CHAPTER XXII

He also started to speak, but there was nothing to say, and with her hand in one of his they sat still and silent till the cab stopped at the gate of the cottage. The driver opened the door and John helped Tilly out. He tipped the man, and he drove away as they entered the gate. John opened the door and lighted the gas in the diminutive hall. Tilly had never seen a gas-jet before, and he explained its use, and the danger of leaving it open when unlighted. From the little hall they went into the parlor, then into the dining-room and kitchen, and thence to the bedroom.

"Sam's wife has swept and cleaned the whole house," John said, appreciatively. "It is as clean as a new pin."

"I knew some good housekeeper had been over it," Tilly said, giving free vent to her delight over everything. "I didn't dream, from what you said, that it would be as nice as this," she declared. "Why, it is simply wonderful! But you say you think Mrs. Cavanaugh looked after it. Then—then you don't think that your mother—" She hesitated, and with a faint shadow in her face she broke off and stood looking at the floor.

"No." There was a companion shadow on his face as he answered, rather lamely, she thought. "She'd never think of it—even if—if she was expecting us."

"Not expecting us?" Tilly said, gropingly. "Then she doesn't know. You didn't write to her that we were to be married?"

"No"—John's glance wavered as he slowly released the word—"I didn't write her. I didn't care whether she knew it or not."

"I think I understand now," Tilly said to herself. "They have had some sort of family disagreement and are not on speaking terms."

"Never mind," she said, aloud, seeing a cloud on his face. "All that will come out right. In time I'll win her love—you see if I don't."

His frown deepened, but he said nothing. Their bags had been left in the little hall, and he went to get them. When he returned she was standing before the wide mirror of the new-fashioned bureau. She had taken off her hat and the elevated gas-jet on the wall threw a blaze of light into her beautiful hair. He put down the bags and stood gazing at her with eyes full of timid reverence and worship.

"Poor, dear little Tilly!" he said, almost huskily. "You look so lonely, here just with me like this, away from your home and friends. I am not worthy of you, little girl—no man is. I feel that. I know it down deep inside of me. Until I met you I never knew what a good, pure girl was like. Oh, you are so different from all the women I've ever known. Somehow you seem to have dropped down from the skies."

She didn't fully understand him. How could she? And yet his look and tone went straight to her heart. She stood staring at him for a moment and then she advanced to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked up into his eyes.

"You say I'm different from other girls, John. Well, you are different from all other men. Oh, it is so very sweet of you—your silly fear that you can't make me happy—your continual reference to that absurdity. Why, John, I am so happy that I can't express it. No one else could have made me so. I am the luckiest girl in the world."

Her throbbing lips invited it, and he bent down and kissed them. He drew her into his arms. She felt his great breast quiver and heard him sigh. Not yet was she comprehending him—not yet was he quite able to comprehend himself.

CHAPTER XXIII

However, after the first three days had passed and there was now nothing in the cottage to be done except to prepare her husband's supper, breakfast, and lunch for his dinner-pail, the time began to drag on her hands. She sat on the little porch nearly all the time, for the outside view was more soothing than the cramped interior of the rather dark little house. Across the vacant lots, and above the dim roofs of the neighboring negro shanties, she saw the smoke from the town's cotton-factories, woolen-mills and iron-foundries, the steam-whistles of which were John's signals for early rising and her own best guide to the approach of nightfall and her husband's longed-for return. Above the trees, an eighth of a mile away, could be seen the roof of Mrs. Trott's house. John had reluctantly pointed it out one evening as they stood at the gate, and every day now she looked at it as the physical symbol of a mystery which was growing more and more inexplicable. She had come to feel that there was something about John's mother which he himself did not fully understand and from which he shrank in morbid and manly sensitiveness.

Cavanaugh had called one evening, and as the three friends sat on the porch, the weather being warm, he had explained that his wife was still confined to her bed and was deeply regretting her inability to come over and see Tilly. But neither did the contractor help Tilly to solve the brooding enigma. On the contrary, his very reticence seemed to deepen it, for he had the disturbed air of a man avoiding some disagreeable fact. How could it be, Tilly began to ask herself, that a man so genial as John should have absolutely no women friends in the town of his birth, and why was it that even his men friends should so persistently shun his residence and show so little interest in his bride? There was Joe Tilsbury, she recalled. What a contrast, what an inexplicable contrast! Joe's friends had given the wife he had brought home a far-reaching welcome, afternoon receptions, quilting-bees, dances, straw-rides, surprise-parties, and even the jovial jokers of the village, in grotesque costumes, had serenaded the couple with tin pans and cow-horns. Tilly herself had taken part in the courtesies to the wife of a man far beneath John in point of position and attainments. What could it mean? What?

Four days after the departure of her daughter, Mrs. Whaley received the third letter from Tilly, and Whaley found her one morning at her churn with that letter on her knee, the dasher inactive in a steadily extended hand.

"Who's that from?" he inquired. "Oh, I see! She writes powerful often, don't she? Well, how does she like it?"

Mrs. Whaley was silent, her eyes on the milk-coated hole in the churn-lid through which the worn dasher was wont to glide up and down. Noting her mood, Whaley gruffly took up the letter and, adjusting his black-rimmed nose-glasses, he read it.

"What do you think of it?" she asked, when he put it down.

