CHAPTER XV—A BLOW IN THE DARK

THE noon mail brought Gaston no answer. At night he felt sure it would come.

When the wagon dashed up to the post-office that night it was fifteen minutes late. He was walking up and down the street on the opposite pavement along the square, keeping under the shadows of the trees. He turned, quickly crossed the street, and stood inside the office, listening with a feeling of strange abstraction to the tramp of the postmaster’s feet back and forth as he distributed the mail. He never knew before what a tragedy might be concealed in the thrust of a bit of folded paper into a tiny glass-eyed box. As he waited, fearing to face his fate, he remembered the pathetic figure of a grey-haired old man who stood there one day hanging on that desk softly talking to himself. He was a stranger at the Springs, and they were alone in the office together. Now and then he brushed a tear from his eyes, glanced timidly at the window of the general delivery, starting at every quick movement inside as though afraid the window had opened. Gaston had gone up close to the old man, drawn by the look of anguish in his dignified face. The stranger intuitively recognised the sympathy of the movement, and explained tremblingly: “My son, I am waiting for a message of life or death”—he faltered, seized his hand, adding, “and I’m afraid to see it!”

Just then the window opened and he clutched his arm and gasped, with dilated staring eyes, “There, there it’s come! You go for me, my son, and ask while I pray!—I’m afraid.” How well Gaston remembered now with what trembling eagerness the old man had broken the seal, and then stood with head bowed low, crying, “I thank and bless thee, oh, Mother of Jesus, for this hour!” And looking up into his face with tear-streaming eyes he cried in a rich low voice like tender music, “How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings!”

He could feel now the warm pressure of his hand as he walked out of the office with him.

How vividly the whole scene came rushing over him! He thought he sympathised with his old friend that night, but now he entered into the fellowship of his sorrow. Now he knew.

At last he drew himself up, walked to his box and opened it. His heart leaped. A big square-cut envelope lay in it, addressed to him in her own beautiful hand. He snatched it out and hurried to his office. The moment he touched it, his heart sank. It was light and thin. Evidently there was but a single sheet of paper within.

He tore it open and stared at it with parted lips and half-seeing eyes. The first word struck his soul with a deadly chill. This was what he read:

“My Dear Mr. Gaston:

“I write in obedience to the wishes of my parents to say our engagement must end and our correspondence cease. I can not explain to you the reasons for this. I have acquiesced in their judgment, that it is best.

“I return your letters by to-morrow’s mail, and Mama requests that you return mine to her at Oakwood immediately.

“I leave to-night on the Limited for Atlanta where I join a friend. We go to Savannah, and thence by steamer to Boston where I shall visit Helen for a month.

“Sincerely,

“Sallie Worth.”

For a long time he looked at the letter in a stupor of amazement. That her father could coerce her hand into writing such a brutal commonplace note was a revelation of his power he had never dreamed. And then his anger began to rise. His fighting blood from soldier ancestors made his nerves tingle at this challenge.

He took up the letter and read it again curiously studying each word. He opened the folded sheet hoping to find some detached message. There was nothing inside. But he noticed on the other side of the sheet a lot of indentures as though made by the end of a needle. He turned it back and studied these dots under different letters in the words made by the needle points. He spelled,—

“My Darling—Unto the Uttermost!”

And then he covered the note with kisses, sprang to his feet and looked at his watch.

It was now ten-thirty. The Limited left Independence at eleven o’clock and made no stops for the first hundred miles toward Atlanta. But just to the south where the railroad skirted the foot of King’s Mountain, there was a water tank on the mountain side where he knew the train stopped for water about midnight.

With a fast horse he could make the eighteen miles and board the Limited at this water station. The only danger was if the sky should cloud over and the starlight be lost it would be difficult to keep in the narrow road that wound over the semi-mountainous hills, densely wooded, that must be crossed to make it.

“I ’ll try it!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I will do it!” he added setting his teeth. “I ’ll make that train.”

He got the best horse he could find in the livery stable, saw that his saddle girths were strong, sprang on and galloped toward the south. It was a quarter to eleven when he started, and it seemed a doubtful undertaking. The Limited would make the run from Independence, fifty-two miles, in an hour at the most. If she were on time it would be a close shave for him to make the eighteen miles.

The sky clouded slightly before he reached the mountain. In spite of his vigilance he lost his way and had gone a quarter of a mile before a rift in the cloud showed him the north star suddenly, and he found he had taken the wrong road at the crossing and was going straight back home.

Wheeling his horse, he put spurs to him, and dashed at full speed back through the dense woods.

