

"Are you demanding that I marry you?"

"I'm not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right—there are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices"—she paused and her eyes glowed in the shadows—"I gave you my soul and body then——"

"Gifts I never sought——"

"Yet you took them and I'm here a part of your life. What are you going to do with me? I'm not the negro race. I'm just a woman who loves you and asks that you treat her fairly."

"Treat you fairly! Did I ever want you? Or seek you? You came to me, thrust yourself into my office, and when I discharged you, pushed your way into my home. You won my boy's love and made my wife think you were indispensable to her comfort and happiness. I tried to avoid you. It was useless. You forced yourself into my presence at all hours of the day and night. What happened was your desire, not mine. And when I reproached myself with bitter curses you laughed for joy! And you talk to me to-day of fairness! You who dragged me from that banquet hall the night of my triumph to hurl me into despair! You who blighted my career and sent me blinded with grief and shame groping through life with the shadow of death on my soul! You who struck your bargain of a pound of flesh next to my heart, and fought your way back into my house again to hold me a prisoner for life, chained to the dead body of my shame—you talk to me about fairness—great God!"

He stopped, strangled with passion, his tall figure towering above her, his face livid, his hands clutched in rage.

She laughed hysterically:

"Why don't you strike! I'm not your equal in strength—I dare you to do it—I dare you to do it! I dare you—do you hear?"

With a sudden grip she tore the frail silk from its fastenings at her throat, pressed close and thrust her angry face into his in a desperate challenge to physical violence.

His eyes held hers a moment and his hands relaxed:

"I'd like to kill you. I could do it with joy!"

"Why don't you?"

"You're not worth the price of such a crime!"

"You'd just as well do it, as to wish it. Don't be a coward!" Her eyes burned with suppressed fire.

He looked at her with cold anger and his lip twitched with a smile of contempt.

The strain was more than her nerves could bear. With a sob she threw her arms around his neck. He seized them angrily, her form collapsed and she clung to him with blind hysterical strength.

He waited a moment and spoke in quiet determined tones:

"Enough of this now."

She raised her eyes to his, pleading with desperation:

"Please be kind to me just this last hour before you go, and I'll be content if you give no more. I'll never intrude again."

She relaxed her hold, dropped to a seat and covered her face with her hands:

"Oh, my God! Are you made of stone—have you no pity? Through all these years I've gone in and out of this house looking into your face for a sign that you thought me human, and you've given none. I've lived on the memories of the few hours when you were mine. I've sometimes told myself it was just a dream, that it never happened—until I've almost believed it. You've pretended that it wasn't true. You've strangled these memories and told yourself over and over again that it never happened. I've seen you doing this—seen it in your cold, deep eyes. Well, it's a lie! You were mine! You shall not forget it—you can't forget it—I won't let you, I tell you!"

The voice broke again into sobs.

He stood with arms folded, watching her in silence. Her desperate appeal to his memories and his physical passion had only stirred anger and contempt. He was seeing now as he had never noticed before the growing marks of her negroid character. The anger was for her, the contempt for himself. He noticed the growth of her lips with age, the heavy sensual thickness of the negroid type!

It was inconceivable that in this room the sight of her had once stirred the Beast in him to incontrollable madness. There was at least some consolation in the fact that he had made progress. He couldn't see this if he hadn't moved to a higher plane.

He spoke at length in quiet tones:

"I am waiting for you to go. I have work to do to-night."

She rose with a quick, angry movement:

"It's all over, then. There's not a chance that you'll change your mind?"

"Not if you were the last woman on earth and I the last man."

He spoke without bitterness but with a firmness that was final.

"All right. I know what to expect now and I'll plan my own life."

"What do you mean?"

"That there's going to be a change in my relations to your servants for one thing."

"Your relations to my servants?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yes."

"In what respect?"

"I'm not going to take any more insolence from Minerva——"

"Keep out of the kitchen and let her alone. She's the best cook I ever had."

"If I keep this house for you, I demand the full authority of my position. I'll hire the servants and discharge them when I choose."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," he answered firmly.

"Then I demand that you discharge Minerva and Andy at once."

"What's the matter with Andy?"

"I loathe him."

"Well, I like him, and he's going to stay. Anything else?"

"You'll pay no attention to my wishes?"

"I'm master of this house."

"And in your absence?"