"I don't know as I think anything much about it," was his response. "House, house, house! That is all there is in it—tables here and chairs there, a new organ, cook-stove that runs by gas, and water on tap within arm's-length—to say nothing of milk left on the front-door step, as well as a block of ice in summer-time every morning. All that, I say, but not one word about the big union-tabernacle-tent revival that Cavanaugh said was to open there this week? I'd walk ten miles through the broiling sun to meet that preacher and hear him rip the hide off of the ungodly down there. That town is just big enough to be full of hell, 'blind-tiger' joints, and houses full of shamefaced strumpets that are fined in city court and allowed to keep on even by the law in their devilish occupation."

Mrs. Whaley was never known to sigh. Sighs are born of elements which she had suppressed till they had died a natural death, but there was something in her very uncommunicating manner that provoked her husband's lingering at her side.

"You don't say what you think," he said, restoring his glasses to their tin case and snapping its lid down.

She raised her eyes and fixed them on his. "It is not what she says, but what it seems to me she ought to say and don't that seems strange to me," was her reply. "Why, there is no mention at all about any of John's kin—not one single word about his mother—not one single word about any woman stepping in even for a minute. I don't care anything about your tabernacles or your whisky-joints—what seems strange to me is that Tilly don't seem to have made a single acquaintance since she got there. She writes, you see, about Cavanaugh coming over and why his wife didn't, as if that was something to tell. She writes about John being away in the country all day, and, as far as I can gather, she is at home all by herself from dawn till nightfall. There is something powerfully odd about all that. I don't know what it is, but it is there."

"I know one thing about John Trott that I didn't know when he was here," Whaley pursued, tapping his thumb with the case of his glasses, "and I tell you if I had known it he would have had to change before he took a daughter of mine to live under a roof with him. I got it straight that he's been heard to say that he didn't believe in a God or the Bible, and that folks were silly fools that did. I heard it this morning and I made it my business to trace it down. He said it, and I'm here to say that I don't want to be the granddaddy of the children of an atheist. The wrath of an offended God would fall on them and on me. Tilly was put in my care. The Catholics damned the soul of my son when he went over to those idol-worshipers through the wiles of a present-day Eve, and here I stood stock-still and let an avowed atheist take away my daughter. Do you think I'm going to stand it? Man-killing is said to be wrong, but killing human snakes is not, and a man that will lead an innocent Christian girl away from the smiles of God deserves death, let the law of the land be what it may. I've got a good pistol. I've got a steady finger and a firm arm. I tell you to look out. I don't know what may happen. Our Lord said Himself that He came not to bring peace, but a sword, and I'll be at war with atheism against my own flesh and blood till I die."

"You wouldn't be as foolish as that," Mrs. Whaley faltered, for once daring to oppose her spouse. "Even if he is an infidel he may get over it under—under Tilly's influence."

"Get over it, a dog's hind foot!" Whaley sniffed, his great nostrils fluttering, his harsh face rigid. "No wife ever does. They go with their husbands and so do the children, and children's children, all the way down, if the flow of hell's poison is not stopped, and I'll stop it."

On the day that dialogue was taking place Sam Cavanaugh was seated by the bedside of his wife. "Yes, I went by there," he was saying. "John had bought some fine peaches from a mountain wagon and wanted Tilly to have them to put up in jars. She was out in the little yard. I saw her clean across the old circus-grounds. She was walking back and forth, and I'll admit she looked lonely. You were right about what you said that time. I begin to see my mistake. As awkward as it would have been, maybe I ought to have had a straight talk with John, if nobody else. It looks to me like he is slowly opening his eyes now, but doesn't know how to fetch up the subject when we are together. He comes a little later in the morning and starts for home on the dot. I've seen him on the scaffold, looking off over the fields in the very saddest sort of way. He is becoming different. He never curses the men now when they make a bobble or are slow with mortar or brick, and he has lost interest in plans and figures. They have all noticed it. Some seem to understand, while others don't. They all respect him too much to tattle among themselves about his private matters. They love him. They all love John Trott—rough as he is, they all love him; and as for me—as for me—my God! my heart aches! I feel like I've made a mistake, but I can't feel that I am much to blame, for I was going by my best lights. They love each other, those two do, with all their souls. How could I burst it up with a nasty revelation like I'd 'a' had to make?"

CHAPTER XXIV

"What are you saying?" Lizzie Trott cried, incredulously, and with her carmined lips parted she stood staring at her friend.

Jane repeated what she had said, and then both of them were astonished by a comment from Dora as she leaned against the table and smiled.

"I'm glad it is out," the child said. "I was dying to tell it. I knew it was coming off long ago, but he made me promise not to give it away."

"You knew?" Mrs. Trott cried, her eyes flashing behind their waxed lashes.

"Yes, and all about the house being rented. Huh! I guess I did! I saw Sam Cavanaugh hide the key under the door-step one day, and after he left I unlocked the door and went in and looked it over. Oh, it is mighty pretty! I saw Mrs. Cavanaugh come in and clean it up one day, too, and I knew that things was getting ripe. Huh! I've already seen Tilly, too, for I've passed her several times while she was out in the yard. I'd have spoke to her, but my best dress was out on the line and I know John would want me to look neat and clean."

With steady eyes and a motionless breast Lizzie Trott turned toward the stairs. "I want to talk to you in private, Jane," she said, under her breath. "Come up to your room."

