Chapter XXIX

One morning Tilly was occupied in the little front yard of her home. Some rose-bushes needed attention, and with a pair of large scissors she was pruning the branches and cutting the weeds away with a garden trowel. Suddenly, happening to glance toward the town, she noticed one of the street-hacks approaching. There was no doubt that it was headed for the cottage, and a sudden qualm of alarm passed over her. Indeed, she feared that some accident might have happened to John, for he had told her that he was at work on a scaffold to which large stones were being hoisted. The negro cabman seemed to be in a hurry, for he was lashing his horse vigorously.

The cab stopped at the gate. The door was opened and Richard Whaley stepped out. He wore his best suit of clothes, but it was badly wrinkled and covered with dust. His black-felt hat was crushed, and its broad brim had been pulled down over his eyes. Tilly heard him order the man to wait, and the tone of his voice sent a shock of terror through her. She had never heard him speak like that before, nor had she beheld such a look in his haggard face. His whole form drooped and quivered as with palsy as he came toward the gate.

"Father!" Tilly gasped, but she said no more, for the wild stare of the bloodshot eyes cowed her into silence. He swung open the gate and lunged into the yard.

"Where is that--where is John Trott?" he asked, panting, saliva like that of an idiot dripping from his shaking lip. "Where is he, I say?"

Tilly saw the negro staring curiously. She knew he was listening. Almost deprived of her wits, yet she was thoughtful, and she said:

"Come in, father; come in?"

"Oh, he is inside, is he?"

"Come in," Tilly answered, evasively. "Let's not talk out here."

She led the way into the sitting-room and tremblingly placed a chair for him, noting as she did so that his coarse shoes were untied, his hat without a band, his cravat awry, his shirt unclean. He refused the chair, and stood holding to the back of it with a besmudged hand. Then her alert eyes took in the bulge of the right-hand pocket of his short coat. A weighty article drew it sharply downward. She knew that it was a revolver, and her blood ran cold in her veins.

"Where is John Trott?" Whaley demanded, raspingly, and he looked toward the door leading into the dining-room. That room was darkened and he bent and peered toward it like a beast about to spring on its prey.

"He is not here, father," Tilly said, in almost a gentle whisper.

"Not here? Where has he gone?"

She hesitated and then answered, "Out in the country, father."

"I don't believe it." He turned, automatically laid his hand on his revolver, and left the room. She stood still. She heard him stalking from room to room, now striking against a chair or a table or tripping on a rug. Through the window she saw the cabman, his gaze on the cottage door. Whaley passed the window; he was walking around the house; his hand was in his right pocket; he stumbled over a tuft of grass, almost fell, and uttered a snort of fury. She raised a window at the side of the house, and saw him looking into the little woodshed in the rear of the lot. He turned and strode back to the cottage, entering at the kitchen door and clamping over the resounding floor back to her.

"Where is he? I say," he snarled.

"I told you, father," she said. "Why--what is the matter? What do you want? Why are you so excited?"

"You know well enough!" he cried. "Don't stand there and tell me that you don't know all or more than I do. Show him to me. I want to meet the white-livered atheistic agent of hell. And when I do meet him he'll never sneak into another respectable home like he did in mine. Do you know what is being said? Do you know what is spreading from county to county up home?"

"I can imagine," Tilly sighed. She felt faint. The objects in the room, the glaring fanatic, the sunny windows were swinging around her. She pulled herself together. She told herself she must be strong. Unless she conquered her weakness and held taut her wits her husband would be killed. What was to be done? Suddenly an idea came. She told herself that it might work. There was nothing else to do, and at any cost she must prevent the meeting of the two men. Another moment and the madman might be driving away in search for his victim.

"Father," she began, and she advanced to him and started to lay her hand on his arm, but he drew back and snarled like an infuriated beast.

"Did you know about that strumpet, Liz Trott, before you married her son?" he asked.

"No, father, I did not; but you don't understand John's position--"

"Understand the devil and all his imps! He'll understand me when I meet him; that will be enough."

"Father, sit down, please. John is away out in the country and won't be home for a long time. Please, please don't raise a row here and stir up this whole town. John is suffering enough without that. Now listen to me. You know I have some rights. I am a married woman now, and I've got a heart and soul in me. I've got the right as an innocent woman not to be dragged into a scandal like this. If you shot John in your present fury I'd have to be held as a witness, and you'd be put in jail. You are a religious man. Surely you ought to know that God would not forgive you for treating your own child as you are about to treat me. I am willing to go home with you right away--this minute! The cab is waiting, and we could catch the twelve-o'clock train. Surely you regretted that other shooting affair you had, and are grateful to God for sparing you from the worst. I'll pack up and go. It won't take me long."

