The Hills of Refuge Part 46

"We love each other, don't we, Charlie?" she repeated, entreatingly.

A shudder shook him from head to foot. "How can I be glad to hear you say that," he asked, "when I know that it is your ruin and that I brought it on you? I have no right to tell you how I feel--how I've felt ever since I kissed you that night in the parlor and you lay so willingly in my arms and hung about my accursed neck. What can I do--what in the name of G.o.d, my tormentor? Shall I throw my sacred promise to the winds and laugh in the face of--of--?"

"No!" she cried out. "No, for I'd be doing it. I'd be your evil temptress. Be yourself, Charlie--be what you were before I met you. I think I know--you are selling yourself for some one else as I was willing to do when my brothers were in danger. Don't let me tempt you--don't let anything tempt you. G.o.d brought me out of my darkness--by your aid He brought me out. He only knows what my awful struggle was when I was ready to go to that repulsive man as his wife with your image locked in my breast--with my desire for you wrapped around my soul. G.o.d helped me; surely He will help you. What are earthly troubles for if they are not to be conquered, trampled under foot, as we mount to the heights to which we are destined? _You shall not tell me anything._ I know your soul, and that is enough."

She turned quickly and moved away. He saw the heads of her brothers as they wended their way toward Dodd's through the tall waving corn. How steadily, how erectly she walked toward the old mansion of her forebears! He noted the tiny marks of her shoes in the soil at his feet.

He could have kissed them; he could have fallen on his knees before them in reverent, wors.h.i.+pful humility.

Charles worked on till the cool, creeping shadows of the mountains told him that the sun was down. Then he shouldered his hoe and listlessly trudged homeward. He heard Kenneth and Martin singing as they returned through the corn. It was a negro plantation melody, somehow maddening now in its trustful suggestion of joy. He saw the boys come out into the path. They were arm in arm, full of happiness, full of the ebullient consciousness of their release. He smiled grimly. He told himself that their nightmare had pa.s.sed, while his was an abiding reality. He must be the exception that proved the rule of life's cosmic harmony. Some things could be borne with a smile. A man might die for his friend, and jest as the black cap m.u.f.fled his lips; a man might sing as he was being vivisected for a good cause; but this--this fate belonged to no imaginable category of tortures. He had won the heart of an angel and was forced to wear the garb of an outcast in the kingdom which was her rightful abode.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Charles left his hoe in the barn and started toward the front of the house. Was he mistaken, or did he see a group of three men near the steps? Yes, and Rowland was one of them. As he pa.s.sed through the gate he noted the big revolvers belted around the waists of the strangers.

They were strong, well-built, st.u.r.dy men of the mountains in broad-brimmed felt hats. They evidently saw him, eyed him steadily as he came up the walk, and stood aside silently as he fearlessly ascended the steps. He thought they were going to arrest him, had no sense of objection to it, and was surprised when they neither spoke nor moved. As for Rowland, he simply nodded coldly and Charles went on up to his room.

He went to a window. It was open and he heard the mumbled voices of the men below, but could not see them. He stood listening.

"Oh, it is all right, Colonel," one of the men said. "You've done all you can do. The sheriff thinks the thing looks shaky, and he wants to be on the safe side. There is a big reward out for those chaps and he thinks the fellow that was so free with his money in Tobe Keith's case, and your man that was with him at the time, are two of them."

"I've heard all that from the sheriff himself," Rowland answered. "You may think it strange of us, but we are all willing to trust Mr. Brown.

He has done good work here, and has been more than a friend."

"But you say yourself, Colonel, that you don't know a thing about him,"

came the answer. "You don't know where he comes from, what his connections are, or anything."

"That's all true," Rowland admitted, wearily. "I've never believed in prying into the private affairs of people. He is doing for us more than he agreed to do, and I am sure he is an educated gentleman who may have met with misfortune of some sort. I've never thought he was a happy man, and I've been sorry for him. I wish I could befriend him; and if you will give me a chance--"

Charles listened no longer. He had made up his mind as to what he would do. Turning, he went deliberately down-stairs and out to the group. They looked at him in surprise as he approached, and appeared to be somewhat abashed.

