That day had been the gloomiest in Virginia's life. Early in the morning Jane had gone to Darley for the twentieth time to try to borrow the money with which to defray her expenses to Atlanta. She had failed again, and came home at dusk absolutely dejected.

"It's all up with me!" she groaned, as she sank heavily into a chair in front of the cheerful fire Virginia had in readiness, and pushed her worn shoes out to the flames. "I went from one old friend to another, telling them my condition, but they seemed actually afraid of me, treating me almost like a stranger. They all told tales of need, although they seemed to have plenty of everything. Judge Crane met me in Main Street and told me I could appeal to the county fund and get on the pauper list, but without offering to help me; he said he knew I'd almost rather die than fall so low. No, I'll not do that, Virginia. That's what would tickle Ann Boyd and some others powerfully."

With lagging steps and a heart like lead, Virginia went about preparing the simple meal. Her mother ate only hot b.u.t.tered toast with boiled milk on it to soften it for her toothless gums, but the fair cook scarcely touched food at all. Her mother's grewsome affliction was in the sensitive girl's mind all through each successive day, and even at night her sleep was broken by intermittent dreams of this or that opportunity to raise the coveted money. Sometimes it was the jovial face of a crude, penniless neighbor who laughed carelessly as he handed her a c.u.mbersome roll of bank-bills; again she would find a great heap of gold glittering in the sun, only to wake with her delicate fingers tightly clasped on nothing at all-to wake that she might lie and listen to Jane's sighs and moans as the old woman crouched over the ash-buried coals to light a tallow-dip to look, for the thousandth time, at the angry threat of fate upon her withered breast.

To-night, greatly wearied by her long ride and being on her feet so long, Jane went to bed early, and, when she was alone, Virginia, with a mental depression that had become almost physical pain, went out and sat on the front door-step in the moonlight. That very day a plan of her own in regard to the raising of the money had fallen to earth. She had heard of the munificent gift Luke King had made to his mother, and she determined that she would go to him, lay the case before him, and pledge herself to toil for him in any capacity till he was repaid; but when she had gone as far in the direction of the newly purchased farm as the Hinc.o.c.k Spring, she met Mary Bruce in a new dress and hat, and indirectly discovered that King had given up his last dollar of ready money to secure the property for his people. No, she would not take her own filial troubles to a young man who was so n.o.bly battling with his own. At any other moment she might have had time to admire King's sacrifice, but her mind was too full of her own depressing problem to give thought to that of another. Her sharp reproof to him for his neglect of his mother during his absence in the West flitted through her memory, and at a less troubled moment she would have seen how ridiculously unjust her childish words must have sounded.

As she sat, weighted down with these things, she heard a step down the road. It was slow and leisured, if not deliberately cautious. It was accompanied by a persistent spark of fire which flitted always on a straight line, in view and out, among the low bushes growing close to the fence along the roadside. A moment later a handsome face in the flare of a burning cigar appeared, smiling confidently at the gate. It was Langdon Chester.

"Come out here," he said, in a soft, guarded voice. "I want to see you."

Virginia rose, listened to ascertain if her mother was still asleep, and then, drawing her light shawl about her shoulders, she went to the fence. He reached over the gate and took her hand and pressed it warmly.

"I was awfully afraid I'd not see you," he said. "I've failed so many times. My father left to-day, and I am very lonely in that big house with not a soul nearer than the negro-quarter."

"It must be lonely," Virginia said, trying to be pleasant and to throw off her despondency.

"Your mother went to town to-day, didn't she?" Chester pursued, still holding the hand which showed an indifferent inclination to quit his clasp. "I think I saw her coming back. Did she get what she went for?"

"No, she failed utterly," Virginia sighed. "I don't know what to do.

She's suffering awfully-not in bodily pain, you know, for there is none at all, but in the constant and morbid fear of death. It is an awful thing to be face to face, day after day, night after night, with a mother who is in such agony. I never dreamed such a fate could be in store for any young girl. It is actually driving me crazy."

"Yes, yes," Langdon said, hesitatingly. "I want to tell you something. I had a talk with my father about her just before he left. I've worried over it, too, little girl. Folks may run me down, you know, but I've got real feelings; and so, as a last resort, as I say, I told him about it.