"I was going up, anyway, to get these hot things off," Jane said, complainingly. "Something is wrong with me, Liz. I can't lace as tight as I did without suffocating. I've got to take off my corset and lie down. I almost fainted in Lowe & Beaman's this morning while I was waiting for Doctor Renfrow to mix my tonic. He laughed and said that I drink too much adulterated whisky for a woman of my build. He felt my pulse and looked at my tongue and eyes and talked sorter serious about my condition. He asked how old my mother was when she died, and when I told him 'thirty-six' he shook his head and said I must come into his office some day and let him examine me thoroughly."

Jane was out of breath by this time, for she had been talking while ascending the stairs, and she turned into her room and sank down on the bed. Mrs. Trott followed and stood over her, her hands on her hips.

"You say they have been here two days?" she said.

"Yes; came in the night," Jane panted forth as she began to unhook her silk dress. "Oh, my! I have that gone feeling again—sort of swimming-like, and when I try to see all of your face at once I get only part of it—like a black spot was coming between—and if I look at the wall there in the shade or at the floor I can see wriggling lights. The doctor said my liver was awful."

Lizzie Trott took a chair and sat in it. She bent downward, her bare, shapely elbows on her knees, her ringed fingers holding her chin.

"For the love of Heaven," she said, impatiently, "let up on your whining for a minute and let's talk about John. What do you think about it?"

"Oh, I don't know what to think!" and with a low groan Jane threw herself back on the bed. "What do I care? They are full of health and can take care of themselves, while here I lie with hardly strength enough to unlace myself."

"Why didn't he tell us, do you suppose?" Lizzie continued. "Why hasn't he been over? Two days and nights, and nothing said or done! Why, it is outrageous—simply outrageous!"

"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back. "Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker, too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering you. You are wondering—well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if anybody has told her—well, told her about us—all about us, I mean."

Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a pattern in the worn rug by the bed.

"Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always thought he was blind, anyway—going about with his figuring and blue papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes, that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how—well, how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so, too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking—?"

"For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep up a separate house. Must—must I go over there? Do you think I—I ought to call? Doesn't it look like—like he means something by—by keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some time back."

"Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not put foot across his door-sill—not even if he asked me. No, not even if he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!"

"And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause.

"Because"—and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by fear of giving offense—"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet."

"You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair.

"I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If—if you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if she does."

Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these words:

"Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie—tell him I am in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to get rid of him, that is certain."

Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy.

CHAPTER XXV

"I—I wanted to see you, but—but I thought maybe I'd better ask John first. He hasn't been over home yet, and I don't know whether he'd want me to come or not. He told me about you, Tilly. He told me, and nobody else, and I didn't let a soul know, either—my aunt, or Liz, or any one."

"Oh, I see! I know now. You are Dora, aren't you?"

"Yes'm," in great relief and with a lifted face. "I see. Then you know about me?"

"Oh yes, and you must come in and see me." Tilly opened the gate. The little pinched face appealed to her, as well as the child's crude timidity. Dora stepped gingerly inside, her coarse, ill-fitting shoes grating on the graveled walk. One of her little hands was loosely buried in a woman's black kid glove, the mate of which was damply clutched in bare fingers, the nails of which were jagged and black. By Tilly's side she clumsily moved along till they had reached the porch steps, where she paused hesitatingly.

"I almost feel like I know you," Tilly went on to reassure her. "Somehow I almost feel that you are John's sister. I don't know why, but I do. Would you care if I kissed you?"

"Kissed me?" Dora started and stared blankly. "You mean— Huh! you don't want—"

"This is what I mean, you poor dear little thing!" and Tilly bent down and kissed the wan cheek. "There, now, you must come in and see our new house. John will not be home till nearly dark."

"I don't know whether John will fuss or not," Dora said. "Maybe he wanted me to wait till—till he told me. I don't know. From the way my aunt and Liz talks, a body would think he intended to cut us clean off his list."

"Liz?" Tilly asked. "I've heard John mention your aunt, but who is Liz?"

"Liz? Why, Liz— You know she is— Why, Liz is his mother!"

"But—but why do you call her Liz?" Tilly asked, in wonder.

"Because that's her name. Everybody calls her Liz. I don't know— I can't remember that I ever heard John call her anything. He was always cursing her—that is, when he spoke to her. I don't blame him. She is no good and is always after him for money."

They had reached the little parlor now, and Dora sank into one of the new chairs and swung her thin legs to and fro. She was now more at ease, and was inspecting the room with the wide eyes of a curious child.

"Curse her?" Tilly gasped. "You don't mean that my husband would actually curse his own mother?"

"Huh!" Dora sniffed, half absently, for she was looking admiringly at the cheap dress Tilly had on. "Huh! you would, too, if you had to live with her and drudge for her like me and him do. She is peevish and fretful. If things go wrong with her when she is out at night she is a very hell-cat in the morning. I've heard her say she was going to kill herself, and when her and my aunt have a scrap, things fly about, I tell you. She is mad now. Oh, my! ain't she mad at John for not telling her about you? She drove out to his work yesterday, and, from what she told my aunt, her and John must have had a big row, right before the men, too. Aunt Jane told her John could have her arrested—that the judge would be on his side. But I reckon John tried to quiet her. He always does when she flies plumb to pieces."

