Will N. Harben

“ At the conclusion of Wilks's speech there was great applause, during which Dolly looked about the room, seeing the hands of all the women as active as the wings of humming-birds hovering over flowers.
"Just look at the silly things!" she sniffed, as she caught Mostyn's eye. "They are voting against me already. They are as changeable as March winds. Look at Mrs. Timmons; she is actually shaking her fist at me. When I speak I always keep my eye on somebody in the crowd. I'll watch that woman to-night, and if I can win her over I may influence some of the rest." ”

“ He can't live without me, and I can't live without his love and future companionship. Life is too short to spend it in the sheer misery I have been in of late. He and I are going out into the great world to live, enjoy, and die together. People will talk, but we can't help that—the truth is, we don't care. You will blame me for leaving the child, for you do love him, but I can't help that. He was born out of love, and was always a reproach to me. You will take care of him; I know that, and better than if I were there.
Good-by. IRENE.
Mostyn folded the sheet and thrust it into his pocket. ”

“ A smart pair of horses hitched to a trap whirled into the carriage-drive and stopped in the porte-cochere. In the rays from the overhead lamp Mostyn saw Buckton alight and ascend the steps to the veranda. A half-smoked cigar cast into the shrubbery emitted a tiny shower of sparks. Mostyn saw the young man peering in at the window of the lighted drawing-room. He noted the spick-and-span appearance, the jaunty, satisfied air of expectancy, and his blood began to boil with rage.
"My God!" he groaned. "She may be falling in love with him—if she has not always loved him, and he now knows it. ”

“ Mostyn really meant—" A great sob struggled up within her and broke on her lips.
"I know this, Dolly." His face hardened to the appearance of stone in the white light from the sky. "I know that from this moment on you must never give him another thought."
"You don't understand a woman's feelings," she returned, in the saddest of intonations. "I know what you say is right and true, but—it is like this; he seems to have—died! I think of him only as dead, and a woman with a heart cannot at a moment's notice put her dead out of mind. ”

“ The beautiful valley was flooded with the soft golden light. An indescribable luster seemed to breathe from every dew-laden stalk of cotton or corn, plant, vine, blade of grass and patch of succulent clover. Cobwebs, woven in the night and bejeweled with dewdrops, festooned the boughs of the trees in the orchard and on the lawn. From the barn-yard back of the farmhouse a chorus of sounds was rising. Pigs were grunting and squealing, cows were mooing, a donkey was braying, ducks were quacking, hens were clucking, roosters were crowing.
"Saunders is right," Mostyn declared, enthusiastically. ”

“ Mostyn said. "He looks like a man who is not easily upset."
"It is all beneath the surface," Dolly answered. "You have no idea how careful I have to be. He seldom is willing for the young men about here to visit me at all. That is his worst fault."
Dolly rose. She put her hand lightly on Mostyn's. "I must go to my room now," she said. "I shall see you before you leave. I am going to do my best to subdue the premonition about you and me. It is so strong that it depresses me—fairly takes my breath away. It is exactly as if we are not going to meet again, or something just as sad." ”

“ The cold mass of foul suspicion in Mostyn's breast gave way to a higher impulse. A sense of vast relief was on him. He would have taken her into his arms, confessed his error, and humbly begged her forgiveness, but for an unlooked-for interruption. There was a sound in the distance. It was the steady beat of horses' hoofs on the hard clay road in the direction of Ridgeville.
"It is the revenue men!" Dolly gasped. "Quick, we must hide!" And, catching his hand as impulsively as a startled child, she drew him behind a hedge of boxwood. "Crouch down low!" she cried. "We must not let them see us. ”

“ Love is the one divine thing that we can be absolutely sure of. Annie and Tobe can't help themselves. They are out in a storm. It is beating them on all sides—pounding, driving, dragging, and grinding them. They love each other with a love that is celestial, a love that is of the spirit rather than of their poor ill-fed, ill-clothed bodies."
Mostyn's wonder over the girl's depth and facility of expression clutched him so firmly that he found himself unable to formulate a fitting reply.
"Oh yes, their love is absolutely genuine," Dolly ran on, loyally. ”

“ Rising, Mostyn went to the open door of the nursery and looked in.
"What is it?" he asked.
"He is begging to go to your bed," the woman answered, peevishly. "You've spoiled him, Mr. Mostyn. He wants to do it every night. He is getting worse and worse."
A thrill of delight, yearning delight, passed over the father. He stood silent for a moment, ashamed to have even the black servant suspect what he so keenly desired.
"Daddy, Dick wants you," a voice soft, tremulous, and unspeakably appealing came from the little bed. ”

“ Wright, Delbridge, and the clerks and stenographers seemed unreal creatures, with flaccid, vacuous faces, as he shook hands with them and answered their conventional queries about his vacation. "Vacation!" The word was not in his vocabulary. "Business!" That, too, was a corpse of a word floating on the still waters of past usage. "Money, stocks, bonds, market-reports!" They seemed like forgotten enemies rising to stop him. How could Delbridge smile in his smug way, as he chewed his cigar and boasted of a new club of which he was the president? ”

“ The preacher's warning had come in time. Pate had intended it as a check to a perilous pace. He would speculate no more. He would follow Saunders's example and lead a rational life. He would live more simply. He would—his heart sank into an ooze of delight—he would marry the sweetest, most beautiful, and bravest girl in the world. He would win Dolly's whole heart, and in the future devote himself solely to her happiness. What more admirable course could a penitent man pursue? ”

“ Mostyn could not hear Saunders's reply. As he came on to the house he began to whistle softly. Mostyn saw him pause on the grass, light a cigar, and begin to smoke as he strolled to and fro.
"Happy man!" Mostyn said, as he went back to his bed. "He's never had anything to bother him. There must be a correct law of life, and he seems to understand and obey it. He used to try to get me to listen to his ideas, but I thought he was a fanatic. Lord, Lord, I thought he was a fool!" ”

