CHAPTER IV

LEAVING Madge mute and motionless at the gate, staring through the starlight after him, Dearing strode down the street past the fine old home of Kenneth Galt, which was set well back in spacious grounds on the left. Along the way were old-fashioned houses in bad condition, old buildings which had been modernized, and which stood on well-kept lawns, and others which had no touch of antiquity. After a few minutes he reached a plain two-story frame house which had once been white, but now showed little trace of its original paint. It was the home of Fred Walton’s father, Stafford’s well-to-do banker, money-lender, “note-shaver,” and all-round speculator in stocks, bonds, and real estate.

“Fred may be here,” Dearing reflected, as he paused at the ramshackle gate and viewed the forbidding old house as it loomed up among the trees, fifty yards from where he stood; “but he’d certainly be excusable for seeking a more cheerful place to spend an evening, considering that meddlesome stepmother of his.”

The parsimony of old Simon Walton could not have been better illustrated than by the fact that not a ray of light showed itself in all the rooms of the house. It was said of him that, fond of smoking though he was, he never lighted his pipe without getting a match and tobacco from some one else. At all events, he was at home. And as he went up the uneven brick walk, Wynn saw him seated on the front porch without his coat.

He was tall, lank, and raw-boned, and though nearly seventy years of age, his brown hair and short, scraggy whiskers were devoid of the slightest touch of gray. He was a man who, though outwardly sound of body, brain, and limb, was not without certain haunting fears of dissolution. He had had a slight stroke of paralysis which had left a numbness in his right side, and he was constantly trying to obey certain directions Dearing had laid down on the day his clerks had found him unable to rise from his desk in his bank. Dearing’s skill had put him on his feet again, and the young doctor had tried diplomatically to show his patient that the cause of the trouble lay in an overworked brain too sharply centred on a none too worthy purpose. But in this he had failed. Old Simon would have believed in any lotion, any surgical operation, or any medicine prescribed by Dearing, no matter how costly, for that was in the young man’s line; but he declined to listen to any hint—from such a source, at least—that his mental watchfulness ought to be curbed. He had won by his method, and that was ample proof of its correctness. He had risen from between the plough-handles, he told Wynn with a satirical laugh, and men who had advised him to think less of the almighty dollar and more of his God were in their mountain hovels giving away advice for others to live by. The wise fellows who had said in his youth that he was “as close as the bark on a tree” and “too mean to live” were now ready to beg at his feet for money to enable them to purchase food for their families.

“Well, here you are at last!” he thundered, as Wynn approached through the gloom. “And it’s high time, I am here to say! It doesn’t take a man two hours to go to that bank and bring back a simple statement like that. I want to know to a fraction of a cent, too, just how that thing stands, and—”

“Well, you don’t owe me a penny, Mr. Walton.” Dearing laughed. “I only wish you did.”

“Oh, I thought it was Fred!” old Simon ejaculated, not a little chagrined by his lack of hospitality. “Me and him have had a little quarrel over his way of doing things, and I was looking for him to bring some papers from the bank. He went off with the key an hour ago, and hasn’t showed up yet. Have you seen anything of him?”

“No; in fact, that’s what I dropped in for. I wanted to speak to him.”

“Then I reckon he’s not at your house calling on Miss Margaret. I thought he might be there, or gone to take that other girl, the daughter of that old picture-painter, to meeting. I picked up a note from her to him the other day, making some appointment or other. I might know he wasn’t at your house, though, after the talk I had with the General. Huh! your uncle needn’t be mealy-mouthed with me about what he thinks of the scamp! In my day and time a fellow of that stripe would be egged out of the community he lived in. But the blamed fools here in Stafford say Fred’s pardonable to some extent because I’ve saved up a few cents. Huh! I’ll show them and I’ll show him a thing or two before I am through! I’ve given him a good education at a fine, high-priced college, and put him in the bank in a place of trust, and he is treating it as if it was a front seat at a circus. Huh! they all laugh and call him the ‘Stafford Prince’; they say he is a high-roller; that he’s invented a cocktail, and lets bank-notes go like leaves in a high wind. They needn’t say it is due to the little I’ve made, either, for there’s yourself, for instance. You had money and property left you, but it didn’t make a stark, staring idiot out of you. By gum! I never see you or hear of your fine operations without wanting to cuff that fellow behind the ear and kick him out into the street. Came to breakfast this morning with his eyes all bunged up and swollen. There is one thing about him that is to his credit, I’ll admit, and that is he won’t lie when you are looking him smack dab in the face, and when I asked him if he had been playing poker he acknowledged it. Think of that! A boy of mine—of Simon Walton’s—playing cards for whopping big stakes when I have toiled and stinted and saved as I have to gain the little headway I’ve got.”