Slowly and limply he sank into a chair. His soot-streaked hands clutched his knees and he groaned. She saw him shake his frowsy head and a tremor went through him. He was being twisted between the hands of two forces. He was silent for several minutes, save for his loud breathing. Glancing through the window, Tilly saw that the negro had approached the gate. She went to the window and leaned out.

"Can you tell me," she asked him, as he saw her and lifted his hat, "what time the Tennessee north-bound train leaves?"

"Twelve ten, miss," he answered, trying to read the suppressed mystery of her features. "Do you need me in dar? Dat man look' dangerous ter me, miss."

"Oh no." She shook her head and forced a smile. "But I want to ask--can you take us to the station, and a small trunk also?"

"Yes'm."

"Hold on!" It was Whaley's voice, and he had risen. "Tell that nigger to-- Let me speak to him. Do you think I came down here to--"

Tilly thrust her small person between him and the window. She laid two opposing hands on his breast and checked him.

"I'm going to save you from murder-- I will, I will!" she said, desperation filling her voice with power and causing his fierce stare to flicker. "If you meet my husband you will shoot him and the blood of a helpless, suffering, noble man will be on your head. You know what the brand on Cain was. You will bear it till you meet God with it on your brow. Do you think He'd forgive you? No, you'd have to burn for it in eternal torment, and you know it. You know you thanked God for sparing you before. Are you going to do even a worse thing now?"

He sank, half pushed down by her, into his chair. She saw the revolver, now exposed by his gaping pocket, and had an impulse to take it, but realized that the act would infuriate him anew. So she left it alone and stood squarely in front of him.

"You are not going to damn your soul," she went on, firmly. "Jesus, your Saviour and mine, forgave the guilty and you are refusing to pardon _even the innocent_. You are going to take me home. You are going to sit quietly there till I pack my trunk, and then we'll take the cab to the train."

He groaned under a vast inrolling wave of indecision, and stared at her like a helpless, thwarted child, and yet she knew that the flames smoldering within him were apt to burst at any moment.

"I want to go home," she said. "I'm giving you this chance to take me in a decent way. If you refuse, I don't know what I'll do, but you'd better take me. For your sake and mine, you'd better do it. Now, I am being driven to the wall, father, and down inside of me is your stubborn nature when it is roused. You harm my husband, and see what I'll do. I'll swear against you at the court of man. I'll appear against you on the Day of Judgment."

He stared at her helplessly. His great mouth fell open and he groaned. "I understand, and--and you may be right," he faltered. "But you'd better hurry. I know myself, and I know that if I met him I'd put him out of the way if all hell stood between me and him. He has dragged my name down into the mire and made me a laughing-stock before all men. I'm pointed at, sneered at--called a senile fool."

"I'll hurry," she promised. "It won't take long."

In the little bedroom she threw open her trunk and began hastily to pack. New fears were now assailing her. What if John should suddenly come home for something he had left, as he had done once or twice? Indeed, there on the bureau lay the blue-and-white drawing which only the night before he had been studying. He might come for that, using Cavanaugh's horse and buggy, as he frequently did. The thought chilled her to the marrow of her bones. In her haste she all but tore her simple dresses from their hooks in the closet and stuffed them, unfolded, into the trunk. Now and then a little stifled sob escaped her. Her father sat still and soundless in the other room. She wanted to brush his clothes, tie his shoes, and fix his hatband before starting away, but time was too valuable.

There was a pad of writing-paper and a pencil on the bureau, and she told herself that she must write John a note and leave it. She closed and locked her trunk. Then she turned to the pad. She took up the pencil and started to write, but was interrupted. Her father crossed the hall and stood in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" he asked, a suspicious gleam in the eyes which took in the pad and pencil.

"Nothing. I am ready," she replied, dropping the pencil and turning to a window. "Come in and get the trunk," she ordered the cabman.

Nothing was said by Whaley or herself now, for the negro, hat in hand, was entering. And when he had left with the trunk, Tilly said:

"Come on, father, let's go."

Sullenly and still with a haunting air of indecision on him, he trudged ahead of her out into the yard. She closed the door but did not lock it.