"My son will be here."

"All right, I understand now."

"If I haven't made it plain, I'll do so."

"Quite clear, thank you," she answered slowly.

Norton walked to the mantel, leaned his elbow on the shelf for a moment, returned and confronted her with his hands thrust into his pockets, his feet wide apart, his whole attitude one of cool defiance.

"Now I want to know what you're up to? These absurd demands are a blind. They haven't fooled me. There's something else in the back of your devilish mind. What is it? I want to know exactly what you mean?"

Cleo laughed a vicious little ripple of amusement:

"Yes, I know you do—but you won't!"

"All right, as you please. A word from you and Helen's life is blasted. A word from you and I withdraw from this campaign, and another will lead it. Speak that word if you dare, and I'll throw you out of this house and your last hold on my life is broken."

"I've thought of that, too," she said with a smile.

"It will be worth the agony I'll endure," he cried, "to know that I'm free of you and breathe God's clean air at last!"

He spoke the words with an earnestness, a deep and bitter sincerity, that was not lost on her keen ears.

She started to reply, hesitated and was silent.

He saw his advantage and pressed it:

"I want you to understand fully that I know now and I have always known that I am at your mercy when you see fit to break the word you pledged. Yet there has never been a moment during the past twenty years that I've been really afraid of you. When the hour comes for my supreme humiliation, I'll meet it. Speak as soon as you like."

She had walked calmly to the door, paused and looked back:

"You needn't worry, major," she said smoothly, "I'm not quite such a fool as all that. I've been silent too many years. It's a habit I'll not easily break." Her white teeth gleamed in a cold smile as she added:

"Good night."

A hundred times he told himself that she wouldn't dare, but he left home next lay with a sickening fear slowly stealing into his heart.

CHAPTER VI

AN OLD COMEDY

Norton had scarcely passed his gate on the way to catch the train when Cleo left the window, where her keen eyes had been watching, and made her way rapidly to the room he had just vacated.

Books and papers were scattered loosely over his table beside the typewriter which he had, with his usual carelessness, left open.

With a quick decision she seated herself beside the machine and in two hours sufficiently mastered its use to write a letter by using a single finger and carefully touching the keys one by one.

The light of a cunning purpose burned in her eyes as she held up the letter which she had written on a sheet paper with the embossed heading of his home address at the top.

She re-read it, smiling over the certainty of the success of her plan. The letter was carefully and simply worded:

The signature she practiced with a pen for half an hour until her imitation was almost perfect and then signed it. Satisfied with the message, she addressed an envelope to "Miss Helen Winslow, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Racine, Wisconsin," sealed and posted it with her own hand.

The answer came six days later. Cleo recognized the post mark at once, broke the seal and read it with dancing eyes:

Two days later a hack rolled up the graveled walk to the white porch, a girl leaped out and bounded up the steps, her cheeks flushed, her wide open blue eyes dancing with excitement.

She was evidently surprised to find that Cleo was an octoroon, blushed and extended her hand with a timid hesitating look:

"This—this—is Cleo—the major's housekeeper?" she asked.

The quick eye of the woman took in at a glance the charm of the shy personality and the loneliness of the young soul that looked out from her expressive eyes.

"Yes," she answered mechanically.

"I'm so sorry that the major's away—the driver told me——"

"Oh, it's all right," Cleo said with a smile, "he wrote us to make you feel at home. Just walk right in, your room is all ready."

"Thank you so much," Helen responded, drawing a deep breath and looking over the lawn with its green grass, its dense hedges and wonderful clusters of roses in full bloom. "How beautiful the South is—far more beautiful than I had dreamed! And the perfume of these roses—why, the air is just drowsy with their honey! We have gorgeous roses in the North, but I never smelled them in the open before"—she paused and breathed deeply again and again—"Oh, it's fairyland—I'll never want to go!"

"I hope you won't," Cleo said earnestly.

"The major asked me to stay as long as I wished. I have his letter here"—she drew the letter from her bag and opened it—"see what he says: 'Please come at once to my home for as long as you can stay'—now wasn't that sweet of him?"

"Very," was the strained reply.

The girl's sensitive ear caught the queer note in Cleo's voice and looked at her with a start.

"Come, I must show you to your room," she added, hurriedly opening the door for Helen to pass.

