One cloudy night a few days later Mostyn was walking home from the river where he had spent the day fishing. Thinking that he might shorten the way by so doing, he essayed a direct cut through the dense wood intervening between the river and Drake's. It was a mistake, for he had gone only a short way when he discovered that he had lost his bearings. He wandered here and there for several hours, and it was only when the moon, which had been under a cloud since sundown, came out, that he finally found a path which led him in the right direction.
He was nearing the house when in the vague light, due to the moon's being veiled again, he saw a man stealthily climb over the fence, stand as if watching the house for a moment, and then creep through the rose bushes and other shrubbery to the side of the house beneath the window of Dolly's room.
Wondering, and suspecting he knew not what, Mostyn crept to the fence, and, half-hidden behind an apple tree, he stood watching. The figure of the man was quite distinct against the white wall of the building, and yet it was impossible to make out who he was. Then a surprising thing happened. Mostyn saw the figure raise its hands to its lips, and a low whistle was emitted. There was a pause. Then the window of Dolly's room was cautiously raised, and her head appeared as she leaned over the sill.
"Is your father at home?" a muffled masculine voice was heard inquiring.
"No, he's been gone all day." It was plainly Dolly who was speaking.
The stares of the two seemed to meet. There was a pause. It was as if the girl's head had furtively turned to look back into the room.
"Then come down. Meet me at the front gate. I'll keep hid."
"Very well—in a minute."
She was gone. Mostyn saw the man glide along the side of the house, treading the grass softly and making his way round to the front gate. Filled with suspicion and hot fury, Mostyn kept his place, afraid that any movement on his part might too soon betray his presence to the man he now saw near the gate.
"My God," he cried, "she's like all the rest! I've been a fool—me, of all men! Here I've been thinking she was to be for me and me alone. This has been going on for God only knows how long. She has been fooling me with her drooping lashes and flushed cheeks. I was ready to marry her—fool, fool that I was. She might, for reasons of her own, have married me. There is no knowing what a woman will do. Bah! What a mollycoddle I have been! She, and he too, perhaps, have been laughing at me for the blind idiot I am—me, the man who thought he knew all there was to know about women."
Mostyn heard the front door open softly. It was just as softly closed, and then the girl crossed the porch and advanced to the gate. She and the man stood whispering for a moment, and then they passed out at the gate and, side by side, went into the wood beyond the main road.
Filled with chagrin, to which an odd sort of despair clung like a moist garment, Mostyn advanced along the fence to the gate and entered the yard. Putting his rod and game-bag down, he seated himself on the step of the porch. His blood seemed cold and clogged in his veins. He could not adjust himself to the situation. He could not have met a greater disappointment. The discovery had completely wrecked his already strained faith in the purity of woman. He sat watching the moon as the clouds shifted, now thinly, now thickly, before it. He heard a step in the wood. Some one was coming. He started to rise and flee the spot, but a dogged sort of resentment filled him. Why should he let the matter disturb him? Why should he conceal from any one the knowledge of her shame? He remained where he was. The step was louder, firmer. It was Dolly, and she was now at the gate. He saw her, as with head hung low, she put her hand on the latch. She opened the gate, entered, and paused, her face toward the wood. There she stood, not aware of the silent, all but crouching spectator behind her. Mostyn heard something like a sigh escape her lips. Then a furious impulse to denounce her, to let her know that he now knew her as she was, flashed through him. He rose and went to her. He expected her to start and shrink from him as he approached, but she simply looked at him in mild surprise.
"Have you just got home?" she inquired. "Mother and I were worried about you, but George and Uncle John said you were all right."
He stared straight at her. She would have noted the sinister glare in his eyes but for the half darkness.
"I was lost for a while," he said. "I got back just in time to see a man climb over the fence and whistle to you."
"Oh, you saw that!" She exhaled a deep breath. "I'm sorry you did, but it can't be helped. I suppose you know everything now."
