When Ned had driven his horses around the house to be fed and watered and rubbed down, and Mrs. Wrinkle, uttering a fusillade of meaningless ejaculations and puffs of gratified horror, had disappeared in the house to pack, old Jason made a wry face and squinted comically at Henley. "I reckon Het wasn't too much overcome to keep 'er from shufflin' 'er cards in her little poker game with you. You notice she didn't include you in the invite. I reckon she still feels sore over that buggy-ride that went crooked, an' has decided that you sha'n't take part in any festivities that she has anything to do with. I like to stay with you, Alf, as well as I would with any feller, but the change to that fine place won't be bad. I'll have a good time, takin' it all in all. Ben has—or had, rather—a fine mansion that is well stocked with grub, an' some nigger women that can prepare stuff to a queen's taste. If Het don't take charge of the pantry, there'll be enough to go around an' plenty over. But we'll see, we'll see."

That afternoon, as Henley and Cahews sat in the front part of the store, the carriage passed on its way over the mountain. Wrinkle and his demure spouse, in their very best clothing, sat on the luxurious leather cushions in the rear, and Wrinkle was smiling broadly and waving parting signals at them. The carriage had passed on, and was about to turn into the first street leading mountainward, when Wrinkle was seen to reach forward and clutch the driver's arm. He gave some command, and the horses were reined in and Wrinkle got out, and as he busied himself rubbing something from the lapel of his broadcloth coat he walked with rather uncertain gait to the store.

"Say, Alf," he began, as he ascended the steps to the porch, "if it's agreeable to you, I'd like to have a dollar for pocket-change. Het's pretty liberal, as a general thing, but Ned says she's powerful upset over her loss, an' I'd sorter hate to tackle 'er the fust day we are over thar, an' I know, in reason, I'll need a few nickels to drop here an' thar."

"Get it for him, Jim," Henley ordered, and, while Cahews was at the cash-drawer, Wrinkle went round the counter and took a plug of tobacco from a box.

"I'd take along a few sticks o' peppermint, too," he said, as he wistfully surveyed the candy-jars, "but I've got so I can't suck a stick without toothache. Ain't a bit o' fun treatin' yore stomach if you have to abuse yore gums while you are at it. Well, so long, boys," he said, after he had carefully counted the coins Cahews had put into his hand and was descending the steps. "Folks says that partin' is always harder on the ones that are left behind, an' I reckon it's so in this case, for it's dull enough here, an' I intend to have a good time. The funeral, and paying due respect to the dead, will occupy me to-day and to-morrow, an' after that I want to take a fish in Ben's brag pond. They say he's got—or did have when he was alive—government trout two foot long, an' oodlin's of 'em, hungry enough to bite anything you stick on yore hook."

If the news of the wealthy planter's death and the departure of the Wrinkles under the high honor which had been conferred upon the unpretentious pair furnished food for gossip at Chester, what may be said of the later report which at first crawled from the bereaved mansion, and then, taking on speed, ran hurtling like wildfire over the country?

Ben Warren, sick unto death, and yet in full possession of his senses, for valid reasons of his own had cut off many anxious more distant relatives and bequeathed all his real estate and personal property to his loving and faithful niece, "Hester Wrinkle Henley."

Henley himself was disposed to regard the report as a false one, a canard set afloat by the irrepressible Wrinkle, who would joke as readily about the dead as the living. But even the shrewd business man himself was convinced one morning by the appearance of Wrinkle, who had dismounted from a fine horse at the hitching-post and came in lashing the legs of his baggy trousers with a riding-whip.

"I reckon you've heard what's happened, Alf," he began, in a tone in which there was no guile. "It never rains but it pours cats and pitchforks. I'm out o' breath. Forty-six men, women, an' babies met me as I rid in all as eager to know the facts as if they had the'r names in the pot, an' I had to go over the tale so many times that my hoss got so he would nod or shake his head exactly right whenever a question was axed. Them that hate Het would turn white at the gills an' groan, an' the rest would say, 'Oh, my!' an' set in to do it on the spot."

"Yes, we heard the report," Henley made answer, "but we didn't know whether to believe it or not. I reckon you got it plumb straight?"

"Straight as a shingle," Wrinkle said, sincerely. "Het not only told me, but so did the lawyer, a big-bellied chap from Atlanta, in broadcloth and headlight buttons in his shirt. Huh! I reckon you think you know Het purty well, Alf; but you don't. I don't, an' my wife don't. I reckon her Maker sometimes wonders what she'll do in a pinch. I 'lowed she was one woman that 'u'd like to fall heir to a pile o' cash, but they say when Ben sent for her to come to his bed whar the lawyer was ready with pen and ink and paper, an' Ben told her he was goin' to put her in entire charge of his effects, lock, stock, an' barrel—they say when she heard that she begun to wail an' take on at such a rate that they couldn't git her to talk business at all. They had to rub 'er down an' bathe 'er feet in hot mustard-water, an' it was all they could do to keep 'er from crossin' over, hand in hand, with Ben, an' leavin' the boodle to anybody that 'u'd pick it up. The Lord only knows who would have got the swag in that case, but comin' into a fortune don't kill often, an' Het will manage somehow. She et a square meal this mornin' 'fore I started, pokin' it up under her veil-like, in purty good chunks, an' give orders to the niggers like a captain on a ship ridin' high waves. Thar always was only one thing in this life that pestered that woman, an' that was responsibility to the dead. I reckon she thinks the livin' can tote the'r own loads. Be that as it may, she's goin' to see that Ben's shebang an' all pertainin' to it is run jest to a gnat's heel like he would run it if he was alive. But comin' down to brass tacks, she owes her good luck to exactly what most folks thought was a weak p'int in 'er. They say Ben was so all-fired mad at the gal that kicked 'im to death that he said all women was unfaithful, an' he picked Het out for reward because she had showed she was one amongst a million. Then, too, Het kept tellin' 'im he was good for another forty years, while the rest of his kin was sayin' to his teeth that they was sorry he had to go an hopin' that he had his papers in order. If I could get head or tail of the mystery of life, I might be able to tell whether Het was actin' a part or not. I think she simply done it so well that she believed it; anyways, Ben liked it, an' spent his last hours an' every cent he had tryin' to pacify her."

"And he was rich?" Cahews thrust in, tentatively.

"Well, you'd think so," smiled Wrinkle. "He not only had the finest plantation an' house in this county, but he held bank stocks, railroad bonds, warehouses, cotton-factory interests, an' what not."

"And does—does Hettie intend to—to come back here?" Henley asked, a flush of odd embarrassment on his face.

"Well, that's another matter," Wrinkle began, and then he broke off abruptly: "Say, Alf, I've got something private to talk to you about. Jim, I wish you'd give that hoss a bucket of water. I think he's dry."