The keen eyes of the woman were scanning the girl and estimating her character with increasing satisfaction. She walked with exquisite grace. Her figure was almost the exact counterpart of her own at twenty—Helen's a little fuller, the arms larger but more beautiful. The slender wrists and perfectly moulded hand would have made a painter beg for a sitting. Her eyes were deep blue and her hair the richest chestnut brown, massive and slightly waving, her complexion the perfect white and red of the Northern girl who had breathed the pure air of the fields and hills. The sure, swift, easy way in which she walked told of perfect health and exhaustless vitality. Her voice was low and sweet and full of shy tenderness.

A smile of triumph flashed from Cleo's greenish eyes as she watched her swiftly cross the hall toward the stairs.

"I'll win!" she exclaimed softly.

Helen turned sharply.

"Did you speak to me?" she asked blushing.

"No. I was just thinking aloud."

"Excuse me, I thought you said something to me—"

"It would have been something very nice if I had," Cleo said with a friendly smile.

"Thank you—oh, I feel that I'm going to be so happy here!"

"I hope so."

"When do you think the major will come?"

The woman's face clouded in spite of her effort at self-control:

"It may be a month or more."

"Oh, I'm so anxious to see him! He has been acting for my old guardian, who is somewhere abroad, ever since I can remember. I've begged and begged him to come to see me, but he never came. It was so far away, I suppose. He never even sent me his picture, though I've asked him often. What sort of a man is he?"

Cleo smiled and hesitated, and then spoke with apparent carelessness:

"A very striking looking man."

"With a kind face?"

"A very stern one, clean shaven, with deep set eyes, a firm mouth, a strong jaw that can be cruel when he wishes, a shock of thick iron gray hair, tall, very tall and well built. He weighs two hundred and fifteen now—he was very thin when young."

"And his voice?"

"Gentle, but sometimes hard as steel when he wishes it to be."

"Oh, I'll be scared to death when I see him! I had pictured him just the opposite."

"How?"

"Why, I hardly know—but I thought his voice would be always gentle like I imagine a Southern father's who loved his children very much. And I thought his hair would be blonde, with a kind face and friendly laughing eyes—blue, like mine. His eyes aren't blue?"

"Dark brown."

"I know I'll run when he comes."

"We'll make you feel at home and you'll not be afraid. Mr. Tom will be here to lunch in a few minutes and I'll introduce you."

"Then I must dress at once!"

"The first door at the head of the stairs—your trunk has already been taken up."

Cleo watched the swift, strong, young form mount the stairs.

"It's absolutely certain!" she cried under her breath. "I'll win—I'll win!"

She broke into a low laugh and hurried to set the table in a bower of the sweetest roses that were in bloom. Their languorous odor filled the house.

Helen was waiting in the old-fashioned parlor when Tom's step echoed on the stoop. Cleo hurried to meet him on the porch.

His face clouded with a scowl:

"She's here?"

"Yes, Mr. Handsome Boy," Cleo answered cheerfully. "And lunch is ready—do rub that awful scowl off your face and look like you're glad."

"Well, I'm not—so what's the use? It'll be a mess to have a girl on my hands day and night and I've got no time for it. I wish Dad was here. I know I'll hate the sight of her."

Cleo smiled:

"Better wait until you see her."

"Where is she?"

"In the parlor."

"All right—the quicker a disagreeable job's over the better."

"Shall I introduce you?"

"No, I'll do it myself," he growled, bracing himself for the ordeal.

As he entered the door he stopped short at the vision as Helen sprang to her feet and came to meet him. She was dressed in the softest white filmy stuff, as light as a feather, bare arms and neck, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement, her smooth, fair cheeks scarlet with blushes.

The boy's heart stopped beating in sheer surprise. He expected a frowzy little waif from an orphanage, blear-eyed, sad, soulful and tiresome.

This shining, blushing, wonderful creature took his breath. He stared at first with open mouth, until Cleo's laugh brought him to his senses just as he began to hear Helen's low sweet voice:

"And this is Mr. Tom, I suppose? I am Helen Winslow, your father's ward, from the West—at least he's all the guardian I've ever known."

Tom grasped the warm little hand extended in so friendly greeting and held it in dazed surprise until Cleo's low laughter again roused him.

