He stared, his impulse toward her betterment oozing out of him. The whistles of the factories reminded him that he was not to work that day--that he was not to return at dark to Tilly, as had been his wont, and he rose and went back to the bedroom. What was to take place? Why, the day would drag by and Cavanaugh would return with some verdict or other--some report that would settle his fate forever.
Leaving Dora at work in the kitchen, he went outside. Desiring not to meet any one, he made his way to the nearest wooded hillside beyond his mother's house and the bleak, white-capped cemetery. From that coign of vantage he saw the town stretched out beneath him. He found a great moss-grown boulder and half lay, half sat on it. The sun climbed higher and higher; the din of the town and its industries beat in his ears, the buzz of a planing-mill, the clang of hammered iron. He ought not to have attempted to pass that particular day in absolute solitude and inactivity, but he knew naught of his own psychology. He watched for the coming and going of trains, telling himself again and again that Cavanaugh's return would decide his fate forever. What would he be informed? How could he face the thing that he had told Cavanaugh actually was to happen--that Tilly and he were to be parted forever?
At noon he crept down the hill, keeping himself hidden till the way was clear, then he hastened across the open to the cottage. The child, still there, had given it a semblance of order, and his lunch was on the table. She refused to sit with him, though he asked her in a tone that was full of consideration and that odd, abashed tenderness for her which seemed to be rooting in the loam of pained humility which filled him.
"I want to know, brother John," she said, her deep-sunken eyes staring earnestly--"I want to know if you think she is coming back?"
He gulped down his hot coffee, and as he replaced his cup in his saucer he said, with a touch of his old fatalistic recklessness: "I don't know.
I think not. Sam is up there to-day to--to see about it. He will be back to-night. I don't know. I'm leaving it all to him, and--and to--her."
Later, as he sat and smoked in the parlor he tried to read the daily newspaper that had been left at his door, but even the boldest head-lines foiled to catch and rivet his attention. Taking a hammer and nails, he went into the back yard to repair a fence; but he had scarcely started to lift the first plank into place when the incongruity of the thing clutched him as in a vise. What was he doing? Why was he thinking of a thing so inconsequential as that? And for whom was he putting the fence to rights? With an oath born of sheer bleak agony, he threw the hammer from him and dropped the nails and plank to the ground. He had loved the place; he and Tilly had called it their "Cottage of Delight"; he had thought he would keep it in order, and even improve it, but all that was gone. He went back to the hillside. He watched the afternoon melt away, saw the sun go down into a bed of crimson and pink and the filmy cloud-curtains being drawn about the molten sleeper.
It was growing dark when he went back to the cottage. Dora was in the kitchen, preparing his supper. He was vaguely angered by her attention to him. He appreciated her doglike fidelity, but it made him impatient, for she was too small, young, and weak to do all that she was doing.
"You must go home," he blurted out, standing in the doorway and surveying her. "I'm able to look out for myself. I'm not hungry, anyway, now, for you have filled me up to the neck."
She smiled wistfully. There was a smudge of soot on her nose which gave her face a grotesque look. Her bare legs and feet were dust-coated and scrawny.
"I want to be here when Mr. Cavanaugh comes back," she contended, almost defiantly, a shadow of rigid doggedness in her eyes.
"But you can't," he retorted with irritation. "It will be late at night and you should be in bed."
"I want to know what he has to say," Dora persisted, putting more wood into the range. "Tilly was nice and good to me, and I want to know if she is coming back. Besides--besides, _you_ want her."
"You can't sit up around here," he said, firmly. "You've got to go home."
She said nothing. He thought he had offended her and was sorry for it, but when supper was over he prevailed upon her to go. "Poor little rat!"
he mused, as he stood at the gate and watched her vanish in the night.
"She's never had a chance, and she'll never have one. Huh! Sam's God and old Whaley's is busy counting the hairs of her head and no harm will ever come to her--oh no, none at all!"
