It was a crisp, clear day in December. Langdon Chester had gone to Darley to attend to the banking of a considerable amount of money which his father had received for cotton on the market. It happened to be the one day in the year in which the town was visited by a mammoth circus, and the streets were overflowing with mountain people eager to witness the grand street-parade, the balloon ascension, the side-shows, and, lastly, the chief performance under the big tent. From the quaint old Johnston House, along Main Street to the grain warehouses and the throbbing and wheezing cotton compress, half a mile distant, the street was filled with people afoot, in carts, wagons, and buggies, or on horseback. All this joy and activity made little impression on Langdon Chester. His face was thin and sallow, and he was extremely nervous. His last conversation with Virginia and her positive refusal to consider his proposal of marriage had left him without a hope and more desperate than his best friend could have imagined possible to a man of his supposedly callous temperament. And a strange fatality seemed to be d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps and linking him to the matter which he had valiantly attempted to lay aside, for everywhere he went he heard laudatory remarks about Luke King and his marvellous success and strength of character. In the group of lawyers seated in the warm sunshine in front of Trabue's little one-storied brick office on the street leading to the court-house, it was a topic of more interest than any gossip about the circus. It was Squire Tomlinson's opinion, and he had been to the legislature in Atlanta, and a.s.sociated intimately with politicians from all sections of the state, that King was a man who, if he wished it, could become the governor of Georgia as easy as falling off a log, or even a senator of the United States. The common people wanted him, the squire declared; they had worshipped him ever since his first editorial war-whoop against the oppression of the political ring, the all-devouring trusts, and the corrupt Northern money-power. The squire, blunt man that he was, caught sight of Langdon among his listeners and playfully made an ill.u.s.tration out of him. "There's a chap, gentlemen, the son of a good old friend of mine. Now, what did money, aristocratic parentage, family brains, and military honors do for him? He was sent to the best college in the state, with plenty of spending-money at his command, and is still hanging onto the strap of his daddy's pocket-book-satisfied like we all were in the good old days when each of us had a little n.i.g.g.e.r to come and put on our shoes for us and bring hot coffee and waffles to the bed after we'd tripped the merry toe on somebody's farm all night. Oh, you needn't frown, Langdon; you know it's the truth. He's still a chip off the old block, gentlemen, while his barefoot neighbor, a scion of po'

white stock, cooked his brain before a cabin pine-knot fire in studying, like Abe Lincoln did, and finally went forth to conquer the world, and _is_ conquering it as fast as a dog can trot. It's enough, gentlemen, to make us all take our boys from school, give 'em a good paddling, and put 'em at hard toil in the field."

"Thank you for the implied compliment, Squire," Langdon said, angrily.

"You are frank enough about it, anyway."

"Now, there, you see," the squire exclaimed, regretfully. "I've gone and rubbed him the wrong way, and I meant nothing in the world by it."

Langdon bowed and smiled his acceptance of the apology, though a scowl was on his face as he turned to walk down the street. From the conversation he had learned that King was expected up that day to visit his family, and a sickening shock came to him with the thought that it really was to see Virginia that he was coming. Yes, he was now sure that it had been King's attentions to the girl which had turned her against him-that and the powerful influence of Ann Boyd.

These thoughts were too much for him. He went into Asque's bar, at the hotel, called for whiskey, and remained there for hours.

Langdon was in the s.p.a.cious office of the Johnston House when the evening train from Atlanta came into the old-fashioned brick car-shed at the door, and King alighted. His hand-bag was at once s.n.a.t.c.hed by an admiring negro porter, and the by-standers crowded around him to shake hands. Langdon stood in the office a moment later, his brain benumbed with drink and jealous fury, and saw his rival literally received into the open arms of another eager group. Smothering an oath, the young planter leaned against the cigar-case quite near the register, over which the clerk stood triumphantly calling to King to honor the house by writing the name of the state's future governor. King had the pen in his hand, when, glancing up, he recognized Langdon, whom he had not seen since his return from the West.

"Why, how are you, Chester?" he said, cordially.

Langdon stared. His brain seemed pressed downward by some weight. The by-standers saw a strange, half-insane glare in his unsteady eyes, but he said nothing.

