The news of Captain Tom's return spread quickly. By noon it was known throughout the Tennessee Valley.
The sensational features of it required prompt action on his and Alice's part, and their decision was quickly made: they would be married that Sunday afternoon in the little church on the mountain side and by the old man who had done so much to make their happiness possible.
For once in its history the little church could not hold the people who came to witness this romantic marriage, and far down the mountain side they stood to see the bride and groom pass by. Many remembered the groom, all had heard of him,—his devotion to his country's flag; to the memory of his father; his gallantry, his heroism, his martyrdom, dying (as they supposed) rather than turn his guns on his brave old grandsire. And now to come back to life again—to win the woman he loved and who had loved him all these years! Besides, there was no one in the Tennessee Valley considered more beautiful than the bride, and they loved her as if she had been an angel of light.
And never had she appeared more lovely.
A stillness swept over the crowd when the carriage drove up to the little church, and when the tall, handsome man in the uniform of a captain of artillery lifted Alice out with the tenderness of all lovers in his touch and the strength of a strong lover, with a lily in his hand, the crowd, knowing his history, could not refrain from cheering. He lifted his cap and threw back his iron-gray hair, showing a head proud and tender and on his face such a smile as lovers only wear. Then he led her in,—pale and tearful.
The little church had been prettily decorated that Sabbath morning, and when the old preacher came forward and called them to him, he said the simple words which made them man and wife, and as he blessed them, praying, a mocking-bird, perched on a limb near the window, sang a soft low melody as if one singer wished to compliment another.
They went out hand in hand, and when they reached the door, the sun which had been hid burst out as a benediction upon them.
Among the guests one man had stepped in unnoticed and unseen. Why he came he could not tell, for never before did he have any desire to go to the little church.
It was midnight when the news came to him that Tom Travis had returned as from the dead. It was Jud Carpenter who had awakened him that Saturday night to whisper at the bedside the startling news.
But Travis only yawned from his sleep and said: “I've been expecting it all the time—go somewhere and go to bed.”
After Carpenter had gone, he arose, stricken with a feeling he could not describe, but had often seen in race horses running desperately until within fifty yards of the wire, and then suddenly—quitting. He had almost reached his goal—but now one week had done all this. Alice—gone, and The Gaffs—he must divide that with his cousin—for his grandfather had left no will.
Divide The Gaffs with Tom Travis?—He would as soon think of dividing Alice's love with him. In the soul of Richard Travis there was no such word as division.
In the selfishness of his life, it had ever been all or nothing.
All night he thought, he walked the halls of the old house, he ran over a hundred solutions of it in his mind. And still there was no solution that satisfied him, that seemed natural. It seemed that his mind, which had heretofore worked so unerringly, deducing things so naturally, now balked before an abyss that was bridgeless. Heretofore he had looked into the future with the bold, true sweep of an eagle peering from its mountain home above the clouds into the far distance, his eyes unclouded by the mist, which cut off the vision of mortals below. But now he was the blindest of the blind. He seemed to stop as before a wall—a chasm which ended everything—a chasm, on the opposite wall of which was printed: Thus far and no farther.
Think as he would, he could not think beyond it. His life seemed to stop there. After it, he was nothing.
Our minds, our souls—are like the sun, which shines very plainly as it moves across the sky of our life of things—showing them in all distinctness and clearness; so that we see things as they happen to us with our eyes of daylight. But as the sun throws its dim twilight shadows even beyond our earth, so do the souls of men of great mind and imagination see, faintly, beyond their own lives, and into the shadow of things.
To-night that mysterious sight came to Richard Travis, as it comes in the great crises of life and death, to every strong man, and he saw dimly, ghostily, into the shadow; and the shadow stopped at the terrible abyss which now barred his ken; and he felt, with the keen insight of the dying eagle on the peak, that the thing was death.
In the first streak of light, he was rudely awakened to it. For there on the rug, as naturally as if asleep, lay the only thing he now loved in the world, the old setter, whose life had passed out in slumber.
All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the highest, has it the clearest. And Travis remembered that the old dog had come to his bed, in the middle of the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his master's breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering fire had said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as ever human being said it. And now on the rug, before the dead gray ashes of the night, he had found the old dog forever asleep, naturally and in great peace.
His heart sank as he thought of the farewell of the night before, and bitterness came, and sitting down on the rug by the side of the dead dog he stroked for the last time the grand old silken head, so calm and poised, for the little world it had been bred for, and ran his palm over the long strong nose that had never lied to the scent of the covey. His lips tightened and he said: “O God, I am dying myself, and there is not a living being whom I can crawl up to, and lay my head on its breast and know it loves and pities me, as I love you, old friend.”
The thought gripped his throat, and as he thought of the sweetness and nobility of this dumb thing, his gentleness, faithfulness and devotion, the sureness of his life in filling the mission he came for, he wept tears so strange to his cheek that they scalded as they flowed, and he bowed his head and said: “Gladstone, Gladstone, good-bye—true to your breeding, you were what your master never was—a gentleman.”
And the old housekeeper found this strong man, who had never wept in his life, crying over the old dead setter on the rug.
