About noon Charles returned. Mary, at the window of the kitchen, saw him emerge from the wood back of the barn and come toward the house. There was a vague droop of weariness on him of which he seemed unaware. She met him in the front hall; his eyes fell under her stare and he flushed.
"Why did you go?" she asked, reproachfully.
He gave one of his characteristic shrugs and began to fumble in his coat pocket for a note which he finally handed her.
"It is from Martin," he said. "They managed to keep dry last night, I understand. They were glad to get the basket. The water spoiled most of the other things and they were hungry."
She read the note.
It ran: "DEAR SIS,—How sweet and good of you to send Mr. Brown back so quickly! I couldn't have stood the suspense any longer. I was afraid Tobe was dead—I thought it all night during that awful rain. I couldn't sleep, but maybe I can now. Don't let Mr. Brown leave us. He sat and talked to us this morning for an hour, and I've never heard from human lips the sort of things he said. He helped me a lot; he was so kind and gentle and kept putting himself up as a man who had made mistakes and suffered. Oh, he is wonderful, wonderful! Even Ken listened close and seemed affected. He is our friend. He shows that. He wants to help us, and he will if he can. He used to drink, but gave it up; he says it is easy. He has made me decide to act differently in the future—that is, if Tobe lives."
Mary read the rest of the note, folded the paper, and thrust it into the bosom of her dress. Charles stood at the foot of the stairs, his hat in his hand, his boots covered with mud.
"I didn't want you to tire yourself out like that," she said, gratefully, "but I'm glad you went. From this note I see how much good you have done my poor brothers. Now listen to me—I will have my way about this. Go up to your room, take off those damp things and go to bed. I am going to be your nurse for to-day, anyway. I'll bring you your lunch and you may take it in bed, and then go to sleep."
He laughed lightly and shrugged his shoulders. "Really, you must not make a baby of a great hulk like me, Miss Rowland. I've been through things ten times as bad as that little walk. I simply couldn't eat in bed. I'll be down in a few minutes."
She was about to protest, but he left her and ascended the stairs.
Coming down a few minutes afterward, he saw a saddled horse at the gate and heard voices in the parlor.
His spirits sank, for he recognized the horse as the one Albert Frazier had ridden when he had first seen him. He caught a few words the visitor was saying in his gruff, unpolished way.
"You are too high-strung and nervous, little girl. All is well so far. Leave my brother to me. I'm pulling the wool over his eyes, all right. I've made 'im think the boys are on their way to Texas, and if Tobe lives—"
Unwilling to listen, Charles passed on into the sitting-room. Glancing through the open doorway into the dining-room, he saw that the cloth was not yet spread on the table for luncheon, and he sat down to wait. The voices still came from the parlor, but he did not catch any part of what was being said. Zilla entered the dining-room and spread the cloth on the table. Presently Frazier was heard leaving. His heavy boots clattered on the steps, and the gate-latch clicked as he went out. Then Mary came in. She did not know that he was there and he surprised an unreadable, almost hunted expression on her face.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, on seeing him, "so dinner is not ready? Mr. Frazier could not stop. He is working hard to keep the sheriff off my brothers' track. He says when he left town Tobe Keith was just the same. The doctors at Carlin are afraid to probe for the—the ball. They have held a consultation, and agreed that the great specialist, Doctor Elliot of Atlanta, might operate and save him. They refuse to undertake it themselves."
"Then this Doctor Elliot ought to come and see him," Charles said.
"But Doctor Elliot is so busy that he never leaves Atlanta, except in instances where enormous fees are paid. The Carlin doctors say that Tobe ought to be taken to him. They say it would be safe to move him that distance."
"Then he must be moved," said Charles.
"Yes, he must go," Mary agreed. "The only thing is that it will cost considerable. You see, Tobe and his mother (she is a widow) are awfully poor. Yes, the money must be gotten up, and I must get it."
"You?" Charles cried. "Why should you?"
"Because no one else will do it. Even my father has the silly idea that we ought not to have anything to do with it, because it would look as if we admitted the boys' guilt. That is rubbish. A man's life—three lives—are at stake. Yes, I must raise four hundred dollars. They say it will cost that much, including transportation, nurses, and the like. I may be able to borrow it from some one, but we are hard run. Father is over his head in debt. I know where I can get the money—in fact, it has been offered to me already—but I don't like to take it. I have my reasons for—for not wanting to take it."
"It was offered you this morning—not many minutes ago," Charles said, fiercely and impulsively.
