"Why should any one care whether you come to Belle Plain or not?"

"I wonder if my amiable friend, Tom, could have arranged this little affair; it's sort of like old Tom to move in the dark, isn't it?"

"He couldn't—he wouldn't have done it, Charley!" but she looked troubled, not too sure of this.

"Couldn't he? Well, maybe he couldn't—but he's afraid you'll marry me—and I'm only afraid you won't. Betty, hasn't it ever seemed worth your while to marry me just to give old Tom the scare of his life?"

"Please, Charley—" she began.

"I'm in a dreadful state of mind when I think of you alone at Belle Plain—I wish you could love me, Betty!"

"I do love you. There is no one I care half so much for, Charley."

Norton shook his bandaged head and heaved a prodigious sigh.

"That's merely saying you don't love any one." He dropped back rather wearily on his pillow. "Does Tom know about this?" he added.

"Yes."

"Was he able to show a proper amount of surprise?"

"He appeared really shocked, Charley."

"Well, then, it wasn't Tom. He never shows much emotion, but what he does show he usually feels, I've noticed. I had rather hoped it was Tom, I'd be glad to think that he was responsible; for if it wasn't Tom, who was it?—who is it to whom it makes any difference how often I see you?"

"I don't know, Charley;" but her voice was uncertain.

"Look here, Betty; for the hundredth time, won't you marry me? I've loved you ever since I was old enough to know what love meant. You've been awfully sweet and patient with me, and I've tried to respect your wishes and not speak of this except when it seemed necessary—" he paused, and they both laughed a little, but he looked weak and helpless with his bloodless face showing between the gaps in the bandages that swathed him. Perhaps it was this sense of his helplessness that roused a feeling in Betty that was new to her.

"You see, Charley, I fear—I am sure I don't love you the way I should—to marry you—"

Charley, greatly excited, groaned and sat up, and groaned again.

"Oh, please, Charley-lie still!" she entreated.

"That's all right—and you needn't pull your hand away—you like me better than any one else, you've told me so; well, don't you see that's the beginning of really loving me?"

"But you wouldn't want to marry me at once?"

"Yes I would—right away—as soon as I am able to stir around!" said Charley promptly. "Don't you see the immediate necessity there is of my being in a position to care for you, Betty? I wasn't served this trick for nothing."

"You must try not to worry, Charley."

"But I shall—I expect it's going to retard my recovery," said the young man gloomily. "I couldn't be worse off! Here I am flat on my back; I can't come to you or keep watch over you. Let me have some hope, dear—let me believe that you will marry me!"

She looked at him pityingly, and with a certain latent tenderness in her mood.

"Do you really care so much for me, Charley?"

"I love you, Betty!—I want you to say you will marry me as soon as I can stand by your side—you're not going?—I won't speak of this again if it annoys you, dear!" for she had risen.

"I must, Charley—"

"Oh, don't—well, then, if you will go, I want Carrington to ride back with you."

"But I brought George with me—"

"Yes, I know, but I want you to take Carrington—the Lord knows what we are coming to here in West Tennessee; I must have word that you reach home safe."

"Very well, then, I'll ask Mr. Carrington. Good-by, Charley, dear!"

Norton seemed to summon all his fortitude.

"You couldn't have done a kinder thing than come here, Betty; I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am—and as for my loving you—why, I'll just keep on doing that to the end. I can see myself a bent, old man still pestering you with my attentions, and you a sweet, old lady with snow-white hair and pink cheeks, still obdurate—still saying no! Oh, Lord, isn't it awful!" He had lifted himself on his elbow, and now sank back on his pillow.

Betty paused irresolutely.

"Charley—"

"Yes, dear?"

"Can't you be happy without me?"

"No."

"But you don't try to be!"

"No use in my making any such foolish effort, I'd be doomed to failure."

"Good-by, Charley—I really must go—"

He looked up yearningly into her face, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she stooped and kissed him on the forehead, then she fled from the room.

"Oh, come back—Betty—" cried Norton, and his voice rose to a wail of entreaty, but she was gone. She had been quite as much surprised by her act as Charley himself.

In the yard, Carrington was waiting for her. Jeff had just brought up Norton's horse, and though he made no display of weapons, the Kentuckian had fully armed himself.

"I am going to ride to Belle Plain with you, Miss Malroy," he said, as he lifted her into her saddle.

"Do you think it necessary?" she asked, but she did not look at him.

"I hope not. I'll keep a bit in advance," he added, as he mounted his horse, and all Betty saw of him during their ride of five miles was his broad back. At the entrance to Belle Plain he reined in his horse.