And the same feeling, the second sight—the presentiment—the terrible balking of his mind that had always seen so clearly, ever into the future, held him as in a vise all the morning and moved him in a strange mysterious way to go to the church and see the woman he had loved all his life, the being whose very look uplifted him, and whose smile could make him a hero or a martyr, married to the man who came home to take her, and half of his all.
Numbed, hardened, speechless, and yet with that terrible presentiment of the abyss before him, he had stood and seen Alice Westmore made the wife of another.
He remembered first how quickly he had caught the text of the old man; indeed, it seemed to him now that everything he heard struck into him like a brand of fire—for never had life appeared to him as it did to-day.
“For the hand of God hath touched me—” he kept repeating over and over—repeating and then cursing himself for repeating it—for remembering it.
And still it stayed there all day—the unbidden ghost-guest of his soul.
And everything the old preacher said went searing into his quivering soul, and all the time he kept looking—looking at the woman he loved and seeing her giving her love, her life, with a happy smile, to another. And all the time he stood wondering why he came to see it, why he felt as he did, why things hurt him that way, why he acted so weakly, why his conscience had awakened at last, why life hurt him so—life that he had played with as an edged tool—why he could not get away from himself and his memory, but ran always into it, and why at last with a shudder, why did nothing seem to be beyond the wall?
He saw her go off, the wife of another. He saw their happiness—unconscious even that he lived, and he cursed himself and kept saying: “The hand of God hath touched me.”
Then he laughed at himself for being silly.
He rode home, but it was not home. Nothing was itself—not even he. In the watches of one night his life had been changed and the light had gone out.
When night came it was worse. He mounted his horse and rode—where? And he could no more help it than he could cease to breathe.
He did not guide the saddle mare, she went herself through wood sombre and dark with shadows, through cedar trees, dwarfed, and making pungent the night air with aromatic breath; through old sedge fields, garish in the faint light; up, up the mountain, over it; and at last the mare stopped and stood silently by a newly made grave, while Richard Travis, with strained hard mouth and wet eyes, knelt and, knowing that no hand in the world cared to feel his repentant face in it, he buried it in the new made sod as he cried: “Maggie—Maggie—forgive me, for the hand of God hath touched me!”
And it soothed him, for he knew that if she were alive he might have lain his head there—on her breast.
That Monday was a memorable day for Helen Conway. She went to the mill with less bitterness than ever before—the sting of it all was gone—for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that was hers—that she was powerless in the hands of Richard Travis:
“I will come for you Monday night. I will take you away from here. You shall belong to me forever—My Queen!”
These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, when, after coming home, she had found her father fallen by the wayside.
In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She did not know where she was going—she did not care. She did not even blush at the thought of it. She was hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it meant wife or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God had placed upon her more than she could bear.
“If my life is wrecked,” she said as she lay awake that Sunday night—“God himself will do it. Who took my mother before I knew her influence? Who made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal beauty—poverty and a drunken father and this terrible temptation?”
“Oh, if I only had her, Mammy—negro that she is.”
Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.
“What will become of Lily, in the mill, too?” She bent and kissed her, and she saw that the little one, though asleep, had tears in her own eyes.
Young as she was, Helen's mind was maturer than might have been supposed. And the problem which confronted her she saw very clearly, although she was unable to solve it. The problem was not new, indeed, it has been Despair's conundrum since the world began: Whose fault that my life has been as it is? In her despair, doubting, she cried:
“Is there really a God, as Mammy Maria told me? Does He interpose in our lives, or are we rushed along by the great moral and physical laws, which govern the universe; and if by chance we fail to harmonize with them, be crushed for our ignorance—our ignorance which is not of our own making?”
“By chance—by chance,” she repeated, “but if there be great fixed laws, how can there be any—chance?”
The thought was hopeless. She turned in her despair and hid her face. And then out of the darkness came the strong fine face of Clay Westmore—and his words: “We must all work—it is life's badge of nobility.”
How clearly and calmly they came to her. And then her heart fluttered. Suppose Clay loved her—suppose this was her solution? He had never pressed his love on her. Did he think a woman could be loved that way—scientifically—as coal and iron are discovered?
She finally slept, her arms around her little sister. But the last recollection she had was Clay's fine face smiling at her through the darkness and saying: “We must all work—it is life's badge of nobility.”
It was Monday morning, and she would take Lily with her to the mill; for the child's work at the spinning frames was to begin that day. There was no alternative. Again the great unknown law rushed her along. Her father had signed them both, and in a few days their home would be sold.
They were late at the mill, but the little one, as she trudged along by the side of her sister, was happier than she had been since her old nurse had left. It was great fun for her, this going to the mill with her big sister.
The mill had been throbbing and humming long before they reached it. Helen turned Lily over to the floor manager, after kissing her good-bye, and bade her do as she was told. Twice again she kissed her, and then with a sob hurried away to her own room.
Travis was awaiting her in the hall. She turned pale and then crimson when she saw him. And yet, when she ventured to look at him as she was passing, she was stopped with the change which lay on his face. It was a sad smile he gave her, sad but determined. And in the courtly bow was such a look of tenderness that with fluttering heart and a strange new feeling of upliftedness—a confidence in him for the first time, she stopped and gave him her hand with a grateful smile. It was a simple act and so pretty that the sadness went from Travis' face as he said:
“I was not going to stop you—this is kind of you. Saturday, I thought you feared me.”