With a knowing laugh the clerk turned away, and Wrinkle caught Henley's suspender and gave it a familiar tug. "I didn't want to discuss family affairs before a third party," he explained. "The truth is, Alf, I've always been interested in yore little ups an' downs with Het, an' right now I'm curious to see how prosperity will affect her. Up to now, you see, she was dependent on you for funds, an' sorter had to go slow on some o' her fancies, but now the shoe is on t'other foot, an'—"

"That is not answering the question I asked," Henley broke in, quite out of patience. "I asked you if she intended to—"

"I knowed what you axed me, an' I intend to answer at the proper time an' place," Wrinkle went on, quite unruffled by the reproof. "I never begin to unravel a sock at the top or the middle. The toe is whar the work begun, and therefore the toe is the only natural an' sensible place to—"

"You make me tired!" Henley retorted, impatiently. "You take all day to tell a thing."

"Well, if it won't hurt yore pride I'll tell you what I think is her little game." Wrinkle smiled unctuously and rubbed his hands together. "She left here when that little tiff was on with you about a buggy-ride or two that was hangin' fire because you couldn't spare the time, an' I think her present object is to make you do some knucklin' down. You see, Alf, she's a fine lady now, an' a big heiress, an' naturally is now a woman to be treated with respect by you or me or anybody else. She's the head o' that whole thing over there, an' you'll have to fall in line with the rest of us. She's in deep mournin', an' considerably overcome, but she hain't forgot them buggy-rides. She's brought 'em up a dozen times, an' always with a sniff an' a sneer. She sent me over to git all our leavin's in shape for shipment, an' she's goin' to send a wagon over after 'em."

"So she intends to make that her future home?" ventured Henley, a frown of perplexity on his face.

"Yes, she says it would be out of all reason for the head of sech a big thing to live away over here, an' that you kin sell out yore little shack an' move thar. She's installed me an' Jane in a big room overlookin' the river, an' has one set aside for you that is every bit as good. I reckon you'll be made to feel like a common chap that has married into a royal family, but I wouldn't let that bother me if I was you. You are in luck, Alf. When you took her she didn't have a red cent, an' now just look at her. If Dick had knowed this thing was in the wind, he'd have stayed at home an' put up with a lot that he used to kick agin. She sent you one positive message, an' that was to be sure to come over next Saturday an' spend Sunday. She said you mustn't make it later 'n that, because folks would be sure to talk, an' that she don't want to be talked about, especially while she is in black."

"Well, I'll go over, then," Henley said, with sarcasm that was lost on Wrinkle. "You may tell her that I have accepted her kind invitation." And he turned to his desk and sat down and began to work.



CHAPTER XXXV

That night at his uncle's house Hank Bradley, still wearing traces of his encounter with Henley, sat reading a newspaper and smoking in his chamber at the head of the stairs. A half-empty whiskey-flask and a glass of water were on a table at his elbow, and torn and soiled playing-cards were scattered about the floor.

Presently his attention was drawn to the outside by a sharp whistle which was evidently familiar, for he dropped the paper and went to a window which looked out on the front lawn. At first he could see only old Welborne at a potato-bed on the right, but as his sight became used to the outer gloom he descried a man leaning on the fence near the gate. The fellow wore the broad-brimmed felt hat of the mountaineers; his pants were tucked into his high-top boots and he wore no coat, but a gray flannel shirt with a leather belt and a flowing necktie.

"It's Rayburn Hill," Bradley ejaculated. "What the devil can he want? He must have come thirty miles."

Descending the stairs, and looking furtively at his uncle, whose back was turned to him, Bradley tiptoed across the veranda and gained the grass sward, across which he walked noiselessly.

"Hello!" he said, in a gruff tone; "what are you doing over here?"

"Come to see you, Hank." The man, who was under thirty and tall and strong of limb, thrust out his hand and shook that of his friend. "I left my horse down at the square."

"What do you want to see me about, Ray?" Bradley's voice almost shook with growing perturbation. "You told me last week that you never would come this way again—that the more we all was scattered the safer it would be."

"I'm on my way to the nighest railroad, Hank."

"You say you are?" Bradley leaned against the fence, and his face turned white. "You don't think it's as—as bad as that?"

"Don't I? Huh, I only hope I'll catch that twelve-o'clock flyer! I wouldn't be here now but I told you I'd never act without reporting to you, and that's what I'm doing, Hank."

"But what's—what's happened to—to scare you up so?" Bradley stammered.

"Hank, that fellow's kin are on our track like a pack of thirsty bloodhounds. I got onto it by accident. They have smelt blood, and they are going to drink some. We got the wrong man; I know it damned well now, and you and me was the ringleaders. You know the West, Hank. I want you to show me the way. Git a move on you. You haven't a minute to lose."

"I'll have to raise some money." Bradley looked toward the dim form of old Welborne through the darkness. "Go back to town, Ray. I'll see my uncle and pack and meet you at the train. I'm sure you are right. I've seen bad signs myself. I'd have lit out before this, but there was a skunk here that I wanted to settle a score with."

"I know, but you'll have to cut that out, Hank. This is no time for revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse home."

When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old Welborne.

"You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other day?"

Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his decrepit shoulders. "I have been expecting to hear you say you'd settled with the jackass that gave you that licking that day. I don't want to see you get into more trouble, but that fellow ought to be pulled down from his lordly perch. I never see him without feeling his hands on my throat. He's the one man that has always stood in my way. And now, just look at him! He's in big luck again, and can sneer in his high and mighty way at all of us. That fool woman he was so crazy about as to marry when she loved another man has come into a great big fortune, and he walks about with a strut as it he was a king and we all was common trash 'way beneath his notice. I saw him talking to Dixie Hart this morning in the post-office. His face was shining, and his eyes twinkling over the news of his wife's big haul. Me an' him have had it nip and tuck here ever since he set up in business, and he has always thwarted me. I've pinched and delved to save a few dollars, and his comes to him in rolls and wads. Folks say he's going to sell out and live over there in ease the rest of his life. I don't care how soon he leaves, but I'd like to wipe that grin off his gloating face."

"I've got to go, uncle," Bradley said. "It's too hot for me here. But I need some money, and I must have it to-night."

"Money? Good Lord! How much do you want?"

"Five hundred. I'm going back West. I know the country, and I'll settle there. As for Alf Henley, I've got something up my sleeve for him. He's chuckling now over his wife's big luck, but I'll knock that higher than a kite; he'll never live on that plantation or spend any of that cash. You listen close and you'll hear something drop with a big clatter before many days."

"What are you talking about?" the money-lender asked, bending forward and peering eagerly into the bloated face of his nephew.

"I know what I'm talking about," Bradley replied, still evasively, "and that will be the first thing I attend to when I get where I can breathe fresh air. Say, uncle, I've had a secret in my hold for several years. It is about Dick Wrinkle. If I thought you could hold your old tongue—"

"Hold my tongue?" Welborne broke in. "Did you ever hear of me telling anything?"

