Durgan

“ Durgan sat watching her, too entirely amazed at both words and manner to find speech. Just so a good woman, treading the violets of some neglected graveyard, might speak of the innocent dead who lay beneath.
There was silence.
Miss Claxton said, "I always like the time just after the sun goes down, Mr. Durgan; I have a fancy it is the time one feels nearest God. I suppose it's only fancy, but it does say in Genesis, you know, that God walked in the garden in the cool of the day." ”

“ Through the ghostly folds of cloud she now appeared like a beautiful animal, cowering yet nimble, swift and silent, frightened at the loss of all things beyond the short limit of sight, the very pressing nearness of the unknown around the known. Framed in the magnified detail of branch and bole and dewy leaves, Durgan saw her arrive and pause with involuntary stealth in the fire-glow from the door of the hut. ”

“ They were the clothes of a man of fashion whose pockets had long been empty. His manner was haughty, but subdued by that subtle gentleness which failure gives to higher natures. A broken heart, a head carried high—these evoke compassion which can seldom be expressed.
He could look over the foot-hills to where cloud-shadows were slowly sailing upon the blue, billowy reaches of the Georgian plains. In that horizon, dim with sunlight, Durgan had sucked his silver spoon, and possessed all that pertains to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. ”

“ This movement of defense, so instinctive, told Durgan more than any tale of woe the lips could frame. He was confounded by such evidence of some scene or scenes of past cruelty.
"Now, in the name of Heaven," he cried, "what do you fear? You know that the dogs would allow no mortal to injure you or yours. Is it some murderous spectre of whom you stand in dread?" ”

“ They went back to Durgan's hut, and made a stretcher of his bed, and brought down his laborers as carriers.
A curious group walked slowly up the zig-zag road to the summit house: Durgan and the terrier walked one on each side; the doctor rode behind. There was naught to be said; they walked in silence. Sometimes the eyelids of the still face drooped; again they were opened wide. The wet forest breathed about their silence the whisper of the rain. ”

“ The stairs to his chamber ran up outside the carriage-house. The room was pleasant—a rainy-day workroom, containing a divan that had been converted into a bed. Books, a shaded lamp, even flowers, were there. As a sick man luxuriates in mere alleviation, as the fugitive basks in temporary safety, so Durgan, who had resigned himself to the buffets of fortune, felt unspeakably content with the present prospect of peace. ”

“ Of more than this Durgan felt assured. As he reviewed all that had been told him that day, he was the more convinced that she had been no involuntary victim of false accusation, that she knew the secret that had puzzled the world, and had chosen to shield the criminal, to bear the odium, and also inflict it on the objects of her love. She had done all this for the sake of—what? What motive could have been strong enough to induce a wise and good woman to make such a sacrifice and endure the intolerable keeping of such a secret? ”

“ Durgan, I am making no romantic and fantastic sacrifice of myself, as this negro supposes. The truth, were it made public, would be the worst thing for me, as for Bertha, and would bring yourself shame and pain. And it could never be the real, whole truth, for that you could not understand, nor could anyone. I hear their horses on the hill. Please go. Do not let them find you here, as if you had had news of some strange thing. You know nothing, for the thing you think you know is not true. Do nothing, for fear you do harm. You cannot do any good. ”

“ Durgan felt himself warned of some unseen pitfall. "You must consider my crude way of dealing with a problem to which you have brought your highly trained mind somewhat absurd," he said.
"By no means. I am only surprised at your able handling of the matter, and—ah—a little surprised, perhaps, at some omissions which seem to have occurred in my conduct of the case. May I ask you, Mr. Durgan, if you have had any corroboration of the idea that this note came [Pg 227] from Beardsley, either from him or from your wife?" ”

“ Durgan could hardly believe his own sense of hearing, so calmly certain did she seem of the verity of her secret.
"Your sister could not tell Mr. Alden what is not true. She is wholly innocent. She can never, thank God, have any misery that accrues to one who has committed an evil deed." ”