“Yes,” she smiled, “but not now—not when you look like that.”
“Have I changed so much since then?” and he looked at her curiously.
“There is something in your face I never saw before. It made me stop.”
“I am glad it was there, then,” he said simply, “for I wished you to stop, though I did not want to say so.”
“Saturday you would have said so,” she replied with simple frankness.
He came closer to her with equal frankness, and yet with a tenderness which thrilled her he said:
“Perhaps I was not so sure Saturday of many things that I am positive of to-day.”
“Of what?” she asked flushing.
He smiled again, but it was not the old smile which had set her to trembling with a flurry of doubt and shame. It was the smile of respect. Then it left him, and in its stead flashed instantly the old conquering light when he said:
“To-night, you know, you will be mine!”
The change of it all, the shock of it, numbed her. She tried to smile, but it was the lifeless curl of her lips instead—and the look she gave him—of resignation, of acquiescence, of despair—he had seen it once before, in the beautiful eyes of the first young doe that fell to his rifle. She was not dead when he bounded to the spot where she lay—and she gave him that look.
Edward Conway watched his two daughters go out of the gate on their way to the mill, sitting with his feet propped up, and drunker than he had been for weeks. But indistinct as things were, the poignancy of it went through him, and he groaned. In a dazed sort of way he knew it was the last of all his dreams of respectability, that from now on there was nothing for him and his but degradation and a lower place in life. To do him justice, he did not care so much for himself; already he felt that he himself was doomed, that he could never expect to shake off the terrible habit which had grown to be part of his life,—unless, he thought, unless, as the Bishop had said—by the blow of God. He paled to think what that might mean. God had so many ways of striking blows unknown to man. But for his daughters—he loved them, drunkard though he was. He was proud of their breeding, their beauty, their name. If he could only go and give them a chance—if the blow would only fall and take him!
The sun was warm. He grew sleepy. He remembered afterwards that he fell out of his chair and that he could not arise.... It was a nice place to sleep anyway.... A staggering hound, with scurviness and sores, came up the steps, then on the porch, and licked his face....
When he awoke some one was bathing his face with cold water from the spring. He was perfectly sober and he knew it was nearly noon. Then he heard the person say: “I guess you are all right now, Marse Ned, an' I'm thinkin' it's the last drink you'll ever take outen that jug.”
His astonishment in recognizing that the voice was the voice of Mammy Maria did not keep him from looking up regretfully at sight of the precious broken jug and the strong odor of whiskey pervading the air.
How delightful the odor was!
He sat up amazed, blinking stupidly.
“Aunt Maria—in heaven's name—where?”
“Never mind, Marse Ned—jes' you git into the buggy now an' I'll take you home. You see, I've moved everything this mohnin' whilst you slept. The last load is gone to our new home.”
“What?” he exclaimed—“where?” He looked around—the home was empty.
“I thort it time to wake you up,” she went on, “an' besides I wanter talk to you about my babies.
“You'll onderstan' all that when you see the home I've bought for us”—she said simply. “We're gwine to it now. Git in the buggy”—and she helped him to arise.
Then Edward Conway guessed, and he was silent, and without a word the old woman drove him out of the dilapidated gate of Millwood toward the town.
“Mammy,” he began as if he were a boy again—“Mammy,” and then he burst into tears.
“Don't cry, chile,” said the old woman—“it's all behind us now. I saved the money years ago, when we all wus flush—an' you gave me so much when you had an' wus so kind to me, Marse Ned. I saved it. We're gwine to reform now an' quit drinkin'. We'se gwine to remove to another spot in the garden of the Lord, but the Lord is gwine with us an' He is the tower of strength—the tower of strength to them that trust Him—Amen. But I must have my babies—that's part of the barg'in. No mill for them—oh, Marse Ned, to think that whilst I was off, fixin' our home so nice to s'prize you all—wuckin' my fingers off to git the home ready—you let them devils get my babies! Git up heah”—and she rapped the horse down the back with the lines. “Hurry up—I'm gwine after 'em es soon es I git home.”
Conway could only bow his head and weep.
It was nearly noon when a large coal-black woman, her head tied up with an immaculately white handkerchief, with a white apron to match over her new calico gown, walked into the mill door. She passed through Kingsley's office, without giving him the courtesy of a nod, holding her head high and looking straight before her. A black thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon her brow, and her large black eyes were lit up with a sarcastic light.
Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had passed into the big door of the main room, amid the whirl and hum of the machinery, and walking straight to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and gathered into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing the ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling bobbins.
The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed in fright—not being able to hear the footfall or the voice of her who had so suddenly folded her in her arms and showered kisses on her face and hair. Then, seeing the face, she shouted:
“It's Mammy Maria—oh, it's my mammy!” and she threw her arms around the old woman's neck and clung there.
“Mammy's baby—did you think old Mammy dun run off an' lef' her baby?”
But Lily could only sob for joy.
Then the floor manager came hurriedly over—for the entire force of the mill had ceased to work, gazing at the strange scene. In vain he gesticulated his protests—the big fat colored woman walked proudly past him with Lily in her arms.
In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, while the little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.
Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment. He adjusted his eye glasses several times, lilting them with the most pronounced sarcastic lilt of which he was capable.
He stepped around and around the desk in agitated briskness.
He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and down. And all the time the fat old woman stood looking at him, with the thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed scorn struggling for speech in her eyes.
“Ah-hem—ah-ha—Aunt Maria” for Kingsley had caught on to the better class of Southern ways—“inform me—ah, what does all this mean?”
The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied with freezing politeness:
“I beg yo' pardon, sah—but I was not awares that I had any nephew in the mill, or was related to anybody in here, sah. I hav'nt my visitin' cyard with me, but if I had 'em heah you'd find my entitlements, on readin', was somethin' lak this: Miss Maria Conway, of Zion!”
Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his glasses again with agitated nervous attempts at a lilt. Then he struck his level and fell back on his natural instinct, unmixed, with attempts at being what he was not:
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Conway”—
“Git my entitlements right, please sah. I'm the only old maid lady of color you ever seed or ever will see again. Niggahs, these days, lak birds, all git 'em a mate some way—but I'm Miss Conway of Zion.”
“Ah, beg pardon, Miss Conway—Miss Conway of Zion. And where, pray, is that city, Miss Conway? I may have to have an officer communicate with you.”
“With pleasure, sah—It's a pleasure for me to he'p people find a place dey'd never find without help—no—not whilst they're a-workin' the life out of innocent tots an' babes—”
Kingsley flushed hot, angered:
“What do you mean, old woman?”
“The ole woman means,” she said, looking him steadily in the eye, “that you are dealin' in chile slavery, law or no law; that you're down heah preachin' one thing for niggahs an' practisin' another for yo' own race; that yo' hair frizzles on yo' head at tho'rt of niggah slavery, whilst all the time you are enslavin' the po' little whites that's got yo' own blood in their veins. An' now you wanter know what I come for? I come for my chile!”
Kingsley was too dumfounded to speak. In all his life never had his hypocrisy been knocked to pieces so completely.
“What does all this mean?” asked Jud Carpenter rushing hastily into the room.
“Come on baby,” said the old woman as she started toward the door. “I've got a home for us, an' whilst old mammy can take in washin' you'll not wuck yo' life out with these people.”
Jud broke in harshly: “Come, ole 'oman,—you put that child down. You've got nothin' to support her with.”
She turned on him quickly: “I've got mo' silver tied up in ole socks that the Conways give me in slavery days when they had it by the bushel, than sech as you ever seed. Got nothin'? Jus' you come over and see the little home I've got fixed up for Marse Ned an' the babies. Got nothin'? See these arms? Do you think they have forgot how to cook an' wash? Come on, baby—we'll be gwine home—Miss Helen'll come later.”
“Put her down, old woman,” said Carpenter sternly. “You can't take her—she's bound to the mill.”
“Oh, I can't?” said the old woman as she walked out with Lily—“Can't take her. Well, jes' look at me an' see. This is what I calls Zion, an' the Lam' an' the wolves had better stay right where they are,” she remarked dryly, as she walked off carrying Lily in her arms.
Down through a pretty part of the town, away from Cottontown, she led the little girl, laughing now and chatting by the old woman's side, a bird freed from a cage.
“And you'll bring sister Helen, too?” asked Lily.
“That I will, pet,—she'll be home to-night.”
“Oh, Mammy, it's so good to have you again—so good, and I thought you never would come.”
They walked away from Cottontown and past pretty houses. In a quiet street, with oaks and elms shading it, she entered a yard in which stood a pretty and nicely painted cottage. Lily clapped her hands with laughter when she found all her old things there—even her pet dolls to welcome her—all in the cunningest and quaintest room imaginable. The next room was her father's, and Mammy's room was next to hers and Helen's. She ran out only to run into her father's arms. Small as she was, she saw that he was sober. He took her on his lap and kissed her.
“My little one,” he said—“my little one”—
“Mammy,” asked the little girl as the old woman came out—“how did you get all this?”
“Been savin' it all my life, chile—all the money yo' blessed mother give me an' all I earned sence I was free. I laid it up for a rainy day an' now, bless God, it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold an' snowin' besides, an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's, an' all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine to go after Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll be gwine back to Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this surprise for her. No, sah,—nary one of yo' mother's chillun shall ever wuck in a mill.”
Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him as he knelt and said: “Oh, God help me—make me a man, make me a Conway again.”
It was his first prayer in years—the beginning of his reformation. And every reformation began with a prayer.
Two hours before the mill closed Richard Travis came hurriedly into the mill office. There had been business engagements to be attended to in the town before leaving that night for the North, and he had been absent from the mill all day. Now everything was ready even to his packed trunk—all except Helen.
“He's come for her,” said Jud to himself as he walked over to the superintendent's desk.
Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent his head and the two whispered low and earnestly together. As Jud talked in excited whispers, Travis lit a cigar and listened coolly—to Jud's astonishment—even cynically.
“An' what you reckin' she done—the ole 'oman? Tuck the little gyrl right out of my han's an' kerried her home—marched off as proud as ole Queen Victory.”
“Home? What home?” asked Travis.