"Gentlemen," Charles began, calmly, "pardon me for interrupting your conversation, but I have reason to believe that you are here on my account. Am I right?"

"Well, yes," one of the men said, awkwardly, as he s.h.i.+fted from one of his heavily booted feet to the other. "You see, we are deputies under the sheriff's orders."

"I thought so," Charles answered, "and I've come to ask a favor of you.

The fact that you are watching me under this gentleman's roof is very mortifying to me, for I respect his kindness and his hospitality, and I want to ask if there is any reason why you may not arrest me and take me elsewhere?"

The question astounded them. The two men exchanged swift glances of inquiry. "Why--why, we have had no such orders, you see," the deputy stammered. "We are only doing as we were directed."

"But a man has a right to decent treatment before he is proved guilty of a charge," Charles went on, "and this constant shadowing of this house because I am here is not fair to me or the family. I am a laborer on this place--that and nothing more--and I demand that you either withdraw from these premises or take me with you for safekeeping."

Charles heard a gasp behind him, and saw Mary standing in the doorway, pale as death and trembling.

"What are you saying?" she cried, and she came forward and caught the arm of her lover. "You are not going! You are not!"

"Daughter! Daughter!" Rowland protested, in a sinking voice, "be careful--be careful! Daughter, be careful!"

"He is not going!" she repeated. "It is a shame, an outrage! Father, if he goes, I go. Understand that for once and all."

An awkward pause ensued. Charles stood like a man of granite, his head up, his eyes fixed on the deputies; across his face the whip of pain had left its mark.

"We have no orders," said the man who had spoken before, "except to hang around here and see if that friend of yours comes back, or any other suspicious stranger. We can't take you till we have orders, and we can't let up on our guard, either. There are four of us--two for night, and two for day work."

Rowland looked at his daughter wistfully. There was a suggestion of slow rising emotion in his wrinkled face as he spoke.

"Tell Sheriff Frazier for me, boys, that I will furnish a bond for any amount in Mr. Brown's behalf, and that I hope he will do what Mr. Brown wishes in regard to lifting this--this surveillance."

"Mr. Rowland," Charles cried out, urgently, "you mustn't do that. I don't deserve it at your hands. I'm a stranger without a dollar to my name."

"He does deserve it, father. You are right," said Mary, as she swept to her father's side and locked her arm in his. "He is the best and truest friend we ever had, and you will never regret this."

The old white head rocked up and down deliberately. "Yes, tell the sheriff what I said, and do it at once if possible."

"One of us will see him right away," was the deputy's answer, as both of them clattered down the steps and strode toward the gate.

Charles started forward as if to utter a further protest, but Mary sprang to his side.

"Hus.h.!.+" she cried. "Father wants to do this. Let him! It is a poor enough return for what you have done for us."

Turning suddenly, as if to hide her emotion, she went into the house.

Rowland and Charles stood facing each other in the gathering dusk. From the direction of the kitchen came the singing voices of Kenneth and Martin, who were unconscious of the tragedy being enacted so close at hand. There was a light rising into the old face of the planter which Charles had never seen there before. Rowland laid his hand on his shoulder and let it lie there gently, almost tenderly.

"You have won the heart of my daughter," he began. "She is the image of her mother, and the man who has such a love has all the world can give that is worth having. I congratulate you, sir. For her sake I must make your cause my own. You have helped me free my sons; you must help me save my daughter. She could not survive your downfall--I know that because I knew her mother. Tell me, as a man facing a man, are these charges true?"

"They are not. I swear they are not."

"Thank G.o.d! That is all I want to know!" Rowland held out his hand and, taking that of Charles, he pressed it tightly. He was about to withdraw in his stately way when Charles drew him back.

"Wait," he faltered. "As I've said, these charges are wholly unfounded, but under the circ.u.mstances it is my duty to you to tell you what your daughter has failed to mention, and that is that there are things in my life which I have pledged my honor never to reveal--things concerning others more than myself--"

"Then don't mention them," Rowland said, firmly. "Do your duty as you see it and G.o.d will take care of you. I have suspected that you may be keeping back something, but that is your right. Now let's go in to supper. But wait a moment. I want to speak of something psychological.

