The various rural Sunday-schools were holding an annual singing convention at Level Grove within a mile of Saunders's home. They were held once a year and were largely attended. Saunders had driven over with Mostyn, who had just returned for a short visit. A big arbor of tree-branches had been constructed, seated with crude benches made of undressed planks. At one end there was a platform, and on it a cottage organ and a speaker's stand holding a pitcher of water and a goblet.
Several years before Saunders had offered a beautiful banner as a prize to the winning Sunday-school, and year after year it was won and held for twelve months by the school offering the most successful singers. To-day it leaned against the organ, its beautiful needlework glistening in the sunlight. Wagons and vehicles of all sorts brought persons for miles in every direction. The weather was delightful, being neither warm nor cool. In the edge of the crowd were lemonade and cider stands, surrounded by thirsty customers. In the edge of the crowd a Confederate veteran with an empty sleeve had a phonograph on the end of a wagon, which, under his proud direction, was turning out selections of the most modern vocal and instrumental music. Another thing which was attracting attention was Saunders's new automobile, which had been driven up from Atlanta by the agent who had sold it. It stood in the roadway near the arbor, and was admired by all who passed it. Saunders himself had been busy all day helping place the seats and arrange the program. While he was thus engaged Dolly and her mother and Ann arrived. He saw them pause to look at his car, and then they came on to the arbor. Dolly was to play the organ, and she went on to the platform, some music-books under her arm. She had on a new hat and new dress, which he thought more becoming to her than any he had seen her wear. Happening to glance across the seated crowd, he saw Mostyn by himself on the outer edge of the arbor, his eyes—wistfully fixed on Dolly.
"He still loves her; he can't help it," Saunders groaned, inwardly. "I can see it in his eyes and face. Oh, God, am I really to lose her after all? She will pity him now in his loneliness and grief and turn to him. She can't help it. She won't harbor resentment, and is not a woman who could love more than once. She knows he is here, and—and that accounts for the glow on her face and tense look in her eyes. She knows he was weak, but she will hear of his repentance and atonement, and take him back. Well, well, I have no right to come between them, and yet—and yet—oh God, I can't give her to him—I can't—I can't! I have hoped and waited! It would kill me to lose her now."
He caught Dolly's glance. She smiled, and he went to her at the organ, where she stood opening her music.
"What do you think?" she laughed, impulsively. "They have asked me for a speech."
"Well, you must make it," he said, a catch of despair in his throat, for she had never seemed so unattainable as now.
"I've made up my mind," she said, firmly. "I sha'n't do it. I'm in no mood for it. They needn't insist. I shall play the organ, and that is enough for one day."
"She's thinking of Mostyn," Saunders reflected, bitterly. "She knows he is free now. She reads his regret in his face, and, woman that she is, she pities him—she loves him." To her he finally managed to say: "I saw you looking at my new car."
"Yes, it is beautiful," she answered. "And are you going to take me riding in it some day?"
"This afternoon, at the first chance you have to get away," he answered. "I had it brought over for that reason alone. I want you to be the first to ride in it."
"Oh, how sweet of you!" she smiled. "Then immediately after lunch we'll go, if you say so, Jarvis. I'm nervous about this dratted music. I've been practising it on the piano, and it is different to have to work the pedals of this thing and keep time with singers, half of whom want to go it alone because they have been practising in the woods with the hoot-owls."
He laughed with her, but his laugh died on his lips, for he saw her glance in Mostyn's direction, and thought he saw a shadow flit across her eyes. The fact that she did not mention Mostyn's return was in itself significant, he decided, and his agony became so intense that he was afraid she would read it in his face. He had never known before the full depth and strength of his love. All those years he had waited in vain. Fate was shaping things to fit another plan than his. Morally, he had no right to come between those two lovers. Mostyn had perhaps been unworthy, but God Himself forgave the repentant, and Mostyn showed repentance in the very droop of his body. Dolly would pity and forgive. She had already done so, and that was what had kindled the spiritual glow in her face. It was said that Mostyn had given away most of his fortune, and would have but a poor home now to offer a wife, but that would count for naught in Dolly Drake's eyes. She had loved Mostyn, and she could love but once.