Just as he got within a mile of the tank he heard the train blow for the bridge-crossing at the river near by.

“Now, my boy,” he cried to his horse, patting him. “Now your level best!”

The horse responded with a spurt of desperate speed. He had a way of handling a horse that the animal responded to with almost human sympathy and intelligence. He seemed to breathe his own will into the horse’s spirit. He flew over the ground, and reached the train just as the fireman cut off the water and the engineer tapped his bell to start.

He flung his horse’s rein over a hitching post that stood near the silent little station-house, rushed to the track, and sprang on the day coach as it passed.

He had intended to ride fifty miles on this train, see his sweetheart face to face—learn the truth from her own lips—and then return on the up-train. He hoped to ride back to Hambright before day and keep the fact of his trip a secret.

Now a new difficulty arose—a very simple one—that he had not thought of for a moment. She was in a Pullman sleeper of course, and asleep.

There were three sleepers, one for Atlanta, one for New Orleans, and one for Memphis. He hoped she was in the Atlanta sleeper as that was her destination, though if that were crowded in its lower berths she might be in either of the others. But how under heaven could he locate her? The porter probably would not know her.

He was puzzled. The conductor approached and he paid his fare to the next stop, fifty miles.

“I’ve an important message for a passenger in one of these sleepers, Captain,” he exclaimed. “I have ridden across the mountains to catch the train here.”

“All right, sir,” said the genial conductor. “Go right in and deliver it. You look like you had a tussle to get here.”

“It was a close shave,” Gaston replied.

He stepped into the Atlanta sleeper and encountered the dusky potentate who presided over its aisles.

The porter looked up from the shoes he was shining at Gaston’s dishevelled hair and gave him no welcome.

Gaston dropped a half dollar into his hand and the porter dropped the shoes and grinned a royal welcome. “Any ting I kin do fer ye boss?”

“Got any ladies on your car?”

“Yassir, three un ’em.”

“Young, or old?”

“One young un, en two ole uns.”

“Did the young lady get on at Independence?”

“Yassir.”

“Going to Atlanta?”

“Yassir.”

“Is she very beautiful?”

“Boss, she’s de purtiess young lady I eber laid my eyes’ on—but look lak she been cryin’.”

“Then I want you to wake her. I must see her.”

“Lordy boss, I cain do dat. Hit ergin de rules.”

“But, I’m bound to see her. I’ve ridden eighteen miles across the mountains and scratched my face all to pieces rushing through those woods. I’ve a message of the utmost importance for her.”

“Cain do hit boss, hits ergin de rules. But you can go wake her yoself, ef you’se er mind ter. I cain keep you fum it. She’s dar in number seben.”

Gaston hesitated. “No, you must wake her,” he insisted, dropping another half dollar in the porter’s hand.

The porter got up with a grin. He felt he must rise to a great occasion.

“Well, I des fumble roun’ de berth en mebbe she wake herse’f, en den I tell her.”

Just then the electric bell overhead rang and the index pointed to 7. “Dar now, dat’s her callin’ me, sho!”

He approached the berth. “What kin I do fur ye M’am?” he whispered.

“Porter, who is that you are talking to? It sounds like some one I know.”

“Yassum, hit’s young gent name er Gaston, jump on bode at the water station—say he got ‘portant message fur you.”

“Tell him I will see him in a moment.”

The porter returned with the message.

“You des wait in dar, in number one—hits not made up—twell she come,” he added.

There was the soft rustle of a dressing gown—he sprang to his feet, clasped her hand passionately, kissed it, and silently she took her seat by his side. He still held her hand, and she pressed his gently in response. He saw that she was crying, and his heart was too full for words for a moment.

He looked long and wistfully in her face. In her dishevelled hair by the dim light of the car he thought her more beautiful than ever. At last she brushed the tears from her eyes and turned her face full on his with a sad smile.

“My own dear love!” she sobbed, “I prayed that I might see you somehow before I left. I was wide awake when I first heard the distant murmur of your voice. Oh! I am so glad you came!” and she pressed his hand.

“I got your letter at ten-thirty”—

“Oh! that awful letter! How I cried over it. Papa made me write it, and read and mailed it himself. But you saw my message between the lines?”

“Yes, and then I covered it with kisses. But what is the cause of this sudden change of the General toward me? What have I done?”

“Please don’t ask me. I can’t tell you,” she sobbed lowering her face a moment to his hand and kissing it. “Don’t ask me.”

“But, my dear, I must know. There can be no secrets between us.”

