He heard the gate-latch click, and old Mitch.e.l.l's thumping tread on the veranda steps as he descended to meet some one. Going to a window and parting the curtains cautiously, Mostyn looked down on the walk. It was his wife. He saw her meet her father, but she did not slacken her brisk walk toward the house.

"Where have you been all day?" the old man demanded, following behind.

"I don't have to tell you," Irene answered. "You are driving me crazy with your eternal suspicions. If I keep on answering your questions you will never stop. Let me alone. You needn't watch me like a hawk. I am old enough to take care of myself."

An inarticulate reply came up from the old man, and the next moment Mostyn heard Irene ascending the stairs. The door of her room opened and shut. Mostyn distinctly heard the turning of the key. He looked at his watch. It was half past eight. He would have to hurry to catch a car. He went back to the bureau.

At this instant something happened. Hearing a low sound and looking in the gla.s.s, he saw a little white-robed figure creeping stealthily across the floor to his bed. He pretended not to see, and watched d.i.c.k as he softly crept between the sheets. Turning round, he caught the boy's sheepish stare, which suddenly became a look of grim, even defiant, determination.

"Why did you come, d.i.c.k?" he asked, and as he spoke he crept toward the bed like a man in a dream drawn to some ravishing delight. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He caught the child's little hand in his own.

The nerves of his whole yearning soul seemed centered in his fingers.

"Daddy"--the boy hesitated; his words hung as if entangled in a fear of refusal--"let me stay in your bed till you come home. I am not afraid.

I don't want to sleep in there with Hilda. I don't like her."

Till he came home! The words seemed to sink into and surge back from the core of his acc.u.mulated remorse. Till he came home, perhaps near dawn, reeking with the odor of licentiousness--the very licentiousness he was praying that his child might not be drawn into.

He put his hand on the little brow. He bent and kissed it. He felt his resistance falling away from him like the severed thongs of a prisoner.

A force was entering him which mere flesh could not combat. He slid his hand under the child to raise him up, and felt the little body bound in surprised delight toward him. He pressed the soft form to his breast.

He felt the keen pain of restrained emotion within him.

Taking the boy in his arms, he sat down in a rocking-chair, holding him as a mother might an adored infant. "Do you want Daddy to rock you to sleep?" he asked.

"Oh, will you, Daddy, will you?"

"Yes." Mostyn stroked the soft cool legs caressingly and pressed the child's brow against his cheek. The boy was quiet for a moment; then his father felt him stir uneasily.

"What is it now?" he inquired.

"When I get to sleep what are you going to do with me?"

Mostyn thought rapidly. "I'll put you in my bed," he said, slowly. Then he added, with firmness: "I'll go down to the library and read the papers, and then I'll come back and sleep with you. I shall not go away to-night."

The child said nothing. He simply put both his arms about his father's neck, kissed him on the cheek, and cuddled up in his arms.

CHAPTER VII

One morning, during the middle of that week, as Saunders was on his way to the bank, he was surprised to meet Dolly coming out of one of the big dry-goods shops. She wore a new hat and an attractive linen dress he had never seen her wear before. She smiled and flushed prettily as she extended her hand.

"You were not expecting to see this mountain greenhorn down here, were you?" she laughed. "As for me, I hardly know which end of me is up. I don't see how you can live in all this whizz, bustle, smoke, and dust."

"I am wondering what miracle brought you," he answered.

"Well, I'll tell you. It is simple enough when you know," Dolly smiled.

"The rural schools of the State are holding a convention of teachers here. We meet at the Capitol at ten o'clock this morning. I'm a delegate, with all expenses paid. I represent our county. Isn't that nice? I feel like a big somebody. I was just wondering if the mayor will call on me. I think he ought to, but I really couldn't see him. My time is all occupied. They have asked me to make a talk. They've got me down for a few minutes' harangue, and I don't know more than a rat what I'll say. We are going to try for a State appropriation in our section, meet the members of the Legislature, and do some wire-pulling and lobby work."

"And where are you going at this minute?" Saunders laughed, merrily.

"I was headed for the Capitol," she smiled, "but I'm all turned around.

I went in at the front of this store, but feel as if I had come out at the back."

"I will go with you if you will let me," Saunders ventured.

"But I'll be taking you from your business," she protested. "You must not feel called on to show me about. To be frank, that is the reason I didn't let you know I was coming. You can't afford to be nice to all your mountain friends. They would keep you busy jerking them from under cars and automobiles."

"I have absolutely nothing to do," Saunders declared. "This is the way to the Capitol. We pa.s.s right by our bank, and I can show you where we hold forth."

He saw a cloud fall over her face. "I'd rather not--not meet--" She did not finish what she started to say and bit her lip.