Do you know that a man of my age can be turned from almost a lifelong purpose in an instant? You have seen me working on that ponderous genealogy of mine. Well, the other day when my boys were in so much danger my daughter and I were alone in my room. She looked very sad, and all at once it seemed to me that she was an exact reproduction of her mother when we were married. You know in that day when I brought my young wife here we had everything our hearts desired in the way of luxury, comfort, and even what was then considered style. Now it is all gone and we are poor. This change, I reckon, has pained me more than it has my daughter, and I have clung to the past and tried to keep it alive. One of the ways of keeping it alive has been my thinking and writing about the dignity and superiority of my ancestors. I was getting my book ready to hand down to my children and their children, and I would have finished it and published it but for my daughter. On the day I spoke of just now, I happened to tell her that I was thinking of borrowing some money to pay for the printing, when I saw from her face that she wasn't pleased. I asked her what was the matter, and she came and sat on my knee, sir, as she had done as a little child, and as--as her mother had done as a bride. She put her arm around my neck and kissed me, and then she begged my forgiveness for saying what she felt that she ought to say. She pointed out that she and her brothers belonged to a different age from the one I'd pa.s.sed through. As she saw it, life was too grim and serious for one to foster pride in one's ancestors simply because they, being men and women of gentility, wealth, and influence, had stood higher than others. Mary cried as she begged that I should not spend any money to publish a book which she herself could not take pride in. She said that sorrow, trouble, and adversity had made her see that the common people were nearer G.o.d than the opposite cla.s.s, and that if we expected G.o.d to help us out of the great trouble in which my sons were plunged we must humble ourselves. Well, sir, I was changed--in a flash I was a changed man. My young daughter had taught me more in a moment than I had learned in a long lifetime. I laid the ma.n.u.script away. If it has any historical value it may be used by some one else in the future, but not by me. It is full of human vanity.

"I felt as if a vast load had been somehow lifted from my old shoulders.

I knew she was right and obeyed her. I am telling you this, sir, because you have a right to know the kind of woman whose heart you have won. She is a treasure, sir--a treasure--a treasure!"

Aunt Zilla was ringing the supper-bell. Its tones swept melodiously over the dusk-draped fields. The old man had taken the arm of his companion as he might that of an honored guest in the past, and led him into the house.

"I shall never question your integrity, sir," he said. "Something has told me all along that you are a man among men. My daughter has felt it intuitively, and so have I and my sons. Whatever your personal trouble is, we'll stick to you through it if you will only give us a chance."

Charles found himself unable properly to respond. The family were at the table in the shaded lamplight. The meal pa.s.sed in quiet dignity, and when it was over the men went out to the front veranda. Kenneth and Martin, who had not been informed of the talk with the deputies, were still in a gay mood and began singing again. Rowland stood on the steps for a moment, and then walked down toward the gate. Finding himself alone, Charles slipped up to his room. He had an overwhelming sense of his need of quiet reflection. He sat down, lighted his pipe, but in his inactive hands it quickly expired. That he would have to face the officers of the law sooner or later he did not doubt. The bond in his favor might mean a few days' delay, but it also meant the certainty of his appearance before the authorities. What would then take place he could not imagine, but of one thing he was sure--a stranger in a strange land who flatly refused to give account of himself when charged with an offense against the law would find himself in a serious position indeed.

Then a sudden thought hurtled through his brain and shook him from head to foot, leaving him cold with sheer despair. Why had he not thought of it before? The account of his arrest would be given in the papers, along with the name he had never changed. It would be copied all over the country, and the Charles Browne of Boston, so long sought, would be discovered at last. William would read his doom in the head-lines of his paper at his desk or the breakfast-table. Celeste would know the truth, for William would tell the truth rather than see his brother unjustly punished. The revolver--ah yes! the revolver in the drawer of his brother's desk! It was as clear to his sight now as when he had last seen it. William would use it, without doubt, now, and there would be no delay.

"Where is Mr. Brown?" It was Mary's voice addressed to her brothers below. Charles sprang up and stood listening.