John paced back and forth in the little front yard. Eight o'clock came; nine; ten, and a little later he heard the whistle of the south-bound train as it drew near the town. The last street-car for the night would be leaving the Square in a few minutes. Cavanaugh would take it. He seldom rode in a cab, and time was too valuable for him to walk to-night.
The minutes passed. Presently he heard the rumble of the little car as it crossed an elevated trestle a half-mile away, then he saw its lighted windows flitting through the pines and oaks which bordered its tracks.
It paused at the terminus. John heard the driver ordering his horse around to the other end, and he retreated into the house. Sam should not catch him there watching as if life or death hung on his report. It was one thing to feel a thing, and another to show it like weak women who weep openly for the dead, or men who cry out in pain like spoiled children. He went into the parlor and sat down. The outer night was very still, so still that he heard Cavanaugh's heavy tread when he was yet some distance away. Thump, thump, thump! John found himself counting the steps.
"Why am I like this?" he questioned himself. "If it is to be, it _is_ to be, and that is the end of it. I can bear it. Why not? Why shouldn't a man bear anything that comes his way--anything, anything, even--even _this_?"
Cavanaugh was at the gate now. He was noiselessly opening and closing it as if fearful of waking some one asleep in the house.
"Is that you, Sam?" John called out from the parlor.
"Yes, yes, my boy, it is me. I--I thought you might be in bed," and the contractor now tiptoed into the hall and stood in the parlor doorway.
"Oh no, I thought I'd wait up," John replied. "Like a fool, I didn't work to-day, and you see I'm not so tired as I usually am. Come in. Got a match? I'll light the gas. I didn't light it because it is warm to-night and I was smoking. Did you bring any cigars with you? I've hung on to my pipe all day and wouldn't mind a change."
"No, I plumb forgot," Cavanaugh answered. "I had to hurry to get my train. I didn't go about any of the stores, either--too many idle gossipmongers hanging about. Don't light up for me. I--I-- We can talk just as well without that. I really ought to be at home. I just thought I'd stop by and--and--"
He went no farther. John heard him feeling about for a chair and saw his dim bulk sink into it. There was no doubting the man's agitation, and why was he agitated? John thought he knew, and bared his mental breast to the hot iron of revelation.
"You say you didn't go out to the work to-day?" Cavanaugh said, irrelevantly enough to explain his mien and mood.
"No, I ought to have gone, but I didn't. I was a fool to hang around here like this, eating my head off and making a smoke-house of my lungs.
It is the first day off I've had for a long time."
This remark was followed by silence. Cavanaugh broke it with a slowly released sigh. "I may as well tell you what I did," he faltered.
"You can't tell me anything I don't know already," John quickly interposed. "Remember, Sam, that I told you last night--"
"I know, but I wasn't satisfied to let it rest there. I'm not satisfied yet to--to let it rest even where it is now. I'm not done with it by a long shot. I--I'm going back up there in--in a few days. I've got to look deeper into the law dealing with such extraordinary cases as--"
"The law?" John leaned back in his chair in a swift gesture of contempt.
"What the hell has the law got to do with it, Sam? Law, I say, law! Did you ever hear of any justice dealt out by the law? Don't talk law to me.
Tell me, man to man, what you did up there."
"What I did? Why, my boy"--Cavanaugh was floundering about in search for a word, a phrase with which to meet the blunt attack on his resources--"I did all I could think to do."
"Well, out with it, Sam. I know it went against me. There is no use beating about the bush. You saw Tilly, and she said--"
"Oh no, I didn't see her, my boy!" The contractor leaned eagerly upon the denial, small as it was. "I tried to, but it was impossible. She is housed up at home like a prisoner. John, Whaley is in a dangerous mood.
I was advised not to go near the house. I started there anyway, but the sheriff stopped me--gave me orders to stay away. I don't know how to--to make it all plain to you, John. You see, I love Tilly and you so much that--that this thing cuts deep. It has almost knocked out my faith in a just Providence."
