"Married!" he exclaimed. "Are you joking?"

"I suppose you do regard it as a joke," she said, listlessly, and with a little sigh. "Such a serious step would seem funny in me, wouldn't it? But I am not what I used to be, d.i.c.k. I have been quite upset for a long time--in fact, ever since you married. Then again, your life, your ways, your constant brooding has had a depressing effect on me. d.i.c.k, it seems to me that you have been trying to--well, to be good ever since you married."

He shrugged his shoulders. "What is the use of talking about that, Marie?" he asked, avoiding her probing stare.

"It affected me a lot," she returned, thoughtfully. "I tried to keep up the old pace and care for the old things, but your turn about was always before me. d.i.c.k, you have puzzled me all along. You do not care a snap for your wife; what is it that makes you look like a ghost of your old jolly self?"

He shrank from her sensitively. "I really don't like to talk about such things," he faltered. "Tell me about your marriage."

"Not yet; one thing at a time." She dropped her sunshade at her feet and locked her white hands over her knee. "I shall never see you again after to-day, d.i.c.k, and I _do_ want to understand you a little better, so that when I look back on our friendship you won't be such a tantalizing mystery. d.i.c.k, you never loved me; you never loved your wife; but you _have_ loved some one."

He lowered his startled glance to the ground. She saw a quiver pa.s.s over him and a slow flush rise in his face.

"What are you driving at?" he suddenly demanded. "All this is leading nowhere."

She smiled in a kindly, even sympathetic way. "It can't do any harm, d.i.c.k, for, really, what I have found out has made me sorry for you for the first time in my life--genuinely and sincerely sorry."

"What you have found out?" he faltered, half fearfully.

"Yes, and it doesn't matter how I discovered it, but I did. I happened to stay for a week at a little hotel in Ridgeyille last month, and a slight thing I picked up about your stay up there five years ago gradually led me on to the whole thing. d.i.c.k, I saw Dolly Drake one day on one of my walks. One look at her and the whole thing became plain.

You loved her. You came back here with the intention of marrying her and leading a different life. You would have done it, too, but for my threats and your partial engagement to your wife. You went against your true self when you married, and you have never gotten over it."

He was unable to combat her a.s.sertions, and simply sat in silence, an expression of keen inner pain showing itself in his drawn lips.

"See how well I have read you!" she sighed. "I always knew there was something unexplained. You would have been more congenial with your wife but for that experience. You are to blame for her dissatisfaction.

Not having love from you, she is leaning on the love of an old sweetheart. d.i.c.k, that pretty girl in the mountains would have made you happy. I read the article about her in the paper the other day. From all accounts, she is a remarkable woman, and genuine."

Mostyn nodded. "She _is_ genuine," he admitted. "Well, now you know the truth. But all that is past and gone. You forget something else."

"No, I don't," she took him up, confidently. "You are thinking of your boy."

Again he nodded. "Love for a woman is one thing, Marie, but the love for one's own child pa.s.ses beyond anything else on earth."

"Yes, when the child is loved as you love yours, and when you fancy that he is being neglected, and that you are partly responsible for it.

Oh, d.i.c.k, you and I both are queer mixtures! I may as well be frank.

Your struggles to make amends have had their effect on me. For a long time I have not been satisfied with myself. I used to be able to quiet my conscience by plunging into pleasure, but the old things no longer amuse. That is why I am turning over a new leaf. d.i.c.k, the man I am to marry knows my life from beginning to end. He is a good fellow--a stranger here, and well-to-do. My brother sent him to me with a letter of introduction. He has had trouble. He was suspected of serious defalcation, and the citizens of his native town turned against him.

All his old ties are cut. He likes me, and I like him. I shall make him a true wife, and he knows it. I am going to my brother in Texas and will be married out there. d.i.c.k, I shall, perhaps, never see you again, but, frankly, I shall not care. I want to forget you as completely as you will forget me. I only wish I were leaving you in a happier frame of mind. You are miserable, d.i.c.k, and you are so const.i.tuted that you can't throw it off."

"No, I can't throw it off!" His voice was low and husky. "I won't mince words about it. Marie, I am in h.e.l.l. I know how men feel who kill themselves. But I shall not do that."

"No, that would do no good, d.i.c.k. I have faced that proposition several times, and conquered it. The only thing to do is to hope--and, d.i.c.k, I sometimes think there is something--a _little_ something, you know--in praying. I believe there is a G.o.d over us--a G.o.d of _some_ sort, who loves even the wrong-doers He has created and listens to their cries for help now and then. But I don't know; half the time I doubt everything. There is one thing certain. The humdrum church-people, whom we used to laugh at for their long faces and childish faith, have the best of the game of life in the long run. They have--they really have."

He tried to blend his cold smile with hers, but failed. He stood up, and, extending his hand, he aided her to rise. "This is good-by, then, forever," he said. "Marie, I think _you_ are going to be happy."

"I don't know, but I am going to try at least for contentment," she said, simply. "There is always hope, and you may see some way out of your troubles."

