The Desired Woman Part 24

"Yes, I know what the child said," Saunders retorted. "And if you had been the right sort of a father you would not have acted on such slight evidence. Dolly is in this plight simply because she saved you--"

"Saved _me?_ What the h.e.l.l--"

"Yes, she saved you from arrest and imprisonment as a moonshiner. The whistle Ann heard was not a signal from Mostyn. It was Tobe Barnett, who had come to warn her of your danger. She did meet Mostyn that night, but it was by accident, and not appointment. Dolly could have explained it all to Ann, but she did not want the child to know of your connection with that gang. Now you've got the whole thing, Drake."

The mountaineer stared, his mouth open; the sinews of his face were drawn into distortion.

"You say--you tell me--you say--"

"That's the whole thing," Saunders said. "Now let's go home. Dolly deserves a humble apology from you--you ought to get down on your knees to her and beg her to forgive you. I know of no other woman like her in this world--none, none, anywhere. She has my admiration, my respect, my reverence."

"But--but"--Drake's dead face began to kindle--"Ann said she saw that dirty scamp actually holdin' her in his arms an' kissin' 'er. She said that Dolly made no denial of it, an' now, accordin' to the papers, he's goin' to marry a woman in Atlanta."

Saunders's glance sought the ground, his eyes went aimlessly to the two horses nibbling gra.s.s near by.

"Ah, ha, I see that floors you!" Drake flared out. "You admit that the low-lived scamp did take advantage of our confidence, an'--"

"You've got to face that part of it as I would do if she were my child," Saunders answered. "Listen to me, Drake. Mostyn is not a whit better or worse than many other men of his cla.s.s. He has been fast and reckless, but when he met Dolly he met the first pure and elevating influence of his life. I am in his confidence. He told me the whole story. He determined that he would win her love and make her his wife.

When he left here it was with the firm resolution of being wholly true to her. Now, I can only say that on his return home he found himself in a situation which would have taken more strength of character to get out of than he had. You cannot afford to attack him. Such a thing would reflect on your brave daughter, and you have no right to do it, no matter how you feel about it. From now on you've got to consider her feelings. If she cares for--for him, and--and--is depressed by the newspaper reports, that is all the more reason for your sympathy and support. Surely you can realize what she has escaped. As that man's wife her life would have been h.e.l.l on earth. He is wholly unworthy of her. If she were my--sister, I'd rather see her dead than married to him."

Drake stood with hanging head. He stepped slowly to his horse and grasped the rein. Saunders went a few feet to the right, searched on the ground a moment and picked up the revolver. Returning, he extended it to its owner.

Drake took it silently, and clumsily thrust it into his pocket. He hesitated; he gulped, swallowed, then said, huskily:

"You are my friend, Saunders. I've had some that I depended on in a pinch, but you've done me a big favor to-night. I'll never git forgiveness for tryin' to shoot you--never--never in this world."

"That is all right." Saunders extended his hand, and the other clasped it firmly.

A man with a polished club tied to his wrist was striding toward them.

It was the village marshal, Alf Floyd. Drake eyed him helplessly.

"Let me talk to him," Saunders said, under his breath. "You ride on home. Leave him to me. This must not get out."

"What's the trouble here?" the officer asked, arriving just as Drake rode away.

Saunders laughed carelessly as he reached for the bridle of his grazing horse. "It means that I got the best of Tom Drake. He bet me a dollar he could catch that train and get aboard. He would have done it, too, if I hadn't caught him around the waist at the last minute and swung him back. He didn't like it much, but he is all right now."

"Somebody said they heard a pistol-shot," the officer said.

"An accident," Saunders replied. "Drake dropped it--horse jerked it from his hand. I suppose we may have violated an ordinance in racing in town, and if so I'm willing to pay the fine. I'm responsible."

"There _is_ an ordinance," the marshal said, "but I won't make a case out o' this."

"All right, Alf; thanks. How goes it?"

"Oh, so-so. How is it in the city?"

"Hot and dusty." Saunders mounted deliberately. "Good night, Alf; I must get out home and eat something."