"Yes—I—I—am delighted to see you, Miss Helen, and I'm awfully sorry my father couldn't be here to welcome you. I—I'll do the best I can for you in his absence."

"Oh, thank you," she murmured.

"You know you're not at all like I expected to find you," he said hesitatingly.

"I hope I haven't disappointed you," she answered demurely.

"No—no"—he protested—"just the opposite."

He stopped and blushed for fear he'd said too much.

"And you're just the opposite from what I'd pictured you since Cleo told me how your father looks."

"And what did you expect?" he asked eagerly.

"A stern face, dark hair, dark eyes and a firm mouth."

"And you find instead?"

Helen laughed:

"I'm afraid you love flattery."

Tom hurried to protest:

"Really, I wasn't fishing for a compliment, but I'm so unlike my father, it's a joke. I get my blonde hair and blue eyes from my mother and my great-grandfather."

Before he knew what was happening Tom was seated by her side talking and laughing as if they had known each other a lifetime.

Helen paused for breath, put her elbow on the old mahogany table, rested her dimpled chin in the palm of her pretty hand and looked at Tom with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes.

"What's the joke?" he asked.

"Do you know that you're the first boy I ever talked to in my life?"

"No—really?" he answered incredulously.

"Don't you think I do pretty well?"

"Perfectly wonderful!"

"You see, I've played this scene so many times in my day dreams——"

"And it's like your dream?"

"Remarkably!"

"How?"

"You're just the kind of boy I always thought I'd meet first——"

"How funny!"

"Yes, exactly," she cried excitedly and with a serious tone in her voice that was absolutely convincing. "You're so jolly and friendly and easy to talk to, I feel as if I've known you all my life."

"And I feel the same—isn't it funny?"

They both laughed immoderately.

"Come," the boy cried, "I want to show you my mother's and my grandfather's portraits in the library. You'll see where I get my silly blonde hair, my slightly pug nose and my very friendly ways."

She rose with a laugh:

"Your nose isn't pug, it's just good-humored."

"Amount to the same thing."

"And your hair is very distinguished looking for a boy. I'd envy it, if it were a girl's."

Tom led the way into the big, square library which opened on the pillared porch both on the rear and on the side of the house. Before the fireplace he paused and pointed to his mother's portrait done in oil by a famous artist in New York.

It was life-size and the canvas filled the entire space between the two fluted columns of the Colonial mantel which reached to the ceiling. The woodwork of the mantelpiece was of dark mahogany and the background of the portrait the color of bright gold which seemed to melt into the lines of the massive smooth gilded frame.

The effect was wonderfully vivid and life-like in the sombre coloring of the book-lined walls. The picture and frame seemed a living flame in its dark setting. The portrait was an idealized study of the little mother. The artist had put into his canvas the spirit of the tenderest brooding motherhood. The very curve of her arms holding the child to her breast seemed to breathe tenderness. The smile that played about her delicate lips and blue eyes was ethereal in its fleeting spirit beauty.

The girl caught her breath in surprise:

"What a wonderful picture—it's perfectly divine! I feel like kneeling before it."

"It is an altar," the boy said reverently. "I've seen my father sit in that big chair brooding for hours while he looked at it. And ever since he put those two old gold candlesticks in front of it I can't get it out of my head that he slips in here, kneels in the twilight and prays before it."

"He must have loved your mother very tenderly," she said softly.

"I think he worships her still," the boy answered simply.

"Oh, I could die for a man like that!" she cried with sudden passion.

Tom pointed to his grandfather's portrait:

"And there you see my distinguished features and my pug nose——"

Cleo appeared in the door smiling:

"I've been waiting for you to come to lunch, Mr. Boy, for nearly an hour."

"Well, for heaven's sake, why didn't you let us know?"

"I told you it was ready when you came."

"Forgot all about it."

He was so serenely unconscious of anything unusual in his actions that he failed to notice the smile that continuously played about Cleo's mouth or to notice Andy's evident enjoyment of the little drama as he bowed and scraped and waited on the table with unusual ceremony.

Aunt Minerva, hearing Andy's report of the sudden affair that had developed in the major's absence, left the kitchen and stood in the door a moment, her huge figure completely filling the space while she watched the unconscious boy and girl devouring each other with sparkling eyes.

She waved her fat hand over their heads to Andy, laughed softly and left without their noticing her presence.