Tilly's face was grave and pale. "I think I understand now," she said, in a sinking voice. "Mrs. Trott is out of her mind; John is sensitive about it, and—"

"Who's out of her mind—Liz?" The child laughed derisively. "Don't you believe it! Aunt Jane says she has a clear head on her when it comes to getting the best of any deal. They swapped dresses once and Liz hid some big grease spots that didn't show till Aunt Jane was dancing on a platform in the sun at a picnic. That was a whopping, big row, for the laugh was on Aunt Jane and she had no chance to change till she got home."

Tilly was bewildered. She told herself, as she sat peering into the guileless eyes before her, that she must know more than she did know and this was an opportunity.

"I made some fresh cake yesterday," she said. "Wait; I'll get you some. It has icing on it, and jelly between the layers."

But Dora refused to be treated as a formal visitor. She followed Tilly into the kitchen, now clutching her ribbons and swinging her broad hat in her hand. "John said you was a good cook," she remarked. "He said you was too hard-worked up there, and that he was going to give you a long, sweet rest. Lord! that boy thinks the sun rises and sets in you! He said you was pretty, but I don't think you are extra. Do you?"

"No, I'm anything else." Tilly was now cutting the big, white cake. The situation was too grave for personal trivialities. She put a slice on a plate and handed it to the child. Dora took the cake, declined the plate, and began eating eagerly, smearing her lips with the jelly and licking them with an encircling tongue. She had put her hat and gloves on a table and was becoming even more communicative.

"I love cake like this with wine," she said. "Have you any about?"

"No. My parents are opposed to wine," Tilly said. "Surely you, as young as you are, don't drink it?"

"Don't I, though!" The child all but leered, and laughed aloud. "What do you take me for—a silly ninny? When they have it at home I get my share, you bet, and I don't always wait for them to get too drunk to see, either. I hide a bottle when there is a big lot. You see, Bill Raines—the biggest, fattest old roly-poly you ever laid eyes on—sends it over by the case. He is full of fun, drunk or sober, with up-to-date songs and jokes—he is a whisky drummer from Louisville, and the rest of the boys say it don't cost him anything—'samples,' I think Liz said, to treat with and make folks buy. Well, as I set in to say, when he gets to town he generally has a big lot delivered to us. He used to like Aunt Jane, but they had a fuss, and he goes with Liz now. He is always flush, plays for high stakes, and cleans the board nearly every time. His luck is always with him. He won't cheat, and they say he shot a fellow in the hip that tried it on him one night at the races. I don't know. I'm just telling you what they all say. I like him— I like the old devil, for he always has a good word for me. He told Aunt Jane, and between us two I think that's what the fuss was about. Give me another piece, will you? It is a million times better than baker's cake. Bakers use spoiled eggs in their dough. I can smell 'em in spite of the flavoring. My! this is good! Wine or no wine, it goes right to the spot!"

In munching the cake the child forgot that she had not finished what she had started to say, and with bated breath and lips grimly tense Tilly reminded her of her omission.

"Oh yes, about that fuss!" Dora swallowed as she resumed. "Bill ripped her up for scolding about me. He said that it was a shame the way I was treated, and that if something wasn't done right off—me sent to school and fed and clothed better—he was going to court about it. Lord! Lord! how mad Aunt Jane was, and Liz, too! They said he was trying to make trouble. That was a month ago. Huh! I think they are right! What business is it to that old pot-bellied duck what I do or don't do? He is no kin of mine and I don't want to go to school, either. I tried it once, and that was enough for me. Sat on a bench all day, with a prissy old maid making me hold a book before my face."

Dora declined a third piece of cake without thanks other than a gesture of repletion as she placed her hand on her stomach, smiled, and shook her unkempt head.

"No. I'd make myself sick," she said. "I'll take a drink of water, though. I seem to feel lumps of it lodged in my chest. I reckon I put in too much at once. If I had wine, now— But of course that is out of the game."

Tilly supplied the water. Her heart was as heavy as lead. She was afraid to admit that she believed the terrible thing which, like the bile of some all-inclosing disease, was oozing into her consciousness. She led the child into the sitting-room and listlessly invited inspection of this or that article—the few photographs on the table, a china vase holding flowers, a new Bible which was the inscribed wedding-present of the minister's wife, and some other things which to Tilly now seemed to weep in sheer sympathy for her under the horror which brooded over her. But she fought off the suspicion. It couldn't be—it mustn't be.

"My mother-in-law—Mrs. Trott—John's mother," she stammered in the effort to speak unconcernedly. "Being a widow, she will need money, help from me and John, won't she? Don't you think so, Dora?"

"No, Aunt Jane says no," answered the child, making a wry face as she looked at a picture of Tilly's father. "Gee! what an old pie-faced hayseed this is! For the Lord's sake, who is it?"

"But why won't she need it?" Tilly had heard the question, but did not want to spare the time for a reply which might or might not embarrass her iconoclastic guest. "John has been giving her part of his wages, hasn't he?"

"Yes, but he has to call a halt somewhere, my aunt says. She says Liz can get all the money she needs if she won't throw it away as fast as she gets it and play her cards so she won't be fined so often."

"Fined?" The word fell from Tilly's irresolute lips in sheer dread of further revelations. "Fined! What do you mean?"

"'Soaked' by the judge, that is all I know," Dora quoted, indifferently. "About once a month they both have to go in and pay up or be jugged. Old Roly-poly said once that he paid the running expenses of this town himself. What are 'running expenses'? Hanged if I know."