"How can I get a message to John?" she asked herself. "There is no way that I can see, and yet I must--oh, I must!"

Her father had gone to the cab, opened the door himself, and stood waiting for her. In the open sunshine, his unshaven face had a grisly, ashen look; his bloodshot eyes held flitting gleams of insanity. His lips moved. He was talking to himself. She saw him clench his fist and hammer the glass door of the cab.

The negro was immediately behind Tilly. She turned while her father's eyes were momentarily averted. "Listen," she said, in a low tone. "See my husband when he returns home to-night; tell him that my father came for me and that I had to leave. Tell him not to come up home."

The negro's bare pate nodded beside the trunk on his shoulder. He seemed to understand, but made no other response, for Whaley's suspicious eyes were now on him and his daughter.

"Get in! Get in!" Whaley gulped, and stood holding the cab door.

She obeyed, and he followed and crowded into the narrow seat beside her. Through the glass of the opposite door she saw the white tombstones of the town's burial-place, the roof of Lizzie Trott's house above the trees, and the jagged, boulder-strewn hills beyond. The next moment the cab had turned toward the station and was trundling along the rutted, seldom-used street. Whaley's gaping pocket was within an inch of her hand, and Tilly could have taken out the revolver, but she did not dare do so, for that might fire him anew, and she had determined to run no risks whatever. The smoke of factory chimneys streaked the horizon above the town. She heard the bell of a switch-engine in the distant railway-yard. They met a grocer's delivery-wagon. It was taking some ordered things to the cottage, but Tilly dared not stop to explain, and, as the grocer's boy did not recognize her, the two conveyances passed each other. In an open lot some boys were playing ball. How could they play so unconcernedly when to the young wife the whole universe seemed to be whirling to its doom?

A little street-car was rumbling down an incline not far away. It seemed to have a few passengers. What if one of them should be John? And what if, on finding her gone, he should hasten to town and meet her father before the train left?

"What time is it?" she asked her father, with forced nonchalance. He made no answer, and she reached over and drew his open-faced silver watch from the pocket of his waistcoat; but he had forgotten to wind it, and it had stopped at three o'clock. She put the timepiece back with difficulty, for he was leaning forward and made no effort to aid her.

They were soon within sight of the station. Groups of men and boys stood about. She shuddered at the thought of meeting their gaze. Cavanaugh might be among them, and she feared the consequences of her father's ire on seeing him. And when the cab had stopped and they had alighted Tilly noticed that the men were exchanging remarks and staring at her and her father. Surely they suspected something, and why? she wondered. Some of them came closer and eyed her attentively while pretending not to do so.

Tilly had her purse, and she sent the cabman for the tickets and ordered him to check her trunk. There was a little waiting-room, and, desiring more seclusion, she led her father into it. But they were not thus to escape the stare of the bystanders, for many of them walked past the door and looked in curiously. One of them wore the uniform of a policeman, and it seemed as if he were about to address some inquiry to her, but decided not to do so when he saw the cabman delivering the tickets and trunk-check to her. The clock on the wall indicated twelve. Ten minutes to wait. She was beginning to hope that all would be well when the ticket-seller came from his office and with a piece of chalk wrote on a blackboard bulletin:

"36 North-bound 15 minutes late."

The time dragged. More curious persons came to the door, stared, and even paused. The cabman came for his fare. She paid him for the use of his cab all the morning. "Don't forget," she whispered.

"I won't, miss," he said, comprehendingly, and thereupon she put some more money into his hand.

"Please, please, don't forget!" she repeated.

She watched him as he walked away, and then she saw the policeman join him, and the two turned to one side and began to talk earnestly together.

At last the train came. Through a gaping throng, ever increasing, she led her father to a seat in one of the coaches. There was only a short stop, and the train was soon moving again. The relief was great, and a vast sense of weakness came over her. She felt like crying, but she knew that would never do. She yearned for the opportunity to confide in some one. It could not be her mother, for she had never been understood by her mother. There was one friend who would understand, who had always understood, and that was Joel Eperson. Joel would be grieved. She was the wife of another, but that would make no difference to Joel Eperson, for that he was still faithful to her she did not doubt. She told herself that she must see Joel at once and get his advice. She could think of no one else upon whom she could so confidently rely, and she must go to some one, for all the initiative she had ever possessed seemed to have been ruthlessly destroyed along with every girlish dream, hope, and ideal.