"Oh, don't thank _me_, child!" Had Ann been a close observer of her own idiosyncrasies, her unwary softness of tone and gentleness to a daughter of her sworn enemy would have surprised her. "Don't thank me," she repeated. "Thank G.o.d for letting you escape the lot of others just as young and unsuspecting as you ever were. I don't deserve credit for what I done last night. In fact, between you and me, I tried my level best not to interfere. Why I finally gave in I don't know, but I done it, and that's all there is to it. I done it. I got started and couldn't stop.

But I want to talk to you. Come in the house a minute. It won't take long. Jane-your mother-will think the cow has strayed off, but there stands the cow in the edge of the swamp. Come on."

Dumbly, Virginia followed into the house and sank into a chair, holding her shapely hands in her lap, her wealth of golden-brown hair ma.s.sed on her head and exquisite neck. Ann shambled in her untied, dew-wet shoes to the fireplace and poured out a cup of coffee from a tin pot on the coals.

"Drink this," she said. "If what I hear is true, you don't get any too much to eat and drink over your way."

Virginia took it and sipped it daintily, but with evident relish.

"I see you take to that," Ann said, unconscious of the genuine, motherly delight she was betraying. "Here, child, I'll tell you what I want you to do. These spiced sausages of mine, dry as powder in the corn-shuck, are the best and sweetest flavored that ever you stuck a tooth in. They fry in their own grease almost as soon as they hit a hot pan when they are sliced thin."

"Oh no, I thank you," Virginia protested; "I really couldn't."

"But I know you _can_," Ann insisted, as she cut down from a rafter overhead one of the sausages and deftly sliced it in a pan already hot on the coals. "You needn't tell me you ain't hungry. I can see it in your face. Besides, do you know it's a strange fact that a woman will eat just the same in trouble as out, while a man's appet.i.te is gone the minute he's worried?"

The girl made no further protest, and Ann soon brought some hot slices of the aromatic food, with nicely browned toast, and placed them in a plate in her lap. "How funny all this seems!" Ann ran on.

"Here I am feeding you up and feeling sorry for you when only last night I-well, I've got to talk to you, and I'm going to get it over with. I'll have to speak of the part of my life that has been the cud for every idle woman in these mountains to chaw on for many, many years, but I'm going to do it, so you will know better what you escaped last night; but, first of all, I want to ask you a straight question, and I don't mean no harm nor to be meddling where I have no business. I want to know if you love this Langdon Chester as-well, as you've always fancied you'd love the man you became a wife to."

There was a moment's hesitation on the part of the girl. Her cheeks took on color; she broke a bit of the sausage with her fork, but did not raise it to her lips.

"I'm asking you a simple, plain question," Ann reminded her.

"No, I don't," Virginia answered, haltingly;-"that is, not now, not-"

"Ah, I see!" the old woman cried. "The feeling died just as soon as you saw straight down into his real nature, just as soon as you saw that he'd treat you like a slave, that he'd abuse you, beat you, lock you up, if necessary-in fact, do anything a brute would do to gain his aims."

"I'm afraid, now, that I never really loved him," Virginia said, a catch in her voice.

"Humph!" Ann e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I see. Then you went all the way over that lonely road to his house with just one thought in your mind, and that was to get that money for your mother."

"As G.o.d is my Judge, Mrs. Boyd, that's all I went for," Virginia said, her earnest eyes staring steadily at her companion.

"Well, I'm glad it was that way," Ann mused. "There was a time when I thought you were a silly girl whose head could easily be turned, but I've been hearing fine things about you, and I see you are made of good, solid, womanly stuff. Now, I want to tell you the whole truth, and then, if you want to consider me a friend and a well-wisher, all right. I'm no better-hearted than the average mortal woman. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway, I hate your mother as much as one human being can hate another this side of the bad place. She's been a thorn in my side the biggest part of my life. Away back when I was about your age, I got into just such a tight as you was in last night. For a long time afterwards I was nearly crazy, but when the prime cause of my trouble went off and married I begun to try to live again. I fell in love with a real good-natured, honest man. I wanted him to know the truth, but I never knew how to tell him, and so I kept holding off. He was a great beau among the girls of that day, making love to all of them, your mother among the rest. Finally, I give in. I couldn't resist his begging, my friends advised it, and me and him was married. That was the beginning of your mammy's enmity. It kept up, and when the truth about me finally leaked out she saw to it that my husband would not overlook the past-she saw to it that I was despised, kicked, and sneered at by the community-and my husband left with my only child. I sent up a daily prayer to be furnished with the means for revenge, but it didn't do any good, and then I got to begging the devil for what the Lord had refused.