"I don't know." Tilly made an all but somnambulistic reply. Had some one—even John—died suddenly, she could not have been more shocked. Even John's support in her terrible strait seemed somehow likely to be withheld, for how could she go to him with such a matter, seeing that he had not fully confided in her?

"I must be going now," the weird child remarked. "You see, I sneaked over and must get home before they wake up. I'll go in by the back way and change my dress, and they will never know about this lark. At least that's what I'm counting on. You may tell brother John I was over if you want to. He won't give me away. I want you to see the doll he sent me, and her bed and carriage. Gosh! they are scrumptious!"

When Dora had left, Tilly stood at the gate and watched her crossing the vacant lots till she was out of sight. Then the young wife went back to her work, but it had lost its charm. She could think of nothing but the discoveries she had made. She was enabled now to account for hundreds of discrepancies and omissions in her husband's words and acts in the past. Now all things were clear—too clear by far for her peace of mind. The terrible scandal would reach Cranston. It was sure to, eventually, and all her friends and acquaintances would pity her. And as for Joel Eperson—why, knowing him as she knew him, it would crush him. Her marriage already had dealt him a blow, and this would add to his suffering. As for her parents, she fancied her mother's taking it stolidly and inexpressively; but her father, ah, that would be a different matter! She dared not contemplate the effect on his monumental pride and uncontrollable temper. He would interpret it in terms of heaven, hell, and eternity. He would be as relentless as a patriarch ordered by the voice of God to slay his young in the cause of righteousness. Something must be done, and quickly, but what?

CHAPTER XXVI

He went to the kitchen. She heard him fumbling about for some matches. Then he came back, striking the matches and lighting the jets in dining-room, sitting-room, and hall.

"You are hungry," she said. "Supper is ready, all but taking it up."

"Well, yes, I guess I am," he said. "Gee! little girl, it is fine to have a place to come to like this." He caught her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. "In a snug place like this a man can throw off his troubles easier than anywhere else. Sam calls it 'a cottage of delight,' and that's what it is."

"Troubles?" she repeated, stealing a look into his face. "Have you troubles, my darling?"

She thought that he avoided her direct gaze, and she was sure that she felt him start slightly, and that his immediate kiss was somewhat more mechanical than usual.

"Oh, every fellow in my business has more or less worries," he parried, awkwardly. "You see, a good deal depends on my judgment, and now and then Sam and I disagree on little details of construction, and we have to argue it out to a finish."

"Have you had any disagreement to-day?" Tilly was probing him desperately, knowing well that the subject had naught to do with the weight on her breast and his.

"Oh no, not to-day," he said, lightly. "Don't be alarmed. Sam and I work all right together. He's always talking about me and him going into partnership. He wants to tie me here, you see; but I don't know. The world is wide, and I could make a living anywhere."

They finished their supper and went to sit on the porch, where the air circulated better than in the house. "I had a caller to-day," she suddenly announced.

"What, a—a— You say you had a—" He broke off, and then finished in a breath of seeming relief. "Oh, Mrs. Cavanaugh! Sam said she would soon be up; but from what he said I thought she'd be in bed for another week at least."

"It wasn't Mrs. Cavanaugh." Tilly's hand was in his and she felt his calloused fingers twitch and remain tense while he waited for her to finish. "It was the little girl from your house."

His fingers shook. He stared at her through the twilight. She saw his lips move as if for utterance, but no sound came forth. It was an awkward moment for them both.

"Oh, so she came!" John finally got out. "I thought she was too backward to—to go anywhere."

"She was timid at first," Tilly said, choking down the despair that seemed to rise in her throat like a fluid; "but I gave her some cake and made her feel at home the best I could."

There was another turgid pause. John managed to break it, inexpert though he was in the verbal finesse he was evidently trying to use.

"She is a queer little imp," he said. "Don't you think so?"

"Yes, very, very strange, for a child of her age. I think she liked me pretty well, and—and I did her. She ought to be taught. Can she read or write? I didn't think to ask her."

"She doesn't know B from a bull's track." John tried to smile, as he forced a laugh. "Yes, she ought to be taught, I guess." He was silent for a moment, and then he resumed: "What did she have to say? She can talk a regular blue streak at times, and I am wondering—wondering—"

"She told me all about the doll and doll-things you sent her," Tilly answered, resorting to subterfuge with no little skill. "Let a child like that start to talk about her playthings and she will run on all day. She didn't stay very long. She said she had work to do at home."

From the sudden change of his face, Tilly comprehended the relief that must have swept through him at that moment. He glanced toward the center of the town where a cluster of lights threw a glow on the sky. "There is a show under a tent on Main Street to-night," he said. "It may not be much good, but it is something to go to. Suppose we walk over? It isn't very far. When it is out we can stop at Tilman's ice-cream and soda-water parlor and take something cool."

"No"—Tilly shook her head—"let's stay at home."

"But why? Listen! That's them now!" There was a sound of a brass band playing in the direction of the lights, the blare of horns, and the beating of drums. "They always play outside the tent to draw a crowd. Why don't you want to go, little girl?"

"You said you were tired."

"Who, me? Good gracious! Now that I've had my supper I feel like a fighting-cock. We'd better go. You are staying in too close, anyway."