“My lips will never tell you. There have been a thousand slanders breathed against you. I met them with fury and scorn, and no one has dared repeat them in my hearing. I would not pollute my lips by repeating one of them.”

“But who is their author?”

“I can not tell you. I promised Mama I wouldn’t. She loves you, and she is on our side, but said it was best. Papa has made up his mind to break our engagement forever. And I defied him. We had a scene. I didn’t know I had the strength of will that came to me. I said some terrible things to him, and he said some very cruel things to me. Poor Mama was prostrated. Her heart is weak, and I only yielded at last as far as I have because of her tears and suffering. I could not endure her pleadings. So I promised to do as he wished for the present, leave for Boston, and cease to write to you.”

“My love, I must know my enemy to meet him and face the issues he raises. I can not be strangled in the dark like this.”

“You will find it out soon enough, I can not tell you,” she repeated. “I only ask you to trust me, in this the darkest hour that has ever come to my life. You will trust me, will you not, dear?” she pleaded.

“I have trusted you with my immortal soul. You know this.”

“Yes, yes, dear, I do. Then you can love and trust me without a letter or a word between us until Mama is better and I can get her consent to write to you? Oh, I never knew how tenderly and desperately I love you until this shadow came over our lives! No power shall ever separate us when the final test comes, unless you shall grow weary.”

“Do not say that,” he interrupted. “I love you with a love that has brought me out of the shadows and shown me the face of God. Death shall not bring weariness. But I dread with a sickening fear the efforts they will make to plunge you into the whirl of frivolous society. I shall be a lonely beggar a thousand miles away with not one friendly face near you to plead my cause.”

“Hush!” she broke in upon him. “You are for me the one living presence. You are always near—oh so near, closer than breathing!”

The roar of the train became sonorous with the vibration of a great bridge. He started and looked at his watch.

“We are more than half way to the stop where I must leave you and return.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Over a half hour. It does not seem two minutes. Only a few minutes more face to face, and all life crowding for utterance! How can I choose what to say, when my tongue only desires to say I love you! Bend near and whisper to me again your love vow,” he cried in trembling accents.

Close to his ear she placed her lips, holding fast his hand whispering again and again, “My own dear love—unto the uttermost. In life, in death, forever!”

He bent again and pressed his lips on her hand and she felt the hot tears.

“And now, love, comes the hardest thing of all,” she sobbed, “I must return to you my ring.”

“For God’s sake keep it!” he pleaded.

“No, I promised Mama for peace sake I would return it. She is very weak. I could not dare to hurt her now with a broken promise. She may not live long. I could never forgive myself. Keep it for me, dear, until I can wear it.”

She placed it in his hand and it burnt like a red hot coal. He placed it in an inside pocket next to his heart. It felt like a huge millstone crushing him. A lump rose in his throat and choked him until he gasped for breath.

She looked at him pathetically and saw his anguish.

“Come, my love,” she pleaded reproachfully, “you must not make it harder for me. You are a man. You are stronger than I am. Love is more my whole life than it can be yours. For this cruel thing I have said and done, you may press on my lips another kiss. If I am disobedient to my mother’s wishes God will forgive me.”

The train blew the long deep call for its hundred mile stop and they both rose, he took her hands in his.

“You have promised not to write to me, dear, but I have made no promise. I will write to you as often as I can send you a cheerful message,” he said.

“It is so sweet of you!”

“You have the little love-token still?” he asked.

“Yes, in my bosom. I feel it warm and throbbing with your love, and it shall not be taken from me in the grave!”

“That thought will cheer the darkest hours that can come and now, till we meet again, we must say goodbye,” he said huskily.

She could make no response. He placed his arms around her, pressed her close to his heart for a moment,—one long wistful kiss, and he was gone.

He rode slowly back to Hambright. The eastern horizon was fringed with the light of dawn when he reached the town. The more he had thought of his position and the way the General had treated him in attempting to settle his fate by a fiat of his own will without a hearing, the more it roused his wrath, and nerved him for the struggle. They were to measure wills in a contest’ that on his part had life for its stake.

“I ’ll give the old warrior the fight of his career!” he muttered as he snapped his square jaw together with the grip of a vise. “My brains, and every power with which nature has endowed me against his will and his money. And for the dastard who has slandered me there will be a reckoning.”

He was fighting in the dark but deep down in him he had a soldier’s love for a fight. His soul rose to meet the challenge of this hidden foe armed in the steel of a proud heritage of courage. He went to bed and slept soundly for six hours.