"I reckon it's all right, now," he said briefly.

"You will return at once to Mr. Norton?" she asked. He nodded. "And you will not leave him while he is helpless?"

"No, I'll not leave him," said Carrington, giving her a steady glance.

"I am so glad, I—his friends will feel so much safer with you there. I will send over in the morning to learn how he passed the night. Good-by, Mr. Carrington." And still refusing to meet his eyes, she gave him her hand.

But Carrington did not quit the mouth of the lane until she had crossed between the great fields of waving corn, and he had seen her pass up the hillside beyond to the oak grove, where the four massive chimneys of Belle Plain house showed their gray stone copings among the foliage. With this last glimpse of her he turned away.



CHAPTER XXI. THICKET POINT

It WAS a point with Mr. Ware to see just as little as possible of Betty. He had no taste for what he called female chatter. A sane interest in the price of cotton or pork he considered the only rational test of human intelligence, and Betty evinced entire indifference where those great staples were concerned, hence it was agreeable to him to have most of his meals served in his office.

At first Betty had sought to adapt herself to his somewhat peculiar scheme of life, but Tom had begged her not to regard him, his movements from hour to hour were cloaked in uncertainty. The man who had to overlook the labor of eighty or ninety field hands was the worst sort of a slave himself; the niggers knew when they could sit down to a meal; he never did.

But for all his avoidance of Betty, he in reality kept the closest kind of a watch on her movements, and when he learned that she had visited Charley Norton—George, the groom, was the channel through which this information reached him—he was both scandalized and disturbed. He felt the situation demanded some sort of a protest.

"Isn't it just hell the way a woman can worry you?" he lamented, as he hurried up the path from the barns to the house. He found Betty at supper.

"I thought I'd have a cup of tea with you, Bet—what else have you that's good?" he inquired genially, as he dropped into a chair.

"That was nice of you; we don't see very much of each other, do we, Tom?" said Betty pleasantly.

Mr. Ware twisted his features, on which middle age had rested an untender hand, into a smile.

"When a man undertakes to manage a place like Belle Plain his work's laid out for him, Betty, and an old fellow like me is pretty apt to go one of two ways; either he takes to hard living to keep himself in trim, or he pampers himself soft."

"But you aren't old, Tom!"

"I wish I were sure of seeing forty-five or even forty-eight again—but I'm not," said Tom.

"But that isn't really old," objected Betty.

"Well, that's old enough, Bet, as you'll discover for yourself one of these days."

"Mercy, Tom!" cried Betty.

Mr. Ware consumed a cup of tea in silence.

"You were over to see Norton, weren't you, Bet? How did you find him?" he asked abruptly.

"The doctor says he will soon be about again," answered Betty.

Tom stroked his chin and gazed at her reflectively.

"Betty, I wish you wouldn't go there again—that's a good girl!" he said tactfully, and as he conceived it, affectionately, even, paving the way for an exercise of whatever influence might be his, a point on which he had no very clear idea. Betty glanced up quickly.

"Why, Tom, why shouldn't I go there?" she demanded.

"It might set people gossiping. I reckon there's been pretty near enough talk about you and Charley Norton. A young girl can't be too careful." The planter's tone was conciliatory in the extreme, he dared not risk a break by any open show of authority.

"You needn't distress yourself, Tom. I don't know that I shall go there again," said Betty indifferently.

"I wouldn't if I were you." He was charmed to find her so reasonable. "You know it isn't the thing for a young girl to call on a man, you'll get yourself talked about in a way you won't like—take my word for it! If you want to be kind and neighborly send one of the boys over to ask how he is—or bake a cake with your own hands, but you keep away. That's the idea!—send him something to eat, something you've made yourself, he'll appreciate that."

"I'm afraid he couldn't eat it if I did, Tom. It's plain you have no acquaintance with my cooking," said Betty, laughing.

"Did Norton say if he had any idea as to the identity of the men who robbed him?" inquired Tom casually.

"Their object wasn't robbery," said Betty.

"No?" Ware's glance was uneasy.

"It seems that some one objects to his coming here, Tom—here to Belle Plain to see me, I suppose," added Betty. The planter moved uncomfortably in his seat, refusing to meet her eyes.

"He shouldn't put out a yarn like that, Bet. It isn't just the thing for a gentleman to do—"

"He isn't putting it out, as you call it! He has told no one, so far as I know," said Betty quickly. Mr. Ware fell into a brooding silence. "Of course, Charley wouldn't mention my name in any such connection!" continued Betty.