The luncheon was the longest one that had been known within the memory of anyone present. Minerva again wandered back to the door, fascinated by the picture they made, and whispered to Andy as he passed:

"Well, fer de Lawd's sake, is dey gwine ter set dar all day?"

"Nobum—'bout er nodder hour, an' he'll go back ter de office."

Tom suddenly looked at his watch:

"Heavens! I'm late. I'll run down to the office and cut the work out for the day in honor of your coming."

Helen rose blushing:

"Oh, I'm afraid I'll make trouble for you."

"No trouble at all! I'll be back in ten minutes."

"I'll be on the lawn in that wilderness of roses. The odor is maddening—it's so sweet."

"All right—and then I'll show you the old rose garden the other side of the house."

"It's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid I'm taking your time from work."

"It's all right! I'll make the other fellows do it to-day."

She blushed again and waved her bare arm high over her dark brown hair from the porch as he swung through the gate and disappeared.

In a few minutes he had returned. Through the long hours of a beautiful summer afternoon they walked through the enchanted paths of the old garden on velvet feet, the boy pouring out his dreams and high ambitions, the girl's lonely heart for the first time in life basking in the joyous light of a perfect day.

Andy made an excuse to go in the garden and putter about some flowers just to watch them, laugh and chuckle over the exhibition. He was just in time as he softly approached behind a trellis of climbing roses to hear Tom say:

"Please give me that bud you're wearing?"

"Why?" she asked demurely.

"Just because I've taken a fancy to it."

She blushed scarlet, took the rosebud from her bosom and pinned it on his coat:

"All right—there!"

Andy suppressed a burst of laughter and hurried back to report to Minerva.

For four enchanted weeks the old comedy of life was thus played by the boy and girl in sweet and utter unconsciousness of its meaning. He worked only in the mornings and rushed home for lunch unusually early. The afternoon usually found them seated side by side slowly driving over the quiet country roads. Two battlefields of the civil war, where his father had led a regiment of troops in the last desperate engagement with Sherman's army two weeks after Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, kept them busy each afternoon for a week.

At night they sat on the moonlit porch behind the big pillars and he talked to her of the great things of life with simple boyish enthusiasm. Sometimes they walked side by side through the rose-scented lawn and paused to hear the love song of a mocking-bird whose mate was busy each morning teaching her babies to fly.

The world had become a vast rose garden of light and beauty, filled with the odors of flowers and spices and dreamy strains of ravishing music.

And behind it all, nearer crept the swift shadow whose tread was softer than the foot of a summer's cloud.

CHAPTER VII

TRAPPED

Norton's campaign during its first months was a continuous triumph. The opposition had been so completely stunned by the epoch-making declaration of principles on which he had chosen to conduct the fight that they had as yet been unable to rally their forces. Even the rival newspaper, founded to combat the ideas for which the Eagle and Phoenix stood, was compelled to support Norton's ticket to save itself from ruin. The young editor found a source of endless amusement in taunting the professor on this painful fact.

The leader had chosen to begin his tour of the state in the farthest mountain counties that had always been comparatively free from negro influence. These counties were counted as safe for the opposition before the startling program of the editor's party had been announced. Yet from the first day's mass meeting which he had addressed an enthusiasm had been developed under the spell of Norton's eloquence that had swept the crowds of mountaineers off their feet. They had never been slave owners, and they had no use for a negro as servant, laborer, voter, citizen, or in any other capacity. The idea of freeing the state forever from their baleful influence threw the entire white race into solid ranks supporting his ticket.

The enthusiasm kindled in the mountains swept the foothills, gaining resistless force as it reached the more inflammable feelings of the people of the plains who were living in daily touch with the negro.

Yet amid all the scenes of cheering and enthusiasm through which he was passing daily the heart of the leader was heavy with dread. His mind was brooding over the last scene with Cleo and its possible outcome.

He began to worry with increasing anguish over the certainty that when she struck the blow would be a deadly one. The higher the tide of his triumph rose, the greater became the tension of his nerves. Each day had its appointment to speak. Some days were crowded with three or four engagements. These dates were made two weeks ahead and great expense had been incurred in each case to advertise them and secure record crowds. It was a point of honor with him to make good these dates even to the smallest appointment at a country crossroads.

