The Battle Ground Part 28

"So you've come whining to me to get you out," returned the Major, shaking as if he had gone suddenly palsied.

Dan drew back and his hand fell to his side.

"So help me G.o.d, I'll never whine to you again," he answered.

"Do you want to know what you have done, sir?" demanded the Major. "You have broken your grandmother's heart and mine--and made us wish that we had left you by the roadside when you came crawling to our door. And, on my oath, if I had known that the day would ever come when you would try to murder a Virginia gentleman for the sake of a bar-room hussy, I would have left you there, sir."

"Stop!" said Dan again, looking at the old man with his mother's eyes.

"You have broken your grandmother's heart and mine," repeated the Major, in a trembling voice, "and I pray to G.o.d that you may not break Virginia Ambler's--poor girl, poor girl!"

"Virginia Ambler!" said Dan, slowly. "Why, there was nothing between us, nothing, nothing."

"And you dare to tell me this to my face, sir?" cried the Major.

"Dare! of course I dare," returned Dan, defiantly. "If there was ever anything at all it was upon my side only--and a mere trifling fancy."

The old gentleman brought his hand down upon his table with a blow that sent the papers fluttering to the floor. "Trifling!" he roared. "Would you trifle with a lady from your own state, sir?"

"I was never in love with her," exclaimed Dan, angrily.

"Not in love with her? What business have you not to be in love with her?"

retorted the Major, tossing back his long white hair. "I have given her to understand that you are in love with her, sir."

The blood rushed to Dan's head, and he stumbled over an ottoman as he turned away.

"Then I call it unwarrantable interference," he said brutally, and went toward the door. There the Major's flashing eyes held him back an instant.

"It was when I believed you to be worthy of her," went on the old man, relentlessly, "when--fool that I was--I dared to hope that dirty blood could be made clean again; that Jack Montjoy's son could be a gentleman."

For a moment only Dan stood motionless and looked at him from the threshold. Then, without speaking, he crossed the hall, took down his hat, and unbarred the outer door. It slammed after him, and he went out into the night.

A keen wind was still blowing, and as he descended the steps he felt it lifting the dampened hair from his forehead. With a breath of relief he stood bareheaded in the drive and raised his face to the cool elm leaves that drifted slowly down. After the heated atmosphere of the library there was something pleasant in the mere absence of light, and in the soft rustling of the branches overhead. The humour of his blood went suddenly quiet as if he had plunged headlong into cold water.

While he stood there motionless his thoughts were suspended, and his senses, gaining a brief mastery, became almost feverishly alert; he felt the night wind in his face, he heard the ceaseless stirring of the leaves, and he saw the sparkle of the gravel in the yellow shine that streamed from the library windows. But with his first step, his first movement, there came a swift recoil of his anger, and he told himself with a touch of youthful rhetoric, "that come what would, he was going to the devil--and going speedily."

He had reached the gate and his hand was upon the latch, when he heard the house door open and shut behind him and his name called softly from the steps.

He turned impulsively and stood waiting, while Betty came quickly through the lamplight that fell in squares upon the drive.

"Oh, come back, Dan, come back," she said breathlessly.

With his hand still on the gate he faced her, frowning.

"I'd die first, Betty," he answered.

She came swiftly up to him and stood, very pale, in the faint starlight that shone between the broken clouds. A knitted shawl was over her shoulders, but her head was bare and her hair made a glow around her face.

Her eyes entreated him before she spoke.

"Oh, Dan, come back," she pleaded.

He laughed angrily and shook his head.

"I'll die first, Betty," he repeated. "Die! I'd die a hundred times first!"

"He is so old," she said appealingly. "It is not as if he were young and quite himself, Dan--Oh, it is not like that--but he loves you, and he is so old."

"Don't, Betty," he broke in quickly, and added bitterly, "Are you, too, against me?"

"I am for the best in you," she answered quietly, and turned away from him.

"The best!" he snapped his fingers impatiently. "Are you for the shot at Maupin? the night I spent in gaol? or the beggar I am now? There's an equal choice, I reckon."

She looked gravely up at him.

"I am for the boy I've always known," she replied, "and for the man who was here two weeks ago--and--yes, I am for the man who stands here now. What does it matter, Dan? What does it matter?"

"O, Betty!" he cried breathlessly, and hid his face in his hands.

"And most of all, I am for the man you are going to be," she went on slowly, "for the great man who is growing up. Dan, come back!"

His hands fell from his eyes. "I'll not do that even for you, Betty," he answered, "and, G.o.d knows, there's little else I wouldn't do for you--there's nothing else."

"What will you do for yourself, Dan?"

"For myself?" his anger leaped out again, and he steadied himself against the gate. "For myself I'll go as far as I can from this d.a.m.ned place. I wish to G.o.d I'd fallen in the road before I came here. I wish I'd gone after my father and followed in his steps. I'll live on no man's charity, so help me G.o.d. Am I a dog to be kicked out and to go whining back when the door opens? Go--I'll go to the devil, and be glad of it!" For a moment Betty did not answer. Her hands were clasped on her bosom, and her eyes were dark and bright in the pallor of her face. As he looked at her the rage died out of his voice, and it quivered with a deeper feeling.

"My dear, my dearest, are you, too, against me?" he asked.

She met his gaze without flinching, but the bright colour swept suddenly to her cheeks and dyed them crimson.

"Then if you will go, take me with you," she said.

He fell back as if a star had dropped at his feet. For a breathless instant she saw only his eyes, and they drew her step by step. Then he opened his arms and she went straight into them.

"Betty, Betty," he said in a whisper, and kissed her lips.

She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stood with his arms about her, looking up into his face.

"Take me with you--oh, take me with you," she entreated. "I can't be left.

Take me with you."

"And you love me--Betty, do you love me?"

"I have loved you all my life--all my life," she answered; "how can I begin to unlove you now--now when it is too late? Do you think I am any the less yours if you throw me away? If you break my heart can I help its still loving you?"

"Betty, Betty," he said again, and his voice quivered.