“An' that's the mischief of it,” went on Jud. “I thort she was lyin' about the home, an' I stepped down there at noon an' I hope I may die to-night if she ain't got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the Major is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman an' actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'. That's blood that won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's in its right mind. An' the little home the ole 'oman's got, she bought it with her own money, been savin' it all her life an' now”—
“What did you say to her this morning?” asked Travis.
“Oh, I cussed her out good—the old black”—
A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. Never before had the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if he had looked up and seen a halo around the moon.
“To do grand things—to do grand things—like that—negro that she is! No—no—of course you did not understand. Our moral sense is gone—we mill people. It is atrophied—yours and mine and all of us—the soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you give it back to me now—this ghost soul that has come to me with burning breath?”
Jud Carpenter listened in amazement and looked at him suspiciously. He came closer to see if he could smell whiskey on his breath, but Travis looked at him calmly as he went on: “Why, yes, of course you cursed her—how could you understand? How could you know—you, born soulless, know that you had witnessed something which, what does the old preacher call him—the man Jesus Christ—something He would have stopped and blessed her for. A slave and she saved it for her master. A negro and she loved little children where we people of much intellect and a higher civilization and Christianity—eh, Jud, Christians”—and he laughed so strangely that Jud took a turn around the room watching Travis out of the corner of his eyes.
“Oh—and you cursed her!”
Jud nodded. “An' to-morrow I'll go an' fetch the little 'un back. Why she's signed—she's our'n for five years.”
Travis turned quickly and Jud dodged under the same strange light that showed again in his eyes. Then he laid his hand on Jud's arm and said simply: “No—no—you will not!”
Jud looked at him in open astonishment.
Travis puffed at his cigar as he said:
“Don't study me too closely. Things have happened—have happened, I tell you—my God! we are all double—that is if we are anything—two halves to us—and my half—my other half, got lost till the other night and left this aching, pitiful, womanly thing behind, that bleeds to the touch and has tears. Why, man, I am either an angel, a devil, or both. Don't you go there and touch that little child, nor thrust your damned moral Caliban monstrosity into that sweet isle, nor break up with your seared conscience the glory of that unselfish act. If you do I'll kill you, Jud Carpenter—I'll kill you!”
Jud turned and walked to the water bucket, took a drink and squirted it through his teeth.
He was working for thinking time: “He's crazy—he's sho' crazy—” he said to himself. Coming back, he said:
“Pardon me, Mr. Travis—but the oldes' gyrl—what—what about her, you know?”
“She's mine, isn't she? I've won her—outgeneraled the others—by brains and courage. She should belong to my harem—to my band—as the stallion of the plains when he beats off with tooth and hoof and neck of thunder his rival, and takes his mares.”
Jud nodded, looking at him quizzically.
“Well, what about it?” asked Travis.
“Nothin'—only this”—then he lowered his voice as he came nearer—“the ole 'oman will be after her in an hour—an' she'll take her—tell her all. Maybe you'll see somethin' to remind you of Jesus Christ in that.”
Travis smiled.
“Well,” went on Jud, “you'd better take her now—while the whole thing has played into yo' hands; but she—the oldes' gyrl—she don't know the ole 'oman's come back an' made her a home; that her father is sober an' there with her little sister, that Clay is away an' ain't deserted her. She don't know anything, an' when you set her out in that empty house, deserted, her folks all deserted her, as she'll think, don't you know she'll go to the end of the worl' with you?”
“Well?” asked Travis as he smiled calmly.
“Well, take her and thank Jud Carpenter for the Queen of the Valley—eh?” and he laughed and tried to nudge Travis familiarly, but the latter moved away.
“I'll take her,” at last he said.
“She'll go to The Gaffs with you”—went on Jud. “There she's safe. Then to-night you can drive her to the train at Lenox, as we told Biggers.”
He came over and whispered in Travis's ear.
“That worked out beautifully,” said Travis after a while, “but I'll not trust her to you or to Charley Biggers. I'll take her myself—she's mine—Richard Travis's—mine—mine! I who have been buffeted and abused by Fate, given all on earth I do not want, and denied the one thing I'd die for; I'll show them who they are up against. I'll take her, and they may talk and rave and shoot and be damned!”
His old bitterness was returning. His face flushed:
“That's the way you love to hear me talk, isn't it—to go on and say I'll take her and do as I please with her, and if it pleases me to marry her I'll set her up over them all—heh?”
Jud nodded.
“That's one of me,” said Travis—“the old one. This is the new.” And he opened the back of his watch where a tiny lock of Alice Westmore's auburn hair lay: “Oh, if I were only worthy to kiss it!”
He walked into the mill and down to the little room where Helen sat. He stood a while at the door and watched her—the poise of the beautiful head, the cheeks flushed with the good working blood that now flowed through them, the hair falling with slight disorder, a stray lock of it dashed across her forehead and setting off the rest of it, darker and deeper, as a cloudlet, inlaid with gold, the sunset of her cheeks.
His were the eyes of a connoisseur when it came to women, and as he looked he knew that every line of her was faultless; the hands slender and beautifully high-born; the fingers tapering with that artistic slope of the tips, all so plainly visible now that they were at work. One foot was thrust out, slender with curved and high instep. He flushed with pride of her—his eyes brightened and he smiled in the old ironical way, a smile of dare-doing, of victory.