"I can guess enough," he answered, with a bitterness she failed to catch. "I don't know who he was, but that is no affair of mine."
"I ought to have told you all along." She was avoiding his eyes. "I felt that I could trust you fully, but I was ashamed to have you know. I was anxious for you to take away as good an opinion of us all as was possible. You have been so kind to us. I'm sure no such degradation has ever come into your family."
"Nothing like this, at any rate," he answered. "As far as I know the—women of my family have—"
"Have what? What are you talking about? Do you think—do you imagine—is it possible that you—who do you think that man was?"
"I have said I did not know," he retorted, frigidly.
She stepped closer to him. She put her little hand on his arm appealingly. She raised her fathomless eyes to his. "Oh, you mustn't think it was any young man—any—Why—it was—I see I must tell you everything. That was Tobe Barnett. He has wanted to help me for a long time, and he got the chance to-night. He knows the one great sorrow of my life. Mr. Mostyn, my father is a moonshiner. I don't mean that he is a regular member of a gang, but he helps a certain set of them, and to-day Tobe accidentally heard of a plan of the Government officers to surround the still where my father happens to be to-night. He heard it through a cousin of his who is employed in the revenue detective service. Tobe is law-abiding; he didn't want to have anything to do with such things, but he knew how it would break my heart to have my father arrested, so he came to me late this afternoon to see if father had returned. He was going to tell him, you see, and warn him not to be with the men to-night. But father was still away. Tobe went home; he said he would come later to see if father was back. I sat up waiting for him all alone in my room in the dark. I did not want George or Ann or my mother to know about it. So just now when Tobe came to my window and found that father had not returned, he determined to go to the still and warn him. He may get there in time, and he may not, though it is not far. I promised to wait here at the gate till he returns. I could not possibly close my eyes in sleep with a thing like that hanging over me."
Her voice shook; she turned her head aside. The cold mass of foul suspicion in Mostyn's breast gave way to a higher impulse. A sense of vast relief was on him. He would have taken her into his arms, confessed his error, and humbly begged her forgiveness, but for an unlooked-for interruption. There was a sound in the distance. It was the steady beat of horses' hoofs on the hard clay road in the direction of Ridgeville.
"It is the revenue men!" Dolly gasped. "Quick, we must hide!" And, catching his hand as impulsively as a startled child, she drew him behind a hedge of boxwood. "Crouch down low!" she cried. "We must not let them see us. They would think—"
She failed to finish. Seated on the dewy grass, side by side, they strained their ears for further sounds of the approaching horsemen. Mostyn marveled over her undaunted calmness. She still held his hand as if unconscious of what she was doing, and he noted that there was only a slight tremor in it. The horses were now quite near. A gruff voice in command was distinctly heard.
"We'll dismount at the creek," it said, "creep up on the scamps, and bag the whole bunch. If they resist, boys, don't hesitate to fire. This gang has bothered us long enough. I'm tired of their bold devilment."
"All right, Cap!" a voice returned. "We'll make it all right this time. I know the spot."
A dozen horsemen, armed with rifles, came into view and passed on, leaving a hovering cloud of dust in their wake. Moving swiftly, and paler and graver, Dolly stood up, her steady gaze on the departing men.
"Did you hear that?" she said, dejectedly. "He ordered his men to—to fire. Who knows? Perhaps before daybreak I shall have no—" She checked herself, her small hand at her throat. "I shall have no father, and with all his faults I love him dearly. He doesn't think moonshining is wrong. Some of the most respectable persons—even ministers—wink at it, if they don't actually take part. My father, like many others, has an idea that the Government robbed the Southern people of all they had, and they look on the law against whisky-making as an infringement on their rights. I wish my father would obey the law, but he doesn't, and now this has come. He may be killed or put in prison."
"You must try not to give way," Mostyn said, full of sympathy. "Don't forget that Barnett has had time, perhaps, to warn them, and they may escape."