"Nothing that concerned you, and this does, to some extent, I'll admit," Bradley said. "Listen, uncle. How would you like to hear that Alf Henley ain't that woman's lawful husband? Dick Wrinkle is alive."

"Good Lord!" The old man's eyes gleamed even in the starlight. "You don't mean it? Surely, surely, you don't."

"Yes, he's alive. He was in Oklahoma when I last saw him. He was done with everything back here—bored to death by his wife and her odd ways, and wanted to shake it all off. He had done me a good many favors. He was hurt in that big storm and reported dead, and got me to confirm it back here. I did the job right. You are the first one I've told the facts to. I get a letter from him now and then, and know where he is. He's made enough money to own a bar in a little place near the Texas line."

"Well, well, but what has that got to do with Henley?" Welborne wanted to know.

"It's just got this to do with him," answered Bradley. "Dick Wrinkle can simply wrap the woman round his finger. She would fall on his neck at the drop of a hat. If Dick came back she'd have a fit of joy and kick Henley clean out of the house. I know women, and Dick has told me lots about his hold on this one."

"But would he come back?"

"Would he? Humph! He's so homesick he thins his ink with brine when he writes to me. He's known all along that she'd take 'im back, but there wasn't any special inducement till now. I have an idea that when he is told—and told in the right way—of this big haul of hers he'll come back to life with some tale or other to square it, and hurry home and claim his rights."

"And you want to start to-night?"

"If you'll get me the money. I've overdrawn my account like thunder, uncle, but I'll not bother you for a while. Get it for me. I've got to go."

The old man looked at the ground hesitatingly, then he shrugged his thin shoulders. "Well, go ahead and pack. I've got that much in the safe at the office. I'll meet you down there. But I'm going to count on you to—to put this thing through."

"I will if I possibly can," Bradley said. "I think he'll do as I tell him. He's always listened to me. I know how to work him up. Don't keep me waiting. I'll pack in twenty minutes."

"Good Lord," the old man chuckled, as he stood alone in the dark. "If Dick Wrinkle comes back and claims his wife, Alf Henley will take a tumble from the highest peak he ever stood on. Won't I laugh at him then? Say, won't I?"



CHAPTER XXXVI

The following Saturday afternoon Henley set out in his buggy to accomplish, in some fashion or other, the disagreeable task of paying his first visit to his wife in her new home. His chagrin could not be imagined by any one less closely concerned in the affair than himself. He had been taught to regard divorce laws as a veritable abomination, and had never for an instant allowed himself to think of freedom from shackles which goaded and chafed his body and soul. And now the situation was even more irritating. His proud spirit rebelled against the unlooked-for circumstances that had made him the husband of a wealthy woman. Heretofore he had been able to realize that if he had made a serious mistake in his marriage, he was, at least, helpful to the woman he had chosen.

From a hill half a mile to the west of the Warren plantation he drew rein and all but bitterly surveyed the vast possessions of his incongruous spouse. In a grove of primitive oaks, near the main-travelled road, against the misty blue background of the distant mountain-range, stood the stately white residence, with its long veranda supported by dignified Corinthian columns, its steep roof, quaint dormer-windows, and central cupola.

"What a joke!" Henley said, with a wry smile, as he started his horse slowly down the incline. "And she's the mistress of it all. I wonder if she'll expect me to get down on my all-fours and crawl in at the back-door."

Old Wrinkle must have been on the lookout for him, for, in his best clothes, he was standing at the carriage-gate in the nearest corner of the grounds. His beard had been trimmed, or awkwardly chopped off, by the unsteady fingers of his wife, and his grizzled hair was plastered down over his dingy brow flatter than it had ever been before.

"Hello!" he called out, merrily. "I 'lowed I'd warn you to enter at this gate an' not drive on to the little one in front of the mansion. That's for foot-passengers," he explained, as he swung the gate open. "Het's mighty—I mean Hester; she says I mustn't call 'er Het any more; she says it will make the nigger help disrespectful. It ain't Pa and Ma any more, either, bless yore life! but father and mother. The other day at the table, before we had lifted our plates, she started in to father me, solemnlike, an' I ducked my head, for I thought she'd set in to ax the blessin'. I started to say that she was mighty particular about the way things are run. Ben had rules an' regulations, you see, an' she is carryin' 'em out an' addin' on more. I seed 'er git as red as a turkey-cock t'other day beca'se a nigger-wench rung the front-door bell. She made the woman hump 'erself round to the kitchen double quick. She's got a new toy to piddle with, an' it's a whoppin' big un. She says things has to move accordin' to the clock on this gigantic place, an' so far it's doin' it. Wait, I'll shet the gate an' ride to the barn with you.

"You've got a lot to learn, Alf," Wrinkle resumed, as he climbed into the buggy and the horse started, "and you might as well set in to do it. I told my wife I was goin' to git you off on one side an' give you a few hints so you won't make the mistakes we did at the outset. About eatin'-time, for instance—no matter what meal is on—we are instructed to listen for bells. It's that big un that presides at the kitchen-door. Thar's always a fust un an' a last un—a number one an' a number two. The fust is to wash an' comb by; the next is to come in the dinin'-room, but, mark you, not in a hurry. I'd lafe a heap o' times if she wasn't so all-fired serious over it. Goin' to school ain't in it. In her thick black she looks as important and stern as a judge in his robes."

They had now reached the barn, a great, rambling structure that was well-painted and well-kept.

"Thar's the stables," Wrinkle said. "It might as well be called a hoss-hotel. It really is a finer shebang in many ways than the house we all lived in till this happened. I ain't criticism' yore place, Alf. It was the best you had to offer, an' nobody could be expected to do more 'n that. But Ben went in for show, an' he added to an' tuck away till the day of his death. This barn has been painted so many times that dry sheets of paint would fall off if you kicked the weather-boardin', and inside—well, jest wait till you see it."

They had descended from the buggy, and Henley was about to unhitch the traces when Wrinkle laid a firm, even agitated, hand on his arm.

"That's another thing," he said; "don't tetch it. You'll break a rule. No member of the family—an' that means me an' you, for we can claim kin by adoption, if not by blood—no member is allowed to do dirty work o' any sort. Ben never allowed it, an' Het says the same rule must hold. She says it would spile the help an' git 'em out o' the right sort o' habits. She told me to whistle whenever I wanted a thing done, and Rastus, or Lindy, or Cipo, or Ned would come on a run. That's sort o' makin' bird-dogs out o' two-legged creatures, but I kind o' like it. But, mind you, Alf, don't whistle for 'em inside the house. You will find a fancy rope with a tassel on the end of it in every room. Give it a light tug an' let it loose. Thar, I see Cipo now. Watch me!". Wrinkle spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with his hand, and puckered up his lips and whistled keenly. "He's comin'; watch 'im hop; he knows better than to dally when I give that sound. He's slow, though; walks like he had lumbago or locomotive attachment. Say, Cipo!" as the tall, elderly negro arrived, holding his tattered hat in his hand, "this is Mr. Alfred Henley, an' this is his hoss. Orders is out from headquarters to give both of 'em every needed attention. It ain't any o' my business, Cipo. I'd give all o' you coons a rest if I had my way. Life is too short to bother about puttin' on style an' tyin' a bow of ribbon to every act."

