She'd read books I'd never had time to open, and talked about them as freely and naturally as I would about things of everyday life. No doubt she was famished for what all women, good or bad, love-the admiration of men-and so she listened eagerly to your slick tongue. Oh, I know what you said, and exactly how you said it. You've inherited that gift, my boy, but you've inherited something-perhaps from your mother-something that your father never had in his make-up-you've inherited a capacity for remorse, self-contempt, the throes of an outraged conscience. I'm a man of the world-I don't go to church, I play cards, I race horses, I've gone all the gaits-but I know there is something in most men which turns their souls sick when they consciously commit crime. _Crime!_-yes, that's it-don't stop me. I used a strong word, but it must go. There are men who would ten thousand times rather shoot a strong, able-bodied man dead in his tracks than beguile a young girl to the brink of doom (of all ways) as you did-blinding her to her own danger by the holy desire to save her mother's life, pulling her as it were by her very torn and bleeding heart-strings. G.o.d!"

"Oh, don't-don't make it any worse than it is!" Langdon groaned. "What's done's done, and, if I'm down in the blackest depths of despair over it, what's the use to kick me? I'm helpless. Do you know what I actually thought of doing this morning? I actually lay in bed and planned my escape. I wanted to turn on the gas, but I knew it would never do its work in that big, airy room."

"Oh, don't be a fool, Langdon!" Sively said, suddenly pulled around.

"Never think of such a thing again. When a man that _is_ a man does a wrong, there is only one thing for him to do, and that is to set it right."

"Set it right? But how?" Langdon cried, almost eagerly.

"Why, there are several ways to make a stab at it, anyway," Sively said; "and that is better than wiping your feet on a gentle creature and then going off and smoking a gas-pipe. What I want to know is this: do you _love_ that girl, really and genuinely _love_ her?"

"Why, I think I do," said Langdon; "in fact, I now _know_ it; if I didn't, why should I be here miserable enough to die about what has happened and her later treatment of me?"

"I couldn't take your diagnosis of your particular malady." Sively puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. "You'd be the last person, really, that could decide on that. There are some men in the world who can't tell the difference between love and pa.s.sion, and they are led to the altar by one as often as the other. But the pa.s.sion-led man has walked through the pink gates of h.e.l.l. When his temporary desire has been fed, he'll look into the face of his bride with absolute loathing and contempt. She'll be too pure, as a rule, to understand the chasm between them, but she will know that for her, at least, marriage is a failure.

Now, if I thought you really loved that pretty girl-if I thought you really were man enough to devote the rest of your days to blotting from her memory the black events of that night; if I thought you'd go to her with the hot blood of h.e.l.l out of your veins, and devote yourself to winning her just as some young man on her own social level would do, paying her open and respectful attentions, declaring your honorable intentions to her relatives and friends-if I thought you were man enough to do that, in spite of the opposition of your father and mother, then I'd glory in your s.p.u.n.k, and I'd think more of you, my poor boy, than I ever have in all my life."

Langdon leaned forward. He had felt his cousin's contemptuous words less for the hope they embodied. "Then you think if I did that, she might-"

"I don't know what _she'd_ do," Sively broke in. "I only know that when you finally saw her after that night and made no declarations of honorable intentions, that you simply emphasized the cold-blooded insult of what had already happened. She saw in your following her up only a desire to repeat the conduct which had so nearly entrapped her. My boy, I am not a mean judge of women, and I am afraid you have simply lost that girl forever. She has lowered herself, as she perhaps looks at it, in the eyes of another woman-the one who saved her-and her young eyes have been torn open to things she was too pure and unsuspecting even to dream of. However, all her life she has heard of the misfortune of this Mrs. Boyd, and she now realizes only too vividly what she has escaped.

It might take you years to restore her confidence-to prove to her that you love her for herself alone, but if I stood in your shoes I'd do it if it took me a lifetime. She is worth it, my boy. In fact, I'm afraid she is-now pardon me for being so blunt-but I'm afraid she is superior to you in intellect. She struck me as being a most wonderful woman for her age. Given opportunity, she'd perhaps out-strip you. It is strange that she has had so little attention paid to her. Has she never had an admirer before?"

Langdon exhaled a deep breath before replying. "That is something I've been worried about," he admitted. "From little things she has dropped I imagine this same Luke King used to be very fond of her before he left for the West. They have met since he got back, and I'm afraid she-"

"Good gracious! that puts another face on the business," said Sively. "I don't mean any disparagement to you, but if-if there ever was any understanding between them, and he has come back such a success, why, it isn't unlikely that you'd have a rival worth giving attention to. A man of that sort rarely ever makes a mistake in marrying. If he is after that girl, you've got an interesting fight ahead of you-that is, if you intend to buck against him. Now, I see, I've made you mad."