CHAPTER XXVII

"It doesn't make any odds what I believe," John returned, in a thoughtful tone. "You got a lot, one way or another, out of your meeting and Sunday-school up at home, and—and this is a dull town. It is full of sets and a lot of silly pride, drawing the line at this and that. Take my trade, for instance. Do you know a brick mason is sort o' looked down on by the fool gangs that go in for style and show? Up your way everything is more on a level. One man is as good as another. That is one thing I like about religion. In the backwoods, at least, it does away with a lot of stuck-up ideas. You mustn't think I want you to quit going to church. No, I want you to go. I can't take part, but you can go on the same as you used to."

They were now in front of the tent's opening. And as Tilly was peering in at the brilliantly lighted platform on which sat some singers behind an organ, and a young, square-jawed, long-haired minister in a frock-coat, John thought she might be interested in the service.

"Maybe you'd rather go in to-night," he advanced. "It is with you to decide. Is it preaching or show?"

"But you don't like preaching," she said.

"I don't count in this shuffle," he jested. "They are both shows to me. The only difference is that the burnt-cork and dancing people admit they want your money, and these people lie about it."

Tilly frowned. "You get worse and worse," she said. "Let's go to the show. It will be good for you after working so hard to-day."

"Well, we'll come here to-morrow night," he said. "We've got to have some amusements. You are by yourself too much. I've been thinking a lot about the way you are fixed down here in this measly, hypocritical town. You see, up there where you were raised you know every man, woman, and child, but here you are a stranger. I mean— I mean—" He was beyond his depth and realized it, quite to his chagrin. Tilly came to his rescue.

"Never mind about me," she broke in, quickly and with tact, as she drew him on in the direction of the lights and music farther up the street. "I am thoroughly happy here. I don't want anything but you and our little home. I love you more and more. Some day you will know why, but I do. I'm going to make you happy, John, happier than you've ever been."

He sighed, and it was as if he were conscious that the sigh which had surged up within him, in a way, was a denial of the hope her words extended.

He paid their fare at the opening in the tent and went in and sat on one of the crude, unbacked benches. The place was filling fast. Laughing parties of young men and young ladies entered. John told Tilly who some of them were. The "chipper, fluffy-headed blonde" was a banker's daughter, with the son of the president of the largest iron-works in Ridgeville. Another girl was the only child of a rich money-lender and the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know, however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street, and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for their lack of sympathy for the poor.

There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents extra." The young society people had not taken them, for some reason or other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm.

It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed.

"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?"

"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red.

Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly.

Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw that John was valiantly pretending to be absorbed in their maneuvers. He was still flushed, and his eyes all but stood out from their sockets in their grim fixity. How she pitied him! How she longed to take the strong red hand which half clutched his knee and assure him that it didn't matter to her at all.

In the middle of the act something seemed to actually draw her eyes to his mother's face. Lizzie Trott, with an expression half bewildered, half abashed, was gazing past her son straight at her. The eyes of the two met in a steady stare of infinite curiosity. The eyes of the woman of the world seemed to cling to the eyes of youth and purity. The former sank first. Lizzie Trott's wavered and fell to the dainty handkerchief in her lap.

"She is like John about the mouth and eyes," Tilly thought. "Poor woman! I could love her. For John's sake I could love her. Yes, I could love her. In spite of what she is, I could love her. Poor woman! Poor woman! And she is John's mother—actually his mother! She is not wholly bad. I see that in her face. Something is wrong. She looks tired, sad, disgusted."

Tilly now saw John with a flurried look in his eyes glance toward the entrance. She read his thoughts. He was wondering if they might not get away. He was dreading something, but what she knew not. Perhaps he was afraid that his mother might at the end of the performance come across boldly and introduce herself to her daughter-in-law, and perhaps make a scene as she had done the day before. Again Tilly looked at her mother-in-law. Their eyes met once more and clung together with almost mystic comprehension.

"Don't be afraid," Lizzie Trott's whole aspect seemed to say. "We'll go away. I understand, and I'll not make it hard for you."

And a moment later she was whispering something into the ear of her companion, and the two rose and went out. John saw their backs as they left, and Tilly noticed the expression of vast relief in his face.

"Poor woman!" Tilly said to herself. "We could be friends. She is a real woman, after all. She'd have to be to be John's mother."

An hour later they were leaving the tent. Tilly declined John's invitation to go to the soda-water and ice-cream parlor across the street where a gay crowd under revolving fans were taking seats at numerous small white tables.

"I don't care for anything," she assured him. "Let's walk on. The night is lovely and it looks like it is close in there."

On his strong arm she hung tenderly as they strolled slowly back to the cottage. John was changed. A sort of blight seemed to have swept over him. She understood the cause of it and loved him all the more. That he would never open his lips on the subject she was sure, but she could read many of his thoughts which burrowed through some of his roundabout utterances, as, for instance, what he said as they stood at their little gate.

"We must have some good long talks about my business," he said. "About what's far ahead, you know, as well as right now. Sam wants me here. In fact, he pretends to think he can't do without me to help out in several big contracts, but between me and you— I was wondering yesterday what you'd think if I was to tell you that I'm just fool enough to think that I could go to some big Western city and light on my feet right at the start. A fellow that sells cement and lime to us told me not long ago that I could hit it big out in Seattle. He was looking over some of my figures that Sam showed him. I was wondering— You see, I am a little afraid that you might not like to go away so far from your kin, with a big hulk of a scamp like me, and—and—" John swung the gate open and seemed unable further to direct his anxious outpourings.