It was impossible to leave for a trip home. It would mean the loss of at least four days. Yet his anxiety at last became so intense that he determined to rearrange his dates and swing his campaign into the territory near the Capital at once. It was not a good policy. He would risk the loss of the cumulative power of his work now sweeping from county to county, a resistless force. But it would enable him to return home for a few hours between his appointments.

There had been nothing in Tom's reports to arouse his fears. The boy had faithfully carried out his instructions to give no information that might annoy him. His brief letters were bright, cheerful, and always closed with the statement: "Everything all right at home, and I'm still jollying the professor about supporting the cause he hates."

When he reached the county adjoining the Capital his anxiety had reached a point beyond endurance. It would be three days before he could connect with a schedule of trains that would enable him to get home between the time of his hours to speak. He simply could not wait.

He telegraphed to Tom to send Andy to the meeting next day with a bound volume of the paper for the year 1866 which contained some facts he wished to use in his speech in this district.

Andy's glib tongue would give him the information he needed.

The train was late and the papers did not arrive in time. He was compelled to leave his hotel and go to the meeting without them.

An enormous crowd had gathered. And for the first time on his tour he felt hostility in the glances that occasionally shot from groups of men as he passed. The county was noted for its gangs of toughs who lived on the edge of a swamp that had been the rendezvous of criminals for a century.

The opposition had determined to make a disturbance at this meeting and if possible end it with a riot. They counted on the editor's fiery temper when aroused to make this a certainty. They had not figured on the cool audacity with which he would meet such a situation.

When he reached the speaker's stand, the county Chairman whispered:

"They are going to make trouble here to-day."

"Yes?"

"They've got a speaker who's going to demand a division of time."

The editor smiled:

"Really?"

"Yes," the Chairman said, nodding toward a tall, ministerial-looking individual who was already working his way through the crowd. "That's the fellow coming now."

Norton turned and confronted the chosen orator of the opposition, a backwoods preacher of a rude native eloquence whose name he had often heard.

He saw at a glance that he was a man of force. His strong mouth was clean of mustache and the lower lip was shaved to the chin. A long beard covered the massive jaws and his hair reached the collar of his coat. He had been a deserter during the war, and a drunken member of the little Scalawag Governor's famous guard that had attempted to rule the state without the civil law. He had been converted in a Baptist revival at a crossroads meeting place years before and became a preacher. His religious conversion, however, had not reached his politics or dimmed his memory of the events of Reconstruction.

He had hated Norton with a deep and abiding fervor from the day he had escaped from his battalion in the Civil War down to the present moment.

Norton hadn't the remotest idea that he was the young recruit who had taken to his heels on entering a battle and never stopped running until he reached home.

"This is Major Norton?" the preacher asked.

"Yes," was the curt answer.

"I demand a division of time with you in a joint discussion here, sir."

Norton's figure stiffened and he looked at the man with a flush of anger:

"Did you say demand?"

"Yes, sir, I did," the preacher answered, snapping his hard mouth firmly. "We believe in free speech in this county."

Norton placed his hands in his pockets, and looked him over from head to foot:

"Well, you've got the gall of the devil, I must say, even if you do wear the livery of heaven. You demand free speech at my expense! I like your cheek. It cost my committee two hundred dollars to advertise this meeting and make it a success, and you step up at the last moment and demand that I turn it over to your party. If you want free speech, hire your own hall and make it to your heart's content. You can't address this crowd from a speaker's stand built with my money."

"You refuse?"

Norton looked at him steadily for a moment and took a step closer:

"I am trying to convey that impression to your mind. Must I use my foot to emphasize it?"

The long-haired one paled slightly, turned and quickly pushed his way through the crowd to a group awaiting him on the edge of the brush arbor that had been built to shelter the people from the sun. The Chairman whispered to Norton:

"There'll be trouble certain—they're a tough lot. More than half the men here are with him."

"They won't be when I've finished," he answered with a smile.

"You'd better divide with them——"

"I'll see him in hell first!"

Norton stepped quickly on the rude pine platform that had been erected for the speaker and faced the crowd. For the first time on his trip the cheering was given with moderation.

He saw the preacher walk back under the arbor and his men distribute themselves with apparent design in different parts of the crowd.

He lifted his hand with a gesture to stop the applause and a sudden hush fell over the eager, serious faces.

