CHAPTER II

DR. DEARING’S house was an old-fashioned structure built long before the Civil War. It fronted on the main residential street of the town, and was of red brick partly covered with clinging ivy. It had a colonial veranda with the usual tall, fluted columns, which were painted white and rested on square blocks of masonry. It had been the property of several generations of Dearings more or less distinguished in the history of the State, and since the death of the doctor’s father, a prosperous merchant, slave-holder, and planter, it had been in the possession of the brother and sister, who, with an aged maternal uncle, General Sylvester, now occupied it.

As Dearing entered the lower gate of the grounds he saw Kenneth Galt, his next-door neighbor, crossing the lawn to reach his own house just beyond a low hedge of well-trimmed boxwood. And hearing the clicking of the iron gate-latch, Galt paused, turned, and advanced toward his friend. He was a handsome man, tall, dark, well-built, about thirty-five years of age, and with a strong, secretive face—the face of a man full of nervous force and the never-satisfied hunger of ambition.

“You’ve been to church like a good little boy,” he laughed, as he paused and stood cutting at the grass with his cane.

“Yes, and it is exactly where you ought to have been,” Dearing retorted, with a smile. “If you would only listen to a few good sermons on the right line you’d burn up that free-thought library of yours, and quit thinking you know more than your good old Godfearing ancestors.”

“I simply couldn’t sit and listen to such stuff with a straight face,” Galt answered. “Goodness knows, I’ve tried it often enough. It really seems an insult to a fellow’s intelligence. I can’t agree with you that any man ought to try to think as his forefathers did. You don’t in your profession, why should a man do it in more vital matters? You don’t bleed your patients as doctors did fifty years ago, because you know better. I believe in evolution of mind as well as of matter. We are constantly advancing. Your old-time preacher, with all his good intentions, is a stumbling-block to intelligence. You may listen to a man who tells you your house is burning down over your head and urges you to save your life, but if you don’t believe him you wouldn’t care to have him pull you out by the heels on a cold night to convince you. But you don’t hear what I am saying!” Galt finished, with a short laugh. “I am sowing my seed on stony ground. I’ve been in to see the General. I have some important letters about the railroad that he and I are going to get built one of these days. As a rule, he is more than eager to talk about it, but he was certainly out of sorts just now. I have never seen him so upset before. While I was talking to him he kept walking up and down the room, and not hearing half I was saying. He is not well, is he?”

“No, he really is not in the best of shape,” Dearing answered, with a thoughtful shadow on his face; “but I think he will pull through all right. I see him on the porch now. I’ll walk on, and talk to him.”

As Dearing drew near the house General Sylvester, who was a tall, slightly bent old man with long gray beard and hair, came down the steps and walked across the grass to a rustic seat under a tree. He was about to sit down, but seeing his nephew approaching he remained standing, a gaunt hand held over his spectacled eyes to ward off the sunlight.

“I have been waiting for you,” he said, in a piping, irritable voice. “Kenneth was in to talk business, but it seems to me that I’ll never be interested in such things any more. What’s the use? I didn’t want the money for myself, anyway. I saw the others coming back from church some time ago, and couldn’t imagine what delayed you. I’ve had another row with Madge, and this time it is serious—very, very serious.”

“Oh, that’s the trouble!” Dearing cried, and he attempted to laugh. “Uncle Tom, in your old age you are just like a school-boy with his first sweetheart. You are actually flirting with your own niece. You and she bill and coo like doves, and then get cold as ice or as mad as Tucker. What’s wrong now?”

“Well, I think a young girl like she is ought to take the sound advice of a man as old and experienced as I am, and she won’t do it. That’s all—she won’t do it, sir!”

“Of course she ought to,” Dearing said, still inclined to jest, “but you are wise enough to know that no woman ever took the advice of a man, young or old. See here, uncle, I’ll bet you haven’t had your medicine yet, and the dinner-bell will ring soon and you will have to wait fifteen minutes before you shall taste a bite. You and I ‘ll quarrel if you don’t do as I tell you. Madge won’t obey you, but you’ve got to get down on your marrow-bones and follow my orders.”

“Oh, I’ll take the blasted stuff in time!” the General fumed. “I don’t want to eat now, anyway. I tell you, I’m too mad to eat.”

“I suppose it is Fred Walton again,” Dearing said, resignedly.

“Who else could it be?” the old man burst out. “She tries to close my eyes as to her doings with him; but I got it straight that he was out driving with her last night while you were in the country.”

The face of the doctor clouded over. “You don’t mean to say that—”

“I mean that he was afraid to drive up to the door like a gentleman, but met her down-town and took her from there, and when they got back, long after dark, he left her at Lizzie Sloan’s, to keep us from getting on to it. You know, folks will talk about a thing like that.”