"Why, surely you remember me," Luke exclaimed, in honest surprise.

"King's my name-Luke King. It's true I have not met you for several years, but-"

"Oh, it's King, is it?" Langdon said, calmly and with the edge of a sneer on his white, determined lip. "I didn't know if you were sure _what_ it was. So many of your sort spring up like flies in hot weather that one can't tell much about your parentage, except on the maternal side."

There was momentous silence. The crowded room held its breath in sheer astonishment. King stared at his antagonist for an instant, hoping against hope that he had misunderstood. Then he took a deep breath.

"That's a queer thing for one man to say to another," he said, fixing Chester with a steady stare. "Are you aware that a remark like that might reflect on the honor of my mother?"

"I don't care who it reflects on," retorted Chester. "You can take it any way you wish, if you have got enough backbone."

As quick as a flash King's right arm went out and his ma.s.sive fist landed squarely between Chester's eyes. The blow was so strong that the young planter reeled back into the crowd, instinctively pressing his hands to his face. King was ready to strike again, but some of his friends stopped him and pushed him back against the counter. Others in the crowd forcibly drew his maddened antagonist away, and further trouble was averted.

With a hand that was strangely steady, King registered his name with the pen the clerk was extending to him.

"Let it drop, King," the clerk said. "He's so drunk he hardly knows what he's doing. He seems to have it in for you, for some reason or other. It looks like jealousy to me. They were devilling him over at Trabue's office awhile ago about his failure and your big success. Let it pa.s.s this time. He'll be ashamed of himself as soon as his liquor dies out."

"Thank you, Jim," King replied. "I'll let it rest, if he is satisfied with what he's already had."

"Going out home to-night?" the clerk asked.

"If I can get a turnout at the stable," King answered.

"You will have to take a room here, then," the clerk smiled, "for everything is out at the livery. I know, because two travelling men who had a date with George Wilson over there are tied up here."

"Then I'll stay and go out in the morning," said King. "I'm tired, anyway, and that is a hard ride at night."

"Well, take the advice of a friend and steer clear of Chester right now," said the clerk. "He's a devil when he's worked up and drinking.

Really, he's dangerous."

"I know that, but I'll not run from him," said King. "I thought my fighting day was over, but there are some things I can't take."

XLI

It was dusk the following evening. Virginia was at the cow-lot when her uncle came lazily up the road from the store and joined her. "Well," he drawled out, as he thrust his hands into his pocket for his pipe, "I reckon I'm onto a piece o' news that you and your mother, nor n.o.body else this side o' Wilson's shebang, knows about. Mrs. Snodgra.s.s has just arrived by hack from Darley, where she attended the circus and tried to get a job to beat that talking-machine they had in the side-show. It seems that this neighborhood has furnished the material for more excitement over there than the whole exhibition, animals and all."

"How is that, uncle?" Virginia asked, absent-mindedly.

"Why, it seems that a row has been on tap between Langdon Chester and Luke King for, lo, these many months, anyway, and yesterday, when the population of Darley turned out in as full force to meet Luke King as they did the circus parade, why it was too much for Chester's blood. He kept drinking and drinking till he hardly knew which end of him was up, and then he met Luke at the Johnston House face to face. Mrs. Snod says Langdon evidently laid his plans so there would have to be a fight in any case, so he up and slandered that good old mammy of King's."

"Oh, uncle, and they fought?" Virginia, pale and trembling, gasped as she leaned for support on the fence.

"You bet they did. Mrs. Snod says the vile slander had no sooner left Chester's lips than King let drive at him right between the eyes. That knocked Langdon out of the ring for a while, and his friends took him to a room to wash him off, for he was bleeding like a stuck pig. King was to come out here last night, but Mrs. Snod says he was afraid Chester would think he was running from the field, and so he stayed on at the hotel. Then, this morning early, the two of them come together on the street in front of the bank building. Mrs. Snod says Chester drawed first and got Luke covered before he could say Jack Robinson, and then fired. Several shots were exchanged, but the third brought King to his knees. They say he's done for, Virginia. He wasn't dead to-day at twelve, but the doctors said he couldn't live an hour. They say he was bleeding so terrible inside that they was afraid to move him. I'm here to tell you, Virgie, that I used to like that chap; and when he got to coming to see you, and I could see that he meant business, I was in hopes you and him would make a deal, but then you up and bluffed him off so positive that I never could see what it meant. Why, he was about the most promising young man I ever-But look here, child, what's ailing you?"

