"You will make me hate you if you bring it up again." Then she added with a plaintive little smile: "The Bible says, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." I am doing my best to live up to that, but sometimes you make it awfully hard for me."
He went to the door with her. She paused for a moment on the step to look searchingly up the road and through the trees. There was no sign of her mother. The anxious, worried expression deepened in her eyes.
"Don"t come any farther with me," she said. "Go down to the Court House as fast as you can."
He watched her till she pa.s.sed through the gate. As he was on the point of re-entering the house he saw her come to an abrupt stop and stare straight ahead. He shot a swift, apprehensive glance over his shoulder.
Barry Lapelle had just emerged from Rachel"s yard, his gaze fixed on the girl who stood motionless in front of Gwynne"s gate, a hundred feet away. Without taking his eyes from her, he slowly closed the gate and leaned against it, folding his arms as he did so.
Viola, after a moment"s indecision and without a glance at Kenneth, lifted her chin and went forward to the encounter. Kenneth looked in all directions for Lapelle"s rascals. He was relieved to find that the discarded suitor apparently had ventured alone upon this early morning mission. What did it portend?
Filled with sharp misgivings, he left his doorstep and walked slowly down to the gate, where he halted. It occurred to him that Barry, after a sleepless night, had come to make peace with his tempestuous sweetheart. If such was the case, his own sense of fairness and dignity would permit no interference on his part unless it was solicited by the girl herself. He was ready, however, to take instant action if she made the slightest sign of distress or alarm. While he had no intention of spying or eavesdropping, their voices reached him distinctly and he could not help hearing what pa.s.sed between them.
"Have you been up to the house, Barry?" were Viola"s first words as she stopped in front of the man who barred the way.
Lapelle did not change his position. His chin was lowered and he was looking at her through narrowed, unsmiling eyes.
"Yes, I have."
"Where was the dog?" she inquired cuttingly.
"He came and licked my hand. He"s the only friend I"ve got up here, I reckon."
"I will have him shot to-day. What do you want?"
"I came to see your mother. Where is she?"
"She"s away."
"Over night?"
"It will do you no good to see her, Barry. You might as well realize it first as last."
Lapelle glanced past her at the man beyond and lowered his voice.
Kenneth could not hear what he said. "Well, I"m going to see her, and she will be down on her knees before I"m through with her, let me tell you. Oh, I"m sober, Viola! I had my lesson yesterday. I"m through with whiskey forever. So she was away all night, eh? Out to the farm, eh? That n.i.g.g.e.r girl of yours says she must have gone out to the farm last night, because her bed wasn"t slept in. And you weren"t expecting visitors as early as this or you would have got home a little sooner yourself, huh?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Soon as she is out of the house you scoot over to big brother Kenny"s, eh? Afraid to sleep alone, I suppose. Well, all I"ve got to say is you ought to have taken a little more time to dress."
"Oh! Oh,--you--you low-lived dog!" she gasped, going white to the roots of her hair. "How dare you say--"
"That"s right! Call me all the pretty names you can think of. And say, I didn"t come up here to beg anything from you or your mother.
I"m not in a begging humour. I"m through licking your boots, Viola.
What time will the old woman be back?"
"Stand away from that gate!" she said in a voice low and hoa.r.s.e with fury. "Don"t you dare speak to me again. And if you follow me to the house I"ll--I"ll--"
"What"ll you do?" he jeered. "Call brother Kenny? Well, go ahead and call him. There he is. I"ll kick him from here to the pond,--and that won"t be half so pleasant as rocking little sister to sleep in her cradle while mamma is out for the night."
"And I used to think I was in love with you!" she cried in sheer disgust. "I could spit in your face, Barry Lapelle. Will you let me pa.s.s?"
"Certainly. But I"m going into the house with you, understand that.
I"d just as soon wait there for your mother as anywhere else."
"When my mother hears about this she will have you horsewhipped within an inch of your life," cried the girl furiously.
These words, rising on a wave of anger, came distinctly to Kenneth"s ears. He left his place at the gate and walked swiftly along inside his fence until he came to the corner of the yard, where the bushes grew thickly. Here he stopped to await further developments. He heard Barry say, with a harsh laugh:
"Oh, she will, will she?"
"Yes, she will. She knows more about you than you think she does,--and so do I. Let me by! Do you hear me, Bar--"
"That"s funny," he interrupted, lowering his voice to a half-whisper.
"That"s just what I came up to see her about. I want to tell her that I know more about her than she thinks I do. And when I get through telling her what I know she"ll change her mind about letting us get married. And you"ll marry me, too, my girl, without so much as a whimper. Oh, you needn"t look around for big brother,--G.o.d, I bet you"d be happy if he wasn"t your brother, wouldn"t you? Well, he has sneaked into the house, just as I knew he would if it looked like a squall. He"s a white-livered coward. How do you like that?"
He was not only astonished but distinctly confounded by the swift, incomprehensible smile that played about her disdainful lips.
"What the h.e.l.lfire are you laughing at?" he exploded.
"Nothing much. I was only thinking about last night."
"Christ!" he exclaimed, the blood rushing to his face. "Why,--why, you--" The words failed him. He could only stare at her as if stunned by the most shocking confession.
"Please remember that you are speaking to--"
He broke in with a snarling laugh. "By thunder, I"m beginning to believe you"re no better than she was. She wasn"t anything but a common------, and I"m blessed if I think it"s sensible to marry into the family, after all."
"Oh!" she gasped, closing her eyes as she shrank away from him.
The word he had used stood for the foulest thing on earth to her.
It had never pa.s.sed her clean, pure lips. For the moment she was petrified, speechless.
"It"s about time you learned the truth about that d.a.m.ned old hypocrite,--if you don"t know it already," he continued, raising his voice at the urge of the now reckless fury that consumed him.
He stood over her shrinking figure, glaring mercilessly down into her horror-struck eyes. "You don"t need to take my word for it. Ask Gwynne. He knows. He knows what happened back there in Kentucky.
He knows she ran off with his father twenty years ago, taking him away from the woman he was married to. That"s why he hates her.
That"s why he never had anything to do with his dog of a father.
And, by G.o.d, he probably knows you were born out of wedlock,--that you"re a love-child, a bas--"
CHAPTER XX
THE BLOW
He never finished the word. A whirlwind was upon him. Before he could raise a hand to defend himself, Kenneth Gwynne"s brawny fist smote him squarely between the eyes. He went down as though struck by a sledge-hammer, crashing to the ground full six feet from where he stood. Behind that clumsy blow was the weight of a thirteen stone body, hurled as from a mighty catapult.
He never knew how long afterward it was that he heard a voice speaking to him. The words, jumbled and unintelligible, seemed to come from a great distance. He attempted to rise, gave it up, and fell back dizzily. His vision was slow in clearing. What he finally saw, through blurred, uncertain eyes, was the face of Kenneth Gwynne, far above him,--and it was a long time before it stopped whirling and became fixed in one place. Then he realized that it was the voice of Gwynne that was speaking to him, and he made out the words. Something warm and wet crept along the sides of his mouth, over his chin, down his neck. His throat was full of a hot nauseous fluid. He raised himself on one elbow and spat.