Dearing’s eyes flashed, and a touch of whiteness crept into his face, but he said, pacifically: “Oh, there must be some mistake. I hardly think Madge would—”

“But there isn’t any mistake, for she admitted it to me not ten minutes ago, and just as good as told me it was none of my business besides. Now, listen to me, my boy. I am an old man, but I am still in the possession of my faculties, and I know what I am talking about. I was in the bank yesterday, and had a talk with his father. He told me frankly that he intended to cut the scamp off without a penny. He gave the fellow a position of trust in the bank, but instead of behaving himself properly, he started into gambling, speculating in futures, and every reckless thing he could think of. He turned customers away, scared off depositors, who don’t like to leave their money in such hands, and in many ways injured the business. Old Walton was so mad he could hardly talk to me, and when I told him right out how I felt about my niece going with him, he said he didn’t blame me; that he wouldn’t let such a rascal go with a servant of his, much less the acknowledged belle of the town, and a prospective heiress. Now, Wynn, this is what I have decided to do. You know that I have made my will, leaving all I have in the world to her.”

“And it is blamed bully of you, Uncle Tom,” Dearing said, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder, which he could feel quivering with a passion not good for even a younger man. “I am sure, neither of us is worthy of the great interest you have always taken in us.”

“You are, my boy. I am proud of you. You are already a shining light in your profession, and will make all the money you’ll ever need. But I always have worried about Madge. I want to provide well for her, and I haven’t many years to live. Sometimes I think I may snuff out like a candle without a moment’s notice, so I don’t intend to leave my affairs in such a shape that Fred Walton will gloat over my demise and throw away my savings. No, sir. I tell you if your sister does not agree to give that scamp up inside of the next twenty-four hours, I will set my effects aside for another purpose.”

“I’ll see her and talk to her, Uncle Tom,” Dearing promised, gravely. He had never seen the General so highly wrought up, nor heard such an exasperated ring in his voice. “Now, you go take your medicine. Madge will be sensible. She loves you, I know she does.”

“Well, remember what I’ve said,” the old soldier threw back as he turned away.

Dearing waited till he had disappeared through the side entrance of the house, and then he went up the front steps, crossed the wide veranda, with its smooth, rain-beaten floor of ancient heart pine, and stood in the great hall, straw hat in hand, looking about him.

“I’ll see her at once,” he thought. “She must come to her senses. She is driving uncle to his grave with worry over her silly conduct.”

“Oh, Madge!” he called out. His voice rang and echoed in the great opening through which the walnut stairs and polished balustrade ascended to the corridor and sleeping-rooms above, but there was no response.

Still holding his hat, with which he fanned his heated face in an absent-minded, perturbed sort of way, Dear-ing went through all the lower rooms—the parlor and library and adjoining study, and even the dining-room and kitchen. The colored cook, old Aunt Diana, a former slave of the family, in white apron and turbaned head, informed him that his sister was in her room.

“I know she is, Marse Wynn, ‘case she sent Lindy down fer some fresh col’ water not mo’n ten minutes ago.”

Back to the front hall Dearing went, and thence up the stairs to his sister’s room, adjoining his own. The door was ajar, but he stood on the threshold and rapped softly.

“Come!” It was a sweet young voice, and belonged to a pretty girl seventeen or eighteen years of age, who, as Dearing entered the room, sat at a quaint mahogany writing-desk between two lace-curtained windows through which a gentle breeze was blowing. She wore a becoming wrapper, and her small feet were shod in dainty embroidered slippers. Her abundant hair was quite dark, and her eyes very blue. She had been writing, for on the page of tinted note-paper before her he saw an unfinished sentence in the round, schoolgirl hand.

“I don’t want to disturb you, Madge,” Dearing began, “but you will have to stop anyway soon, and get ready for dinner.”

“I am not going down,” she told him, her glance falling to the rug at her feet. “I had breakfast late, and I am not a bit hungry.”

“But that wouldn’t be treating Uncle Tom quite right, you know,” Dearing gently protested, as he took a seat on the broad window-sill, swung his hat between his knees, and eyed her significantly. “You know how childish he is getting, Madge. It really upsets him not to have you at the table. He is old-fashioned, and was something of a beau when he was a young man. Making a fine lady of you and paying court to you seems to be about all the pleasure he gets in life. I know it must be tiresome, but there are many things we—”

“He is childish!” Margaret exclaimed, her eyes flashing angrily, “but I bore with it because I loved him, and because mother would have approved it; but he is getting worse and worse. He wants me at his beck and call every minute in the day, and even if I go out to see one of my girl friends he either comes or sends one of the servants to see if anything has happened. Then he—he—oh, there are a lot of things a girl can’t put up with!”

“You mean his opposition to the visits of a certain friend of yours?” Dearing said, in a forced tone of indifference, as he glanced out at the window. Although his eyes were still ostentatiously averted, he saw her cautiously draw a blank sheet of paper over the lines she had written.

“Yes,” she said, “that is one thing. Fred Walton is a friend of mine, and for all I know his feelings may be hurt by what uncle has said and done. I know Fred is wild and reckless, but he has a good side to him—a side everybody can’t see who doesn’t know him intimately.”

Young as he was, Wynn Dearing was wise in the ways of the world, and he well knew that a temperament and will like his sister’s would never be coerced. He decided to profit by the error in the method of his blustering uncle.

