"I shall forget what you say," the old gentleman, immeasurably pleased, frowned sternly to ease his conscience. "But you can be of no service to him! He knows his country like a book!"
"It isn"t to his country I"d advise him to go. No one would think, for instance, of looking for him in our house at home. He could keep on studying, too; and after awhile this thing would blow over."
The light in Colonel May"s face was eloquent of a greater affection than he had at any time felt for Brent, but he simply said:
"Then I should lose you both! What is your other plan?"
"The other plan is something I am not at liberty to tell even you,"
Brent soberly answered.
After several minutes, during which the older man seemed to be thinking deeply, he struck his fist on the arm of his chair, exclaiming:
"I don"t see why it"s so d.a.m.ned important to tell Jess, anyhow! Why, sir, the fellow may not be dead, at all! And you mustn"t lose sight of the fact, sir, that Dale is my guest, ent.i.tled by a higher law to my protection!"
"Now that you mention it, I believe you are right," Brent cried, as though this were sparklingly original. "Let"s act on the suggestion!"
Sometime later, after they had gone, Zack came out to gather up the goblets. For several minutes he stood with one of these in his hand, staring with a perplexed and troubled frown at a julep which had not been tasted.
"Dar ain" no fly in it, dat"s suah," he mumbled, "but I cyarn" see what de trubble is! An" it ain" Ma.r.s.e John"s, "caze he drinked his"n whilst I wuz heah! De onlies" answer is dat Ma.r.s.e Brent done lef it fer de ole n.i.g.g.e.r!"
With a stealthy look toward Miss Liz"s windows he backed into the shrubbery and transferred the julep to a place where it might receive more consideration; then, after doing a few steps of a double-shuffle, he emerged and walked airily to the house.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SECOND PLAN
Brent"s room was across the hall from Dale"s. These two, engineer and mountaineer, were the only occupants of the third floor, known since their arrival as Bachelors" Belfry. This floor, however, was far from resembling a belfry. Its high ceilings and s.p.a.cious rooms were of the type which architects drew in the early nineteenth century, when labor cost but its feed and materials were everywhere at hand. Just as the bricks in the outside walls were laid "every other one a header," so the interior spoke of a style which went out of existence three generations ago. More recently, however, the Colonel had added a furnace and baths, converting for the latter several entire bed-rooms with which Arden was over supplied. Thus Bachelors" Belfry might have been considered the most agreeable, even as the most isolated, portion of the house; and, as its occupants pa.s.sed a law forbidding women servants to ascend above the second floor between five in the afternoon and nine in the morning, conventions of attire were not by your leave, but as you please.
Tonight Brent had gone up early. At dinner he had been distrait; nor even his poise could quite disguise it. The Colonel had suggested a smoke and chat out on the porch where the air was soft and still and cool, but Brent could not find it in his heart to stay.
During a portion of the morning, during those few pa.s.sion-riven seconds while Jane had been held like a carved image by the unfathomable timbre of his voice, a struggle had taken place in the engineer"s soul. And when she had again started toward the house she little dreamed how savagely it was raging. So he wanted to be alone tonight; not to face that fight anew, because for once and all it had been settled, but to plan for the fulfillment of its issue. The Colonel, therefore, was smoking alone; just as Miss Liz was reading her Bible alone, and as Dale was poring alone over a book in the silent library.
Brent, his chair back-tilted, his pumps resting on the window sill, his coat off, had been surrounded for an hour by darkness. Only out across the limited s.p.a.ce of world framed by his window, and now barely visible in the starlight, was there anywhere to rest his eyes.
He had watched the afterglow fading, fading; he had heard the last sleepy twitter of the birds; he had seen one star, two and three, come out; before his steadfast, brooding stare the trees had slowly lost their green for the somber shade of night. And now it was indeed night; that hushed and awe-inspiring span of gloom when worlds most sin; when men and women do their sobbing; do their yielding; count their cost.
All of this had had a most oppressing effect on him whose thoughts matched the compa.s.s, if not the penetration, of his vision. Another hour he sat. Then he heard the great front door close with a jar. It was the Colonel locking up the house. Shortly afterwards he heard Dale"s step, as the mountaineer went to his room. A sigh trembled between the lonely watcher"s lips, but he promptly arose and crossed the hall.
"How"d you get along today?" he asked, closing the door softly after him. Not infrequently did they chat together at night.
"Fine," Dale cried, still excited by the labors he adored. "I"m readin"
about as fast as I can talk. It seems easy, now that I"ve got the knack!"
Brent watched the light of ambition, of achievement, flicker across his neighbor"s face; he saw the purposeful chin, the knotted muscles in the jaws, the fist, which in emphasis had just come down upon a table, remain clenched as though it might never be off high tension.
"I"m glad to hear it," he said quietly. "But what have you in mind for the future?"
"In mind? Everything! I"m getting my learning (I used to say larnin") like a hungry old sow turned out on corn. Miss Jane says I"m doin"
better"n anyone she ever dreamed of; and when I finish, we"re going back in the mountains to bring our people out to light!"
"Yes, I"ve gathered something of that," Brent drily replied. "But, what I mean is, what is your idea about Tusk?"
Dale started: "Good Lord," he slowly exclaimed, "I"d forgot about him!"
"It might be worth while remembering," the other suggested, "I"ve come in to talk over plans for saving you."
"Savin" me! Me?" the mountaineer sprang to his feet in a burst of rage.
"Only you an" the Cunnel know I"ve done it, an" if you"ll keep yoh mouths shut there won"t be any reason to save me, as you call it!"
"This isn"t your country," Brent held his temper. "Men aren"t shot around here and carted off and buried without some sort of legal investigation. If Tusk"s body is found, and it will be found if he"s dead, someone"s got to pay; someone must either stand trial or turn fugitive."
"Great Gawd," Dale cried, slowly rocking his body from side to side.
"Great Gawd! Great Gawd!" he repeated over and over. There was a flickering look about the eyes that made Brent catch his breath. It seemed for just a pa.s.sing second that they had been converted into little b.a.l.l.s of trembling red quicksilver; that was the only thing to which he could liken those eyes just then--red quicksilver. But this pa.s.sed so quickly that it might have been a reflection from the lamp. At any rate, Dale was continuing: "Why, Brent, I can"t go to jail! Nor I can"t run away! Miss Jane says I"ll be chuck full of education by next winter--how can I go to jail? She says every hope she has is in me!"
Brent winced. "She says she trusts me more"n any feller she ever saw!"
Brent winced again. "How can I go to jail?"
So it was true. The engineer laughed, but it sounded more like the stirring of ice.
"Don"t divulge any more of her confidences. You"ve said enough--too much. I a.s.sure you. The thing to talk about now is how to save you. Are you sure you killed him?"
""Course I did. Do you reckon I miss a man at three rod?"
"Then someone found his body, for it wasn"t there when the Colonel went.
Sooner or later the trail will lead here. I"ve thought, perhaps, you might slip away and go home with me. You can study there. Later, when things blow over, you can come back."
"An" Miss Jane"ll go?" he asked, hopefully.
"Certainly not," Brent flushed.
"I"ll see what she says," Dale dubiously suggested.
"You"ll do nothing of the sort! Would you have her know about this mess?"
"It seems like she"s pretty apt to know," he answered.
There was cruel truth in this; she was pretty apt to know beyond a doubt; and Brent pictured what it would mean to a girl who believed and had such implicit trust in one to find him a willful murderer. He thought a moment of the blind sister, the helpless one of patient waiting, of prayerful days; all dark, all dark, except for the hopeful coming of that day when her brother should stand irreproachable before the world and hear the applause of men. Slowly he spoke; it was of the second plan, formed in a white hot crucible of pa.s.sion as Jane had walked away from him that morning.
"Several times Tusk has threatened to kill me if I persisted in building the road across his patch of land. He stopped me one night on the pike and laid hold of my bridle rein, and I had to get down and punch his head. Why shouldn"t he have tried to fix me early this morning when I might have been up in that country?--and why shouldn"t I have shot him in self-defense?"
"I reckon you could," the mountaineer doggedly answered.
"Well, prod up your brains, man, or I"ll begin to doubt if you"re as scintillating us everybody says! Don"t you see what has to be done if the sheriff gets wind of the thing and comes here? If I can probably get off, and you"ll probably be hanged--what"s the answer?"
"You don"t mean--" Dale swung about, resurrected hope lighting his face; but Brent held up a warning hand.