Just then the director of the singing came up; and Saunders, after admonishing her not to forget the ride, left her.
"I must be a man," he whispered to himself. "I have had few trials, and this must be met bravely. If she is not for me, she is not, that is all; but oh, God, it is awful—it is unbearable! There was hope till a woman and a child died, and now there seems to be none. The angelic pity for another in Dolly's white soul means my undoing."
Passing out from under the arbor, he found himself alone outside among the tethered horses and mules. Looking back, he saw Mostyn, his eyes still fixed on Dolly as she now sat at the organ turning over the music with her pretty white hands.
"I must conquer myself; I simply must," Saunders said, in his throat. "My supreme trial has come, as it must come to all men sooner or later. If she still loves him, then even to be true to her, I must wish her happiness—I must wish them both happiness."
At this juncture he saw John Leach, the roving preacher, approaching, swinging his hat in his hand, his fine brow bared to the sunlight.
"How are you, brother?" He greeted the planter warmly. "I heard over the mountain that you all were holding this blow-out to-day, and I struck a lively lick to get here before the music commenced. Somebody told me that your friend Mostyn was here."
"Yes, he is staying with me," Saunders answered. "He is over there under the arbor."
"Well, I'll look 'im up," Leach answered. "Me 'n' him has struck up a sort of friendship. I tie to a fellow in trouble quicker than at any other time, and he has certainly had his share. He wants to make a change, he tells me—thinks of going off somewhere for a while. I've asked him to go to California with me, and he's thinking it over. Say, you know him pretty well; do you reckon he will go?"
"I hardly think so—now," Saunders replied. "He may have thought of it at one time, but he is likely to remain here."
"Well, I'll talk to him anyway," Leach said. "Ah, I see a fellow on the platform with a cornet. I reckon the fun is about to begin. Do you know, I enjoy outdoor singing more than anything else under the sun. It seems to be the way the Lord has of giving folks a chance to let themselves out."
He turned away, a rapt expression on his poetic face, and Saunders moved back among the horses. He caught sight of Dolly's profile against the boughs of the arbor beyond her. Taking a step to one side, he brought Mostyn's face into view. Mostyn was now all attention, sitting erect and peering between two heads in front of him, staring at Dolly, his tense lips parted.
The first contesting choir began singing, and the stragglers about the grounds drew to the edge of the arbor and stood listening attentively. When it was over there was applause. Then a young man, the superintendent of a Sunday-school beyond the mountains, made a brief address. After this there was more singing, and so the morning passed.
At noon it was announced from the platform that, as the singing contest was over and the award of the banner would not be made by the judges till the afternoon, lunch would now be served. Thereupon the audience rose to its feet and began to surge outward. There was much scrambling for baskets and hunts for suitable spots about the grounds for spreading table-cloths. Saunders, as had long been his custom, had prepared food for all who could be induced to accept his hospitality, and he now had his hands full directing his servants and inviting friends to join him.
While he was thus engaged he happened to see Mostyn alone in the edge of the bustling crowd, and he strode across to him.
"Don't forget you are to eat with me," he said. "They will have it ready in a few minutes."
He thought that Mostyn's eyes wavered. He was sure his lips quivered slightly when he answered.
"I have promised some one else." Saunders failed to see the call for such slow indirectness of response to an ordinary request. Indeed, a touch of color lay in Mostyn's cheeks. "John Webb came to me just now and said that Dolly—or perhaps it may have been her mother—in fact, I'm sure that it must have been Mrs. Drake—-"
"Oh, I see, they've asked you!" Saunders broke in. "Well, I'll have to let you off. You may be sure you'll get something nice. They can beat my cook getting up a spread. Well, I'll meet you later. I see Leach over there by himself. I'll run over and get him on my list." Saunders tried to jest. "They say he lives on wild berries, and nuts, and anything else he can pick up. I guess he won't find fault with my lunch."