He's hard up himself, as you may know, along with our heavy family expenses, and interest on debts, and taxes, but I managed to put it in such a way as to get him interested, and he's promised to let me have the money provided he can make a certain deal down at Savannah. But he says it must be kept absolutely quiet, you understand. If he sends me this money, you must not speak of it to any one-the old man is very peculiar."

Virginia's heart bounded, the hot blood of a dazzling new hope pulsed madly in her veins. The tensity of her hand in his warm clasp relaxed; her eyes, into which his own pa.s.sionate ones were melting, held kindling fires of grat.i.tude and trust.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, "if he only _would_!"

"Well, there is a splendid chance of his doing it," Langdon said. "I was awfully afraid to mention the subject to him, you know, for fear that he would suspect my interest was wholly due to you, but it happens that he has never seen us together, and so he thought it was simply my sympathy for one of our neighbors. I had to do something, Virginia. I couldn't stay idle when my beautiful little sweetheart was in such downright trouble."

With a furtive glance towards the house and up and down the road, Langdon drew her towards him. Just one instant she resisted, and then, for the first time in her life, she allowed him to kiss her without open protest. She remained thus close to him, permitting him to stroke her soft, rounded cheeks gently. Never before were two persons impelled by diverse forces so closely united.

"When do you-you think your father will write?" she asked, her voice low, her soul almost shrieking in joy.

"That depends," said Chester. "You see, he may not get at the matter _the very day_ he arrives in Savannah, for he is a great old codger to let matters slide in the background while he is meeting old friends.

But, little girl, I don't intend to let it slip out of his mind. I'll drop him a line and urge him to fix it up if possible. That, I think, will bring him around. Your mother is sound asleep," he added, seductively; "let's walk a little way down the road. I sha'n't keep you long. I feel awfully happy with you all to myself."

She raised no objection as he unfastened the latch of the gate with deft, noiseless fingers and, smiling playfully, drew her after him and silently closed the opening.

"Now, this is more like it," he said. "Lovers should have the starry skies above them and open fields about. Forget your mother a little while, Virginia. It will all come out right, and you and I will be the happiest people in the world. Great Heavens! how perfectly lovely you are in the moonlight! You look like a statue of Venus waking to life."

They had reached the brook which rippled on brown stones across the road at the foot of the slight rise on which the cottage stood, when they saw some one approaching. It was Ann Boyd driving her cow home, her heavy skirts pinned up half-way to her stout knees. With one sharp, steady stare at them, Ann, without greeting of any kind, lowered her bare, dew-damp head and trudged on.

"It's that miserly old hag, Ann Boyd," Langdon said, lightly. "I don't like her any more than she does me. I reckon that old woman has circulated more lies about me than all the rest of the country put together."

At the first sight of Ann, Virginia had withdrawn her hand from Langdon's arm and pa.s.sionate clasp of fingers, but the action had not escaped Ann's lynx eyes.

"It's coming, thank G.o.d, it's coming as fast as a dog can trot!" she chuckled as she plodded along after her waddling cow. "Now, Jane Hemingway, you'll have something else to bother about besides your blasted cancer-something that will cut your pride as deep as that does your selfish flesh. It won't fail to come, either. Don't I know the Chester method? Huh, if I don't, it isn't known. With his head bent that way, and holding her hand with hand and arm both at once, he might have been his father over again. Huh, I felt like tearing his eyes out, just now-the young beast! I felt like she was me, and the old brink was yawning again right at my feet. Huh, I felt that way about Jane Hemingway's daughter-that's the oddest thing of all! But she _is_ beautiful; she's the prettiest thing I ever saw in all my life. No wonder he is after her; she's the greatest prize for a Chester in Georgia. Jane's asleep right now, but she'll wake before long and she'll wonder with all her wounded pride how G.o.d ever let her close her eyes.

Yes, my revenge is on the way. I see the light its blaze has cast on ahead. It may be Old Nick's torch-what do I care? He can wave it, wave it, wave it!"

She increased her step till she overtook her cow. Laying her hand on the animal's back, she gently patted it. "Go on home to your calf, you hussy," she laughed. "The young of even _your_ sort is safer, according to the plan that guides the world, than Jane Hemingway's. She's felt so safe, too, that she's made it her prime object in life to devil a person for exactly what's coming under her own roof-_exactly to a gnat's heel_!"

XIX

One evening, about four days later, Mrs. Waycroft hurried in to see Ann.