His eye wandered carelessly over the throng and singled out the men he had seen distribute themselves among them. He suddenly slipped his hand behind him and drew from beneath his long black frock coat a big revolver and laid it beside the pitcher of lemonade the Chairman had provided.

A slight stir swept the crowd and the stillness could be felt.

The speaker lifted his broad shoulders and began his speech in an intense voice that found its way to the last man who hung on the edge of the crowd:

"Gentlemen," he began slowly, "if there's any one present who doesn't wish to hear what I have to say, now is the time to leave. This is my meeting, and I will not be interrupted. If, in spite of this announcement, there happens to be any one here who is looking for trouble"—he stopped and touched the shining thing that lay before him—"you'll find it here on the table—walk right up to the front."

A cheer rent the air. He stilled it with a quick gesture and plunged into his speech.

In the intense situation which had developed he had forgotten the fear that had been gnawing at his heart for the past weeks.

At the height of his power over his audience his eye suddenly caught the black face of Andy grinning in evident admiration of his master's eloquence.

Something in the symbolism of this negro grinning at him over the heads of the people hanging breathless on his words sent a wave of sickening fear to his heart. In vain he struggled to throw the feeling off in the midst of his impassioned appeal. It was impossible. For the remaining half hour he spoke as if in a trance. Unconsciously his voice was lowered to a strange intense monotone that sent the chills down the spines of his hearers.

He closed his speech in a silence that was strangling.

The people were dazed and he was half-way down the steps of the rude platform before they sufficiently recovered to break into round after round of cheering.

He had unconsciously made the most powerful speech of his life, and no man in all the crowd that he had hypnotized could have dreamed the grim secret which had been the source of his inspiration.

Without a moment's delay he found Andy, examined the package he brought and hurried to his room.

"Everything all right at home, Andy?" he asked with apparent carelessness.

The negro was still lost in admiration of Norton's triumph over his hostile audience.

"Yassah, you sho did set 'em afire wid dat speech, major!" he said with a laugh.

"And I asked you if everything was all right at home?"

"Oh, yassah, yassah—everything's all right. Of cose, sah, dey's a few little things always happenin'. Dem pigs get in de garden las' week an' et everything up, an' dat ole cow er own got de hollow horn agin. But everything else all right, sah."

"And how's aunt Minerva?"

"Des es big an' fat ez ebber, sah, an' er gittin' mo' unruly every day—yassah—she's gittin' so sassy she try ter run de whole place an' me, too."

"And Cleo?"

This question he asked bustling over his papers with an indifference so perfectly assumed that Andy never guessed his interest to be more than casual, and yet he ceased to breathe until he caught the laughing answer:

"Oh, she's right dar holdin' her own wid Miss Minerva an' I tells her las' week she's lookin' better dan ebber—yassah—she's all right."

Norton felt a sense of grateful relief. His fears had been groundless. They were preposterous to start with. The idea that she might attempt to visit Helen in his absence was, of course, absurd.

His next question was asked with a good-natured, hearty tone:

"And Mr. Tom?"

Andy laughed immoderately and Norton watched him with increasing wonder.

"Right dar's whar my tale begins!"

"Why, what's the matter with him?" the father asked with a touch of anxiety in his voice.

"Lordy, dey ain't nuttin' de matter wid him 'tall—hit's a fresh cut!"

Again Andy laughed with unction.

"What is it?" Norton asked with impatience. "What's the matter with Tom?"

"Nuttin' 'tall, sah—nuttin' 'tall—I nebber see 'im lookin' so well in my life. He gets up sooner den I ebber knowed him before. He comes home quicker an' stays dar longer an' he's de jolliest young gentleman I know anywhar in de state. Mo' specially, sah, since dat handsome young lady from de North come down to see us——"

The father's heart was in his throat as he stammered:

"A handsome young lady from the North—I don't understand!"

"Why, Miss Helen, sah, de young lady you invite ter spen' de summer wid us."

Norton's eyes suddenly grew dim, he leaned on the table, stared at Andy, and repeated blankly:

"The young lady I asked to spend the summer with us?"

"Yassah, Miss Helen, sah, is her name—she cum 'bout er week atter you lef——"

"And she's been there ever since?" he asked.

"Yassah, an' she sho is a powerful fine young lady, sah. I don't blame Mister Tom fer bein' crazy 'bout her!"