With the broadest of grins the negro, whose splaying feet were in remnants of shoes that were tied with white cotton strings, detached the horse from the shafts and led him away.

"Now, come on," Wrinkle said. "I see Ma in the back veranda waitin' for us."

As they reached the house the old woman, with timid, halting steps, and better dressed than Henley had ever seen her before, came forward and extended a limp hand. "Howdy do? How did you leave Chester?" she inquired.

"All right," he answered. "Where is Hettie?"

The question was addressed to her, but she stared mutely, and with some agitation looked at her husband.

"I forgot to tell you." Wrinkle glanced up at the sun. "This is her nap-time. That used to be the order in Ben's day, an' she's holdin' to it. Just after dinner all hands are expected to unstrip an' lie down till the cool of the evenin'; then you are free to walk about, but you ought to be ready for supper so you won't have to wash at the last minute, an' come in in a scramble. We don't see Het at breakfast. Ben had a habit of stayin' in his room an' havin' a nigger fetch his up on a waiter, an' Het feels like it is her duty to do likewise. She sets up thar, they tell me, in easy, roustabout clothes, an' attends to the business of the day—sech as readin' the mail, answerin' letters, an' listenin' to complaints from overseers an' land-renters. Ben advanced cash, in dribs or wads, accordin' to needs, an' kept a set o' books. Het's got all that an' more on her conscience, an' she's gittin' as thin as a splinter over it. Folks say she's a regular hair-splitter when it comes to settlements. She would divide a copper cent into several parts if the Government would let 'em pass that way. Come in the parlor, Alf. I want you to take a peep at it. You've travelled about some an' seen sights, but for a place jest to live in, I'll bet you'll admit this caps the stack. If a royal emperor was to kick at a home like this it would start a revolution amongst his subjects."

Henley and the demure little woman followed at the talker's heels. He led them into the main entrance-hall, a spacious, oblong room with colored-glass windows on both sides and above the heavy Colonial doorway. A massive stairway with a carved newel and balustrade of black walnut wound gracefully up to a companion hall above. Piloting the others around this, Wrinkle pushed open a big, white door and led them into the parlor. It was really a spacious room of good design, the walls and woodwork of which were ivory-white. It was, however, furnished with execrable taste. There was an old-fashioned rosewood piano, a row of modern bookcases of oak, rocking-chairs of ancient mahogany, cheap oil landscapes in cheaper gilt frames, a worn carpet of shrieking colors and a design which maddened the vision. There was one spot which would have soothed the trained eye—it was the wide mantelpiece, on which stood a quaint, glass-doored clock and a pair of tall, brass candlesticks of simple form. The fireplace was deep and wide and held a pair of fine, old brass dogs with an appropriate open-work fender.

"I jest want you to take a glance at that big lookin'-glass." Wrinkle pointed at a fine gilt-edged pier-glass which reached from the floor to the ceiling and filled all the space between the two windows at the end of the room. "I'm callin' yore attention to it so you won't be fooled like I was when I fust saw it. They had the funeral in here, an' me an' Ma was axed to set over thar agin the wall. Well, you may believe me or not, but I thought the lookin'-glass was a wide door into another room the same size as this; an' all the time the folks was gatherin' I was watchin' it, for it was fillin' up an' I couldn't make out whar the folks come from. Then all at once I was scared mighty nigh out o' my socks, for the crowd sorter shuffled, to make room, an' I seed another coffin. If I'd been a drinkin' man I'd 'a' been sure I had the jimmies. I wanted to p'int it out to Ma, but I was afeard it might go hard with 'er, for she's a believer in hobgoblins, an' might 'a' raised a noise. So I jest set thar wonderin' who else could be dead, an' why I hadn't heard about it, an' thinkin' maybe that it was the style to bury a rich man in two boxes, though they looked to me like they was the same size an' had the same trimmin's, an' was piled up the same way with flowers. Then I said my prayers in dead earnest, for I seed Het come in on the preacher's arm facin' me in t'other room, while they was walkin' with the'r backs to me in this un. I reckon I'd a been fooled till now if the preacher hadn't begun to hold forth. I could see two parsons as plain as life, but only heard one voice, an' so I discovered my mistake just in time to keep from goin' stark crazy."

At this juncture, Lucy, a young mulatto, came and touched Mrs. Wrinkle on the arm, with the regretful air of one not wishing to disturb her superiors.

"Miss wants to know who's got here," she said.

The little old woman started, looked nervously into the faces of the others, and then ejaculated, "It's Alf; tell 'er it's Alf."

"'Miss'?" Henley repeated, as the girl was withdrawing, muttering the monosyllabic name to herself to fix it on her memory—"who's 'Miss'?"

"Why, it's Het herself," Wrinkle explained, readily enough. "You see, the niggers all used to call Ben's mother 'Old Miss' till she died. I'm told they started in to call Het 'Young Miss,' but when she put on crape an' begun to fling orders about they cut off the 'Young' part. I reckon they'll call you some'n or other to fit the dignity of yore position when they git it into the'r noggin's jest how close you stand to the prime head of it all. They know who me 'n Jane are, you bet yore life, an' when we call 'em they come in a tilt with the'r hats in the'r hands. I never lived before, it seems to me, an' I care less than I ever did about the future state. This is good enough for me. If it will just go at the present pace all the time, I won't care to git cold feet an' retire to a soggy hole in the ground."

Wrinkle suddenly took on a look of attention to external sounds, and he went to the door and peered cautiously up the stairs.

"I think I heard 'er walkin' about," he called back, and he waved his hand downward as if commanding silence. "Yes, she's comin'. Ma, you 'n me had better make ourselves scarce. You see, Alf," he went on, in a rasping whisper and with a very grave face, "we don't exactly know when we are wanted an' when we ain't. It wouldn't be so awkward if she'd lay down some positive rule. She's different under every change, an' the Lord knows she changes often enough."

With a frightened mien Mrs. Wrinkle lowered her head and glided quietly from the room through a door in the rear.

"Take a cheer," was the old man's parting injunction to Henley. "Throw yoreself back, an' cross yore legs, an' let 'er know at the outset that you ain't beholden to 'er, an' that her rise in life don't make no odds to you. That's the way Dick would act if he was alive. He'd 'a' been cussin' these niggers about an' tellin' Het to git out o' that bed an' fix some'n to eat. That's the way he worked 'er, an' she was jest so constructed that she liked it. Take my advice an' turn over a new leaf; you'll have trouble if you don't."