“Well, I see he is not here,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “Perhaps I can find him up-town.”

“Don’t hurry; set down,” and the gaunt man stood up and pointed to another chair. “I clean forgot to be polite, I’m so worked up. Take a chair—take a chair. I simply want to see what it feels like to sit and talk to a decent man under thirty.”

“No, I thank you, Mr. Walton, I really can’t stay,” and Dearing laid his hand gently on the quivering shoulder of the old man. “But I want you to remember my warning about that little trouble of yours. You must not let things stir you up like this. You can’t stand it, you know, as well as some other men can.”

“Show me how to help it—show me how to want to help it!” spluttered the banker. “I don’t want to keep my temper! I don’t want to hold my tongue! I wish the law of the land would let me take him, big as he is, and thrash him on the streets before the very folks that call him, as some have, an improvement on his stingy old daddy. Once I thought I had him. Once I thought I’d caught him dickering with bank funds, and I had started to have him put in limbo when he showed me I was wrong. That’s the kind of man I am! I put honesty above everything else, and I won’t hide dishonor, even in my own blood.”

“Well, I’m off,” Wynn Dearing said. “I see I only keep you going on the very topic I have warned you against. Good-night.”

As the young doctor was approaching the gate he saw a figure in gray, enveloped, as to head and shoulders, in an old cashmere shawl, emerge from a clump of plum-trees near the fence. It was Fred Walton’s stepmother, a tall, thin woman of more than sixty years of age, and even dim as the starlight was he noticed the hardness of her features as she clutched the shawl under her chin and eagerly peered out from its folds.

“Oh, we have had a day of it, Dr. Dearing!” she said, familiarly, and with a dry, forced laugh. “When you came in at the gate just now I made the same mistake Simon did—I thought it was Fred, and hung back at the side of the house to hear the row. I reckon the boy has decided he’s had enough tongue-lashing for one day, and don’t intend to sleep here to-night. I don’t blame his father one bit,” she ran on, volubly, “and I have the first one to meet who really does. Fred certainly keeps himself in the public eye. There is hardly a day that some fresh report don’t crop out as to his scrapes. And the match-makers! Great goodness! They have enough to keep ten towns the size of this busy. They are eager to see now which Fred will tie to for life: your sister, with all her money and fine old name, or that strip of a girl who paints and teaches for a bare living. Some say she is daft about him, and that if your uncle kicks him out he will settle on her. That’s what folks say, you know. The truth is, I live sort of out of the way, and don’t hear all that is going the rounds.”

“That is a matter I am not posted on, Mrs. Walton,” Dearing said, as he opened the gate and politely raised his hat in parting. “I must hurry. I only wanted to see Fred a minute.”