Tilly understood—too well she understood what he meant, what he feared—and she made up her mind that a dubious move for her sake only should not be taken. John had not thought of such a thing before marriage. Why should it happen now?

"I don't think you really ought to make a change just yet," she said, firmly. "Mr. Cavanaugh is determined to push you ahead as fast as possible. He told me so the other day. He said he needed your brain for expert estimates and calculations, and that there were big things ahead of you both as a firm."

John was now unlocking the door, and the dark interior of the house seemed to add more gloom to his troubled bearing. "Oh, Sam's all right," he said. "Sam means well and would do right by me, but—but I can't say exactly that I like this town. There is nothing to it. They tell me that the West is a different proposition. Folks don't—don't meddle in one another's business out there. It is more free and easy, not so hidebound and overrun with hypocrisy. A man is judged by what he is—by the amount of gray matter he has in his skull, by his character, and not by—not by—well any little thing that he can't help, you know. I mean, well, like what you saw there to-night—that gang of stuck-up boys and girls, living on their family backing. The world's wide, and, God or no God, there must be better things dealt out than this. I mean than this is to some. I never thought much about it when I first began to think you might come here with me, but I do now, and there is no use denying it. Of course, I don't want Sam to know yet. He would do all he could to help me, but Sam is—is just Sam, as helpless against some difficulties as I am."

"Don't light the gas yet." Tilly caught his hand entreatingly. A deep sob of sympathy filled her throat, and she drew him to the little wicker seat on the porch. "Let's sit awhile here where it is cool. It is warm in the house."

They sat side beside each other.

"I see. You don't want any Western experiments," he said, plaintively, his great fingers toying with her hair and now and then touching her brow. "That is the way of a woman."

"I think," Tilly said, leaning her head against his breast and holding his hand in hers, "that we ought to let well enough alone." Her thoughts sank into inexpression and ran on. Should she tell him that she knew all—knew what he was trying to run from on her account—and assure him that she wanted to face the whole situation? But how could she tell him, knowing how sensitive his sudden awakening had made him to the awful matter? If he had wanted her to know it he would have brought it up himself. No, that must wait, for to let him know that she knew all would only add to his pain. He was finding a sort of respite in her supposed ignorance of the situation; she would let it be so for a while, anyway.

CHAPTER XXVIII

"Of course he knowed!" cried out another man, who was a shoemaker and bore the marks of his trade on his hands. "Wasn't that contractor hand-in-glove with him, and didn't Cavanaugh know the whole thing as plain as the nose on his face? I know a man that went straight to Brother Whaley and told him this Trott was an atheist, and my informant offered to bring sworn evidence of all that Trott had said on that line, the most damnable talk, by the way, that hell ever had spouted in our midst."

"Oh, I'm admitting that part," the wizen-faced little man piped in. "I admit all that, Brother Tumlin. Brother Whaley had heard of that, but it seems that Cavanaugh persuaded him to gloss it over and leave the fellow in Tilly's hands for gradual conversion to the truth; but as to the other matter—the thing that is too dirty to talk about even here to you men while Sister Suggs is out of the room—"

"He knew that, too," broke in the shoemaker, angrily. "How could he keep from it? We got it, didn't we? Isn't Trott's mother notorious?"

"I'm not disputing that," the little man went on. "All I want to set forth is that, even though Brother Whaley thinks he is the only man in seven states that can interpret Scripture right and does know considerable on that line, he is entitled to a fair show from us."

"I wonder, brethren"—it was Mrs. Suggs who now appeared, wiping her fat hands on her blue-and-white checked apron—"I wonder if I might be allowed to put in a bare word right here?"

Silence prevailed. A look of vague dissent passed over the solemn faces. Suggs pulled at his stubby chin whiskers and knitted his bushy brows. "If I'm chairman," he said, dryly, "I may or may not, according to my discretion, permit Sister Suggs to speak; but as her husband, brethren, I think if I don't give her a chance she will make it hot for me, so if she will promise to fetch in some more cold cider right off I'll let her speak."

"Oh yes, let her," a voice said in a drowsy tone from the horsehair sofa in a corner. "In my time I've known women to hit a nail on the head when twenty men had either missed it or bent it double and spoiled the woodwork. What is it, sister? Shoot it out! Saint Paul was against women talking in public, but I like to listen to 'em—I do."

"I was just thinking of one thing, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen"—Mrs. Suggs bowed her frowsy head formally. She had presided at a church meeting of her sex once or twice, and there was something more than imitation of her husband's manner in her tone and bearing—"I was thinking of one particular thing that men are apt to overlook in a scramble like this seems to be, and that is this. I may as well tell you that I've had talks with the wife of the man under investigation, and, as I know how to handle a woman as well as the next one, I dropped on to a few things that I'll bet you all will overlook."

There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and, springing up, Suggs went to a window, parted the curtains, and looked out. Turning, he rapped on the back of his chair with his big pocket-knife and stared at his wife.

"That cow has pushed the rails down and got to the calf again," he said. "Either you or me will have to go out and part 'em. Of course I'm willing to do it, but if I am to conduct this meeting properly, why—"

"I move we take a recess," spoke up the wizen-faced man, "just long enough to dispose of the cow-and-calf matter, and then come back and finish up in here."