Henley made no reply, and he found himself alone in the big room. The lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on him, for she was looking critically at the carpet.

"Oh, I'll never get things right!" she cried. "Look at the stable-mud on the carpet. I've told 'em an' told 'em not to come in here without wiping their feet, but it goes in at one ear and out at another. They've tracked it all over, and this ingrain carpet can't be cleaned. I'd shut the room up and keep the key, but Uncle Ben always had this room open for visitors, and I want to carry out his plans in every detail. Oh, Alfred, I'm afraid this awful responsibility will kill me! You have no idea of what it all is. I used to think you had enough to do, but your affairs are simply child's play to this."

"I suppose so," he said, "but you never took hold of mine. That's why you think this is so awful. It is on your shoulders like my business is on mine."

She shook her head and sighed as if his remark were not worthy of serious notice, and sat for half an hour going into all the details of Ben Warren's last illness and his wonderful faith in her. "He simply would leave me in charge." She applied her handkerchief to her moist eyes and choked down a sob. "I tried to get him to see that I wasn't at all worthy, but it only made him more determined. The lawyer told me to stop arguing, and the doctor said I was hastening his end, and so I let him have his way. He died like a trusting child, Alfred. I held his hand to the last."

"It was sad," Henley managed to fish out of his confused brain. "He was a young man to go so suddenlike."

"That woman killed him, Alfred." The handkerchief was applied again, though the voice of the speaker rang with rising indignation. "He had me read all her letters over to him, and I followed the outrage from the beginning to the final blow she dealt. She led him on and on, just holding him as a certainty till another man proposed and she got what she wanted—a home in New York. He couldn't stand up under it; she was poor uncle's very life, and when she went out of it he wilted like a delicate flower. I've ordered his monument; it will be the most beautiful thing in the State. He had plans for a church to give to the people in the neighborhood, and I'm going to see to the building of it. I'll have to cut household expenses in a good many ways to do it, but the edifice must be built. I get out the plans every day, but I shed tears so that I can't hardly see the lines. This brings up what I wanted to ask you, Alfred."

"To ask me?" Henley echoed, and he moved his feet and hands uneasily.

"Yes. I'll need the aid of a man over here, and, well, really, it would look better for you to be here than over there. Jim Cahews managed for you while you was away in Texas, and—"

"I know what you mean," Henley stammered. "I understand precisely, but the truth is, right now, at least, I've got so many deals of one sort and another on hand that—"

"I see. I might have known it." The woman sighed, avoided his helpless stare, and tossed her head resentfully. "You never loved him as I do, and you put your own selfish and worldly aims first." She rose stiffly and stalked across the room to the silken bell-pull and gently drew it downward. "You'll want to go to your room before supper. Lucy will show you where it is. I hope everything will be in order up there. I have had so much to worry me that I couldn't see about it myself. I'll meet you at supper. I'm going down to the barn to see if they are taking care of Jack—uncle's favorite horse. I haven't let anybody ride him since he died. I don't know who would be worthy of it. Never mind, Alfred, this is the second request I've made of you lately. I doubt if I'll ever make another."

An impatient retort was rising in the man's breast, and it might have found an outlet if she had not left him at that instant to give an order to the girl who had come in response to her ring.



CHAPTER XXXVII

It was the second night after Henley's return to Chester. He was alone at the farm-house. It was a desolate place now, despite his constant self-assurance that he was accustomed, in his travels, to depend upon his own resources for company and entertainment, and would now find nothing lacking. He was in the kitchen cooking his supper in the same crude way he had cooked his meals in the Western mining-camps where he had once prospected.

He took down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These things ready, he took them to the big, empty dining-room, resting the smoking frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had inherited, but it would be at the cost of the pride of manhood which had been his mainstay so far. She was acting out the part which had fallen to her, and what was there to justify him in altering his plans—in giving up the mode of life which had become a part of himself? Marriage, such as his had become, through no fault of his own, was an acknowledged failure.

Lighting his pipe, he blew out the lamp and sought the cooler air of the front porch. There was something depressing, rather than helpful, in the profound stillness of the night, the expanse of the star-filled heavens, the shadowy outlines of the foot-hills of the invisible mountains beyond. He heard his horses pawing in their stalls, old Wrinkle's pig grunting in its pen; the chickens roosting in a cherry-tree hard by chirped and flapped their wings as they jostled one another on the boughs; all nature seemed normal and at peace save himself. What was wrong? How could it go on? Where was it to end?

Presently his attention was drawn to a figure advancing along the front fence to the gate. The latch was lifted; it was opened, and the figure, with a light, confident tread, began to cross the grass toward him. It was Dixie Hart, and he rose from his chair and went to the steps, a throbbing sense of relief upon him.

She laughed softly, with a slight ring of affectation in her voice, as she paused with her foot on the lowest step. "You must excuse me, Alfred," she said. "I ought not to have come. I ought to have waited till to-morrow, but I'm getting to be a regular slave to Joe. He was worrying over you, and I was afraid he wouldn't go to sleep at all unless—unless I set his mind at rest. Children are so funny."

"What's wrong with the little chap?" Henley came down the steps and stood beside her. There was an inverted flour-barrel on the ground near her, and Dixie sat upon it, and swung her feet back and forth for a little while without seeming to have heard his question. He repeated it, bending toward her the better to see her face in the starlight.

"Oh, I hardly know how—how to say it." She was studying his face with a strange, hungry eagerness, which he failed to fathom. "Children are so odd, Alfred, and have so many fancies that they conjure up themselves. I reckon he's heard Ma and Aunt Mandy talking about—well, about the big piece of luck that has come to you all. You know women that have never had a windfall in any shape through their whole lives naturally make a lot of the good-fortune that comes to a neighbor, and little Joe has just set and listened to it all till—well, I reckon even you've changed from—from his plain friend to—well, something like a king in royal robes."

"The little goose! Besides—" But Henley's resources furnished no further comment.

"He actually cried over one thing," Dixie went on, avoiding Henley's helpless stare. "It was when Aunt Mandy said that, while maybe you and your wife had not been quite as thick as—as some couples are, that now, in all her wealth and splendor, you'd be like every other natural man, and be more attentive and—and—even loving."

"How ridiculous!" Henley exclaimed. "Why, Dixie, that money and place ain't anything to me. It comes to her, not to me, and, while I'm glad, of course, for her sake, still—"

"Joe cried," Dixie broke in, with a cold, resentful shrug. "You see, Alfred, he felt bad because Aunt Mandy hinted that you'd have to live over there now, and move away from this farm. You see, as she told Joe—I wasn't there—I don't listen to their silly gabble, anyway—but, you see, Alfred, when the little fellow gets an idea like this in his head and keeps hammering and hammering on it, there ain't nothing to do but try to pacify him—as Aunt Mandy told Joe, your interests are so whopping big over there that you will naturally have to be on hand to look after 'em. Your wife—Mrs. Henley hain't got your head for business, and it will be your bounden duty to help her run things. Of course, you do love money. A man would be unnatural that didn't, in this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after. And—and—" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside.

