CHAPTER X

ONE evening, two days later, General Sylvester and his niece and nephew sat on the front veranda to catch the cool breezes which swept across the town and stirred the foliage of the trees on the lawn. The old gentleman had been urging Margaret to go to the piano in the big parlor and sing for them, but she had persistently declined. Since Fred Walton’s leaving, despite her evident efforts to appear unconcerned, she had not seemed to her watchful brother and uncle to be at all like herself, and they were constantly trying to divert her mind from the unpleasant matter.

At this juncture Kenneth Galt’s carriage and pair of spirited blacks, driven by John Dilk, his faithful negro coachman, came briskly down the street, and turned into the adjoining grounds through the gateway to the gravelled drive, and drew up at the steps of the house, which was not very different from the Dearing home in size, period, and architecture.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” the General exclaimed, suddenly. “Galt is off to Atlanta, to see some more capitalists on our new railroad scheme. You may think lightly of it, my boy, but as sure as fate we are going to put that big trunk-line through—or, rather, Galt is. He thinks it is in good shape, and that is encouragement enough for me. He has handled my affairs ever since he hung out his shingle as a lawyer, and as he made money hand over hand for himself, he has for me too.”

“Yes, he has the keenest sense of values of any man in the State,” Wynn agreed. “He has the full confidence of his clients, and he is not afraid to back up his ideas with money; that is what makes a successful speculator. He will put the road through if any one can. Investors will listen to a man who has succeeded in everything he has attempted.”

The carriage was now leaving the house, and when it had regained the street and was about to pass, the General stood up and waved his handkerchief. The carriage paused at the gate, and the man under discussion sprang out, hat in hand, and hurried up the walk.

“I have only a minute to get to the 8.40 train,” he informed them, as he bowed to Margaret, and smiled cordially at Dearing.

Kenneth Galt was an interesting man from many points of view. His intimate friends liked him because, to them, he sometimes unbent and was himself; to strangers and mere acquaintances he was cold, formal, and almost painfully dignified. To his many clients he was seldom cordial or free, and never familiar. He had gleaned the idea somewhere, from his or some one else’s experience, that no genuinely successful financier ever allowed himself to be taken lightly, so he never jested about his affairs nor encouraged it in others. He had set a high price upon himself and his chances of success in life, and he held to it the more tenaciously the higher he climbed. When approached for legal or financial advice his face was as immovable as granite, and when he gave an opinion it always had weight, for he was apt to be right. He was considered a man of wonderful ability and power among men. He couldn’t have been a successful politician, for he could never have sufficiently lowered himself to the level of the common people, so it was fortunate for him that his ambition associated him with another and a more lucrative class. He was interesting as any human enigma could be which showed outward signs of hidden depth and strength. For an orthodox community like that of old Stafford, his iconoclastic views on some sacred subjects shocked many conservative individuals, but he was so firm in his philosophy and frank in his open expression of it, that he was forgiven where a weaker, less-important man would have been adversely criticized. He had convinced himself, or been convinced during the hours he had spent in his unique library, that there is no such thing as a soul or a soul’s immortality, and he was proving, by his persistent effort to make the most of the present, that in the very renunciation of the dogma he had discovered the highest law of life.

“Well, you are off, I see,” the General said, “and I hope the parties will not only be there, but with their check-books wide open.”

“Yes, I’ll see what can be done,” Galt answered, somewhat coldly, for it was against his policy to speak of business matters in any social group. “I happened to have the land deed you wanted in my pocket, General, and I thought I’d stop and hand it to you.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” Sylvester said. “I knew it was all right, but I want to keep all my papers which you don’t have need for in my safe.”

“And how is Miss Margaret?” Galt now asked, as he turned the document over to its owner, and bent toward the wistful face of the young girl.

“Oh, I’m quite well, thank you,” she responded, forcing a smile. “You are a fortunate man, Mr. Galt. My uncle doesn’t praise many people, but he can’t say enough in your favor.”

“That’s because he only knows the business side of me,” Galt said, ceasing to smile, and drawing himself up.

“Well, I must be off. I see John lashing the air with his whip; he is my time-table.”

“Yes, you’d better not lose your train,” the General put in. “I don’t want to be the cause of your missing that appointment. Get a rosebud for his buttonhole, Madge. It may bring us good luck.”

“Yes, I will.” The girl rose languidly. “There are some pretty ones near the gate.”

