"Now, dear," she suddenly heard her husband, and looked up to find that he had returned. He stooped and kissed her fondly, and then went on: "I am going up to my sister's homestead to start the men to work with the engine breaking the land and I must haul them the coal, which I will get at Colome. Now I will not be back for several days, but will make up my mind in the meantime as to whether I can let you go to Chicago or not."

"All right, dear," she said, raising from the bed and caressing him long and lingeringly. She could not understand how much she wanted him then, it seemed that she could hold him so forever. She kissed him again and again, and as he passed out of the room she looked after him long and lingeringly, and upon her face was a heavenly smile as he passed out of sight and disappeared over the hill. As he did so, the Elder got from his position at the other side of the bed, went to the door, and also watched him out sight. As he turned away, Baptiste's grandmother who had fed many a preacher back there in old Illinois, the Reverend included, started. She had seen his face, and what she had seen therein had frightened her. When he went back into the room and to the bed where Orlean lay, she dropped by the table and buried her face in her old arms and sobbed, long and silently. And a close observer could have heard these shaken words:

"Poor Jean, poor Jean, poor Orlean, oh, poor Orlean! You made all the fight you could but you were weak. You were doomed before you started, for he knew you and knew you were weak. But would to God that the world could end today, for it will end tomorrow for you two. Poor Orlean, poor Jean!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE COWARD

"Hello, Jean," cried a friend of his at Colome some days later, as he was leading his horses into the livery barn, after loading the coal he was hauling to the men who were breaking prairie on his sister's claim with a steam tractor. "Were those your folks I seen driving into town a while ago?"

"My folks?"

"Yeh. Three of them. A man and two women. One of the ladies appears to be sick."

"Oh," he echoed, and before he could or would have answered in his sudden surprise, the other passed on. It was some moments before he recovered from the shock the other's words had given him. He knew without stopping to think that the ones referred to were the Reverend, Ethel and his wife. He had written his wife a few days before that he would be home the following Sunday, and when he would be caught up in his hauling sufficiently and could spend a few days there.

"So he moves without my consent or bid," he breathed, and for a time he was listless from the feeling that overcame him. He attended to his horses, mechanically, had supper and went to verify what he had heard.

He had little difficulty in doing so, for the town was small, but that night, happened to be full of people, and the Reverend had found some difficulty in securing lodging. The day had not been a beautiful one by any means. It was in early April and the month had borrowed one of the dreary days of the previous month. Light snow had fallen, which, along toward evening had turned into a dismal sleet. A bad day to say the least, to be out, and a sick person of all things!

He went directly to the preacher when he saw him. He was aroused, and the insults he had suffered did not make him pleasant.

"Now, look here, Reverend McCarthy," he said and his tone revealed his feelings, "what kind of a 'stunt' are you pulling off with my wife?" And he blocked his way where they stood upon the sidewalk.

"Now, now, my son--"

"Oh, don't 'son' me," said the other impatiently. "You and I might as well come to an understanding right here tonight as any other time. We are not friends and you know it. We have never since we have known each other been in accord--not since we met--yes, twenty-two years ago. Oh, you remember it." The other started guiltily when Jean referred to his youth.

"You remember how my mother licked me for letting Miss Self help me upon her lap and fed me, thereby disturbing your illegitimate flirtation...."

The other's pious face darkened. But it was not his nature to meet and argue openly as men should and do. Always his counter was subtle. So while Jean Baptiste was in the mood to come to an understanding, to admit frankly to the other, that enemies they were, the Elder permitted a womanish smile to spread over his face and patted the other on the back, saying:

"Now, now, Jean. You are my daughter's husband, and it is no time or place to carry on like this. The girl lays sick over here and if you would be a husband you would go to her. Now let's dispense with such things as you refer to and go forth to the indisposed." He appeared more godly now than he had ever. Distrust was in the face of Baptiste.

He knew the preacher was not sincere, but his wife, the girl he had married, lay ill. He suspicioned that the Elder had intended stealing her away without his knowledge; he knew, moreover, that all his affected tenderness was subtle; but he hushed the harsh words that were on his tongue to say and followed the other.

"Yes, my children," his pious face almost unable to veil the evil behind the mask, "here we are together," he said when he entered the room followed by Baptiste. Orlean was in bed and made no effort to greet her husband; while Ethel sat sulkily in a chair nearby and kept her mouth closed. Jean went to the bed and sat by his wife and regarded her meditatively. She did not seem to recognize him, and he made no effort to arouse her to express her thoughts which seemed to come and go. He was lost in thoughts, strange and sinister. Verily his life was in a turmoil. The life he had come into through his marriage had revived so many old and unpleasant memories that he had forgotten, until he was in a sort of daze. He had virtually run away from those parts wherein he had first seen the light of day, to escape the effect of dull indolence; the penurious evil that seemed to have gripped the populace, especially a great portion of his race. In the years Jean Baptiste had spent in the West, he had been able to follow, unhampered, his convictions. But now, the Reverend's presence seemed to have brought all this back.

In a conversation one day with that other he had occasion to mention the late James J. Hill, in his eulogy of the northwest and was surprised to find--and have the Reverend admit--that he had never even heard of him.