"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole over there. It would kill me."

"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at first." Dixie steadied her voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled some proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she said—she told Joe—that the proudest man would give in to a situation like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon. He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I do? I wouldn't advise you to—to do a thing against your best interests, either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd get it all—that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are."

"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing else."

"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it will have its way in this world. A man might sorter fancy he couldn't get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think more about her, and, in thinking more about her, and trying harder to please her, his old love will be revived—that is, if it ever died. Who could tell? I couldn't."

"Look here, Dixie, listen to me!" Henley's voice shook with subdued passion. "I've never felt like it was exactly honorable, fixed like I am, to tell you—to talk out plain to you about—about how I feel toward you, but you are nagging me on to it. I can't help it. Right now it is burning me up inside. I love you more than a man ever loved a woman. You are in my mind day and night. Standing here before me now you seem as far-off and precious as an angel of light. I want you. I want you from the very bottom dregs of my suffering soul. She asked me to move over there, and when she did it the thought of getting farther away from you made me actually sick. I'd rather live here on a crust of bread than to rule a nation away from you. I may as well confess it. I don't love her. I couldn't in a thousand years. She killed the love I once had. She was slowly killing it by her strange ways while you was growing into my heart by your sweet, brave, unselfish life. Now, I've said all I can. I have no hope of ever having you all for my own, but I can love you—I can worship you, and no earthly power can prevent me."

Even in the starlight he could see the color rising in her face and the shimmer of delight in her eyes. She laid her hand on his tense, throbbing arm. "I see," she said, a sweet cadence in her voice. "I've had all my scare for nothing. Oh, Alfred, I've been nigh crazy. I doubted you. All the talk about your wife's wonderful luck went clean against my better judgment. I kept telling myself that you was different from ordinary men, but, somehow, it wouldn't stick. I may as well tell the truth. That's why I come here to-night. I've been unable to sleep—I was going crazy. You are mine, Alfred, all mine—ain't you?"

He felt her throbbing fingers on his wrist and saw her shoulders rise convulsively. An overpowering force within him urged him to clasp her to himself. He opened his arms, but she deftly caught his hands and held them tightly. "No, no," she said, firmly, "not that—not that! Folks say men and women fixed like we are can't love one another without doing wrong; but they can. The strong ones can, and we are strong, Alfred. Our love is sweet enough as it is. It is of heaven; let's keep it right. You might think you'd respect me if I let you hold me in your arms—here at your own house, with your wife away, but you wouldn't—down in your secret soul you'd feel that I was—was tainted."

"Forgive me, Dixie, darling," he cried. "My blood's in my head; I'm dazed and dazzled by you, little girl; but you know best. I wouldn't do a thing you didn't approve of for all the world."

She released his hands with a little, satisfied laugh, and stepped back toward the gate. "Well, I got what I wanted," she said, frankly. "I've been more in the clutch of Old Harry since you went over there than I ever was in all my born days. All day yesterday and to-day I've brooded and brooded and had evil thoughts, till—well, I'd have gone plumb out o' my mind if I hadn't come straight to you. I may as well tell the truth; I don't want a lie, even a little, tiny one, to smut the confidence between us. Alfred, Joe wasn't worrying so—so very much. I was attending to that job. What I said about him was to pump you dry and make you ease my mind. I feel better. I can sleep now. Oh, Alfred—Alfred—good-night!"

He threw out his hands impulsively, but she had evaded them, and, with lowered head, was scudding across the grass toward the light in the cottage.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

The bar in the Oklahoma village kept by Dick Wrinkle was in the centre of the place. It was a narrow, one-story shanty built of undressed boards, the roof of which sloped from the front to the rear. It was devoid of the conventional door-screen, the rough, unpainted shutter, with its padlock and chain, swinging back against the inner wall.

It was early in the morning. The proprietor, a fat, partially bald man of forty years, without a coat, his shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, was sweeping into the cracks of the floor the tobacco-quids, stubs of cigars, and remnants of matches left by his carousing customers the night before. He had just tossed his broom into a corner of the room and was looking out of the door when a dust-laden, travel-worn individual with a familiar look slouched around a corner and said:

"Hello, Dick! Don't you know a fellow?"

"By gum!" Wrinkle cried. "Where the hell did you blow from?"

"Georgia—from back home, Dick. Just got here on the night mail-stage. Gosh, what a ride! My windpipe is lined with dust. Quick! Gimme something to wash it out. Three men on the stage, and not a drop in the bunch. I'm burning up."

"By gum!—by gum!" Wrinkle muttered, as he slid behind the counter and set out a long bottle and glasses. "Help yourself, but I'll tell you now it ain't any o' the simon-pure moonshine we used to get in the old red hills. And you say you are direct from there? My Lord! It seems funny to see a man in this God-forsaken place fresh from them old mountains. Since I clean cut myself off—burnt my bridges, as the feller said, I kind o' realize what I lost. Say, Hank, you didn't give me away, did you?"

Bradley drank a half-tumbler of the whiskey, and took a sip of water and cleared his throat. "No, I kept mum, Dick. I said I would, and I did. It wasn't anything to me, nohow. I ain't no gossiper. That was your game, and I saw no reason to spoil it. Shucks! you needn't worry; you are deader back there than a door-nail. Where is that old pal of yours?"

"Dead." Wrinkle raised his hand warningly. "Don't talk about him. He was a good chap, and stuck to me like a friend and a brother."

"Gee! then you must be lonely, away out here—"

"Don't talk about it. Cut that out, Hank. I'm blue enough as it is." Wrinkle moved the bottle and glasses to a crude table near the door and took a chair. Bradley drew up another and sat down. The rising sun blazed in at the open door, and flared like flame in the gilt-framed mirror back of the bar.

"All right. Out she goes. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot, but I didn't know. You didn't write often."

"I was afraid my letters might be opened by somebody else. I wanted all that to stay wiped out, Hank. I didn't care so much for Het as I did for the old man and woman."

"I wrote you about your wife marrying again?" Bradley said. "I reckon that ain't news?"

"Oh no." Wrinkle had inherited his nonchalant smile and care-free tone from his father. "The damn fool was welcome to 'er. In fact, I owed him that dose. He's the only man I ever had a grudge against, and I was glad he got her. He thought she was exactly the thing he was looking for; I reckon he knows what he got by this time. Marrying her was the foolishest thing I ever was guilty of, and I think I done it to spite him. I ought to have let 'im marry 'er an' then 'a' took 'er away from him. I could 'a' done it as easy as falling off a log. She was plumb daft. I reckon she cut up considerable when the news was spread that I was done for."