He walked in briskly and with a business-like, forward alertness. She looked up, paled, then flushed.
“Oh, I was hoping so you had forgotten,” she said tremblingly.
He smiled kindly: “I never forget.”
She put up one hand to her cheek and rested her head on it a moment in thought.
He came up and stood deferentially by her side, looking down on her, on her beautiful head. She half crouched, expecting to hear something banteringly complimentary; bold, commonplace—to feel even the touch of his sensual hand on her hair, on her cheek and My Queen—my Queen!
After a while she looked up, surprised. The excitement in her eyes—the half-doubting—half-yielding fight there, of ambition, and doubt, and the stubborn wrong of it all, of her hard lot and bitter life, of the hidden splendor that might lie beyond, and yet the terrible doubt, the fear that it might end in a living death—these, fighting there, lit up her eyes as candles at an altar of love. Then the very difference of his attitude, as he stood there, struck her,—the beautiful dignity of his face, his smile. She saw in an instant that sensualism had vanished—there was something spiritual which she had never seen before. A wave of trust, in her utter helplessness, a feeling of respect, of admiration, swept over her. She arose quickly, wondering at her own decision.
He bowed low, and there was a ringing sweetness in his voice as he said: “I have come for you, Helen—if you wish to go.”
“I will go, Richard Travis, for I know now you will do me no harm.”
“Do you think you could learn to love me?”
She met his eyes steadily, bravely: “That was never in the bargain. That is another thing. This is barter and trade—the last ditch rather than starvation, death. This is the surrender of the earthen fort, the other the glory of the ladder leading to the skies. Understand me, you have not asked for that—it is with me and God, who made me and gave it. Let it stay there and go back to him. You offer me bread”—
“But may it not turn into a stone, an exquisite, pure diamond?” he asked.
She looked at him sadly. She shook her head.
“Diamonds are not made in a day.”
The light Jud Carpenter saw flashed in his eyes: “I have read of one somewhere who turned water into wine—and that was as difficult.”
“If—if—” she said gently—“if you had always been this—if you would always be this”—
“A woman knows a man as a rose knows light,” he said simply—“as a star knows the sun. But we men—being the sun and the star, we are blinded by our own light. Come, you may trust me, Sweet Rose.”
She put her hand in his. He took it half way to his mouth.
“Don't,” she said—“please—that is the old way.”
He lowered it gently, reverently, and they walked out.
“Lily has been taken home,” he said as she walked out with him. “She is safe and will be cared for—so will be your father. I will explain it to you as we drive to Millwood.”
She wondered, but her cheeks now burned so that all her thoughts began to flow back upon herself as a tide, flowing inland, and forgetting the sea of things. Her heart beat faster—she felt guilty—of what, she could not say.
Perhaps the guilt of the sea for being found on the land.
The common mill girls—were they not all looking at her, were they not all wondering, did they not all despise her, her who by birth and breeding should be above them? Her lips tightened at the thought—she who was above them—now—now—they to be above her—poor-born and common as they were—if—if—he betrayed her.
He handed her quietly—reverently even, into the buggy, and the trotters whirled her away; but not before she thought she saw the mill girls peeping at her through the windows, and nodding their heads at each other, and some of them smiling disdainfully. And yet when she looked closely there was no one at the windows.
The wind blew cool. Travis glanced at her dress, her poorly protected shoulders.
“I am afraid you will be too cold after coming from a warm mill and going with the speed we go.”
He reached under the seat and drew out a light overcoat. He threw it gently over her shoulders, driving, in his masterful way, with the reins in one hand.
He did not speak again until he reached Millwood.
The gate was down, bits of strewn paper, straw and all the debris of things having been moved, were there. The house was dark and empty, and Helen uttered a surprised cry:
“Why, what does all this mean? Oh, has anything happened to them?”
She clung in pallor to Travis's arm.
“Be calm,” he said, “I will explain. They are all safe. They have moved. Let us go in, a moment.”
He drew the mares under a shed and hitched them, throwing blankets over them and unchecking their heads. Then he lifted her out. How strong he was, and how like a limp lily she felt in the grasp of his hands.
The moon flashed out now and then from clouds scurrying fast, adding a ghostliness to the fading light, in which the deserted house stood out amid shadowy trees and weeds tall and dried. The rotten steps and balcony, even the broken bottles and pieces of crockery shone bright in the fading light. Tears started to her eyes:
“Nothing is here—nothing!”
Travis caught her hand in the dark and she clung to him. A hound stepped out from under the steps and licked her other hand. She jumped and gave a little shriek. Then, when she understood, she stroked the poor thing's head, its eyes staring hungrily in the dim light.
She followed Travis up the steps. Within, he struck a match, and she saw the emptiness of it all—the broken plastering and the paper torn off in spots, a dirty, littered floor, and an old sofa and a few other things left, too worthless to be moved.
She held up bravely, but tears were running down her cheeks. Travis struck another match to light a lamp which had been forgotten and left on the mantel. He attempted to light it, but something huge and black swept by and extinguished it. Helen shrieked again, and coming up timidly seized his arm in the dark. He could feel her heart beating excitedly against it.
He struck another match.