"Who cares how often he comes here? You don't, and I don't. There's more back of this than Charley would want you to know. I reckon he's got his enemies; some one's had a grudge against him and taken this way to settle it." The planter's tone and manner were charged with an unpleasant significance.

"I don't like your hints, Tom," said Betty. Her heightened color and the light in her eyes warned Tom that he had said enough. In some haste he finished his second cup of tea, a beverage which he despised, and after a desultory remark or two, withdrew to his office.

Betty went up-stairs to her own room, where she tried to finish a letter she had begun the day before to Judith Ferris, but she was in no mood for this. She was owning to a sense of utter depression and she had been at home less than a month. Struggle as she might against the feeling, it was borne in upon her that she was wretchedly lonely. She had seated herself by an open window. Now, resting her elbows on the ledge and with her chin between her palms, she gazed off into the still night. A mile distant, on what was called "Shanty Hill," were the quarters of the slaves. The only lights she saw were there, the only sounds she heard reached her across the intervening fields. This was her world. A half-savage world with its uncouth army of black dependents.

Tom's words still rankled. Betty's temper flared up belligerently as she recalled them. He had evidently meant to insinuate that Charley had lied outright when he told her the motive for the attack, and he had followed it up by that covert slur on his character. Charley's devotion was the thing that redeemed the dull monotony of existence. She became suddenly humble and tenderly penitent in her mood toward him; he loved her much better than she deserved, and she suspected that her own attitude had been habitually ungenerous and selfish. She had accepted all and yielded nothing. She wondered gravely why it was she did not love him; she was fond of him—she was very, very fond of him; she wondered if after all, as he said, this were not the beginning of love, the beginning of that deeper feeling which she was not sure she understood, not sure she should ever experience.

The thought of Charley's unwavering affection gave her a great sense of peace; it was something to have inspired such devotion, she could never be quite desperate while she had him. She must try to make him understand how possible an ideal friendship was between them, how utterly impossible anything else. She would like to have seen Charley happily married to some nice girl—"I wonder whom!" thought Betty, gazing deep into the night through her drooping lashes. She considered possible candidates for the happiness she herself seemed so willing to forego, but for one reason or another dismissed them all. "I am not sure I should care to see him marry," she confessed under her breath. "It would spoil everything. Men are much nicer than girls!" And Charley possessed distinguished merits as a man; he was not to be too hastily disposed of, even for his own good. She viewed him in his various aspects, his character and disposition came under her critical survey. Nature had given the young planter a handsome presence; wealth and position had come to him as fortuitously. The first of these was no great matter, perhaps; Betty herself was sometimes burdened with a sense of possession, but family was indispensable.

In theory, at least, she was a thoroughgoing little aristocrat. A gentleman was always a gentleman. There were exceptions, like Tom, to be sure, but even Tom could have reached up and seized the title had he coveted it. She rarely forgot that she was the mistress of Belle Plain and a Malroy. Just wherein a Malroy differed from the rest of the sons of men she had never paused to consider, it sufficed that there was a hazy Malroy genealogy that went back to tidewater Virginia, and then if one were not meanly curious, and would skip a generation or two that could not be accounted for in ways any Malroy would accept, one might triumphantly follow the family to a red-roofed Sussex manor house. Altogether, it was a highly satisfactory genealogy and it had Betty's entire faith. The Nortons were every bit as good as the Malroys, which was saying a great deal. Their history was quite as pretentious, quite as vague, and as hopelessly involved in the mists of tradition.

Inexplicably enough, Betty found that her thoughts had wandered to Carrington; which was very singular, as she had long since formed a resolution not to think of him at all. Yet she remembered with satisfaction his manner that afternoon, it left nothing to be desired. He was probably understanding the impassable gulf that separated them—education, experience, feeling, everything that made up the substance of life but deepened and widened this gulf. He belonged to that shifting, adventurous population which was far beneath the slave-holding aristocracy, at least he more nearly belonged to this lower order than to any other. She fixed his status relentlessly as something to be remembered when they should meet again. At last, with a little puckering of the brows and a firm contraction of the lips, she dismissed the Kentuckian from her thoughts.

Betty complied with Tom's expressed wish, for she did not again visit Thicket Point, but then she had not intended doing so. However, the planter was greatly shocked by the discovery he presently made that she was engaged in a vigorous correspondence with Charley.