The sharp-sighted woman, as she nodded indifferently to the visitor, and continued her work of raking live coals under a three-legged pot on the hearth, saw that Mrs. Waycroft was the fluttering bearer of news of some sort, but she made no show of being ready to listen to it. The widow, however, had come to be heard, she had come for the sheer enjoyment of recital.

"Ann," she panted, "let that oven alone and listen to me. I've got about the biggest piece of news that has come your way in many a long day."

"You say you have?" Ann's bra.s.s-handled poker rang as she gave a parting thrust at a burning chunk, and struck the leg of the pot.

"Yes, and I dropped on to it by the barest accident. About an hour after sunset to-day, I was in the graveyard, sitting over Jennie's grave, and planning how to place the new stones. I looked at the spot where I'd been sitting afterwards, and saw that it was well sheltered with thick vines. I was completely covered from the sight of anybody pa.s.sing along the road. Well, as I was sitting there kind o' tired from my work and the walk, I heard a man's voice and a woman's. It was Langdon Chester and Virginia Hemingway. He seemed to be doing most of the talking, and since G.o.d made me, I never heard such tender love-making since I was born. I knew I had no business to listen, but I just couldn't help it.

It took me back to the time I was a girl and used to imagine that some fine young man was coming to talk to me that way and offer me a happy home and all heart could desire. I never dreamed such tender words could fall from a man's tongue. I tried to see Virginia's face, but couldn't.

He went on to say that his folks was to know nothing at present about him and her, but that everything would finally be satisfactorily arranged."

"Huh, I reckon so!" Ann e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, off her usual guard, and then she lapsed into discreet silence again.

"But I got on to the biggest secret of all," Mrs. Waycroft continued.

"It seems that Langdon has been talking in a roundabout way to his father about Jane's sad plight, and that Colonel Chester had agreed to send the money for the operation from Savannah."

"Huh! he's got no money to give away," slipped again from Ann's too facile lips, "and if he _did_ have it, he wouldn't-"

"Well, that may be, or it may not," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but Langdon said he wasn't going to wait for the check. He said a man in Darley had been bantering him for a long time to buy his fine horse, Prince, and as he didn't care to keep the animal, he had sent him by one of the negroes on the place this morning."

"Oh, he did that!" Ann panted. She carefully leaned the poker against the jamb of the fireplace and sat staring, her rugged face working under stress of deep and far-reaching thought.

"So I heard him say as plainly as you and me are talking right now. He said the negro couldn't possibly make the transfer and get back with the money till about ten o'clock to-night. And that, to me, Ann-just between us two, was the oddest thing of all. For he was begging her to slip away from home at that hour and come to his house for the money, so she could surprise her ma with it the first thing in the morning."

"He was, was he? huh!" Ann rose and went to the door and looked out.

There she stood stroking her set face with a steady hand. She was tingling with excitement and trying to hide it. Then she turned back and bent low to look at the coals under her pot. "Well, I reckon she was willing to grant a little favor like that under the circ.u.mstances."

"She had to be begged powerful," said the visitor. "I never in all my life heard such pleading. Part of the time he'd scold her and reproach her with not caring for him like he did for her. Then he'd accuse her of being suspicious of him, even when he was trying his level best to help her out of trouble. Finally, he got to talking about how folks died, slow-like, from cancers, and what her real duty was to her mother. It was then that she give in. I know she did, though I didn't hear what she said, for he laughed out sudden, and gladlike, and I heard him kiss her and begin over again, about how happy they were going to be and the like. I reckon, Ann, he really _does_ mean to marry her."

"I reckon so," Ann said. "I reckon so. Such things have been known to happen."

"Well, we'll wait and see what comes of it," said Mrs. Waycroft.

"Anyway, Jane will get her cancer-money, and that's all she cares for.

They say she's in agony day and night, driving Virginia distracted. I'm sorry for that pore little thing. I don't like her mammy, for treating you as she has so long and persistent, but I can't hold Virginia accountable."

Ann shrugged her broad shoulders. There was a twinkling light of dawning triumph in each of her non-committal eyes, and unwonted color in her cheeks, all of which escaped the widow's notice.

"Well, that wasn't the end," she said, tentatively.

"I couldn't hear any more, Ann. They walked on. I stood up and watched them as they went on through the bushes, arm in arm, towards her home.