"Do you think I'd let a man of his birth and rearing thwart me?" Langdon cried-"a mountain cracker, a clodhopper, an uncouth, unrefined-"

"Stop! you are going too far," said Sively, quickly. "Our old idea that refinement can only come from silk-lined cradles is about exploded. It seems to me that refinement is as natural as a love of art, music, or poetry. And not only has that chap got refinement of a decided sort, but he's got a certain sort of pride that makes him step clean over a reverence for our defunct traditions. When he meets a scion of the old aristocracy his clear eye doesn't waver as he stares steadily into the face as if to see if the old regime has left a fragment of brains there worth inspecting. Oh, he gets along all right in society! The Holts had him at the club reception and dinner the other night, and our best women were actually _asking_ to be introduced to him, and-"

"But why are you telling all this stuff to me?" Langdon thundered, as he rose angrily to signify that he was ready to go.

"Why do I?" Sively said, pacifically. "Because you've simply got to know the genuine strength of your rival, if he _is_ that, and you have to cross swords with him. If the fellow really intends to win that girl, he will perhaps display a power in the undertaking that you never saw. I'd as soon fight a buzz-saw with bare hands as to tackle him in a fight for a woman's love. Oh, I've got started, my boy, and I'll have to reel it all off, and be done with it. There is one thing you may get mad and jealous enough to do-that is, in case you are this fellow King's rival-"

"What do you mean? What did you start to say?" Langdon glared down at his cousin.

"Why, you might-I say might-fall low enough to try to use the poor girl's little indiscretion against her. But if you do, my boy, I'll go back on you. I'll do it as sure as there is a G.o.d in heaven. I wish you luck with her, but it all depends on you. If you will be a man, you may be happy in the end, get a beautiful, trusting wife, and wipe the mire off your soul which is making you so miserable. Go straight home and set about it in the right way. Begin with a humble proposal of marriage.

That will show your intentions at the outset. Now, let's get out in the open air."

They walked through the gay throng again to the carriage, and as they were getting in Langdon said, almost cheerfully: "I'm going to take your advice. I know I love her, honestly and truly, for I want her with every nerve in my body. I haven't slept a single night through since the thing happened. I've simply been crazy."

"Well, the whole thing lies with you," said Sively. "The girl must have cared _something_ for you at one time, and you must recover your lost place in her estimation. A humble proposal of marriage will, in my judgment, soften her more than anything else. It will be balm to her wounded pride, too, and you may win. You've got a fair chance. Most poor mountain girls would be flattered by the opportunity to marry a man above them in social position, and she may be that way. Be a man, and pay no attention to your father's objections. When the proper time comes, I'll talk to him."

x.x.xI

After leaving Atlanta, with only her normal strength and flesh to regain, Jane Hemingway returned to her mountain home in most excellent spirits. She had heartily enjoyed her stay, and was quite in her best mood before the eager group of neighbors who gathered at her cottage the afternoon of her return.

"What _I_ can't understand," remarked old Mrs. Penuckle, "is why you don't say more about the cutting. Why, the knife wasn't going into _me_ at all, and yet on the day I thought the doctors would be at work on you I couldn't eat my dinner. I went around shuddering, fancying I could feel the blade rake, rake through my vitals. Wasn't you awfully afraid?"

"Bless your soul, no!" Jane laughed merrily. "There wasn't a bit more of a quiver on me than there is right now. We was all talking in a funny sort of way and pa.s.sing jokes to the last minute before they gave me ether. They gave it to me in a tin thing full of cotton that they clapped over my mouth and nose. I had to laugh, I remember, for, just as he got ready, Dr. Putnam said, with his sly grin, 'Look here, I'm going to muzzle you, old lady, so you can't talk any more about your neighbors.'"

"Well, he certainly give you a bliff there without knowing it," remarked Sam Hemingway, dryly. "But he's a fool if he thinks a tin thing full o'

drugs would do that."

"Oh, go on and tell us about the cutting," said Mrs. Penuckle, wholly oblivious of Sam's sarcasm. "That's what _I_ come to hear about."