“ The fate of a long, living death for the man who had stifled every honorable impulse to avoid the legal punishment of death was robbed of its worst horror, because it gave him immunity from the passion of fear by which he was enslaved, and restored him to the arms of the only human love which could not be quenched by his misconduct and disgrace. Durgan knew enough to suppose that when his wife's first glamor of reverence for Claxton had passed, when, with the help of such a skilful prompter, she had succeeded on the stage of her ambition, his home with her had been no longer even peaceful. ”

“ But it's your duty; and you do more for the world in ridding it of one villain than by a lot of charity."
Durgan felt ill-satisfied now with the sentiment of these last words, altho a few days before it had been his own.
Young Blount rode away with serious mien. [Pg 144] The hot sunflecks fell between chestnut boughs upon horse and rider and tawny wheel-ruts.
At sunset Durgan went up to the meadow, where he knew Bertha would come to feed her four-footed friends. As he waited he sat on the ledge of the wooden barn. ”

“ Chapter XV THE QUESTION OF GUILT
When Durgan reached the stone platform of the mine, Bertha came out to meet him. She had apparently been sitting alone on some rock in the lateral cutting. She was dressed for riding; her face was quite pale, and had a strength and sternness in it that alarmed him.
"I must go at once to Hilyard. I have come to—have you not heard?"
"'Tis an affair of niggers," said he; "they are always knifing one another."
"Oh, no, no! Do you not understand at all? Whom do you suppose to be guilty?"
"'Dolphus, of course." ”

“ In this mood Bertha found him the morning after the lawyer arrived. She was somewhat less troubled than on the last occasion, but showed confusion in explaining her errand. She said that Alden was coming at once to see Durgan.
She added, "When I sent for him, and was so terribly frightened, I—I thought I could tell him all that I feared."
"It matters less that you should tell him what you fear, but you must tell him all that you know."
"Oh, Mr. Durgan, that is just what I cannot do—now that he is here."
"You must. One innocent man, at least, is most falsely accused. ”

“ Some of his kind were dancing in leisurely burlesque in an open space between the steps and the mill-race. A circle of white men looked on, exchanging foolish jokes and puffing strong tobacco. Many a bright necktie or broad-brimmed hat gave picturesqueness to the group. The quiet of the sylvan evening was over and around them all.
Alden, standing on the verandah of the post-office, looking upon this scene as if he were an [Pg 216] habitual lounger, struck Durgan as presenting one of the saddest figures he had ever seen. ”

“ When we find him, we shall only have, as means to incriminate him, the word of a dead negro, whose mind was obviously failing when he gave his evidence, and one letter which——"
Durgan's impatience was intolerable. He went out on the dark road. He thought of that other night, gorgeous in its whiteness, when the full moon had looked down on the beautiful bronze form of the murdered woman and on a strolling, dandified valet, of whose portrait Durgan remembered every detail. He had seen him in the glamor of the silvered avenue ”

“ There ain't anything comes easier to me than shuttin' up, I reckon."
After this colloquy, which passed quickly, Durgan was turning upwards when he heard a horse ascending the road. In a few minutes he had met his two negro laborers coming to their work, and, behind them, the doctor from Hilyard, riding, as he usually did, with saddle-bags, his old buff clothes much bespattered.
"The yellow nigger is dead, Mr. Durgan. He died last night with the change of the weather. You told me to keep him alive till you came, but you didn't come. He was a very curious fellow—not half bad ”

“ His own uncertainty, Alden's obvious exhaustion, and the desire to let things sift themselves, kept him silent.
Something more alert than weary human sense was required for the vigil. Durgan went to the stable to get the terrier. He purposely took his way near the window of the sisters, anxious as to the nature of Bertha's excitement and her sister's illness. ”