As he neared the central square of the town the rays of light from the church where he had that morning attended service streamed across the green, and he approached the little edifice, ascended the steps to the vestibule, and cautiously peered in at the worshippers, wondering if by any chance Fred Walton might be there as Dora Barry’s escort. But no one of the numerous backs turned toward him resembled Fred’s, and his glance moved on to the pulpit. The choir was in full view, facing the door, and beside the keyboard of the organ sat the girl who played it. Was it the shadows from the gas above her, or was the tense expression in her eyes and the droop to the sweet young mouth due to some trouble even greater than any he had yet surmised? He shuddered as he turned away and pursued his walk toward the square. He would look for Walton at the bank, and try to divest his mind of the disagreeable duty he had to perform; but Dora’s face continued to haunt him. The mute appeal of her white, shapely hands patiently folded in her lap, the suggestion of utter despair in her whole bearing, clung to him and wrung his manly heart. She had been his playmate when she was a tiny girl and he an awkward boy in his teens. He had loved her gentle old father, with his long hair and high, poetic brow, and had believed for years that Dora had inherited his genius. The artist had gone back to Paris to study, intending to send for his wife and child when fortune smiled, as he was sure it would. But he had died there, and was buried by his fellow-students of the Latin Quarter. They had written the fact to the wife and orphan, but that was all. It was his child who was in trouble, and Dearing’s heart ached with a dull, insistent pain.

There was a light in the bank; he saw its gleam through the old-fashioned panes of glass in front, but it went out just as he drew near the door, which he saw was slightly ajar. As he stood wondering, he heard some one coming. It was Fred Walton; he was smoking, and the flare of his cigar lighted up his dark, handsome face for a bare instant. He was tall, well-built, and strong of physique.

“Hello! Is that you, Fred?” Dealing called out. There was a pause. Walton seemed to shrink back into the darkness for a moment; then he said:

“Yes. Who is it?”

“It is I, Fred—Wynn Dearing.”

“Oh, it is you!” Walton drew the heavy door to after him as he came out and locked it. Then they stood together on the sidewalk in the faint rays from a gaslight on the corner near by.

“Yes, I’ve been looking for you, Fred. I went to your house; your father told me you might be here. Can’t we go in the bank?”

Fred Walton stared. His face was rigid; beads of sweat stood on his brow and cheeks; the cigar in his mouth shook.

“It is terribly hot in there,” he said, after a pause. “I was looking over the books, and—almost fainted. I didn’t think it worth while to unscrew the rear windows, and not a breath of air is stirring in the beastly hole.”

“We might walk on to my office; it is always cool. I never bother to shut the windows, even before a rain.”

“Yes, if—if you wish it, Wynn; that is, if you wish to—to see me.”

“Yes, I want to talk to you, Fred.”

They walked side by side along the pavement. Walton had his hat off, and was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Once his foot struck against some object, and he almost fell. Something like an oath of impatience escaped his lips as he drew himself up and caught the slow, deliberate step of his companion.

Reaching the door of his office, Dearing unlocked it, pushed it open, and they entered the little reception-room in the dark. The doctor struck a match and lighted a lamp on a table, and pointed to a rocking-chair. “Take a seat, Fred.” A cold smile which gave his face almost a wry look lay on his firm mouth as he himself sat down near a table on which lay some books and magazines. He had not removed his eyes from, his companion, who, hat in hand, was settling heavily into the big chair. “I’ve got an unpleasant duty before me, Fred—darned unpleasant, because we’ve been friends all our lives, and—”

“That’s all right, Wynn, go ahead.”

“It is about you and my sister, Fred.”

“I was afraid it was that, Wynn,” the young man muttered. “The thought came to me when I heard your voice in the dark just now. Well, nothing you can say will surprise me. I am prepared for anything—for the very worst; in fact, I am prepared to have Marga—pardon me, your sister—send me word that she herself wishes to see no more of me.”

“I have no such message as that, Fred, but still it is my duty to lay the facts before you just as they are; and I am going to do it, with the hope, old man, that you’ll be reasonable and—help me out.”

In a calm voice, full of sincerity and stern conviction, Dearing then recounted all that had taken place between him and his uncle, ending with: “I give you my word, Fred, and the opinion of a physician who knows the case, that my uncle is not only likely to worry himself into the grave over the matter, but that he will absolutely, and at once, cut my sister out of her rightful inheritance.”