A few minutes later as Saunders was slowly riding past Drake's front gate he noticed a figure on the inside of the yard close to the fence.

It was Dolly. She opened the gate and came out. He reined in and, hat in hand, sprang to the ground. Her head was covered with a thin white shawl held beneath her chin, and her pale face showed between the folds as pure and patient as a suffering nun's. He saw that she was trying to speak, but was unable to do so.

"What is it, Dolly?" he faltered. "I suppose your father got back?"

"Yes." It was a bare l.a.b.i.al whisper. She nodded; she put her cold hand into his great, warm eager one, and he held it as tenderly as if it had been a dying sparrow.

"I am glad I happened to reach him," he said, in an effort to relieve her embarra.s.sment. "We had it nip and tuck," he added, lightly. "My lungs are lined with dust."

He felt her fingers and palm faintly flutter.

"Oh, oh, Mr. Saunders!" she gulped. "I can never, never thank you enough. I met him down the road just now. He actually cried. I have never seen him give way before."

Saunders stared helplessly. He knew not what to say. In the moonlight he saw tears like drops of dew rise in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks.

"You must not cry," he managed to say. "Don't break down, Dolly; you have been so brave all along."

She released the shawl beneath her chin and began to fumble in her pocket for her handkerchief. Seeing she was unable to find it, he took out his own, and while he still held her hand with his left he tenderly dried her tears. Suddenly she clasped his hand with both of hers.

"I suppose you know everything--" she faltered. "How silly I have been to think--to imagine that Mr. Mostyn really meant--" A great sob struggled up within her and broke on her lips.

"I know _this_, Dolly." His face hardened to the appearance of stone in the white light from the sky. "I know that from this moment on you must never give him another thought."

"You don't understand a woman's feelings," she returned, in the saddest of intonations. "I know what you say is right and true, but--it is like this; he seems to have--died! I think of him only as dead, and a woman with a heart cannot at a moment's notice put her dead out of mind. I can't, somehow, blame him. You see, I think I understand him. He is not going to be happy, and I'm afraid I'll never be able to forget that fact. He was trying to get right. I saw his struggle. I did not fully know what it meant when we parted, but I see it all now. I thought I could help him, but it is too late--too late; and oh, that is the terrible part! I feel somewhat like a mother must feel who sees a son, hopelessly wrong, taken from her sight forever. Oh, I pity him, pity him, pity him!"

"Nevertheless, you must try to put him wholly out of your mind and heart," Saunders urged. "You deserve happiness, and this thing must not kill your chances for it. Time will help."

"Isn't it queer?" she sighed; "but in moments of deepest sorrow we don't want Time, G.o.d, or anything else to take our grief away. Really, I feel to-night like an invisible thing crushed out of its body and left intact to float forever in pitiless s.p.a.ce."

He led her to the gate and opened it. "You must not indulge such weird thoughts," he said, his features set in a mask of tense inner pain.

"You must go to bed and try to sleep."

"Sleep!" she laughed, harshly. "I'll have to wake. The happy chickens, ducks, turkeys, and twittering, chirping birds will rouse me at sun-up.

I must teach to-morrow. I must answer questions about grammar, history, geography, and arithmetic. I must correct compositions, write on a blackboard with chalk, point to dots on maps, scold little ones, reprove big ones, talk to parents, and through it all _think, think, think!_ I am Dolly Drake. Do you know, Mr. Saunders, the queerest thing to me in all the world is that I am Dolly Drake? Sometimes I p.r.o.nounce the name in wonder, as if I had never heard it before. I seem to have been a thousand persons in former periods."

"Dolly, listen." Saunders bent till his face was close to hers. "I am your friend. I shall be true to you forever and ever. From now on nothing else on earth can be of so much importance to me as your welfare. To help you shall be my constant aim."

"I know it, dear, sweet friend." The words bubbled from a swelling sob.

"And oh, it is sweet and comforting at a time like this! Don't--don't stop me." And therewith she raised his hand, pressed her lips upon it, and turned quickly away.

PART II

CHAPTER I