“ That faculty by which words arise unbidden in the mind kept obstinately repeating in Durgan's the name Charlton Beardsley, in that tone of almost tender compassion given to it by Miss Claxton when he last spoke to her.
[Pg 235]
At last Bertha rose to go. "There is no such thing as truth," she cried. "I was false to Hermie in telling you what I did; you were false to me. Mr. Alden is a false friend to us all. There is no truth."
Durgan laid a detaining hand on her arm. "Look up," he said.
She looked up at the dogwood tree whose spring blossom had first cheered that rocky spot for Durgan. ”

“ Durgan is doing for the other nigger, and sends [Pg 278] me a local paper, saying in effect how much better the Durgans are than the Courthopes. I acted on impulse—we Courthopes always do. It's the way of the world, you know—we should never do anything if it wasn't for trying to show that we are as good, or one better, than someone else. But if I'd known that folks here all lived on different mountains, I'd have let the Durgans have the field. Devilish cold at this altitude. ”

“ Said Durgan, "If his mind is as lucid as the doctor thinks, his present experience must be pretty much like lying helpless in a lake of fire."
"Sir, what is there to trouble him? Two of the finest, most agreeable women who ever lived on this earth are his slaves. They wheel him hither and thither as he suggests a preference. They read; they sing; they show him nature in her glory ”

“ Alarmed at the trend of these memories and hasty inferences, he controlled himself, to reflect only on the more instant question of Eve's death, and the evidence he must give at the trial. It would appear that until 'Dolphus was condemned, even the Claxtons did not fear his tongue. To give evidence against him, and at the same time to seal his tongue, appeared to be Durgan's immediate duty, but the performance seemed difficult. What bribe, what threat could move a condemned man who was but a waif in the world, and need care for none but himself? ”

“ When Bertha had cried for a while she went in to her sister. In a minute she came tip-toeing back to Durgan.
"Hermie is sleeping quite restfully," she said. "How much softer the air feels; I think the change has done her good."
As he turned away Durgan's heart sank. The belief that Claxton was the murderer, not the murdered, and had been sheltered all these years by his own wife, forced itself upon Durgan. These innocent women might find rest in the softened air ”

“ Above and beyond it the sky was radiant with the level light.
"Very probably there is no such thing as the truth you seek in this world," he said; "but there must be truth somewhere, or why should we all try to approximate to it, and feel so like whipped dogs when we have failed?"
For two or three days after that Durgan heard nothing, but Alden came and went on the mountain road, and once again made the journey to Hilyard.
At last, one evening after dark, Durgan received a message demanding his presence at the summit [Pg 236] house. ”

“ Durgan listened. The road in the valley circled the mountain to Deer Cove. The sound of the horsemen was lost again almost [Pg 121] before it was clearly heard. They were coming from Hilyard; were they coming further than the village? An hour later he heard them again; they were on the road to the mine.
Adam had fallen into the sleep of exhaustion. Durgan stood out on the road and listened and waited. Had Bertha met with some accident, and was this her escort home? Were the horsemen coming for some purpose quite unknown to him, bearing on the mystery of the summit house? Alas! ”

“ She ground her teeth in anger at Alden's shout. "For pity's sake, stop that cruel man shouting. Call him off," she demanded, as if Alden were a dog; "call him off."
Durgan followed Alden. "She won't give you the dogs," he said.
"It was the sight of the dogs that frightened him," said Alden. "He is a maddened criminal, [Pg 285] and a very dangerous man, whoever he may be. His weakness was feigned. He's skulking; but he's as good as caught, for he can't get over the precipice."
Durgan heard Bertha dragging and coaxing the dogs up the trail. ”

“ She needed her whole fortune for the social adventures that she must make alone; and as he would not open the door of Southern pride for her, she fell to knocking at the door of Northern pride for herself. No doubt Providence has a good reason for making men before marriage blind to female character, but it was many years before Durgan bowed to the fate to which defect, not fault, had brought him. ”