“But she—surely she herself will tell General Sylvester that she is willing to—forget me, and—”

Dearing, without looking directly at the speaker, shook his head. “It is only fair to her to say that she is not made that way, Fred. She believes in you; nothing on earth will change her; she believes you are the soul of honor, and is ready to throw my uncle’s money into his face. That’s why I came to you—to you. I thought, and Uncle Tom did, too, that under the circumstances you might, you see, rather than stand between her and—”

Dearing went no further. He was interrupted by the look of agony which had clutched the lineaments of the listener like the throes of death. Walton’s hands, outspread till the fingers looked like prongs of hard wood, rose to his face and covered it. Dearing saw a shudder of restrained emotion rise in the strong frame and quiver through it. A sound like a sob issued from the bent form. Neither spoke for more than a minute. The step of a passer-by rang sharply on the still night air. The tones from Dora Barry’s organ swelled out in the distance and rolled toward them, followed by the singing of the choir. Suddenly Walton rose, and leaned on the back of his chair.

“It is all up with me, Wynn!” he groaned, deeply. “After to-night you’ll never be troubled by me in any shape, form, or fashion. I wish I could be man enough to make a clean breast of it all to you, but what’s the use? It wouldn’t do any good or help the matter. You’ll know to-morrow, as all Stafford will. I’ll say this, though: I am wholly unworthy of your sister’s confidence and respect. To have paid her such attentions, situated as I am situated, was an insult. I have committed an offence known so far to no one but myself, and which can never be pardoned. I am at the end of my rope, old chap. If I could undo my act by ending my wretched life, I’d do it to-night. I love your sister as sincerely as a man ever loved a woman, but I have no earthly right to think of her, much less to consider myself a suitor for her hand. When she knows the truth—the whole wretched truth—she herself will turn from me in disgust, and blush with shame at the thought of ever having encouraged me. You have the right, as a man and her brother, to kick me for my presumption. I can’t go into details. I could not bear to see your face as you hear it, but it will be in every one’s mouth tomorrow.”

“Oh, Fred, surely you—” Dearing started to say, but, raising his hand, Walton interrupted him.

“Never mind, Wynn. I have said enough. I have no right to send your sister even a farewell message, certainly not to tell her what my feeling for her is at this moment; but it will be best for the General to rest assured, so you may give him my word that I’ll never cross her path again. I am going away to-night, never to be seen here any more. I am not man enough to face this town after my conduct becomes public. I was weak. I fell—that’s all. I don’t know what will become of me. I blame no one but myself, certainly not my poor old father. You will not see me again. Goodbye. I need not wish you well; you will do well. You were marked by Fate from the start as one of the lucky, uncursed ones.”

The doctor stood up and extended his hand to detain him, but Walton had turned hastily away. Dearing heard his dragging feet in the corridor and then on the sidewalk.

“Poor chap! It is something very, very serious,” he mused. “Nothing but terrible trouble would work a man up like that. I wonder if—” He started and shuddered. Mrs. Barry’s pale, troubled face of the morning came before him, then Dora’s downcast attitude as he had seen her in the choir only a few moments before. He started, and his blood ran cold through his veins. Could it be possible—could any man sink low enough to—? No; he would not even think of it, else he would regret not having killed the man as he sat bowed before him. No, it wasn’t that—the human monster did not live who could pluck and stamp upon that beautiful and helpless flower of maidenhood. He extinguished the lamp, went out into the dark street, and closed his door. The congregation was leaving the church as he reached it. Among the last to go was Dora. He fell in behind her, but made no effort to catch her up. She had shown no willingness to talk to him that morning, and he would not disturb her now. Perhaps the girl was really in love with Walton, and had gleaned some inkling of the young man’s trouble. Yes, that would explain her present depression. He walked behind her till she disappeared at the cottage gate; then he turned and went homeward past Kenneth Galt’s grounds. He saw a spark of fire moving about under the trees to the right of the gloomy-looking residence which to-night seemed devoid of any light, and knew that Galt was there smoking alone, as was his habit at that hour. Dearing put his hand out to the gate-latch. Perhaps a chat with his philosophic friend would help clear his brain of the maddening thoughts which surged about him, but he paused.

“No; Madge will be up waiting for me,” he reflected. “I may as well meet her and let her know the worst. Poor girl, she’ll have to be brave!”