"It was the talk of the county, Dick. Folks thought she'd have to be sent to the asylum. Her uncle, Ben Warren, who was so rich, you know, took pity on her and made her come visit him so she could get her mind off her trouble. When she got back, Henley made a dead set for her. But while he got her, Dick, she never cared for him. I reckon you never heard about what she done last summer."

"I haven't had a line from home in two years, Hank. She didn't quit 'im, did she?—she didn't throw 'im clean over, after all, did she?" And Wrinkle laughed expectantly as he pushed the bottle toward his companion.

Bradley's eyes shone; the neck of the bottle in his unsteady hand tinkled against the edge of the tumbler as he poured out another drink.

"No, but she come nigh to it. She drove him off to Texas, where he pretended to have some business or other. Dick, she erected a monument to you that cost a stack o' money. You can see it from the Chester square, looming up like a ghost."

"The hell you say!"

"Not only that, but she sent off for a silver-tongued preacher and had your funeral preached in bang-up style."

"Good Lord! What did she do that for?" Wrinkle groaned, and his mouth set rigidly.

"Because the notion struck her," Bradley smiled. "She made a mark for herself. She's the pride of all the women in that section. Whenever a woman is accused of being changeable, your wife is pointed at to give it the lie. You knew she was looking after your father and mother, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes, you wrote about that," the barkeeper answered, his eyes sullenly averted. "I thought she'd do something of the sort."

"And she has done it right, Dick; they are as rosy as two babies. Henley makes plenty of money in one way and another, and he foots all her bills, or did till—till—well, I haven't told you all the news yet. Dick, neither one of us likes Henley. He's crossed me several times in his high and mighty way, but he's got us both down now and he can sneer at us all he wants to. No wind ever blowed that didn't blow profit to him. You thought you was handing him a gold-brick when you left him your wife, but, la me, Dick, you done him the biggest favor that one man ever done another."

"What the hell you giving me?" Wrinkle raised a pair of wondering eyes to Bradley's design-filled face, and fixed them there anxiously.

"Dick," Bradley toyed with the tumbler, turning it upside-down and stamping rings of liquor on the table—"Dick, Ben Warren died and left her every dollar of his estate. She's as rich as cream, and Henley—huh! he's so stuck-up he can't walk. His lordly strut fairly shakes the ground when he goes about. That fellow's as deep as the sky is high. Folks think now that he knew she would come into that money away back when he first set out to catch her. They don't know how he got onto it, but it looks like he had a tip from some source or other."

With the lips and throat of a corpse, Dick Wrinkle swore; the pupils of his eyes dilated; his yellow fingers, like prongs of dried rawhide, clutched the edge of the table, and the tremor of his body shook it visibly.

"I see it all now," he gasped. "He must have known it; he was crazy to get her, and—and he took her as soon after—after I left as he could possibly manage it. The Lord only knows what means he used, for, as you say, she still loves me."

"Folks say Henley turns up his nose at common folks now," Bradley went on. "He's planning a great stock-farm, and going to keep fine-blooded race-horses, and him and his wife is going to travel about and see the world. Things certainly run crooked in this life." Bradley laughed significantly, his studious eyes on his victim's tortured visage. "Here you are, all alone away out here in a measly little joint like this when your old enemy is living like a king in the bosom of your family. Why, he's even robbed you of your daddy and mammy. You are dead, buried, and laughed at, Dick. I reckon you are not making much out of this thing?" Bradley swept the meagre stock and cheap fixtures with a contemptuous glance.

"Don't make my salt!" Wrinkle groaned. "Nothing is coming in, and no prospect of a change. New town, Citico, drawing all the trade. I've thought of selling out. There's a fellow here that has made me a cash offer for the whole shooting-match—a thousand dollars down. He's a gambler that is at the end of his rope; his wife says she'll quit 'im and marry another man if he don't get into something more steady. She's willing to put up the money if he'll buy me out. He's crazy for a deal. He's got friends and can make it go. His wife's kin live here and she won't move. He's in every hour of the day, shaking his wad in my face. I saw him just now as I come down to open up. I'd let him have the dang thing, but I don't know where to go. I'm sick o' the game, Hank. I've had enough of the wild and woolly West. I've laid awake many and many a night, by gosh! mighty nigh crying for the old life in the mountains. Lord, Lord, I set here sometimes when there ain't anybody about except a drunk Injun or cowboy and git so blue and lonely that it leaks out of me like sweat and drops on the floor. I reckon it is kinder natural for a feller to want what he's been brought up on, especially if he has, by his own act, cut it out and signed his death-warrant. Oh, that was a fool thing, Hank—a blasted fool thing! It seems to me that I dream o' them damn mountains and blue skies every night hand-running—and the good, old-fashioned grub we used to have! And, Hank, I hain't just a dead man—another feller has took my place and, as you say, is gloating over me."

"Oh, well, as for that matter," and Bradley looked idly out through the doorway, "you ought to settle his hash—pull 'im down from his perch."

"Yes," ironically, "now that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"

"The easiest thing on earth, Dick. Alf Henley ain't legally married to your wife. He's living with her, but they hain't been tied by law."

The barkeeper stared blankly; his features worked as if he were trying to solve a mathematical problem. He started to speak, but his mouth fell open and remained so; his lower lip hung wet with saliva.

"Why, no," Bradley went on. "No woman can legally marry another man while her husband is alive. She didn't get no divorce. She's your wife yet, and Alf Henley has simply slid in and taken possession of all you got on earth. I know what I'd do; I'd hike back there and walk in as if nothing had happened, and I'd kick that skunk out, too, or shoot the top of his head off. Dick, she never loved anybody but you; she'd be so glad to have you back she'd throw her arms round your neck and hold you tight. It is the talk of the whole county about how true she is to your memory. It has driven Henley mighty nigh crazy."

Wrinkle stood up. He was shaking like a man with palsy. He leaned over the table and gazed almost tearfully into the designing eyes before him.

"Yes, old Het's a good girl," he muttered. "She was always the right stuff. I know in reason that she'd be the—the same as she was. I know her through and through and exactly how to manage her, but, Hank, they all think I'm—- dead!"

"Folks have made mistakes before," Bradley argued, in a tense and yet plausible tone. "You was hit in the head by a falling beam in that storm. You told me so. You was laid up with a lot of others in the hospital, and for a solid month didn't know your hat from a hole in the ground. That's how the report went out that you was done for. Why, Dick, there have been no end of cases where men have not known where they belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash. Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go back and claim your rights."

"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and, with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here."

"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised. "You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime."

"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in at the door. He was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality.

"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten o'clock—that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out."

Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him.

"You can't root me out of a good thing with a little wad like that, Parson," he said, rising and going behind the counter and briskly wiping off its surface more from habit than necessity. "I've just met an old friend of mine from back in God's Country, and we was just talking over old times. What'll you have?"