"Well, I reckon getting under that ether was the toughest part of the job," Jane smiled. "I took one deep whiff of it, and I give you my word I thought the pesky stuff had burnt the lining out of my windpipe. But Dr. Putnam told me he'd give it to me more gradual, and he did. It still burnt some, but it begun to get easy, and I drifted off into the pleasantest sleep, I reckon, I ever had. When I come to and found n.o.body in the room but a girl in a white ap.r.o.n and a granny's cap, I was afraid they had decided not to operate, and, when I asked her if there'd been any hitch, she smiled and said it was all over, and I wouldn't have nothing to do but lie still and pick up."

"It's wonderful how fine they've got things down these days," commented Sam. "Ten years ago folks looked on an operation like that as next to a funeral, but it's been about the only picnic Jane's had since she was flying around with the boys."

The subject of this jest joined the others in a good-natured laugh.

"There was just one thing on my mind to bother me," she said, somewhat more seriously, "and that was wondering who gave that money to Virginia.

Naturally a thing like that would pester a person, especially where it was such a big benefit. I've been at Virginia to tell me, or give me some hint so I could find out myself, but the poor child looks awfully embarra.s.sed, and keeps reminding me of her promise. I reckon there isn't but one thing to do, and that is to let it rest."

"There's only one person round here that's _got_ any spare money," said Sam Hemingway, quite with a straight face, "and it happens, too, that she'd like to have a thing like that done."

"Why, who do you mean, Sam?" His sister-in-law fell into his trap, as she sat staring at him blandly.

"Why, it's Ann Boyd-old Sister Ann. She'd pay for a job like that on the bare chance of the saw-bones making a miss-lick and cutting too deep, or blood-pizen settin' in."

"Don't mention that woman's name to me!" Jane said, angrily. "You know it makes me mad, and that's why you do it. I tried to keep a humble and contrite heart in me down there; but, folks, I'm going to confess to you all that the chief joy I felt in getting my health back was on account of that woman's disappointment. I never mentioned it till now, but that meddlesome old hag actually knew about my ailment long before I let it out to a soul. Like a fool, I bought some fake medicine from a tramp peddler one day, and let him examine me. He went straight over to Ann Boyd's and told her. Oh, I know he did, for she met me at the wash-hole, during the hot spell, when water was scarce, and actually gloated over my coming misfortune. She wouldn't say what the ill-luck was, but I knew what she was talking about and where she got her information."

"I never thought that old wench was as black as she was painted," Sam declared, with as much firmness as he could command in the presence of so much femininity. "If this had been a community of men, instead of three-fourths the other sort, she'd have been reinstated long before this. I'll bet, if the Scriptural injunction for the innocent to cast the first stone was obeyed, there wouldn't be no hail-storm o' rocks in this neighborhood."

"Oh, she would just suit a lot of men!" Jane said, in a tone which indicated the very lowest estimation of her brother-in-law's opinion.

"It takes women to size up women. I want to meet the old thing now, just to show her that I'm still alive and kicking."

Jane had this opportunity sooner than she expected. Dr. Putnam had enjoined upon her a certain amount of physical exercise, and so one afternoon, shortly after getting back, she walked slowly down to Wilson's store. It was on her return homeward, while pa.s.sing a portion of Ann's pasture, where the latter, with pencil and paper in hand, was laying out some ditches for drainage, that she saw her opportunity.

"Now, if she don't turn and run, I'll get a whack at her," she chuckled.

"It will literally kill the old thing to see me walking so spry."

Thereupon, in advancing, Jane quickened her step, putting a sort of jaunty swing to her whole gaunt frame. With only the worm fence and its rough clothing of wild vines and briers between them, the women met face to face. There was a strange, unaggressive wavering in Ann's eyes, but her enemy did not heed it.

"Ah ha!" she cried. "I reckon this is some surprise to you, Ann Boyd! I reckon you won't brag about being such a wonderful health prophet now! I was told down in Atlanta-by _experts_, mind you-that my heart and lungs were as sound as a dollar, and that, counting on the long lives of my folks on both sides, I'm good for fifty years yet."

"Huh! I never gave any opinion on how long you'd live, that I know of,"

Ann said, sharply.

"You didn't, heigh? You didn't, that day at the wash-place when you stood over me and shook your finger in my face and said you knew what my trouble was, and was waiting to see it get me down? Now, I reckon you remember!"

"I don't remember saying one word about your cancer, if that's what you are talking about," Ann sniffed. "I couldn't 'a' said anything about it, for I didn't know you had it."

"Now, I know _that's_ not so; you are just trying to take backwater, because you are beat. That peddler that examined me and sold me a bottle of medicine went right to your house, and you pumped him dry as to my condition."

"Huh! he said you just had a stiff arm," said Ann. "I wasn't alluding to that at all."