Indeed, what the Elder knew about the big things in life would have filled a very small book. But when it came to the virtues of the women in the churches over which he presided, he knew everything. And whenever they had become agreeable in any way, it was sure to end with the Reverend relating incidents regarding the social and moral conduct of the women in the churches over which he presided. Moreover, the Elder sought in his subtle manner, to dig into the past life of members of Baptiste's family, of what any had committed that could be used as a measure for gossip. And this night, as they sat over Jean's wife whose sentiment and convictions had been crushed, the Elder attempted to dwell on the subject again.

"Yes, when your older sister taught in Murphysboro, and got herself talked about because she drew a revolver on Professor Alexander, that was certainly too bad."

"Looks as if she was able to take care of herself," suggested Baptiste, deciding to counter the old rascal at his own game.

"But that's what I'm trying to show you, and you could see it if you wasn't inclined to be so hard headed," argued the Elder.

"We'll leave personalities out of it, if you please," said Baptiste, coloring.

"Oh, but if your sister had had protection, such a deplorable incident would not have happened. Now, for instance," argued the Elder, "my girls have never had their good names embarrassed with such incidents."

"Oh, they haven't," cried Baptiste, all patience gone.

"Then what about their half brother in East St. Louis, eh? And the other one who died--was stabbed to death. Those were yours, and you were never married to their mother!"

The other's face became terrible. The expression upon his face was dreadful to behold. He started to rise, but Baptiste was not through.

He was thoroughly aroused now, and all he had stood from this arch sinner had come back to him. Therefore, before the other could deny or do anything, said he:

"Oh, you needn't try to become so upset over it. Your morals are common knowledge to all the people of Illinois, and elsewhere. And let me tell you, you can--as you have--in your family, force those who know it and condemn it to keep quiet by making yourself so disagreeable that they will honey you up to get along with you. But it is not because they, or all those who know you, are not aware of it! That's your reputation, and some day you are going to suffer for it. You deliberately make people miserable to satisfy your infernal vanity; your desire to be looked upon and called great. Now right here you are bent upon crucifying your own daughter's happiness just because I haven't tickled your rotten vanity, and lied." He arose now, and pointed a threatening finger at the other.

"You are out to injure me, and you are taking advantage of your own child's position as my wife to do so. I'm going to let you go ahead.

Orlean's a good girl, but she's weak like the mother that you have abused for thirty years! But remember this, N.J. McCarthy, and I've called you Reverend for the last time. The evil that you do unto others will some day be done unto you and will drag your ornery heart in its own blood. Mark my words!" And the next instant he was gone.

The other looked after him uneasily. The truth had come so forcibly, so impulsively, so abruptly, that it had for the time overcome his cunningness; but only for a moment after the other had disappeared was he so. He regained his usual composure soon enough, and he turned to the sick woman for succor--to her whom he was dragging down to the gutter of misery for his own self aggrandizement.

"Did you hear how he abused your father?" he cried, the tears from his piggish eyes falling on her cheeks. She reached and stroked his white hair, and mumbled weak words.

"Oh, I never thought I would come to this--be brought to this through the daughter that I have loved so much. Oh, poor me, your poor old father," whereupon he wept bitterly.

"You see, you see," cried Ethel, who had risen and stood over her, pointing her finger to Orlean as she lay upon the bed. "This is what comes of marrying that man! I tried, oh, I tried so hard to have you see that no good could come of it, no good at all!" The other sighed. She was too weak from mortification to reply in the affirmative, or the negative.

"I tried, and I tried to have you desist, but you would! When I had at last gotten you to quit him, and you swore you had, no sooner did he come and place his arm about you and whisper fool things in your ear, than did you but up and consent to this. This, this, do you hear? This that has brought your poor father to that!" and she stopped to point to where that one lay stretched across the bed, sobbing.

The night was one long, miserable, quarrelsome night. Ethel and the Elder wore themselves out abusing Baptiste, and along toward morning all fell into a troubled sleep.

Baptiste met them the next morning as they came from the rooms, and helped his wife across the street to a restaurant. When they had finished the meal, he said to her as they came from the restaurant,

"Now, dear, I'll step into the bank here and get you some money--"

"No, no, no, Jean," she said quickly, cutting him off before he completed what he had started to say.

"Well," and he started toward the bank again as if he had not understood her.

"No, no, no, Jean," she repeated, and caught his arm nervously. "No, don't!"

"But you are going away, dear, and will surely need money?" he insisted.

"Yes, but--Jean--Jean--I have money."

"You have money?" repeated the other uncomprehendingly. "But how came you with money? That much money?"

"I--I had--a--check cashed. That is--papa had one cashed for me."

"Oh, so that was it. M-m. _Your father_ had it cashed for you?" he understood then, and his suspicion that the Elder had intended taking her to Chicago without letting him know it was confirmed. They walked down the street toward the depot, and while she held nervously to his arm, his mind was concerned with his thoughts. It occurred to him that he should take his wife back to the claim right then. He felt that if she went to Chicago there would be trouble. He began slowly to appreciate that in dealing with Reverend McCarthy he was not dealing with a man; nor a near man. He was not dealing with a mere liar, or a thief, even--he was dealing with the lowest of all reptiles, a snake!

Then why did not he, Jean Baptiste, act?