"I love you, Betty!--I want you to say you will marry me as soon as I can stand by your side--you're not going?--I won't speak of this again if it annoys you, dear!" for she had risen.

"I must, Charley--"

"Oh, don't--well, then, if you will go, I want Carrington to ride back with you."

"But I brought George with me--"

"Yes, I know, but I want you to take Carrington--the Lord knows what we are coming to here in West Tennessee; I must have word that you reach home safe."

"Very well, then, I'll ask Mr. Carrington. Good-by, Charley, dear!"

Norton seemed to summon all his fort.i.tude.

"You couldn't have done a kinder thing than come here, Betty; I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am--and as for my loving you--why, I'll just keep on doing that to the end. I can see myself a bent, old man still pestering you with my attentions, and you a sweet, old lady with snow-white hair and pink cheeks, still obdurate--still saying no! Oh, Lord, isn't it awful!" He had lifted himself on his elbow, and now sank back on his pillow.

Betty paused irresolutely.

"Charley--"

"Yes, dear?"

"Can't you be happy without me?"

"No."

"But you don't try to be!"

"No use in my making any such foolish effort, I'd be doomed to failure."

"Good-by, Charley--I really must go--"

He looked up yearningly into her face, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she stooped and kissed him on the forehead, then she fled from the room.

"Oh, come back--Betty--" cried Norton, and his voice rose to a wail of entreaty, but she was gone. She had been quite as much surprised by her act as Charley himself.

In the yard, Carrington was waiting for her. Jeff had just brought up Norton's horse, and though he made no display of weapons, the Kentuckian had fully armed himself.

"I am going to ride to Belle Plain with you, Miss Malroy," he said, as he lifted her into her saddle.

"Do you think it necessary?" she asked, but she did not look at him.

"I hope not. I'll keep a bit in advance," he added, as he mounted his horse, and all Betty saw of him during their ride of five miles was his broad back. At the entrance to Belle Plain he reined in his horse.

"I reckon it's all right, now," he said briefly.

"You will return at once to Mr. Norton?" she asked. He nodded. "And you will not leave him while he is helpless?"

"No, I'll not leave him," said Carrington, giving her a steady glance.

"I am so glad, I--his friends will feel so much safer with you there. I will send over in the morning to learn how he pa.s.sed the night. Good-by, Mr. Carrington." And still refusing to meet his eyes, she gave him her hand.

But Carrington did not quit the mouth of the lane until she had crossed between the great fields of waving corn, and he had seen her pa.s.s up the hillside beyond to the oak grove, where the four ma.s.sive chimneys of Belle Plain house showed their gray stone copings among the foliage.

With this last glimpse of her he turned away.

CHAPTER XXI. THICKET POINT

It WAS a point with Mr. Ware to see just as little as possible of Betty.

He had no taste for what he called female chatter. A sane interest in the price of cotton or pork he considered the only rational test of human intelligence, and Betty evinced entire indifference where those great staples were concerned, hence it was agreeable to him to have most of his meals served in his office.

At first Betty had sought to adapt herself to his somewhat peculiar scheme of life, but Tom had begged her not to regard him, his movements from hour to hour were cloaked in uncertainty. The man who had to overlook the labor of eighty or ninety field hands was the worst sort of a slave himself; the n.i.g.g.e.rs knew when they could sit down to a meal; he never did.

But for all his avoidance of Betty, he in reality kept the closest kind of a watch on her movements, and when he learned that she had visited Charley Norton--George, the groom, was the channel through which this information reached him--he was both scandalized and disturbed. He felt the situation demanded some sort of a protest.

"Isn't it just h.e.l.l the way a woman can worry you?" he lamented, as he hurried up the path from the barns to the house. He found Betty at supper.

"I thought I'd have a cup of tea with you, Bet--what else have you that's good?" he inquired genially, as he dropped into a chair.

"That was nice of you; we don't see very much of each other, do we, Tom?" said Betty pleasantly.

Mr. Ware twisted his features, on which middle age had rested an untender hand, into a smile.

"When a man undertakes to manage a place like Belle Plain his work's laid out for him, Betty, and an old fellow like me is pretty apt to go one of two ways; either he takes to hard living to keep himself in trim, or he pampers himself soft."

"But you aren't old, Tom!"

"I wish I were sure of seeing forty-five or even forty-eight again--but I'm not," said Tom.

"But that isn't really old," objected Betty.

"Well, that's old enough, Bet, as you'll discover for yourself one of these days."

"Mercy, Tom!" cried Betty.

Mr. Ware consumed a cup of tea in silence.

"You were over to see Norton, weren't you, Bet? How did you find him?"

he asked abruptly.

"The doctor says he will soon be about again," answered Betty.

Tom stroked his chin and gazed at her reflectively.

"Betty, I wish you wouldn't go there again--that's a good girl!" he said tactfully, and as he conceived it, affectionately, even, paving the way for an exercise of whatever influence might be his, a point on which he had no very clear idea. Betty glanced up quickly.

"Why, Tom, why shouldn't I go there?" she demanded.