She looked up in mild surprise at his tone and the rebellious glare in his eyes, and then said, slowly and wonderingly:
"Why do you think that?"
"I don't know, but I am sure of it," he blurted from the depths of his restrained passion. "Something tells me that this Mr. Frazier wants to furnish it, and also that you shrink from being in his debt."
Mary avoided his desperate gaze. "You are a great reader of minds," she faltered. "Many men would make me angry by saying what you are saying, but I can't be offended with you. It is strange, but nothing you could do or say would annoy me. Well, you are right. As I told you once, Mr. Frazier and I are not actually engaged. Somehow, I want to be free in that way a little longer. I'm so young, you know, that marriage does not appeal to me yet. Mr. Frazier has helped my father raise money in several instances, but I have never felt that those transactions bound me in any way; but I know, and he feels, that this particular offer of his—" Her voice sank and trailed away into inaudibility.
"That if you accepted this offer it would be binding?" Charles threw into the gap.
It seemed to him that she flushed slightly. She was very erect, very stately. Somehow he thought of her as a captured young queen suffering under the indignities of her enemies. She made no answer, and, leaning toward her, he repeated his words even more earnestly and in greater agitation.
"Yes, as I look at it, the acceptance would bind me," she finally gave out. "I could not take the money otherwise, for I simply have no way of paying. He put it that way himself; that he was as much interested in my brothers as I, because, in a sense, they would be his brothers."
Charles was pale; he was trembling; he knew that his voice was unsteady, for his whole being was surcharged with a passion which his reason could not justify, and which his sheer helplessness only intensified.
"You must not accept his money; you must not bind yourself," he cried.
"Why?" she asked, with the half-eager look even a desperate woman may wear when facing the evidence of a man's growing passion for her.
"Because you don't love him," was the reply which further fed her curiosity as to his trend of thought. "You couldn't love such a man. He is incapable of appreciating you. For two such persons to marry would be a crime against the holiest laws of the universe."
"I can't quite agree with you," she replied, as she slowly shook her proud head. "You see, Mr. Brown, there are things more important than even marriage. It is important that I save my brothers, for their own sakes. I don't count. If I should have to accept this money, it may save Tobe Keith and my dear boys." She laughed half-bitterly. "What would I care after that? Do you think I would begrudge the price? Never, and I'd be as true a wife as ever was bought in a slave-mart in the Orient. Always—always after that I'd know positively that I'd accomplished some actual good in life."
"Never! never!" he cried. "It would be wrong unpardonably wrong!"
"How can you say that—you, of all men?" she suddenly demanded. "Didn't you intimate last night that by giving up your home and becoming a wanderer you had helped make others happy?"
"That was different," he flashed out. "I was a worthless drunkard, a disgrace to my home, relatives, and friends. I was compelled to leave, anyway. I could not have held my head up another day. But it is different with you. You have been nothing but a help and a blessing to your family and friends. You deserve all that life can possibly give to any one, and you must get your just dues."
She smiled and slowly shook her head. "You are a poor witness for your argument," she said. "When the time came you forgot yourself, and that really is the ideal course. You have intimated that the decision, whatever it was, has not made you unhappy, and I think it will be the same with me. Thousands of women have been contented after marriage with men they did not love very deeply. Women have even married for sordid reasons alone, and led normal lives afterward. Why should I not take the risk with such a motive as mine would be? No, if Albert Frazier is the means of saving Tobe Keith's life and restoring my brothers to me, I shall withhold nothing from him that I can give. Already he is working night and day to prevent their arrest. I couldn't bear to see them behind the bars of a jail. Kensy could stand it, but not my poor, sensitive, fanciful Martin. Let's not talk about it any more."
Tears were in her eyes, and her lips were twitching under a flood of emotion about to burst from its confines. Here the bell was rung for luncheon.
"You go on in," Mary said, huskily. "I am not a bit hungry. You will excuse me, won't you?" She turned toward the stairs to go up to her room, and, like a man walking in a dream, he went to his place at the table. What a mockery the act of eating seemed when his soul was in such turmoil! On his walk home he had felt very hungry, but his appetite had left him. He ate perfunctorily, so much so that Aunt Zilla showed concern.
"What ails yer, sir?" she asked. "Yer ain't gwine ter mek yo'se'f sick, is yer? Dat strain, two trips in one, thoo all dat mud en' slush, was onreasonable, 'long wid no sleep."
He smiled up at her. His contact on a level with the lowest of mankind had broadened his sympathies for humble people, and he felt drawn to her, for her tone was unmistakably kind.