That seemed to work better, for one day a hint came to me that Langdon Chester was on your trail. That gave me the first glimpse of hope of solid revenge I'd had. I kept my eyes and ears open day and night. I saw your doom coming-I lived over what I'd been through, and the thought that you were to go through it was as sweet to me as honey in the comb.

Finally the climax arrived. I saw you on the way to his house last night, and understood what it meant. I was squatting down behind a fence at the side of the road. I saw you pa.s.s, and followed you clean to the gate, and then turned back, at every step exulting over my triumph. The very sky overhead was ablaze with the fire of your fall to my level. But at my gate I was halted suddenly. Virginia-to go back a bit-there is a certain young man in this world that I reckon is the only human being that I love. I love him, I reckon, because he always seemed to love me, and believe me better than I am, and, more than that, he was the only person that ever pointed out a higher life to me. He was the poor boy that I educated, and who went off and done well, and has just come back to this country."

"Luke King!" Virginia exclaimed, softly, and then she impulsively placed her hand on her lips and sat staring at the speaker, almost breathlessly alert.

"Yes, Luke King," said Ann, with feeling. "Strange to say, he has always said the day would come when I'd rise above hatred and revenge; he has learned some queer things in the West. Well, last night when I met him he said he'd come up to see his mother, who he heard was a little sick, but he finally admitted that her sickness wasn't all that fetched him.

He said he was worried. He was more downhearted than I ever saw him before. Virginia Hemingway, he said he was worried about _you_."

"About _me_? Oh no," Virginia gasped.

"Yes, about you," Ann went on. "The poor fellow sat down on the door-step and laid bare his whole young heart to me. He'd loved you, he said, ever since you was a little girl. He'd taken your sweet face off with him on that long stay, and it had been with him constantly. It was on your account he yielded to the temptation to locate in Georgia again, and when he come back and saw you a full-grown woman he told me he felt that you and he were intended for one another. He said he knew your beautiful character. He said he'd been afraid to mention it to you, seeing you didn't feel the same way, and he thought it would be wiser to let it rest awhile; but then he learned that Langdon Chester was going with you, and he got worried. He was afraid that Langdon wouldn't tote fair with you. I may as well tell you the truth, Virginia. I never was so mad in all my life, for there I was right at that minute gloating over your ruin. I was feeling that way while he was telling me, with tears in his eyes and voice, that if-if harm came to a hair of your bonny head he'd kill Langdon Chester in cold blood, and go to the gallows with a smile on his lips. He didn't know anything wrong, he was just afraid-that was all, just afraid-and he begged me-just think of it, _me_, who was right then hot with joy over your plight-he begged me to see you some day soon and try to get you to care for him. I was so mad I couldn't speak, and he went off, his last word being that he knew I wouldn't fail him."

"Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I can't stand this!" Virginia bowed her head and began to sob. "He was always a good friend, but I never dreamed that he cared for me that way, and now he thinks that I-thinks that I-oh!"

"Well," Ann went on, disregarding the interruption, "I was left to tussle with the biggest situation of my life. I tried to fight it. I laid down to sleep, but rolled and tossed, unable to close my eyes, till at last, as G.o.d is my Judge, something inside of me-a big and swelling something I'd never felt before-picked me up and made me go to that house. You know the rest. Instead of standing by in triumph and seeing the child of my enemy swept away by my fate, I was praying G.o.d to save her. I don't know what to make of my conduct, even now. Last night, when I come back to my house, I seemed all afire with feelings like none I ever had. As the Lord is my holy Guide, I felt like I wished I'd comforted you more-wished I'd taken you in my poor old arms there in the moonlight and held you to my breast, like I wish somebody had done me away back there before that dark chasm opened in front of me. I'm talking to you now as I never dreamt I could talk to a female, much less a daughter of Jane Hemingway; but I can't help it. You are Luke's chosen sweetheart, and to cast a slur on you for what took place last night would be to blight my own eternal chances of salvation; for, G.o.d bless your gentle little soul, you went there blinded by your mother's suffering, an excuse I couldn't make. No, there's just one thing about it. Luke is right. You are a good, n.o.ble girl, and you've had your cross to bear, and I want to see you get what I missed-a long, happy life of love and usefulness in this world. You will get it with Luke, for he is the grandest character I ever knew or heard about. I don't know but what right now it is his influence that's making me whirl about this odd way.