He moved on to his own gate. There was no one on the veranda, as was often the case in warm weather, but in a little pagoda-shaped summer-house on the lawn he descried a white object. It stirred as the hinges of the gate creaked, and he entered, It was Margaret, and she came to him like a spirit across the grass.

“I told you I’d wait,” she reminded him, and her voice sounded strange and even harsh in its guttural tendency. “I thought you’d never come.”

Through all that had passed between him and Fred Walton that night Dealing’s anger and resentment had been held in check by sympathy for the man in his desperate plight and despair; but now, as he saw the evidences of his sister’s agony written all too plainly upon her young being, his indignation kindled. The scoundrel, the coward, was running away to keep from facing public opinion, yet was leaving this poor, crushed girl to suffer in consequence of his conduct!

“You ought not to have waited,” he reproached her, in a tone she had never heard him use. “Your being here now, looking like this, is an acknowledgment that you actually care for the cowardly cur—you, who ought to—”

“Brother, stop!” The girl clutched his arms. She breathed hard against his breast as she leaned close to him. “‘The cowardly cur,’ you say—you, who have never abused him before.”

“I wonder now that I let him go with a whole bone in his body,” Dearing retorted, raspingly. “I didn’t realize what I was doing, or I—”

“Oh, what do you mean?” Margaret interrupted, giving him a quick, impatient shake. “You needn’t come here trying to make me believe vile slander. It is easy enough for lies to get circulated in a town noted for its tattling busybodies.”

“I’ve had his own deliberate confession,” Dearing answered. “With his head hanging in shame and his face covered he told me he was forced by some dishonorable act to leave town, never to return. He didn’t tell me what he had done; he said he’d rather not go into it, but that it would all be out to-morrow. Of his own accord he proposed to give you up, and said I might tell Uncle Tom that he’d never see or write to you again. Whatever it is, you ought to have sufficient pride to—”

Dealing stopped short. With a low moan Margaret was reeling toward him, and, as he caught her to keep her from falling, he saw that she had fainted. Lifting her up, Dearing bore her into the house and up the stairs to her room. He laid her on her bed, glad that his uncle and the servants had not noticed the accident. He sprinkled her face with water. She opened her eyes as he bent over her in the darkness, and recognized him.

“You are all right now, Madge, darling,” he said, huskily, as he fondly kissed her. “Be calm and go to sleep. You must not suffer on account of this man. He is absolutely unworthy of your regard, and that ought to settle it, so far as you are concerned.”

Margaret sat up, and put her arms about her brother’s neck.

“I was afraid the other day that something was wrong—that something terrible was about to happen to him,” she sobbed. “He was awfully gloomy. He seemed to be on the point of confiding in me every minute, but couldn’t get it out. You say you have no idea what it is?”

“No; but he says it will be public property to-morrow. Try to forget it. You must call your pride to your aid. Uncle was right in his objections to him, and you were wrong. I neglected my duty in not seeing him even sooner than I did. Now, good-night.”

Leaving her with a kiss on her cold cheek, Dearing, choking down a lump in his throat, went to his own room. The windows facing the south looked out on Kenneth Galt’s grounds, and Dearing could still see his friend’s cigar intermittently glowing as the student, philosopher, and successful financier strode back and forth.

“Who knows? Kenneth may be right, after all,” Dearing mused, bitterly. “At such moments as this one wonders if there really can be a God who is justly ruling the universe. What has poor little Madge done, in her gentle purity, to merit this crushing blow? It was her very trusting innocence that brought it upon her.”

It was one of Dealing’s habits to say his prayers at night on retiring, and when he had disrobed he knelt by his bedside. But somehow the words failed to come as readily as had been their wont; he was trying to pray for the relief of his sister, but reason kept telling him that it was a futile appeal. God had not hindered the approach of the calamity; why should mere human appeal immediately lift it? So he said his “Amen” sooner than usual, and with a brain hot over the memory of Walton’s looks and words, he rolled and tossed on a sleepless bed till far into the night.