"No, I'll go attend to it," Mrs. Suggs sighed. "I know how to handle her, but you fellows have got to hold my place open. I'll be right back. It is just a baby calf, and I can tote it about in my arms. I'll drop it over in the old hog-pen till later."

She had scarcely left the room when a lank man past middle age, with long beard that was quite gray in spots and black as to the remainder, stood up. "Would it be in order, Mr. Chairman," he began, "while the lady whom you have recognized as having the floor is absent, for me to say a word or two, being as this matter is pro bono publico and vital to us all—in fact, is the primum mobile of our faith in the Almighty and His plans?"

"You have the floor, Professor Cardell. Hold on to it," Suggs said, formally. "If you don't get through before my wife parts the cow and calf she will just have to wait, that's all. That's one reason I never thought women had a right to dabble in matters like this. They would get interested in it and burn a pan of bread to cinders, or let a helpless baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her back from the talk."

Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to amount to in the future. As we all know, facilis descensus Averno est, and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation. Therefore I wish to state quite plainly—"

"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on the speaker, "I don't intend to have my place gobbled up behind my back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion and the use of free speech."

"As I see it," rapped Suggs with his knife, "Professor Cardell has just got to a point that if he wasn't allowed to go on he'd have to go back to the beginning and start over. I've noticed that he is that kind of a speaker, and as time is—"

"Professor Cardell nor no other creature in pants can take my place," Mrs. Suggs fumed. "What is he saying, anyway? You men ought to be ashamed of yourselves, setting here like stranded catfish, swallowing all them foreign words and pretending you understand 'em. He whirls off a lot of jumbled talk and the last one of you look as wise as a sleepy ape in the corner of a cage in a circus."

"I see I ought to apologize." Professor Cardell wore a flush which looked as if it had its rise in scholastic pride rather than in rebuked humility. "I am well aware that my phraseology is interspersed with Latin, but that is due to my constant reading of the ancient classics and a habit I have when I am alone of holding converse in that beautiful tongue."

"Beautiful, a dog's hind foot!" cried Mrs. Suggs. "Listen to me, Professor Cardell. I can give you valuable advice, and I'm going to do it here and now. You'd make much more headway, and clothe and feed your wife and children a sight better, if you would throw all that gibberish overboard and talk stuff that folks understand. Now nobody else hasn't had the face to tell you the truth about this, but I will. You know when you put in application as principal of the new school, and was turned down so flat? Now I got it straight from the wife of one of the committee who was to select the teacher, that when you got up before that body of plain farm folks to show what you could do, and begun all that Latin chatter, you cooked your goose for good and all. And, while I hold nothing against you otherwise, I agree with them. I've always heard that Latin is a dead language, and if that is so, it ought to be used on dead folks and not on live ones. No living person can understand half you say, and therefore I claim that your talk on this matter ought not to go before what I've got to say in words so plain that a fool can understand."

"I yield the floor to the lady," the Professor said in confusion. "Prior tempore, prior jure. She has it by rights, and I beg the pardon of the chair: and the assembly."

"Thank you, Professor," Mrs. Suggs said, as she picked at a few stray calf hairs on her sleeve. "I wouldn't insist if I wasn't sure that I've got something to say in plain English that you all will overlook. It is this, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I've had friendly talks with Sister Whaley and she has sort of let me in on her troubles and fears. Now there is just one thing that will happen if you botch this matter. Dick Whaley is the biggest fool and the wildest man when he is mad that ever lived, and, while you haven't thought of it, this thing may bring about bloodshed. He has already brought one man to death's door, and this will be the worst thing for Brother Whaley to stand of anything that ever crossed his path. He might have stood the talk about his son-in-law being an atheist, but he'll never put up with what is being said about selling his own child to a life of infamy, and the likelihood of his being the grandfather of stock of that sort. If you fellers go on with this, the innocent blood of more than one person may be on your heads. Now I'm giving you fair warning, and I'm doing it in time to set you all to thinking. Serving God is our duty, but if you fellows go over to Dick Whaley's with this cock-and-bull yarn that you just heard from a man peddling through the country, you will be led there by the devil himself. That is all I've got to say."

She sat down. There was a lengthy silence. The men glanced from one to another in helpless inquiry of rapidly shifting eyes. Then a composite stare became fixed upon Suggs's troubled lineaments. He arose, shrugged, knitted his brows, and coughed.

"There is something in what my wife has said," he began, "and, on the whole, it may be that we ought to wait a little while before we take this thing up. The whole country is rife with it, and Brother Whaley is bound to hear it. He may act rash—in fact, now that I think of it, he will be sure to do it, and I'm going to be frank and say here and now that I'd rather not handle matches around as big a powder-can as this one is. So if you will bring in the cider and cakes, Sister Suggs, I'll adjourn this meeting sine die. By the way, that's Latin, isn't it, Professor?"

"Yes," the Professor answered, warmly grateful for being applied to, "but I'd prefer the less common and more erudite term of re infecta."

"Which means," replied Suggs, without intending to joke, "that we may be infected again?"

"Oh no, not that, by any means!" the Professor responded. "You quite miss the point. You see, my worthy brother, in the Latin language—"

But the cider and cake was being brought in; the men were rising to receive the glasses which were tinkling on a tray, and good humor and smug rectitude prevailed.