"Good-bye, Kenneth," she said, after a moment. She held out her hand. "Will you take my hand,--just this once, boy?"
He did not hesitate. He grasped the hard, toil-worn hand firmly in his.
"We can never be friends, Rachel Carter,--but, as G.o.d is my witness, I am no longer your enemy," he said, with feeling. "Good-bye."
He was half-way down to the gate when she called to him:
"Wait, Kenneth. Moll has something for you."
He turned back and met Moll Hawk as she came swiftly toward him.
"Here"s somethin" fer you to carry in your pocket, Mr. Gwynne,"
said the girl in her hoa.r.s.e, low-pitched voice. "No harm c"n ever come to you as long as you got this with you,--in your pocket er anywheres. Hit"s a charm an old Injin chief give my Pap when he wuz with the tribe, long before I wuz born. Pap lost it the day before he wuz tooken up by the sheriff, er else he never would ha"
had setch bad luck. I found it day before yesterday when I wuz down to the cabin, seein" about movin" our hogs an" chickens an" hosses over to Mis" Gwyn"s barn. The only reason the Injun give it to Pap wuz because he wuz over a hundred years old an" didn"t want to warn off death no longer. Hit"s just a little round stone with somethin"
fer all the world like eyes an" nose an" mouth on one side of it,--jest as if hit had been carved out, only hit wuzn"t. Hit"s jest natural. Hit keeps off sickness an" death an" bad luck, Mr.
Gwynne. Pap knowed he wuz goin" to ketch the devil the minute he found out he lost it. I tole Miss Violy I wanted fer you to have it with you while you wuz off fightin" the Injuns, an" she said she"d love me to her dyin" day if I would give you the loan of it.
Mebby you don"t believe in charms an" signs an" all setch, but it can"t hurt you to carry it an"--an" hit"s best to be on the safe side. Please keep it, Mr. Gwynne."
It was a round object no bigger than a hickory nut. He had taken it from her and was running his thumb over its surface while she was speaking. He could feel the tiny nose and the little indentations that produced the effect of eyes.
"Thank you, Moll," he said, sincerely touched. "It"s mighty good of you. I will bring it back to you, never fear, and I hope that after it has served me faithfully for a little while it may do the same for you till you, too, have seen a hundred and don"t want to live any longer. What was it Miss Viola said to you?"
"I guess I hadn"t ought to said that," she mumbled. "Anyhow, I ain"t goin" to say it over again. Good-bye, Mr. Gwynne,--and take good keer o" yourself."
With that she hurried back to the house, and he, after a glance up at the second story window which he knew to be Viola"s, bent his steps homeward.
His saddle-bags were already packed, his pistols cleaned and oiled; the long-barrelled rifle he had borrowed from the tavern keeper was in prime order for the expedition. Zachariah had gotten out his oldest clothes, his thick riding boots, a linsey shirt and the rough but serviceable buckskin cap that old Mr. Price had hobbled over to the office to give him after the first day of drill with the sententious remark that a "plug hat was a perty thing to perade around in but it wasn"t a very handy sort of a hat to be buried in."
His lamp burned far into the night. He tried to read but his thoughts would not stay fixed on the printed page. Not once but many times he took up from the table a short, legal-looking doc.u.ment and re-read its contents, which were entirely in his own cramped, scholastic hand save for the names of two witnesses at the end. It was his last will and testament, drawn up that very day. Minda Carter was named therein as his sole legatee,--"Minda Carter, at present known as Viola Gwyn, the daughter of Owen and Rachel Carter." His father had, to all intents and purposes, cut her off without a penny, an injustice which would be righted in case of his own death.
It was near midnight when he blew out the light and threw himself fully dressed upon the bed. Sleep would not come. At last, in desperation, he got up and stole guiltily, self-consciously out into the yard, treading softly lest he should wake the vehement Zachariah in his cubbyhole off the kitchen. Presently he was standing at the fence separating the two yards, his elbows on the top rail, his gloomy, lovelorn gaze fixed upon Viola"s darkened window.
The stars were shining. A cool, murky mantle lay over the land.
He did not know how long he had been standing there when his ear caught the sound of a gently-closing door. A moment later a dim, shadowy figure appeared at the corner of the house, stood motionless for a few seconds, and then came directly toward him. The blood rushed thunderously to his head. He could not believe his senses.
He had been wishing--aye, vainly wishing that by some marvellous enchantment she could be transported through the dark little window into his arms. He rubbed his eyes.
"Viola!" he whispered.
"Oh, Kenny," she faltered, and her voice was low and soft like the sighing of the wind. "I--I am so ashamed. What will you think of me for coming out here like this?"