"I understand," he answered, quickly. "He is not in town. He is spending the day in Augusta."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in a breath of relief. "You will think me silly, but I can't help it. I oughtn't to be so, but I dread it above all things. If I were to meet him face to face I wouldn't know what to say.

It would be like seeing some one actually rise from the dead. I wouldn't think so much of my own feelings as--as his. Uncle John saw him in Rome not long ago. He says he has changed in looks--but let us not talk about him. It can't do a bit of good. He is unhappy--I know he is unhappy. I knew it would be so."

An awkward silence fell between them. They had to cross a crowded street, and Saunders took her arm to protect her. He felt it quivering, and his heart sank in grave misgivings. He told himself that she would never care for any other man than Mostyn. She was the kind of woman who could love and trust but once in life, and was not changed by time or the weakness and faults of the beloved one.

Saunders indicated the bank among the buildings across the street, and he saw a wistful look steal into her grave face as she regarded it steadily.

"So that's the place where you men of affairs scheme, plan, and execute," she smiled. "It looks close and hot. Well, I couldn't stand it. I must have open air, sunshine, mountains, streams, and people--real, plain, honest, unpretending people."

"I have made up my mind to quit," he returned. "I have been staying in the country so much of late that I cannot do without it. I intend to sell my interests here, and settle down on my plantation."

"You will be wise," she said, philosophically. "Life is too short to live any other way than as close as possible to nature. All this"--she glanced up the busy street--"is madness--sheer madness. In the whole squirming human ma.s.s you could not show me one really contented person, while I can point to hundreds in the mountains. You are thinking about leaving it while my father is planning to come here. At his time of life, too. It is absurd, but he says it is the only thing open to him.

I didn't tell you, but he came down with me. It is pitiful, for he is looking for work."

"Oh, really, is it possible?" Saunders exclaimed, in surprise. "Why, I thought he was one man who would always stay in the country."

Dolly sighed. "He has changed remarkably," she said, her face settling into almost pained gravity. "All at once he has become more ashamed of his condition than he ever was in his life. He is in debt to personal friends and has no way of paying them. He used to make money moonshining, but he has quit that, and doesn't seem able to make our poor farm pay at all. The storekeepers won't credit him, and he has become desperate. He is trying to get a job at carpenter work, but he will fail, for he can't do that sort of thing. Indirectly, George is the cause of his sudden determination."

"George? Why, I thought--"

"It is this way," Dolly went on, quickly. "You see, through your kindness George is so happy, is doing so well, and there is so much talk about his good luck that it has made my father realize his own shortcomings more keenly. Don't you bother; it is a good lesson for him; he has not been doing right, and he knows it. It is odd, isn't it, to see a man mortified by the success of his own son? In one way I am sorry for father, and in another I am not. Ann is trying to get a teacher's place in a school, and if she does, between us we may be able, for mother's sake, to keep father at home. Somehow, it makes me sad to think of his being in this hot town tramping about asking for work as a day-laborer, and yet I know it will be good for him. Mother cried pitifully when we left this morning, and he was the most wretched-looking man I ever saw. I don't care if he does suffer--_some_--but I don't like to see my mother sad. Do you know, that poor woman has had nothing but sorrow as her portion all her married life? First one thing and then another has come up to depress and dishearten her. At first it was father's drinking; then he quit that, and became a moonshiner in constant danger of arrest; and now he has left home to try his fortune among total strangers."

"It is sad; indeed, it is," Saunders said, sympathetically. "And the worst of it is that it troubles you, Dolly. You speak of your mother's hard lot. As I see it, you, yourself, have had enough trouble to kill a dozen girls of your age."

"Oh, I am all right! That is the Capitol, isn't it?" she added, as in turning a corner they came in sight of the vast stone building with its graceful, gray dome, standing on the gra.s.sy, low-walled grounds.

He nodded, and she ran on with a rippling laugh of self-depreciation.

"Think of this silly country yap making a speech in that big building before the Governor, State senators, princ.i.p.als of schools, and no telling who else! Why, I'll want to sink through the floor into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Do you know, when I was a little tiny thing playing with rag dolls and keeping house with broken bits of china for plates and stones for tables and chairs, I used to fancy myself growing up and being a great lady with servants and carriages; but that was crawling on the earth compared to this sky-sweeping stunt to-day. But if they call on me I'll go through with it in some shape or die."

"Is the meeting to be public?" Saunders asked. "Because if it is I should like to be present."

He saw her start suddenly. She looked down at the pavement for a moment; then she gave him a glance full of perturbation, laying her hand on his arm impulsively. "Jarvis--oh, I didn't mean to call you that!" The color ran in a flood to her face. "It was a slip of the tongue. I _do_ call you that in my thoughts, for--for so many at home do, you know."