Quite in silence they walked back to the cottage gate, and there, with a hand-shake that was all but awkward, they parted. He tipped his hat formally as he turned away. Ahead of him lay the city, a dun stretch of roofs and walls, with here and there a splotch of green beneath a blue sky strewn with snowy clouds.

He had gone only a few paces when he heard the whirring sound of an automobile, which was approaching from the direction of the city. It was driven by a single occupant. It was Andrew Buckton. Mostyn saw the expression of exultant surprise that he swept from him to Marie, and knew by Buckton's raised hat that he had seen them together. The car sped on and vanished amid the trees at the end of the road. Looking back, Mostyn saw that Marie was lingering at the gate. He knew from the regretful look in her face that she was deploring the incident; but, simply raising his hat again, he strode on.

All the remainder of the morning he worked at his desk. He tried to make himself feel that, now that Marie was leaving, his future would be less clouded; but with all the effort made, he could not shake off a certain clinging sense of approaching disaster. Was he afraid that Buckton would gossip about what he had just seen, and that the public would brand him afresh with the discarded habits of the past? He could not have answered the question. He was sure of nothing. He lunched at his club, smoked a dismal cigar with Delbridge and some other men, and heard them chatting about the rise and fall of stocks as if they and he were in a turbulent dream. They appeared as marvels to him in their unstumbling blindness under the overbrooding horrors of life, in their ignorance of the dark, psychic current against which he alone was battling.

All the afternoon he toiled at the bank, and at dusk he walked home. No one was about the front of the house, and he went up to his room. He had bathed his face and hands, changed his suit, and was about to descend the stairs when his father-in-law came tottering along the corridor and paused at the open door of the room.

"This is a pretty come-off," he scowled in at Mostyn. "Here you come like this as if nothing out of the way had happened, when your wife has packed up and gone off for another trip. She said she was going to write you--did you get a note?"

"No; where has she gone?" Mostyn inquired. "She didn't even mention it to me."

"One of her sudden notions. The Hardys at Knoxville are having a big house-party, and wrote her to come. I tried to get her to listen to reason, but she wouldn't hear a word. She is actually crazy for excitement--women all get that way if you give them plenty of rein, and Irene has been spoiled to death. I have never seen her act as strange as she did to-day. She cried when I talked to her, and almost went into hysterics. She gave the servants a lot of her clothes, and kept coming to me and throwing her arms around me and telling me to forgive her for this and that thing I forgot long ago. When she started for the train I wanted to go with her or telephone you, but she wouldn't let me do either--said I was too feeble, and she did not want to bother you. Say, do you know I'm to blame? I had no right to influence you and her to marry, nohow. You have never suited each other--you don't act like man and wife. You might as well be two strangers. .h.i.tched together.

Something is wrong, awfully wrong, but I can't tell what it is."

Mostyn made no reply. He heard little d.i.c.k's voice in the hall below, and had a sudden impulse to take him up. Leaving him, old Mitch.e.l.l pa.s.sed on to his own room, and Mostyn went down the stairs to the child, who was playing on the veranda.

"Poor child! Poor child!" he said to himself.

CHAPTER XI

The next morning at the bank a financial disappointment met him. A telegram informed him of the sudden slump in some stocks in which he was interested. The loss was considerable, and the tendency was still downward. He was wondering if he ought to confide this to Saunders, when his partner, of his own accord, came into his office and sat down by his desk.

"Busy just now?" Saunders inquired.

"No; what is it?" Mostyn returned. "Fire away."

Saunders seemed to hesitate. Through the part.i.tion came the clicking of a typewriter and an adding-machine, the swinging of the screened door in front. "It is a somewhat personal matter," Saunders began, awkwardly. "I have been wanting to mention it for a month, but hardly knew how to bring it up. You may know, Mostyn, that I have been thinking of giving up business here altogether. I have become more and more interested in my farming ventures, and my life in the country has taken such a grip on me that I want to quit Atlanta altogether."

"Oh, I see." Mostyn forced a smile. "I thought you would get to that before long. You are becoming a regular hayseed, Saunders. You are like a fish out of water here in town. Well, I suppose you want to put a man in your place so you will have freer rein in every way."

"Not that, exactly, Mostyn. The fact is, I want to realize on my bank stock. There are other things I'd like to invest in, and I need the money to do it with. I am planning a cotton-mill in my section to give employment to a worthy cla.s.s of poor people."

Mostyn drew his lips tight. He stabbed a sheet of paper on the green felt before him, and there was a rebellious flash from his eyes.

"Come right out and be frank about it," he said, with a touch of anger.

"Are you afraid your investment in this bank is not a safe one?"

Saunders looked steadily at him. "That certainly is not a businesslike question, Mostyn, and you know it."

"Perhaps it isn't, but what does it matter?" Mostyn retorted. "At any rate, that is a shrewd evasion of the point. Well, do you want to sell _me_ your stock?"

"I would naturally give you the preference, and that is why I am mentioning it to you."

Mostyn sat frowning morbidly. There was a visible droop to his shoulders. "There is no use having hard feelings over it," he said, dejectedly. "You have a right to do as you please with your interests.

But the truth is, I am not financially able to take over as big a block of stock as you hold."

Saunders hesitated for a moment, then began: "I was wondering if Mr.