Galt gallantly assisted her down the steps, and, side by side, they moved along the wide brick walk. Dear-ing heard his uncle chuckling as the old man peered through the twilight at the couple, who now stood facing each other over a bush of choice roses.

“Mark my words, my boy,” he said, “we may have to wait awhile for it, but as sure as you and I are alive, that pair will some day be more closely related to each other than they are now.”

Dearing shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. “You don’t think so?” the General pursued, with the eagerness of a child who has discovered a new toy. “They can’t help it. He is much older than she is, but it would be an ideal match. The fellow is actually a great man. There is no curbing his ambition. He has accomplished wonders so far, and there is no telling what his particular genius will ripen into.”

“It may be as you say—in time,” Dearing answered, after a pause; “but I’m afraid it will be years before Madge forgets Fred Walton, and if he should take a notion to come back, as such fellows always do, sooner or later, why, we’d only have our trouble over again.”

“But he told you he was going, never to come back?” the old man said, with a touch of resentment even at the thought.

“Yes; he said positively that his conduct, whatever it was, would keep him from ever showing his face in Stafford again.”

“I have been wondering what he could have done,” General Sylvester said, musingly. “I dropped in on his father the other day for no other reason than that he might let out some hint of the situation, but he never said a word. A big change has certainly come over him. His face was haggard and almost bloodless, and his eyes had a queer, shifting look. I am sure he knows all about the affair, whatever it is.”

“Yes; Fred said the old man knew, and would tell it, but it seems he has not,” Dearing answered.

“Ashamed to let it be known, I guess,” Sylvester said.

Margaret and Galt had parted, the carriage was disappearing down the street, and the girl was slowly strolling back. At a bed of flowers about ten yards from them she paused and stood looking down. Just then a loud, strident voice reached them from the side of the house. It was from Mrs. Chumley, who had brought the General’s laundry home, and with her great empty basket was making her way across the grass toward the front gate, accompanied by old Diana, the colored cook.

“Oh, but I know it is true—every word of it!” The white woman had raised her voice exultantly. “I was right there at the girl’s elbow, and heard Mrs. Barry accuse her of it. Dora admitted her ruin, and laid it to Fred Walton. Now, I reckon folks will know why he had to skip out by the light o’ the moon without a bit of baggage.”

Instantly the two men were on their feet, Margaret’s protection foremost in their minds. There was no doubt that she had heard, for she was standing facing the two women like a figure carved from stone.

“Excuse me, Miss Margaret, I didn’t know you was there,” Mrs. Chumley said, as she walked on; “but it is the truth—the Lord knows it is the truth.”

“My God, the brutality of it!” the old man ejaculated. “To think it should come to her like that!”

“The scoundrel!” Dearing cried. “Now I understand fully, and if I had known the truth, I’d have—” But he went no further, for Margaret was slowly coming toward them. The grass she trod was wet with dew, and ordinarily she would have realized it, and lifted her skirt, but she now moved toward them like a somnambulist. At the bottom step her foot caught, and as they both sprang to her assistance she gave a forced, harsh laugh.

“How awkward I—I am!” she stammered. “I could never da—dance the minuet with you now, Uncle Tom. I gave Mr. Galt a pretty bud. He is such a flatterer—saying that I—saying that he—”

She suddenly pressed her hand to her head and reeled helplessly. The strong arm of her brother went round her, and her head sank upon his shoulder. His face was wrung and dark with blended fury and anxiety, his strong lip was quivering.

“No, she is not fainting!” He spoke to his uncle, but for her ears, with the intention of rousing her. “She is all right. Wake up, Madge! I’ll slap your jaws, old girl, if you play ‘possum with me. You may fool some folks, but not your family doctor.”

“No, I am not fainting. Who said I was?” and Margaret raised her head, and drew herself quite erect. “I—I am going in to sing for you.”

She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in his voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear. Uncle Tom wouldn’t listen, anyway. He’s simply daft about the new railroad, and couldn’t hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at those damp shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room and change them at once!”

“I did get them wet, didn’t I?” the girl said, glancing down at her feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her brother stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight; then he went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was eager to take up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but Dearing’s ears were closed to what he was saying.

“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it should come to her—to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful ideals! And he could deliberately desert her! He could look another man in the face and confess that he was without the courage to lift a woman up after he had knocked her down.”

Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the darkness before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary light in Mrs. Barry’s cottage. It was from the window of Dora’s room, and for an hour he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went out; then he rose, and began to undress.