"David," said the major slowly as he pressed the tips of his long lean fingers together and regarded them intently, "how love, tender wise love, love that is fed on heart's blood and lives by soul-breath, can go deaf, blind, dumb, halt, broken-winged, idiotic and mortally cruel is more than I can see. G.o.d Almighty comfort him when he finds what he has done!"

"And if she does find it out she won't understand," exclaimed David.

"No," answered the major, "she doesn't even suspect anything. She thinks it is the press of his work that keeps him away from her. The child carries about with her that aura of transport that only an acknowledgment from a lover can give a woman. I had hoped that he had seen some way--I couldn't ask! I wonder--"

"Yes, Major," interrupted David quickly, and he winced as he spoke, "it happened on the hunt Sat.u.r.day evening. They climbed the bluff and watched the hunt from a distance and I saw how it was the minute they came back to the campfire. I saw it and I was just jolly happy over it even to the tune of Phoebe's sulks--I thought it was all right, and I wish you could have seen him. His head was up and his eyes danced and he gave up almost the first real laugh I ever heard from him, when I teased her about getting lost. As I looked at him I thought about the other, your glad Andrew, Major, and I was happy all in a shot for you, because I thought you were going to get back something of what you'd lost. It all seemed so good!"

"There's been joy in the boy's eyes, joy and sorrow waging a war for weeks, David, and I've had to sit by and watch, powerless to help him.

Yes, his very father himself has looked out of his eyes at me for moments and I--well I had hoped. Are you sure he is going?" As the major asked the question his brows knotted themselves together as if to hide the pain in his eyes.

"Yes, he's going and he catches the next tramp steamer for Panama from Savannah. I wish she would suspect something and force it from him. It's strange she doesn't," answered David despondently.

"Caroline Darrah belongs to the order of humble women whose love feeds on a glance and can be sustained on a crumb--another cla.s.s demands a banquet full spread and always ready. You'll be careful, boy, don't--don't diet Phoebe too long!" The major eyed David anxiously across the light.

"Heavens, I'm your reconcentrado! Major, I feel as if I'd been shut up down cellar in the cold without the breath of life for a year. It's only three days and thirteen hours and a half; but I'm all in. I go dead without her--believe I'll telephone her now!" And David reached for the receiver that stood on the major's table.

"Now, David," said the major, restraining his eager hand and smiling through his sadness, "don't try to gather your grapes over the phone! I judge they are ripe, but they still hang high--they always will! Look at the clock!"

David took one look at the staid old mahogany timepiece, which the major had had brought in from Seven Oaks and placed in the corner opposite his table, and took his departure.

And after he had gone the major retired to his room to lie down for as much of his allotted rest as he could obtain. Seeing him safely settled, Mrs. Buchanan went over for a short visit with Mrs. Shelby next door.

Mrs. Matilda stuck to the irate grandmother through thick and thin and in her affectionate heart she had hopes of bringing about the much to be desired reconciliation. She was the only person in the city who dared mention Milly or the babies to the old lady and even in her unsophistication she suspected that the details she supplied with determined intrepidity fed a hunger in the lonely old heart. Her pilgrimage next door was a daily one and never neglected.

Thus left alone Caroline Darrah was partaking of a solitary cup of tea, which was being served her by Tempie in all the gorgeousness of a new white lace-trimmed and beruffled ap.r.o.n which Caroline had made for her as near as possible like the dainty garments affected by the French shop-clad Annette, who was Temple's special ally and admirer, when Mrs.

Cherry Lawrence, in full regalia, descended upon her. Tempie walled her black eyes and departed with dignity for an extra cup.

The major was fast asleep, David Kildare in the processes of bath and toilet, Phoebe at her desk down-town and Mrs. Matilda away on her mission, and thus it happened that n.o.body was near to fend the blight from the flower of their anxious cherishing.

"Yes, indeed, it is a time of anxiety," Mrs. Cherry agreed with Caroline as she crushed the lemon in her tea. "I shall be glad when it is over. I feel that we all are making the utmost sacrifices for this election of David Kildare's, and he's such a boy that he probably will make a perfectly impossible judge. He never takes anything seriously enough to accomplish much. It's well for him that no one expects anything from him."

"Oh, but I'm sure he's taking this seriously," exclaimed Caroline Darrah with a little gleam of dismay in her eyes. "His race has been an exceptional one whether he wins or not. The major says so and the other day Mr. Sevier told me--" At the mention of Andrew Sevier's name Mrs. Cherry glanced around and an ugly little gleam came into her eyes.

"Oh, of course Andrew Sevier is too loyal to admit any criticism of David to a _stranger_," she said with a slight emphasis on the word and a cold glance at Caroline Darrah.

"But he wasn't talking to a stranger, he was talking just to me," said Caroline quickly, not even seeing the dart aimed.

"You are so sweet, dear!" purred Mrs. Cherry. "Under the circ.u.mstances it is so gracious of you not to feel yourself a stranger with us all and especially with Andrew Sevier. Of course it would have been impossible for him always to have avoided you and it was just like his generosity--"

"Miss Ca'line, honey," came in a decided voice from the doorway, "that custard you is a-making for the major's supper is actin' curisome around the aiges. Please, ma'am, come and see ter it a minute!"

"Oh, excuse me just a second," exclaimed Caroline Darrah to Mrs. Cherry as she rose with alarm in her housewifely heart and hurried past Tempie down the hall.

An instinct engendered by her love for Caroline Darrah had led Tempie to notice and resent something in Mrs. Lawrence's manner to the child on several previous occasions and to-day she had felt no scruples about remaining behind the curtains well within ear-shot of the conversations.

