With a leap Norton grasped the boy again and shook him madly:

"Married already? It's not true, I tell you! It's not true. You're lying to me--lying to gain time--it's not true!"

"You wish me to swear it?"

"Silence, sir!" the father cried in solemn tones. "You are my son--this is my house--I order you to be silent!"

"Before G.o.d, I swear it's true! Helen is my lawful----"

"Don't say it! It's false--you lie, I tell you!" Again the father shook him with cruel violence, his eyes staring with the glitter of a maniac.

Tom seized the trembling hands and threw them from his shoulders with a quick movement of anger:

"If that's all you've got to say, sir, excuse me, I'll go to my wife!"

He wheeled, slammed the door and was gone.

The father stared a moment, stunned, looked around blankly, placed his hands over his ears and held them, crying:

"G.o.d have mercy!"

He rushed to a window and threw it open. The band was playing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" The mocking strains rolled over his prostrate soul. He leaned heavily against the cas.e.m.e.nt and groaned:

"My G.o.d!"

He slammed the sash, staggered back into the room, lifted his eyes in a leaden stare at the portrait over the mantel, and then rushed toward it with uplifted arms and streaming eyes:

"It's not true, dearest! Don't believe it--it's not true, I tell you! It's not true!"

The voice sank into inarticulate sobs, he reeled and fell, a limp, black heap on the floor.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ONE CHANCE

The dim light began to creep into the darkened brain at last. Norton's eyes opened wider and the long arms felt their way on the floor until they touched a rug and then a chair. He tried to think what had happened and why he was lying there. It seemed a dream, half feverish, half restful. His head was aching and he was very tired.

"What's the matter?" he murmured, unable to lift his head.

He was whirling through s.p.a.ce again and the room faded. Once before in his life had he been knocked insensible. From the trenches before Petersburg in the last days of the war he had led his little band of less than five hundred ragged, half-starved, tatterdemalions in a mad charge against the line in front. A bomb from a battery on a hilltop exploded directly before them. He had been thrown into the air and landed on a heap of dead bodies, bruised and stunned into insensibility. He had waked feeling the dead limbs and wondering if they were his own.

He rubbed his hands now, first over his head, and then over each limb, to find if all were there. He felt his body to see if a bomb had torn part of it away.

And then the light of memory suddenly flashed into the darkened mind and he drew himself to his knees and fumbled his way to a chair.

"Married? Married already!" he gasped. "O, G.o.d, it can't be true! And he said, 'married an hour before you dragged me away in that campaign'"--it was too hideous! He laughed in sheer desperation and again his brain refused to work. He pressed his hands to his forehead and looked about the room, rose, staggered to the bell and rang for Andy.

When his black face appeared, he lifted his bloodshot eyes and said feebly:

"Whiskey----"

The negro bowed:

"Ya.s.sah!"

He pulled himself together and tried to walk. He could only reel from one piece of furniture to the next. His head was on fire. He leaned again against the mantel for support and dropped his head on his arm in utter weariness:

"I must think! I must think!"

Slowly the power to reason returned.

"What can I do? What can I do?" he kept repeating mechanically, until the only chance of escape crept slowly into his mind. He grasped it with feverish hope.

If Tom had married but an hour before leaving on that campaign, he hadn't returned until to-day. But had he? It was, of course, a physical possibility. From the nearby counties, he could have ridden a swift horse through the night, reached home and returned the next day without his knowing it. It was possible, but not probable. He wouldn't believe it until he had to.

If he had married in haste the morning he had left town and had only rejoined Helen to-night, it was no marriage. It was a ceremony that had no meaning. In law it was void and could be annulled immediately. But if he were really married in all that word means--his mind stopped short and refused to go on.

He would cross that bridge when he came to it. But he must find out at once and he must know before he saw Tom again.

His brain responded with its old vigor under the pressure of the new crisis. One by one his powers returned and his mind was deep in its tragic problem when Andy entered the room with a tray on which stood a decanter of whiskey, a gla.s.s of water and two small empty gla.s.ses.

The negro extended the tray. Norton was staring into s.p.a.ce and paid no attention.

Andy took one of the empty gla.s.ses and clicked it against the other. There was still no sign of recognition until he pushed the tray against Norton's arm and cleared his throat:

"Ahem! Ahem!"

The dazed man turned slowly and looked at the tray and then at the grinning negro:

"What's this?"

Andy's face kindled with enthusiasm:

"Dat is moonshine, sah--de purest mountain dew--ya.s.sah!"

"Whiskey?"

"Ya.s.sah," was the astonished reply, "de whiskey you jis ring fer, sah!"

"Take it back!"

Andy could not believe his ears. The major was certainly in a queer mood.

Was he losing his mind?