Saunders was the host of fifty or more men, women, and children. He was doing his best to see that all were provided for, and yet he had an eye for a certain group under a beech on a near-by hillside. His heart sank, for he saw Mostyn seated on the ground at Dolly's side. He saw something later that sent a cold shock hurtling through him. He saw the group after lunch rise from the cloth and gradually scatter, leaving Dolly and Mostyn standing at the foot of the hill. A moment later they were walking off, side by side, toward a spring in a shaded dell not far away. The drooping boughs of the willow trees shut them out of sight. Saunders, with a hopeless griping of the heart, went about directing his servants and helping some belated guests to get what they wished to eat. He heard himself joking, replying to jokes, and smiling with lips which felt stiff.
The remains of the food had been taken up and replaced in the big baskets when he saw Dolly and Mostyn strolling back from the spring. Mostyn held her sunshade over her, his arm touching hers. The distance was too great for Saunders to see their faces distinctly, but he would have sworn that both reflected joy and peace.
"Oh, God, is it actually to be?" he groaned, inwardly. "Ought it to be? Here am I, eager to gratify her every wish, while he can give her only the dry, crushed remains of his manhood, a bare scrap of his past affluence. He scorned the sweetest flower of womanhood that ever bloomed, and now crawls through his own mire to pluck it. It isn't right—it isn't right! God knows it isn't right to her; leaving me and my hopes out altogether—it isn't right to her!"
Cold from head to foot, Saunders retreated out of sight behind a clump of bushes. Figuratively, he raised his hands to the impotent sky and dumbly cried within himself:
"Oh, God, give me strength to bear it like a man! I was wrong in hoping. She is his; she loves him. She loves him. I am an outsider. I now know why I never dared tell her of my love—my adoration! It was the still, inner voice of warning telling me to keep in my proper place."
Presently he saw Dolly alone near the arbor, and, remembering his engagement with her, he went to her.
"I have come to see if you would care to go now," he began. "I believe there is only some irregular singing and speech-making to follow."
"I am free," she said. "My part of the work is over. I refuse to touch the stiff keys of that organ again to-day. My wrists are sore, and my ankles ache. But I've been thinking over that ride, Jarvis. I want to go, of course, but—Jarvis, I hope you are not oversensitive. In fact, I know you are not, and will understand when I say that somehow—don't you know?—somehow, I don't like to leave this particular afternoon, when there is so much to be done here. There are several boys and girls who are anxious to sing and be heard, and some of my young men friends are to speak. We might take our ride some other day."
"I understand, Dolly," he said, forcing a smile. He told himself that this last hint ended all. She and Mostyn were reconciled, and she wanted him to understand the situation. They were quite alone. No one was near enough to hear their voices. Suddenly an overpowering impulse possessed him. Why should he beat about the bush? All was lost, but she should at least receive the tribute of his love and despair. There could be no harm in telling her how he felt. His forced smile died on his lips. His eyes met hers.
"There was something I was going to tell you," he began, firmly. "All these years I've been holding it back, but I can't any longer. Dolly, you must have known that—"
"Stop, Jarvis!" she broke in, laying her hand on his arm. "I know what you are going to say, but don't! Some day I'll explain, but not now—not now!"
"Well, you know what I mean." he gulped, "and that is enough. You must have seen—must have understood all along."
"Don't—don't be angry with me," she pleaded. "You will understand it all fully some day. I may be an odd sort of girl, but I can't help it—I am simply what I am."
"I think I understand now," he said, "and I wish you all happiness in the world."
The singing under the arbor had begun, and with a helpless, even startled look in her eyes she moved automatically in that direction.
"I don't think you do, fully," she faltered. "I'm sure you don't. Men never quite understand women in such delicate matters."
down in a group of farmers who were discussing crops and planting.
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