Her knowledge of, and partic.i.p.ation in, the Buchanan family affairs, past and present and future, was an inheritance of several generations and she never hesitated to a.s.sert her privileges.

"Lady," she said in a cool soft voice as she squared herself in the doorway and looked Mrs. Lawrence directly in the face, "you is a rich white woman and I's a poor n.i.g.g.e.r, but ef you had er secceeded in a-putting that thare devil's tale into my young mistess's head they would er been that 'twixt you and me that we never would er forgot; and there wouldn't a-been more'n a rag left of that dead-husband-bought frock what you've got on. Now 'fore I fergits myself I axes you out the front door--and I'm a-fergittin' fast."

And as she faced the domineering woman in her trappings of fashion all the humble blood in the negro's veins, which had come down to her from the forewomen who had cradled on their black b.r.e.a.s.t.s the mothers of such as Caroline Darrah, was turned into the jungle pa.s.sion for defense of this slight white thing that was the child of her heart if not of her body. The danger of it made Mrs. Lawrence fairly quail, and, white with fright, she gathered her rich furs about her and fled just as Caroline Darrah's returning footsteps were heard in the hall.

"Why, where did Mrs. Lawrence go, Tempie?" she demanded in astonishment.

Tempie had just the moment in which to rally herself but she had accomplished the feat, though her eyes still rolled ominously.

"She 'membered something what she forgot and had ter hurry. She lef'

scuses fer you," and Tempie busied herself with the cups and tray.

"She was beginning to say something queer to me, Tempie, when you came in. It was about Mr. Sevier and I didn't understand. I almost felt that she was being disagreeable to me and it frightened me--about him. I--"

"Law, I spects you is mistook, chile, an' if it war anything she jest wants him herself and was a-laying out ter tell you some enflirtment she had been a-trying ter have with him. Don't pay no 'tention to it." By this time she had regained her composure and was able to rea.s.sure Caroline with her usual positiveness to which she added an amount of worldly tact in subst.i.tuting a highly disturbing thought in place of the dangerous one.

"Do you really think she can be in love with--with him, Tempie?" demanded Caroline Darrah, wide-eyed with astonishment. She was entirely diverted from any desire to follow out or weigh Mrs. Lawrence's remark to her by the wiliness of the experienced Tempie.

"They ain't no telling what widder women out fer number twos _will_ do,"

answered Tempie sagely. "Now, you run and let Miss Annette put that blue frock on you 'fore dinner. In times of disturbance like these here women oughter fix theyselves up so as ter 'tice the men ter eat a little at meal times. Ain't I done put on this white ap.r.o.n ter try and git that no 'count Jefferson jest ter take notice a little uv his vittals. Now go on, honey--it's late."

And thus the love of the old negro had taken away the only chance given Caroline Darrah to learn the facts of the grim story, from the knowledge of which she might have worked out salvation for her lover and herself.

An hour later as they were being served the soup by the absorbed and inattentive Jeff, Mrs. Matilda laid down her spoon and said to Caroline anxiously:

"I wish Phoebe had come out to-night. I asked her but she said she was too busy. She looked tired. Do you suppose she could be ill?"

"Yes," answered the major dryly, "I feel sure that Phoebe is ill. She is at present, I should judge, suffering with a malady which she has had for some time but which is about to reach the acute stage. It needs judicious ignoring so let's not mention it to her for the present."

"I understand what you mean, Major," answered his wife with delighted eyes, "and I won't say a word about it. It will be such a help to David to have a wife when he is the judge. How long will it be before he can be the governor, dear?"

"That depends on the wife, Mrs. Buchanan, to a large extent," answered the major with a delighted smile.

"Oh, Phoebe will want him to do things," said Mrs. Matilda positively.

"No doubt of that," the major replied. "I see David Kildare slated for the full life from now on--eh, Caroline?"

And the major had judged Phoebe's situation perhaps more rightly than he realized, for while David led the vote-directors' rally at the theater and later was closeted with Andrew for hours over the last editorial appeal in the morning _Journal_, Phoebe sat before her desk in her own little down-town home. Mammy Kitty was snoring away like a peaceful watch-dog on her cot in the dressing-room and the whole apartment was dark save for the shaded desk-light.

The time and place were fitting and Phoebe was summoning her visions--and facing her realities. Down the years came sauntering the nonchalant figure of David Kildare. He had asked her to marry him that awful, lonely, sixteenth birthday and he had asked her the same thing every year of all the succeeding ten--and a number of times in between. Phoebe squared herself to her reviewing self and admitted that she had cared for him then and ever since--_cared_ for him, but had starved his tenderness and in the lover had left unsought the man. But she was clear-sighted enough to know that the handsome easy-going boy, who had wooed with a smile and taken rebuff with a laugh, was not the steady-eyed forceful man who now faced her. He stood at the door of a life that stretched away into long vistas, and now he would demand. Phoebe bowed her head on her hands--suppose he should not demand!

And so in the watches of the night the siege was raised and Phoebe, the dauntless, brilliant, arrogant Phoebe had capitulated. No love-lorn woman of the ages ever palpitated more thoroughly at the thought of her lover than did she as she kept vigil with David across the city.

But there were articles of capitulation yet to be signed and the ceremony of surrender to come.

CHAPTER XI

ACROSS THE MANY WATERS

And the day of the election arrived next morning and brought cold clouds shot through with occasional gleams of pale sunshine, only to be followed by light but threatening flurries of snow.