“Don't be uneasy, it is nothing but an owl.”
The light was turned up and showed an owl sitting on the top of an old tester that had formerly been the canopy of her grandmother's bed.
The owl stared stupidly at them—turning its head solemnly.
Helen laughed hysterically.
“Now, sit down on the old sofa,” he said. “There is much to say to you. We are now on the verge of a tragedy or a farce, or—”
“Sometimes plays end well, where all are happy, do they not?” she asked, smiling hysterically and sitting by him, but looking at the uncanny owl beyond. She was silent, then:
“Oh, I—I—don't you think I am entitled now—to have something end happily—now—once—in my life?”
He pitied her and was silent.
“Tell me,” she said after a while, “you have moved father and Lily to—to—one of the Cottontown cottages?”
He arose: “In a little while I will tell you, but now we must have something to eat first—you see I had this lunch fixed for our journey.” He went out, over to his lap-robe and cushion, and brought a basket and placed it on an old table.
“You may begin now and be my housekeeper,” he smiled. “Isn't it time you were learning? I daresay I'll not find you a novice, though.”
She flushed and smiled. She arose gracefully, and her pretty hands soon had the lunch spread, Travis helping her awkwardly.
It was a pretty picture, he thought—her flushed girlish face, yet matronly ways. He watched her slyly, with a sad joyousness in his eyes, drinking it in, as one who had hungered long for contentment and peace, such as this.
She had forgotten everything else in the housekeeping. She even laughed some at his awkwardness and scolded him playfully, for, man-like, forgetting a knife and fork. It was growing chilly, and while she set the lunch he went out and brought in some wood. Soon a fine oak fire burned in the fireplace.
They sat at the old table at last, side by side, and ate the delightful lunch. Under the influence of the bottle of claret, from The Gaffs cellar, her courage came and her animation was beautiful to him—something that seemed more of girlhood than womanhood. He drank it all in—hungry—heart-hungry for comfort and love; and she saw and understood.
Never had he enjoyed a lunch so much. Never had he seen so beautiful a picture!
When it was over he lit a cigar, and the fine odor filled the old room.
Then very quietly he told her the story of Mammy Maria's return, of the little home she had prepared for them; of her coming that day to the mill and taking Lily, and that even now, doubtless, she was there looking for the elder sister.
She did not show any surprise—only tears came slowly: “Do you know that I felt that something of this kind would happen? Dear Mammy—dear, dear Mammy Maria! She will care for Lily and father.”
She could stand it no longer. She burst into childish tears and, kneeling, she put her beautiful head on Travis's lap as innocently as if it were her old nurse's, and she, a child, seeking consolation.
He stroked her hair, her cheek, gently. He felt his lids grow moist and a tenderness he never had known came over him.
“I have told you this for a purpose,” he whispered in her ear—“I will take you to them, now.”
She raised her wet eyes—flushed. He watched her closely to see signs of any battle there. And then his heart gave a great leap and surged madly as she said calmly: “No—no—it is too late—too late—now. I—could—never explain. I will go with you, Richard Travis, to the end of the world.”
He sat very still and looked at her kneeling there as a child would, both hands clasped around his knee, and looking into his eyes with hers, gray-brown and gloriously bright. They were calm—so calm, and determined and innocent. They thrilled him with their trust and the royal beauty of her faith. There came to him an upliftedness that shook him.
“To the end of the world,” he said—“ah, you have said so much—so much more than I could ever deserve.”
“I have stood it all as long as I could. My father's drunkenness, I could stand that, and Mammy's forsaking us, as I thought—that, too. When the glory of work, of earning my own living opened itself to me,—Oh, I grasped it and was happy to think that I could support them! That's why your temptation—why—I—”
He winced and was silent.
“They were nothing,” she went on, “but to be forgotten, forsaken by—by—”
“Clay?” he helped her say.
“Oh,” she flushed—“yes,—that was part of it, and then to see—to see—you so different—with this strange look on you—something which says so plainly to me that—that—oh, forgive me, but do you know I seem to see you dying—dying all the time, and now you are so changed—indeed—oh please understand me—I feel differently toward you—as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love.”
She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly still, listening. At last she said:
“When I came here to-night and saw it all—empty—I thought: 'This means I am deserted by all—he has brought me here to see it—to know it. What can I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I make myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty—for you say I am beautiful. And did I make you with your strength—your conquering strength, and—Oh, could I overcome my environment?' But now—now—it is different—and if I am lost, Richard Travis—it will be your fault—yours and God's.”
He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange light which Jud Carpenter had seen in his eyes that afternoon blazed now with a nervous flash.
“That is my story,” she cried. “It is now too late even for God to come and tell me through you—now since we—you and I—oh, how can I say it—you have taken me this way—you, so strong and brave and—grand—”
He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth.
“Hush—hush—child—my God—you hurt me—shame me—you know not what you say.”
“I can understand all—but one thing,” she went on after a while. “Why have you brought me to this—here—at night alone with you—to tell me this—to make me—me—oh, change in my feelings—to you? Oh, must I say it?” she cried—“tell you the truth—that—that—now since I see you as you are—I—I,—I am willing to go!”