There was a moment's dead silence.

"So Tom's crazy about her?" he said in a high, nervous voice, which Andy took for a joke.

"Yassah, I'se had some sperience myself, sah, but I ain't nebber seen nuttin' like dis! He des trot long atter her day an' night like a fice. An' de funny thing, sah, is dat he doan' seem ter know dat he's doin' it. Everybody 'bout de house laffin' fit ter kill dersef an' he don't pay no 'tention. He des sticks to her like a sick kitten to a hot brick! Yassah, hit sho's funny! I des knowed you'd bust er laughin' when you sees 'em."

Norton had sunk to a seat too weak to stand. His face was pale and his breath came in short gasps as he turned to the negro, stared at him hopelessly for a moment and said:

"Andy, get me a good horse and buggy at the livery stable—we'll drive through the country to-night. I want to get home right away."

Andy's mouth opened and his eyes stared in blank amazement.

"De Lawd, major, hit's mos' sundown now an' hit's a hundred miles from here home—hit took me all day ter come on de train."

"No, it's only forty miles straight across the country. We can make it to-night with a good horse. Hurry, I'll have my valise packed in a few minutes."

"Do you know de way, sah?" Andy asked, scratching his head.

"Do as I tell you—quick!" Norton thundered.

The negro darted from the room and returned in half an hour with a horse and buggy.

Through the long hours of the night they drove with but a single stop at midnight in a quiet street of a sleeping village. They halted at the well beside a store and watered the horse.

A graveyard was passed a mile beyond the village, and Andy glanced timidly over his shoulder at the white marble slabs glistening in the starlight. His master had not spoken for two hours save the sharp order to stop at the well.

"Dis sho is er lonesome lookin' place!" Andy said with a shiver.

But the man beside him gave no sign that he heard. His eyes were set in a strange stare at the stars that twinkled in the edge of the tree tops far ahead.

Andy grew so lonely and frightened finally at the ominous silence that he pretended to be lost at each crossroads to force Norton to speak.

"I wuz afraid you gone ter sleep, sah!" he said with an apologetic laugh. "An' I wuz erfered dat you'd fall out er de buggy gwine down er hill."

In vain he tried to break the silence. There was no answer—no sign that he was in the same world, save the fact of his body's presence.

The first streak of dawn was widening on the eastern horizon when Norton's cramped legs limped into the gate of his home. He stopped to steady his nerves and looked blankly up at the window of his boy's room. He had given Tom his mother's old room when he had reached the age of sixteen.

Somewhere behind those fluted pillars, white and ghost-like in the dawn, lay the girl who had suddenly risen from the dead to lead his faltering feet up life's Calvary. He saw the cross slowly lifting its dark form from the hilltop with arms outstretched to embrace him, and the chill of death crept into his heart.

The chirp of stirring birds, the dim noises of waking life, the whitening sky-line behind the house recalled another morning in his boyhood. He had waked at daylight to go to his traps set at the branch in the edge of the woods behind the barn. The plantation at that time had extended into the town. A fox had been killing his fancy chickens. He had vowed vengeance in his boyish wrath, bought half a dozen powerful steel-traps and set them in the fox's path. The prowler had been interrupted the night before and had not gotten his prey. He would return sure.

He recalled now every emotion that had thrilled his young heart as he bounded along the dew-soaked path to his traps.

Before he could see the place he heard the struggles of his captive.

"I've got him!" he shouted with a throb of savage joy.

He leaped the fence and stood frozen to the spot. The fox was a magnificent specimen of his breed, tall and heavy as a setter dog, with beautiful appealing eyes. His fine gray fur was spotched with blood, his mouth torn and bleeding from the effort to break the cruel bars that held his foreleg in their death-like grip. With each desperate pull the blood spurted afresh and the steel cut deeper into bone and flesh.

The strange cries of pain and terror from the trapped victim had struck him dumb. He had come with murder in his heart to take revenge on his enemy, but when he looked with blanched face on the blood and heard the pitiful cries he rushed to the spot, tore the steel arms apart, loosed the fox, pushed his quivering form from him and gasped:

"Go—go—I'm sorry I hurt you like that!"

Stirred by the memories of the dawn he lived this scene again in vivid anguish, and as he slowly mounted the steps of his home, felt the steel bars of an inexorable fate close on his own throat.