The G.o.d of Love gave him wings. He was over the fence, she was in his arms, and he was straining the warm, pliant body close to his bursting breast. His lips were on hers. He felt her stiffen and then relax in swift surrender. Her heart, stilled at first, began to beat tumultuously against his breast; her free arm stole about his neck and tightened as the urge of a sweet, overwhelming pa.s.sion swept over her.
At last she released herself from his embrace and stood with bowed head, her hands pressed to her eyes.
"I didn"t mean to do it,--I didn"t mean to do this," she was murmuring.
"You love me,--you love me," he whispered, his voice trembling with joy. He drew her hands down from her eyes and held them tight in his own. "Say you do, Viola,--speak the words."
"It must be love," she sighed. "What else could make me feel as I do now,--as I did when you were holding me,--and kissing me?
Oh,--oh,--yes, I DO love you, Kenny. I know it now. I love you with all my soul." She was in his arms again. "But," she panted a little later, "I swear I didn"t know it when I came out here, Kenny,--I swear I didn"t."
"Oh, yes, you did," he cried triumphantly. "You"ve known it all the time, only you didn"t understand."
"I wonder," she mused. Then quickly, shyly: "I had no idea it could come like this,--that it would BE like this. I feel so queer. My knees are all trembly,--it"s the strangest feeling. Now you must let me go, Kenny. I must not stay out here with you. It is terribly late. I--"
"I can"t let you go in yet, dearest. Come! We will sit for a little while on the steps. Don"t leave me yet, Viola. It is all so wonderful, so unbelievable. And to think I was looking up at your window only a few minutes ago, wishing that you would fly down to me. Good heavens! It can"t be a dream, can it? All this is real, isn"t it?" She laughed softly. "It can"t be a dream with me, because I haven"t even been in bed. I"ve been sitting up there in my window for hours, looking over at your house. When your light went out, I was terribly lonely. Yes, and I was a little put out with you for going to bed. Then I saw you come and lean on the fence. I knew you were looking up at my window,--and I was sure that you could see me in spite of the darkness. You never moved,--just stood there with your elbows on the fence, staring up at me. It made me very uncomfortable, because I was in my nightgown. So I made up my mind to get into bed and pull the coverlet up over my head. But I didn"t do it. I put on my dress,--everything,--shoes and stockings and all,--and then I went back to see if you were still there. There you were. You hadn"t moved. So I sat down again and watched you. After awhile I--I--well, I just couldn"t help creeping downstairs and coming out to--to say good-bye to you again, Kenny. You looked so lonesome."
"I was lonesome," he said,--"terribly lonesome."
She led him to a crudely constructed bench at the foot of a towering elm whose lower branches swept the fore-corner of the roof.
"Let us sit here, Kenny dear," she said. "It is where I shall come and sit every night while you are gone away. I shall sit with my back against it and close my eyes and dream that you are beside me as you are now, with your arms around me and your cheek against mine,--and it will be the trysting place for our thoughts."
"That"s wonderful, Viola," he said, impressed. ""The trysting place for our thoughts." Aye, and that it shall be. Every night, no matter where my body may be or what peril it may be in, I shall be here beside you in my thoughts."
She rested against him, in the crook of his strong right arm, her head against his shoulder, and they both fell silent and pensive under the spell of a wondrous enchantment.
After a while, she spoke, and there was a note of despair in her voice:
"What is to become of us, Kenny? What are we to do?"
"No power on earth can take you away from me now, Minda," he said.
"Ah,--that"s it," she said miserably. "You call me Minda,--and still you wonder why I ask what we are to do."
"You mean--about--"
"We can be nothing more to each other than we are now. There is some one else we must think of. I--I forgot her for a little while, Kenny,--I was so happy that I forgot her."
"Were ever two souls so tried as ours," he groaned, and again silence fell between them.
Kneeling at the window from which Viola had peered so short a time before, looking down upon the figures under the tree, was Rachel Carter. She could hear their low voices, and her ears, made sharp by pain, caught the rapturous and the forlorn pa.s.sages breathed upon the still air.
She arose stiffly and drew back into the darkness, out of the dim, starlit path, and standing there with her head high, her arms outspread, she made her solemn vow of self-renunciation.
"I have no right to stand between them and happiness. They have done no wrong. They do not deserve to be punished. My mind is made up. To-morrow I shall speak. G.o.d has brought them together. It is not for me to keep them apart. Aye, to-morrow I shall speak."
Then Rachel Carter, at peace with herself, went back to her bed across the hall and was soon asleep, a smile upon her lips, the creases wiped from between her eyes as if by some magic soothing hand.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ENDING
At crack-o"-day Kenneth rode out of his stable-yard on Brandy Boy, and went cantering away, followed on foot by the excited Zachariah, bound for the parade ground where the "soldiers" were to concentrate.