“Hush, Helen, my child, my God—don't crush me—don't—listen, child—listen! I am a villain—a doubly-dyed, infamous one—when you hear”—
She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth.
“Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After all this, why have you brought me here to tell me this, when all you had to do was to keep silent a few more hours—take me on to the station, as you said—and—and—”
“I will tell you,” he said gently. “Yes, you have asked the question needed to be explained. Now hear from my own lips my infamy—not all of it, God knows—that would take the night; but this peculiar part of it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why I love to touch it, to touch you, to look into your eyes; why I should love, next to one thing of all earth, to take you in my arms and smother you—kill you with kisses—your hair, your eyes, your mouth?”
She hid her face, crimson.
“Did no one tell you, ever tell you—how much you look like your cousin”—he stopped—he could not say the word, but she guessed. White with shame, she sprang up from him, startled, hurt. Her heart tightened into a painful thing which pricked her.
“Then—then—it is not I—but my Cousin Alice—oh—I—yes—I did hear—I should have known”—it came from her slowly and with a quivering tremor.
He seized her hands and drew her back down by him on the sofa.
“When I started into this with you I was dead—dead. My soul was withered within me. All women were my playthings—all but one. She was my Queen—my wife that was to be. I was dead, my God—how dead I was! I now see with a clearness that is killing me; a clearness as of one waking from sleep and feeling, in the first wave of conscience, that inconceivable tenderness which hurts so—hurts because it is tender and before the old hard consciousness of material things come again to toughen. How dead I was, you may know when I say that all this web now around you—from your entrance into the mill till now—here to-night—in my power—body and soul—that it was all to gratify this dead sea fruit of my soul, this thing in me I cannot understand, making me conquer women all my life for—oh, as a lion would, to kill, though not hungry, and then lie by them, dying, and watch them,—dead! Then this same God—if any there be—He who you say put more on you than you could bear—He struck me, as, well—no—He did not strike—but ground me, ground me into dust—took her out of my life and then laid my soul before me so naked that the very sunlight scorches it. What was it the old preacher said—that 'touch of God' business? 'Touch—'” he laughed, “not touch, but blow, I say—a blow that ground me into star-dust and flung me into space, my heart a burning comet and my soul the tail of it, dissolving before my very eyes. What then can I, a lion, dying, care for the doe that crosses my path? The beautiful doe, beautiful even as you are. Do you understand me, child?”
She scarcely knew what she did. She remembered only the terrible empty room. The owl uncannily turning its head here and there and staring at her with its eyes, yellow in the firelight.
She dropped on the floor by him and clung again to his knees, her head in his lap in pity for him.
“That is the story of the dying lion,” he said after a while. “The lion who worked all his cunning and skill and courage to get the beautiful doe in his power, only to find he was dying—dying and could not eat. Could you love a dying lion, child?” he asked abruptly—“tell me truly, for as you speak so will I act—would make you queen of all the desert.”
She raised her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her queerly, and she almost sobbed it out, hysterically:
“Oh, I could—love—you—you—who are so strong and who suffer—suffer so”—
“You could love me?” he asked. “Then, then I would marry you to-night—now—if—if—that uncovering—that touch—had not been put upon me to do nobler things than to gratify my own passion, had not shown me the other half which all these years has been dead—my double.” He was silent.
“And so I sent to-day,” he began after a while, “for a friend of yours, one with whom you can be happier than—the dying lion. He has been out of the county—sent out—it was part of the plan, part of the snare of the lion and his whelp. And so I sent for him this morning, feeling the death blow, you know. I sent him an urgent message, to meet you here at nine.” He glanced at his watch. “It is past that now, but he had far to ride. He will come, I hope—ah, listen!”
They heard the steps of a rider coming up the gravel walk.
“It is he,” said Travis calmly—“Clay.”
She sprang up quickly, half defiantly. The old Conway spirit flashed in her eyes and she came to him tall and splendid and with half a look of protest, half command, and yet in it begging, pleading, yearning for—she knew not what.
“Why—why—did you? Oh, you do not know! You do not understand—love—love—can it be won this way—apprenticed, bargained—given away?”
“You must go with him, he loves you. He will make you happy. I am dying—is not part of me already dead?”
For answer she came to him, closer, and stood by him as one who in war stands by a comrade shot through and ready to fall.
He put his arms around her and drew her to him closer, and she did not resist—but as a child would, hers also she wound around his neck and whispered:
“My lion! Oh, kill me—kill me—let me die with you!”
“Child—my precious one—my—oh, God, and you—forgive me this. But let me kiss you once and dream—dream it is she”—
She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.
“Good-bye—Alice—Alice—good-bye—forever—”
He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her head lay on his breast, and she shook in the agony of it all.
“You will forgive me, some day—when you know—how I loved her,” he gasped, white and with a bitter light in his face.
She looked up: “I would die,” she said simply, “for a love like that.”
They heard the steps of a man approaching the house. She sat down on the old sofa pale, trembling and with bitterness in her heart.
Travis walked to the door and opened it:
“Come in, Clay,” he said quietly. “I am glad that my man found you. We have been waiting for you.”
“I finished that survey and came as fast as I could. Your man rode on to The Gaffs, but I came here as you wrote me to do,” and Clay came in quietly, speaking as he walked to the fire.