"Oh, I hope so—I do—I do!" Still holding his hand, she led him back to the gate, and stood resting her arms on its top, now almost oblivious of his presence. Half an hour dragged by, during which no remark of his could induce her to speak. Presently a low whistle came from the wood across the road.
"That's Tobe now!" she cried. "Oh, I wonder if he was in time!" Then, as she reached for the gate-latch he heard her praying: "God have mercy—oh, Lord pity me—pity me!"
She opened the gate and passed out. He hung back, feeling that she might not desire his presence at the meeting with Barnett, but again she grasped his hand.
"Come on," she said. "Tobe will understand."
Crossing the road and walking along the edge of the wood for about a hundred yards, they were presently checked by another whistle, and the gaunt mountaineer emerged from the dense underbrush. Seeing Mostyn, he paused as if startled, saying nothing, his eyes shifting helplessly.
"It's Mr. Mostyn—he knows everything, Tobe," Dolly threw in quickly. "He's on our side—he's a friend. Now, tell me, what did you do?"
"Got to the still just in the nick o' time," Tobe said, panting, for he had been running. "The gang started to handle me purty rough at first—thought I was a spy—but your pa stepped in an' made 'em have sense. They couldn't move any of their things on such short notice, but the last one escaped just as the officers was ready for the rush."
"But my father?" Dolly inquired, anxiously.
"He's all right—he said he'd be home before morning. He has no idea that you know about it."
"I'm glad of that. Oh, Tobe, you have been good to me to-night!" Dolly took the humble fellow's hands and shook them affectionately.
"Well, if you hain't been good to me an' mine nobody ever was to a soul on this earth," Barnett half sobbed. "Mr. Mostyn, maybe you don't know what Miss Dolly has—"
"Yes, I do, Barnett," Mostyn declared. "I know."
"Now, go back to Annie and Robby, Tobe," Dolly advised. "Poor girl! She will be uneasy about you."
"No, she won't bother," Barnett answered, firmly. "She'd be willing to have me go to jail to help you, Miss Dolly. She is that grateful she'd cut off her hands to oblige you, an' she will be powerful happy when she knows this went through all right. Good night, Miss Dolly; good night, Mr. Mostyn."
Dolly and her companion turned back toward the house as Barnett trudged off down the road.
"Well, I'm glad it came out all right," Mostyn said, lamely; but Dolly, still listless, made no reply. Silently she walked by his side, her pretty head down. An impulse of the heart impelled him to take her hand. He was drawing her yielding form to him when she looked straight into his eyes.
"I was wondering—" she began, but checked herself.
"What were you wondering, Dolly?" The fire of his whole being was roused; it throbbed in his lips, thickened his tongue, and blazed in his eyes. It filled his voice like a stream from a bursting dam.
"Why, I was wondering"—her sweet face glowed in the moonlight as from the reflection of his own—"I was wondering how you happened to think that Tobe was some young man that—that I cared enough for to—"
"I was insanely jealous." Mostyn put his arm about her, drew her breast against his, and pressed his lips to hers. "I was mad and crazy. I couldn't think—I couldn't reason. Dolly, I love you. I love you with all my heart."
"Yes, I know." She seemed not greatly surprised at the avowal. She put her hand on the side of his face and gently stroked it. Then, of her own accord, she kissed him lightly on the lips. "There," she said, "that will do for to-night. I ought not to be here like this—you know that—but I am happy, and—"
"You have not said"—he held her closer to him, now by gentle force, and kissed her again—"you have not said that you love me."
"What is the use?" she sighed, contentedly. "You have known it all these years. I have never cared for any one else, or thought of any one else since you were here before. I was only a child, but I was old enough to know my heart. You are the only man who ever held me this way. There is no use saying it—you know I love you. You know I couldn't help it. I'd be a queer girl if I didn't."
the house, leaving the door open so that he might go up to his room.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg