"Silas has run away with Phyl," said she, "that"s what"s the matter with me. Your son has taken that girl off, Seth Grangerson, and may G.o.d have mercy upon him."
"The red-headed girl?" said the Colonel.
"Phyl," replied she, "you know quite well whom I mean."
Colonel Grangerson made a few steps up and down the room to calm himself.
Maria Pinckney was speaking to him in a tone which, had it been used by any one else, would have caused an explosion.
"But when did it happen," he asked, "and where have they gone? Explain yourself, Maria. Good G.o.d! Why the fellow never spoke to her scarcely--are you sure of what you say?"
Miss Pinckney told her tale.
"I came here to try and get her back," said she, "thinking he and she might possibly have come here or that you might know their whereabouts--they have not come, but there is just the chance that they may come here yet."
"But if they have run off with each other," said the Colonel, "how are we to stop them--they"ll be married by this."
Miss Pinckney who had taken off her gloves sat down and began to fold them, neatly rolling one inside the other.
"_Married,_" said she.
The Colonel standing by the window with his hands in his pockets turned.
"And why not?" said he. "The girl"s a lady, and you told me she was not badly off. Silas might have done worse it seems to me."
"Done worse! He couldn"t have done worse. I"d sooner see her dead in her coffin than married to Silas--There, you have it plain and straight. He"ll make her life a misery. Let me speak, Seth Grangerson, you are just going to hear the truth for once. You have ruined that boy the way you"ve brought him up, he was crazy wild to start with and you"ve never checked him. Oh, I know, he has always been respectful to you and flattered your pride and vanity, he calls you sir when he speaks to you, and you are the only person in the world to whom he shews respect. I don"t say he acts like that from any double dealing motive, it"s just the old southern tradition he"s inherited; he does respect you, and I daresay he"s fond of you, but he respects nothing else, especially women. I know him. And I know her, and he"ll make her life a misery. If he"d left her alone she"d have been happy. Richard loves her, and would have made her a good husband. My mind was set on it, and now it"s all over."
Miss Pinckney began to weep, and the Colonel who had been swelling himself up found his anger collapsing. She was only a woman. Women have queer fancies--This especial woman too was part of the past and privileged.
He came to her and stood beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder.
"My dear Maria," said the Colonel, "youth is youth--There is not any use in laying down the law for young people or making plans for their marriages. Leave it in the hands of Providence. The most carefully arranged marriages often turn out the worst, and a scratch match has often as not turned out happily. Anyhow, you will stay here till news comes of them?"
"Yes, I will stay," said Miss Pinckney.
CHAPTER VI
At eleven o"clock that night, just as Miss Pinckney was on the point of retiring to bed the news came in the form of Phyl herself.
She arrived in a buggy driven by the farmer who owned the land through which the gra.s.s road ran.
She gave a little glad cry when she saw Miss Pinckney and ran into her arms.
Upstairs and alone with the lady, she told her story. Told her how she had met Silas on the road that morning, how, tired of life and scarce knowing what she did, she had got into the phaeton, how he had upset it and smashed it, how she had sheltered in the cabin whilst he went in search of help.
"Then I went to sleep," said Phyl, "and when I woke up it was afternoon.
He was not there, but he must have come back when I was asleep and left some food for me, for there was a bundle outside the door with some bread and bacon in it. Then I started off to walk and found a village with some coloured people. I told them I was lost and wanted to get to Grangersons.
They were kind to me, but I had to wait a long time before they could find that gentleman, the farmer, and he could get a cart to drive me here."
"Thank G.o.d it is all over and you are back," said Miss Pinckney. "But oh, Phyl! what made you do it?"
"I don"t know," said Phyl.
But Miss Pinckney did.
"Listen," said she. "You know what I told you about Richard and Frances Rhett--that"s all done with. He has broken off the engagement."
Phyl flushed, then she hid her burning face on Miss Pinckney"s shoulder.
Miss Pinckney held her for awhile. Then she began to talk.
"We will get right back to-morrow early; no one knows anything and I"ll take care they never do. Well, it"s strange--I can understand everything but I can"t understand that crazy creature. What"s become of him? That"s what I want to know."
This is what had become of him.
Kneeling beside Phyl the sudden sharp pain just above his instep made him turn. In turning he caught a glimpse of his a.s.sailant. It had been creeping towards the door when he entered and had taken refuge beneath the straw. He had almost knelt on it. Escaping, a movement of his foot had raised its anger and it had struck, it was now whisking back into the darkness of the cabin beyond the straw heap.
He recognised it as the deadliest snake in the South.
For a moment he recognised nothing else but the fact that he had been bitten.
His pa.s.sion and desire had vanished utterly. Phyl might have been a thousand miles away from him for all that he thought of her.
He rose up and came out into the sunlight, went to the well head, sat down on the frame and removed his shoe and sock. The mark of the bite was there between the adductor tendons. A red hot iron and a bottle of whisky might have saved him. He had not even a penknife to cut the wound out--He thought of Phyl, she could do nothing. He thought of the bar of the Charleston Hotel, and the verse of the song about the old hen with a wooden leg and the statement that it was just about time for another little drink, ran through his head.
Then suddenly the idea came to him that there might possibly be help at the village where he had obtained the food from the coloured woman. It was a long way off, but still it was a chance.
He put the sock in his pocket, put on the shoe and started. He ran for the first couple of hundred yards, then he slackened his pace, then he stopped holding one hand to his side.
The poison already had hold of him.
The game was up and he knew it. It was useless to go on, he would not live to reach the village or reaching it would die there.
And every one would pity him with that shuddering pity people extend to those who meet with a horrible form of death.
Death from snake bite was a low down business, it was no end for a Grangerson; but there in the swamp to the left a man might lie forever without being found out.
He turned from the road to the left and walked away among the trees.
The ground here sank beneath the foot, a vague haze hung above the marsh and the ponds. Here nothing happened but the change of season, night and day, the chorus of frogs and the crying of the white owl amidst the trees.