"No, I'm all right, Aunt Zilla," he answered.
She went to the kitchen for some hot waffles, and when she put them before him she said: "I'm gwine tell you some'n', Mr. Brown. I'm gwine ter tell you, 'kase you is er stranger in dis place en' orter know. I know nice white folks when I sees 'um, en' I know dey ain't nothin' wrong 'bout you. I'm gwine tell you ter look out fer dis yer Frazier man. He won't do. He ain't de right stripe, en' ef we-all wasn't po' now he wouldn't be let in at de front do' er dis yer house. Bofe him en' his brother come fum low stock. Deir daddy was a overseer dat couldn't write his name. You kin tell what dis one is by de way he set at de table en' handle his knife en' fork en' spout wid his loud mouf when Marse Andy is talkin'. Yes, I'm gwine tell you what I heard 'im say ter Marse Andy when dey was in de settin'-room des now. Marse Andy tol' 'im what you went to de mountains fer, en' he fairly ripped en' snorted. He was mad 'kase dey-all let you know de boys' hidin'-place. He said you couldn't be trusted; dat you had some secret reason fer helpin' out wid de boys. He said de sheriff was on de lookout fer some house-breakers dat was wid de circus, en' done lef' it ter 'scape fum de law. De low rapscallion said he was bounden shore dat you was one of 'em. He said he was des lyin' low, right now, but dat befo' long when dey got de papers ter serve on you, dey was gwine arrest you."
Charles laughed softly. "Well, I am not a house-breaker, Aunt Zilla," he said. "I am not boasting of what I am. I make no claims of any sort, but I am not one of the men the Fraziers are looking for."
"Marse Andy tol' 'im dat," the woman went on, "but it des made 'im all de madder, en' he went on tryin' ter 'suade Marse Andy ter send you off. Marster has ter take er lot off'n 'im 'kase he owes 'im some money, I hear 'um say. Dey was talkin' about you when young miss come in en' hear 'um."
"Oh, she heard!" Charles exclaimed. "I'm sorry she did."
"Huh! young miss don't believe it!" Zilla cried. "She tol' 'im so ter his face, en' was purty sharp erbout it, too. She woulder say mo' on de same line ef she wasn't afeard he'd turn erginst de boys. I seed she was good mad en' tryin' powerful hard ter hold in. She come in de kitchen while 'er pa en' Mr. Frazier was talkin' en' tol' me, she did, dat I mus' not listen ter anything he say erginst you. She say you is had trouble en' is all erlone in de world widout kin en' er home, but dat you was er honorable gen'man. Shucks! I already knowed dat. I knows white folks of de right stripe es soon as I see how dey handle black folks."
Charles thanked her warmly and left the table. The soil was too wet for working in the field, and he was about to sit down on the veranda when Mary suddenly came from the parlor and faced him.
She was smiling sweetly. "Do you know what you are going to do?" she demanded, playfully and yet firmly. "You are going right up to your room and take off those damp clothes. Then you are going to cover up in bed and take a good nap."
"Am I?" he retorted, and yet he was deeply touched. He was reminded of the days in his boyhood when his mother kept watch over his well-being, and of a later period when Celeste had nursed him after his unpardonable debauches. He had been a homeless wanderer for a long time, and here in this out-of-the-way place he was being treated kindly, almost lovably. He told himself that he was unworthy of it, and yet it was sweet, so comforting that he hoped he would never lose it. He had made friends of the two boys, of the old, preoccupied gentleman, of the black serving-woman, and, above all, he had the friendship and gratitude of the marvelous young creature before him.
"Yes," she persisted, "you must go; and don't wait, either. While you were walking your wet things were not so bad, but you are inactive now, and may take cold."
With a smile he obeyed her. In his room, as he undressed, he caught sight of the picture of Ruth on his bureau, and for a moment his eyes lingered on it. It was the only visible link between him and a life that was never to be his again, but he didn't care. How wonderful the new life was! How good to feel that he was helping that particular family to bear its troubles! What did his own amount to? Nothing at all. They had become non-existent.
He was about to lie down when he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs in the yard below, and, going to a window, he looked out. Mary was mounting the horse Zilla had led from the stables to the block at the gate. The girl had donned a black riding-skirt and she wore an attractive little cap; she took her place in the saddle very gracefully. In a moment she was galloping away toward the village. He surmised what it meant. She was going to get news of the wounded man's condition.
Charles knew there was no sleep for him. How could he sleep when his mind was in its present turmoil? It was impossible. He gave up the effort, and, dressing, went down-stairs.