“ Mostyn remarked. "I am going somewhere soon myself. I don't know where, but somewhere."
"You'd better come along with me," the preacher said, eagerly. "We could pull together all right. I'd do my best to make you happy. I'd hammer at you till you saw the truth that has lifted me out o' the mire. God loves you, brother—He really does, and you will find it out some day. The worst sin in the world is simply not knowing God's goodness. It is as plentiful as rain and air. ”

“ You may know, Mostyn, that I have been thinking of giving up business here altogether. I have become more and more interested in my farming ventures, and my life in the country has taken such a grip on me that I want to quit Atlanta altogether."
"Oh, I see." Mostyn forced a smile. "I thought you would get to that before long. You are becoming a regular hayseed, Saunders. You are like a fish out of water here in town. Well, I suppose you want to put a man in your place so you will have freer rein in every way." ”

“ Mostyn nodded. "She is genuine," he admitted. "Well, now you know the truth. But all that is past and gone. You forget something else."
"No, I don't," she took him up, confidently. "You are thinking of your boy."
Again he nodded. "Love for a woman is one thing, Marie, but the love for one's own child passes beyond anything else on earth."
"Yes, when the child is loved as you love yours, and when you fancy that he is being neglected, and that you are partly responsible for it. Oh, Dick, you and I both are queer mixtures! ”

“ He nodded as he surveyed the stately mansion in the distance, the white porch columns of which shone like snow in the slanting rays of the sun. "It is Saunders's pride," he said. "Atlanta is becoming more and more distasteful to him. He is never really happy anywhere but up here. He yawns his head off at every party, dance, or dinner down there. They all laugh at him and call him 'Farmer.'"
"Well, he is that," Dolly declared. "He works in the fields like a day-laborer when he is up here on a holiday." ”

“ Mostyn sat alone in the sitting-room. A clock on the wall ticked sharply. He heard the wheels of the automobile grind on the pavement as it sped away under the electric lights. He went out on the lawn. He felt in his pocket for a cigar, but, finding none, he forgot it. The dew of the grass penetrated to his feet. It seemed to him that he felt Dick's fever coursing through his own veins. He was still outside half an hour later, his eyes raised to the windows of the lighted room occupied by his child, when the automobile returned. ”

“ You are killing yourself, and for no reason in the world. Look at Alan Delbridge. He is the ideal man of affairs. Nothing disturbs him."
"It is always Delbridge, Delbridge!" Mostyn said, testily. "Even you can't keep from hurling him in my teeth. He is as cold-blooded as a fish. Why should I want to be like him?"
"Well, take Jarvis Saunders, then," she returned. "What more success could a man want than he gets? I like to talk to him. He has a helpful philosophy of life. When he leaves his desk he is as happy and free as a boy out of school. ”

“ Now, listen—you women that blistered your hands clapping just now—how are you ever going to get at the straight of this thing if you hug and kiss the men every time they tell you that you are narrow between the eyes and haven't a thimbleful of brains? Do you know what is at the bottom of it all? Why, nothing but old-fashioned, green-eyed jealousy, as rank as stagnant water in a swamp. The men don't want you to get up-to-date. Up-to-date women don't hop out of bed on a cold, frosty morning and make a blazing fire for their lords and masters to dress by. ”

“ Harmony is the word. Now, go away. Kitty is not coming. She may be going with some one else."
Mostyn went to his room across the hall. He bathed his bloodless face and hands and automatically brushed his hair before the glass, eying his features critically. "Can that actually be me?" he whispered to the grim reflection. "I look like a man of sixty. I'm as old and decrepit as—Jeff Henderson. Why did I think of him? Why am I constantly thinking of that old man, unless it is because he has predicted my ruin so confidently? ”

“ Looking back, he saw Mostyn, his eyes still fixed on Dolly as she now sat at the organ turning over the music with her pretty white hands.
"I must conquer myself; I simply must," Saunders said, in his throat. "My supreme trial has come, as it must come to all men sooner or later. If she still loves him, then even to be true to her, I must wish her happiness—I must wish them both happiness."
At this juncture he saw John Leach, the roving preacher, approaching, swinging his hat in his hand, his fine brow bared to the sunlight. ”

“ Dolly was now before the looking-glass, bending right and left, stepping back and then forward, fluffing out her rich hair, her cheeks flushed, her eyes gleaming with delight.
"I wish you could just stand off and take a good look at yourself, Dolly," Mrs. Drake cried, enthusiastically. "I simply don't know what to compare you to. Where you got your good looks I can't imagine. But mother used to say that her mother in Virginia come of a long line of noted beauties. Our folks away back, Miss Stella, as maybe you know, had fine blood in 'em." ”

“ He recalled the gay assemblages of summer visitors to his father and mother from Augusta and Charleston—the dances, the horseback rides, the hunting-parties, the music, the singing of hymns on Sundays.
"I must bring it all back," he mused. "That was normal living."
These memories followed him to the great dining-room in the rear of the house. As he took his usual seat at the head of the long table the delicious aroma of fine coffee, the smell of frying meats and hot biscuits came in from the adjoining kitchen. ”

“ They say trouble will turn a man about. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!"
The next moment Henderson, his face wet with tears, stood in the narrow doorway. He held out his hand and grasped Mostyn's. He started to speak, but burst into violent sobbing. Mostyn was shaken to the lowest depths of himself. He put his arm about the old man's shoulders and drew him against his breast. A thrill of strange, hitherto inexperienced ecstasy passed through him. He thought of his dead child; he thought of his dead wife; he thought of the mystic preacher of the mountains; he thought of Dolly Drake. ”