"The one next the jug," the gambler said, and Wrinkle set the bottle before him, watching him fill the glass with unsteady eyes.

"I don't think Dick is in a trading humor," Bradley informed him with a cordial smile. "We've been talking over old times, and he's hot under the collar. He's got an enemy back home that has been throwing dirt on him. If I was in Dick's place I'd go back and call him down."

"I don't know anything about that," the gambler said, and he drank, wiped his lips on his hand, and stepped to the centre of the bar and peered out. "I see Shanks in front of his shebang now. If I make him an offer and he accepts it, it is all off between us, Wrinkle—you understand that. I've got to settle down at something, and I'll do it without delay. What do you say?"

"Oh, I've said all I'm going to." Wrinkle tossed his head and applied himself to restoring the bottle and washing the glasses beneath the counter.

"All right. Good-day." He stepped out of the doors

Wiping his hands on a towel, Wrinkle came round to the table and leaned on it.

"You damn fool!" Bradley cried, in disgust. "That's all I've got to say."

"It's gone too far, Hank," Wrinkle groaned. "It was my own doings; I've got to take my medicine. He's gone, anyway."

Bradley stared at the floor and pointed grimly at the gambler's tell-tale shadow. Then he whispered: "Don't be a fool; close with him. Secure his money, and I'll help you get your rights—don't lose this chance. A thousand dollars is a lot of money back home. Call him in."

A change crept over Wrinkle's visage; he glided back behind the counter, picked up his towel and began wiping the counter's top till he was in a position to see the gambler. He caught the man's eye and laughed tauntingly:

"Hey, Parson, you are always making your brags," he called out. "I'll bet you haven't seen a thousand dollars in a month of Sundays."

"You think not, eh?" And the tall man stalked back into the room, whipped out a roll of bills, and tossed them on the table in front of Bradley. "Say, stranger, umpire this game—count it. I'm ready, but I won't be ten minutes from now."

Bradley smiled easily and counted the twenty fifty-dollar bills.

"It's all right, Dick," he said. "You don't know what to do. I'm going to close it for you. He'll take it, stranger." Bradley's eyes were on the startled gambler. "I'll act for him."

There was a pause. Wrinkle's face was set under an expression of blended fear, doubt, and half-willingness, but he said nothing, simply staring at Bradley as a subject might under the spell of a hypnotist.

"Yes, he'll take it," Bradley repeated. "Get your hat, Dick, and leave the gentleman in possession—the agreement sweeps everything, doesn't it?"

"Yes, lock, stock, and barrel." The gambler was trying to conquer the look of elation which had captured his features.

"All right," Wrinkle gave in, doggedly, and he reached for the money and counted it. When he had finished he took his hat down from a nail on the wall and extended his hand. "Luck to you, Parson," he said. "I reckon I'll shake the dust of this place off my feet. I've got work to do at home."



CHAPTER XXXIX

Dick Wrinkle, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer.

"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. "It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please with."

When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed open at the sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address the servant.

"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. "They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw sandpaper."

"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long as I did without learning a few things."

Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a prosperous look stretching across his black waistcoat. The old man had turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, did not see his son till he was close behind him.

"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking."

Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have dreamt it—you back—you—you here! Why, we all heard—we all 'lowed—we all was plumb sure you was—"

"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and—and Hettie?"

"Your Ma?—your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try a new-fangled churn, or—or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all thought you was—was—"

"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?"

"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?"

"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to propose a—a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, and was detained longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household—an', by gosh, my honor!—has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this valise."

"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. "Besides, the law—the law must be considered."

"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole world wasn't plumb upset by it."

"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean—"

The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began:

"I met with trouble, Pa—I reckon some would style it an accident. When that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again—I say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by a rock or a beam or a plank—I never knew exactly which—and never got my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till—till—"

"I know, till you heard about Hettie and—and—but go on. I'm a listenin'."

"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."

"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was all-powerful curious, but—but I've read of sech things, and maybe Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that—I mean—but I reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."

"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."

"You mean about—yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.

"Yes, about all that. I've told you—I've done give you full particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."

"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck."

"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting unsteadily. "I don't need anybody's cash. I've got a thousand dollars in my pocket now."

"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it out an' make a show of it. You see—well, you see, it's like this: Het's a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, an' lookin' at a wad like that mought—I don't say, it would—but it mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State."

Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful countenance before him.

"I made it after I got my senses back," he said, finally, and rather doggedly.

"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, nuther," said old Wrinkle, in a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like that yet awhile."

"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and then come home."

"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, you'll be duckin' at every turn."

"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell 'er I'm loaded for bear—that I've heard about the way she's been going on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here."

"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been here but once, an' then acted like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you an' Alf I naturally favor you, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right here, but we did have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I was to wave it to one side, like this—but never mind; we'll do the best we kin."

"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very sight of 'em makes my mouth water."



CHAPTER XL

One clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and, after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible, an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens, and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a cool, pungent odor.

"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed, and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl."

As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled down to the gate. Leaning on it, he looked toward the mountains, which were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile.

"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether."

"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw your front-door wide open, and—and, well, I just couldn't help it. I never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's a pity to see you left this way."

"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands, and—and for a big, hulking chap like me."

"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him."

"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and just—just enjoy it, knowing that you—"

"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward glance. "It makes me feel sad to think that after all you've done for other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper. A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she—to a man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs, meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in."

"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it."

"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't know how, but it's got to be done."

"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about."

Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused, allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred," she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it."

"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out—clean out. I've made my own way in this life, and I want to keep doing it. Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on."

"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair."

"What was that?" he asked in surprise.

"You remember—the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm, and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever."

"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie, and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all there—true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful, life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world is."

"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well—I'm a sight happier than I was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred—not for giving you to me like other women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't die as long as the universe stands."

He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained her.

"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet—not just yet!"

"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!"

And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them.

"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family—but hold on, hold on! it hain't that—it hain't another one o' my baby jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead."

"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as they tensely leaned forward.

"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado, but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been that way yet—I mean in his crazy fix—but he says a pony throwed 'im an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've got it all mixed up."

Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and mute.

"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss them every day."

"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o' this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts."

"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back, "and it's growing late."

"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with 'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared.

"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.'

"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.'

"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens.

"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick—it's Dick!'

"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't think of but one thing at a time. 'You needn't tell about that—he's alive, that's enough—Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in."

"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly backward.

"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self—an' that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his spell—he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit settin' on the bench hisse'f—bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the last election—an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record all she could, even if it did cost her considerable outlay, first an' last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He didn't know, he went on to say—an', of course, he must have suspicioned that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along an' left you out in the wet—he didn't know, he said, but what jestice sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of the human an—an—anatomy—that's it,—anatomy. He said it was made up of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an expert with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by law or religion, an' that he would set about—after the fee was paid in cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, negotiable note—he would set about to have the second weddin' set aside, and an-an—"