“You have never heard me abuse Fred,” he said, gently. “Many young men who have wealthy parents are inclined to ‘sow wild oats,’ as the old folks say; but really, Madge”—and he was smiling now—“for an honest, inoffensive cereal, the ‘wild oat’ has to bear the burden of many a tough young weed. Charity is said to cover a multitude of sins, but for genuine selfsacrifice give me the old-fashioned, long-bearded wild oat, in all its verdant and succulent—”

“Brother, I’m not in a mood for silliness!” the girl interrupted him, quickly, and with an impatient flush.

“I’m not either, Madge.” He took one of his knees between his hands, and drew it up toward him. “The fact is, I am worried—worried like everything! I may not show it, but this thing has taken a deep hold on me. Something has got to be done, and that right away. Young folks may love each other, or think they love each other, and if it does no harm to any one else, why, all well and good. But if their love business is causing suffering—yes, and positive bodily injury to another—then they ought to stop and ponder.”

“You mean that Uncle Tom—”

“I mean this, Madge, and now I am talking to you as a physician—his physician, too. The old man is actually so near the end of his natural life that irritation like this is apt to undermine what little constitution he has left. I’ve known old men to worry themselves into softening of the brain over smaller things than this. You may not think it would make much difference; but remember that if any act of yours and Fred Walton’s were to cause his death, even indirectly, you could never outlive the reproach of your conscience. Uncle Tom is in a dangerous condition: his heart-action is bad, and so are his kidneys. You are too young a girl to take such a responsibility as that on your shoulders; besides, Madge, I must say that Fred—it is my duty as a brother to say—”

“You are going to abuse him; remember, you have not done it so far!” Margaret broke in. “You won’t gain by it, brother. The whole town has talked of nothing lately but him and his faults, and I appreciated your silence, and so does he. We were speaking about it only yesterday, and he praised you for it. He said you were the truest, most perfect gentleman he had ever known, that you knew human nature too well to expect young men to be absolutely perfect, and that—”

“I wasn’t going to say a word against his honor, Madge,” Dearing interrupted her, gently; “but I am going to say this: if I were in his place right now I’d feel that I could not conscientiously, or even quite honorably, continue to pay attention to a young lady situated—well, situated just as you are.”

“Why, what do you mean?” the girl asked, her lip quivering stubbornly.

“This, sister, and nothing else. We may say what we please about Fred’s good qualities, his sincerity, his—his devotion to you; his plans, whatever they are; but a very disagreeable fact stands out like a black splotch on the whole business, and that is simply this: Fred really has failed to make good in the way a man ought to make good who aspires to the hand of a girl like yourself. His father gave him a splendid chance in the bank, but Fred’s best friends admit that he hasn’t profited by it. Instead of attending to business and helping his old daddy—who, harsh old skinflint though he is as to money matters, is a safe man in any community—instead of doing what was expected of him, Fred—well, he has turned his father against him, that’s all. The old man swears he is going to cut him off without a penny, and everybody in town knows he means it; Fred doesn’t dispute it himself. So, taking that along with the other thing, I honestly can’t see how he can talk of love and marriage to a girl like you are.”

“What other thing do you mean?” Margaret demanded, pale with suppressed emotion.

“I mean the fact that his marriage to you would cause Uncle Tom to disinherit you outright. A man might sink low enough to want to marry a girl after he himself has been disinherited for his irregular conduct, but no creature with a spark of manhood in him would let his act impoverish the woman he loves. I have said nothing against him so far, but when he knows what uncle has determined to do—when he is told that if he persists—well”—Dealing’s eyes were burning now with the fire of genuine anger—“he’ll have me to reckon with, that’s all—me, Madge!”

Margaret stared at him for a moment, and then, with a piteous little sob, she covered her face with her hands. “You are going to tell him!” she said, huskily. “Yes.” Dearing stood up and laid his hand on her head. “I’m going to tell him, Madge, but it will be only for his own good. In any case, he couldn’t honorably ask you to marry him now, and the delay—if he is willing to wait—won’t do either of you any harm. You are both young, and the world is before you. You can’t realize it now, Madge, but this very thing may be the making of him. If he loves you as truly as he ought, this will be only a spur toward proving his worthiness.”

“Brother, must you really—? oh, I can’t—can’t—” The girl stood up, her cheeks wet with tears, and clasped her hands round his neck appealingly. “You really must not! He is already in trouble. Surely—surely—”

“There is no other way, Madge, but I’ll not be rough; I pity the poor chap too much for that.”

“When do you intend to—to see him?” She was sobbing again, her face pressed against his shoulder.

“This evening, Madge, if I can find him at home. There is no other way. Uncle and I are the only protectors you have, and he is too angry and easily wrought up to be trusted with the matter. I’d better manage it; but you know I’ll be fair.”

The girl gazed fixedly at him for a moment, and then, in a storm of tears, she threw herself oh her bed and hid her face in a pillow. Glancing at her pityingly, and with moisture in his own eyes, Dearing turned from the room.

“I am sorry for them both,” he muttered. “They are having hard luck, and yet Fred Walton isn’t, from any point of view, worthy of her; there are no two ways about it. He has got himself into a terrible plight, and he has no right to involve my sister. No, and he sha’n’t!”