I don't know what to make of it. As much as I hate your mother, I almost feel like I could let her stand and abuse me to my face and not talk back. Now, dry your eyes and finish that sausage. I reckon I hain't the virago and spitfire you've been taught to think I am. Most of us are better on the inside than out. Stop-stop now! crying won't do any good."

"I can't help it," Virginia sobbed. "You are so good to me, and to think that it was from my mother that you got all your abuse."

"Well, never mind about that," Ann said, laying her hand almost with shamefaced stealth on the girl's head and looking towards the swamp through the open door. "I see your cow is heading for home on her own accord. Follow her. This is our secret; n.o.body need know but us two.

Your mammy would have you put in a house of detention if she knew it.

Slip over and see me again when her back is turned. Lord, Lord, I wonder why I never thought about pitying you all along, instead of actually hating you for no fault of yours!"

Virginia rose, put the plate on the table, and, with her face full of emotion, she impulsively put her arms around Ann's neck.

"You are the best woman on earth," she said, huskily, "and I love you-I can't help it. I love you."

"Oh, I reckon you don't do _that_," Ann said, coloring to the roots of her heavy hair. "That wouldn't be possible."

"But I _do_, I tell you, I _do_," Virginia said again, "and I'll never do an unwomanly thing again in my life. But I don't want to meet Luke King again. I couldn't after what has happened."

"Oh, you let that take care of itself," Ann said, accompanying Virginia to the door.

She stood there, her red hands folded under her ap.r.o.n, and watched the girl move slowly across the meadow after the plodding cow.

"What a pretty trick!" Ann mused. "And to think she'd actually put her arms round my old neck and hug me, and say she-oh, that was odd, very, very odd! I don't seem to be my own boss any longer."

An hour later, as she stood in her front porch cutting the dying vines from the strings which held them upward, she saw Mrs. Waycroft hastening along the road towards her. "There, I clean forgot that woman," Ann said, her brow wrinkled. "She's plumb full of what she heard that scamp saying to Virginia at the graveyard. I'll have to switch her off the track some way, the Lord only knows how, but off she goes, if I have to lie to my best friend till I'm black in the face."

"I've been wanting to get over all morning," the visitor said, as she opened the gate and hurried in. "I had my breakfast two hours ago, but Sally Hinds and her two children dropped in and detained me. They pretended they wanted to talk about the next preaching, but it was really to get something to eat. The littlest one actually sopped the gravy from the frying-pan with a piece of bread-crust. I wanted to slip out last night and come over here to watch the road to see if Virginia Hemingway kept her promise, but just about that hour Jim Dilk-he lives in my yard, you know-he had a spasm, and we all thought he was going to die."

"Well, I reckon," Ann said, carelessly, as she pulled at a rotten piece of twine supporting a dead vine, and broke it from its nail under the eaves of the porch-"I reckon you'd 'a' had your trip for nothing, and maybe feel as sneaking about it as I confess I do."

"Sneaking?" echoed Mrs. Waycroft.

"Yes, the truth is, I was mean enough, Mary, to hold watch on the road in that chill night air, and got nothing but a twitch of rheumatism in my leg as a reward. The truth is, Virginia Hemingway is all right. She wanted that money bad enough, but it was just on old Jane's account, and she wasn't going to be led into sech a trap as that. I reckon Langdon Chester was doing most of the talking when you saw them together. She may be flirting a little with him, as most any natural young girl would, but, just between me 'n' you-now, see that this goes no further, Mary-there is a big, big case up between Virginia and Luke King."

"You _don't say_! How did you drop onto that?" gasped Mrs. Waycroft.

"Well, I don't feel at liberty exactly to tell how I got onto it," Ann said, pulling at another piece of twine; "but it will get out before long. Luke has been in love with her ever since she wore short dresses."

"Huh, that _is_ a surprise!" said Mrs. Waycroft. "Well, she is fortunate, Ann. He's a fine young man."

XXIV

Towards sunset that afternoon, as Ann was returning from her cotton-house, she came upon Virginia in a thicket on the roadside picking up pieces of fallen tree-branches for fire-wood. Ann had approached from the rear, and Virginia was unaware of her nearness. To the old woman's surprise, the girl's eyes were red from weeping, and there was a droop of utter despondency on her as she moved about, her ap.r.o.n full of sticks, her glance on the ground. Ann hesitated for a minute, and then stepped across the stunted gra.s.s and touched her on the arm.

"What's the matter _now_, child?" she asked.

The girl turned suddenly and flushed to the roots of her hair, but she made no response.