"Nothing, uncle," Virginia said; and, with her head down, she turned away. Looking after her for a moment in slow wonder, Sam went on into the farm-house, bent on telling the startling news to his sister-in-law.

As for Virginia, she walked on through the gathering dusk towards Ann Boyd's house. "Dead, dying!" she said, with a low moan. "It has come at last."

Farther across the meadow she trudged, unconscious of the existence of her physical self. At a little stream which she had to cross on stepping-stones she paused and moaned again. Dead-actually dead! Luke King, the young man whom the whole of his state was praising, had been shot down like a dog. No matter what might be the current report as to the cause of the meeting, young as she was she knew it to be the outcome of Langdon Chester's pa.s.sion-the fruition of his mad threat to her. Yes, he had made good his word.

Approaching Ann's house, she entered the gate just as Mrs. Boyd came to the door and stood smiling knowingly at her.

"Virginia," she called out, cheerily, "what you reckon I've got here?

You could make a million guesses and then be wide of the mark."

"Oh, Mrs. Boyd!" Virginia groaned, as she tottered to the step and raised her eyes to the old woman's face, "you haven't heard the news.

Luke is dead!"

"Dead?" Ann laughed out impulsively. "Oh no, I reckon not. Come in and take a chair by the fire; you've got your feet wet with the dew."

"He's dead, he's dead, I tell you!" Virginia stood still, her white and rigid face upturned. "Langdon Chester, the contemptible coward, shot him at Darley this morning."

"Oh, _that's_ it, is it?" A knowing look came into Ann Boyd's face. She stroked an impulsive smile from her facile lips, but Virginia still saw its light in the twinkling eyes above the broad, red hand. "You say he's dead? Well, well, that accounts for something I was wondering about just now. You know I am not much of a hand to believe in spiritual manifestations like table-raising folks do, but I'll give you my word, Virginia, that for the last hour and a half I'd 'a' sworn Luke King _himself_ was right here in the house. Just now I heard something like him walking across the floor. It seemed to me he went out to the shelf and took a drink of water. I'll bet it's Luke's spirit hanging about trying to tell me good-bye-that is, if he really _was_ shot, as you say." Ann smiled again and turned her face towards the inside of the room, and called out: "Say, Ghost of Luke King, if you are in my house right now you'd better lie low and listen. This silly girl is talking so wild the first thing you know she will be saying she don't love Langdon Chester."

"Love him? what's the matter with you?" Virginia panted. "I hate him.

You know I detest him. I'll kill him. Do you hear me? I'll kill him as sure as I ever meet him face to face."

Ann stared at the girl for a moment, her face oddly beaming, then she looked back into the room again. "Do you hear that, Mr. Ghost? She now says she'll kill Langdon Chester on sight. She says that after sending _you_ about your business for no reason in the world. You listen good.

Maybe she'll be saying after a while that she loved you."

"I _did_ love him. G.o.d knows I loved him!" Virginia cried. "I loved him with every bit of my soul and body. I've loved him, worshipped him, adored him ever since I was a child and he was so good to me. He was the n.o.blest man that ever lived, and now a dirty, sneaking coward has slipped up on him and shot him down in cold blood. If I ever meet that man, as G.o.d is my Judge, I'll-" With a sob that was almost a shriek Virginia sank to the door-step and lay there, quivering convulsively.

A vast change swept over Ann Boyd. Her big face filled with the still blood of deep emotion. She heaved a sigh, and, turning towards the interior of the room, she said, huskily:

"Come on, Luke; don't tease the poor little thing. I wouldn't have carried it so far if I could have got it out of her any other way. She's yours, dear boy-heart, soul, and body."

Hearing these words, Virginia raised her head in wonder, just as Luke King emerged from the house. He bent over her, and tenderly raised her up. He was drawing her closer to him, his fine face aflame with tender pa.s.sion, when Virginia held him firmly from her.

"Don't! don't!" she said. "If you knew-"