John leaned forward; his hands hung between his knees and he clasped them near the floor. He uttered a ghastly laugh meant to show indifference, but which missed its mark. "You are beating about the bush," he said, huskily, and another rasping laugh issued. "Out with it.
I'm able to have a tooth pulled. Go ahead. Get it off your chest, old man."
"As I said just now," Cavanaugh began again, "I'm going back to Cranston after--after I get some legal advice down here where there is no public excitement."
"Excitement?" John said. "What do you mean by public excitement?"
Cavanaugh hesitated again, and John rose and stood towering above him in the gloom. He repeated his question, and this time there was no pretense in his tone or mien.
"Well, you know how a narrow-minded, backwoods community like that can get when it is wrought up high," the contractor said, gingerly. "You know how they are inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill. I can't say that I met one cool-headed person up there. Men and women were so crazy that they were frothing at the mouth. I hate to say it, John, but they actually threatened me with bodily harm. They asked me if what had been reported against your poor ma was true, and when I said that most of it was they wanted to tear me limb from limb. I'll tell you the truth and be done with it. There is no other way as I see it between friends such as we are. My boy, a mob was forming to tar-and-feather me. The sheriff came and warned me. He took me to the junction five miles this side of town in his buggy and put me on the train. I saw I would harm your interests if I stayed longer and so I took his advice. He is a smart man, well versed in the law, and as we drove along he told me what old Whaley is up to."
"I can guess," John said, grimly, "and, Sam, if I was in his place I'd do the selfsame thing. He is going to undo this marriage. I know-- I see. Tilly is just a girl and I didn't tell her or him what to expect down here. Am I right, Sam?"
Cavanaugh hung fire, then he nodded his head. John could see the tangled shock of hair moving up and down.
"I knew that would be it," John said, returning to his chair. He sat down, crossed his legs, and tugged at the strap of one of his shoes. It broke off and he sat twisting it between his fingers.
"Yes, the sheriff called it 'annulment,'" Cavanaugh resumed, more calmly. "He said that Whaley would have no trouble putting it through the court which is in session, now, as it happens. Even the judge is prejudiced--seems that he had heard of your ma. They ought not to fetch in religion, but Whaley is going to prove that you are an atheist, so they say. So you see, my boy, that what is to be done by us must be done in a big hurry. I am going to see Fisher and Black the first thing in the morning. They are the best lawyers in the South. I'll be there when they open the office. I've got money enough to plank down a good retaining fee. You helped me make it on that court-house. Just think of it, we are going to win our case in that very building."
"You will not go to those lawyers, Sam."
"You say I won't?"
"No. I'm the one to decide that, and I've already done it."
"What do you mean, my boy? Surely you don't intend to sit quiet and let a lot of mountain roughnecks--"
"You are hot-headed like the mob up at Cranston," John broke in, and then made an apparent effort to proceed calmly. He took out his pipe and began to knock its bowl against the heel of his shoe to prepare it for a refilling. His nonchalant shrug was that of a thwarted school-boy. His smile was little more than a grimace which the darkness further distorted. "You are 'kicking against the pricks.' What is to be has to be, and if you oppose it you get the worst of it. Besides, you are an old fogy, Sam--you are out of date, moth-eaten. You have got some sort of a Romeo love idea in your head. You are trying to make yourself believe that--that Tilly will be unhappy the rest of her life if--if the old man wins. Shucks! I know women. How long does a young widow wear black these days? Old Whaley is right. That Cranston judge is right, the sheriff, and all the damned mob, too. If death will free a woman from a long life with a drunkard, the Cranston court can free one from--well, from what I pulled Tilly into. No, sir, Sam. I am not the man for her. I can't give her enough of what she ought to have. She deserves respectability, recognition as a lady in this or any other town. It is a good thing that it happened so soon. It will blow over all the quicker.