"I wish to blazes Murrell had told those fellows to kick the life clean out of him while they were about it!" he commented savagely, and fell to cursing impotently. Brute force was a factor to be introduced with caution into the affairs of life, but if you were going to use it, his belief was that you should use it to the limit. You couldn't scare Norton, he was in love with that pink-faced little fool. Keep away?—he'd never think of it, he'd stuff his pockets full of pistols and the next man who stopped him on the road would better look out! It made him sick—the utter lack of sense manifested by Murrell, and his talk, whenever they met, was still of the girl. He couldn't see anything so damn uncommon about that red-and-white chit. She wasn't worth running your neck into a halter for—no woman that ever lived was worth that.

The correspondence, so far as Betty was responsible for it, bore just on one point. She wanted Charley to promise that for a time, at least, he would not attempt to see her. It seemed such a needless risk to take, couldn't he be satisfied if he heard from her every day?

Charley was regretful, but firm. Just as soon as he could mount his horse he would ride down to Belle Plain. She was not to distress herself on his account; he had been surprised, but this should not happen again.

The calm manner in which he put aside her fears for his safety exasperated Betty beyond measure. She scolded him vigorously. Charley accepted the scolding with humility, but his resolution was unshaken; he did not propose to vacate the public roads at any man's behest; that would be an unwise precedent to establish.

Betty replied that this was not a matter in which silly vanity should enter, even if his life was of no value to himself it did not follow that she held it lightly. It required some eight closely written pages for Charley to explain why existence would be an unsupportable burden if he were denied the sight of her.

A week had intervened since the attack, and from Jeff, who always brought Charley's letters, Betty learned more of Charley's condition than Charley himself had seen fit to tell. According to Jeff his master was now able to get around pretty tolerable well, though he had a powerful keen misery in his side.

"That was whar' they done kicked him most, Miss," he added. Betty shuddered.

"How much longer will he be confined to the house?" she asked.

"I heard him 'low to Mas'r Carrington, Miss, as how he reckoned he'd take a hossback ride to-morrow evenin' if the black and blue was all come out of his features—"

"Oh—" gasped Betty.

"Seems like they was mighty careless whar' they put their feet, don't it, Miss?" said Jeff.

It was this information she gleaned from Jeff that led Betty to desperate lengths, to the making of what her cooler judgment told her was a desperate bargain.

At Thicket Point Charley Norton, greatly excited, hobbled into the library in search of Carrington. He found him reading by the open window.

"Look here, Bruce!" he cried. "It's settled; she's going to marry me!"

The book slipped unheeded from Carrington's hand to the floor. For a moment he sat motionless, then he slowly pulled himself up out of his chair.

"What's that?" he asked a trifle thickly.

"Betty Malroy is going to marry me," said Norton. Carrington gazed at him in silence.

"It's settled, is it?" he asked at length. He saw his own hopes go down in miserable wreck; they had been utterly futile from the first. He had known all along that Norton loved her, the young planter had made no secret of it. He had been less frank.

"I swear you take it quietly enough," said Norton.

"Do I?"

"Can't you wish me joy?"

Carrington held out his hand.

"You are not going to take any risks now, you have too much to live for," he said haltingly.

"No, I'm to keep away from Belle Plain," said Norton happily. "She insists on that; she says she won't even see me if I come there. Everything is to be kept a secret; nothing's to be known until we are actually married; it's her wish—"

"It's to be soon then?" Carrington asked, still haltingly.

"Very soon."

There was a brief silence. Carrington, with face averted, looked from the window.

"I am going to stay here as long as you need me," he presently said. "She—Miss Malroy asked me to, and then I am going back to the river where I belong."

Norton turned on him quickly.

"You don't mean you've abandoned the notion of turning planter?" he demanded in surprise.

"Well, yes. What's the use of my trying my hand at a business I don't know the first thing about?"

"I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to decide finally on that point," urged Norton.

"It has decided itself," said Carrington quietly.

But Norton was conscious of a subtle change in their relation. Carrington seemed a shade less frank than had been habitual with him; all at once he had removed his private affairs from the field of discussion. Afterward, when Norton considered the matter, he wondered if it were not that the Kentuckian felt himself superfluous in this new situation that had grown up.

Charley Norton's features recovered their accustomed hue, but he did not go near Belle Plain; with resolute fortitude he confined himself to his own acres. He was tolerably familiar with certain engaging little peculiarities of Mr. Ware's; he knew, for instance, that the latter was a gentleman of excessively regular habits; once each fortnight, making an excuse of business, he spent a day in Memphis, neither more nor less. Norton told himself with satisfaction that Tom was destined to return to the surprise of his life from the next of these trips. This conviction was the one thing which sustained Charley for some ten days. They were altogether the longest ten days he had ever known, and he had about reached the limit of his endurance when Betty's groom arrived with a letter which threw him into a state of ecstatic happiness. The sober-minded Tom would devote the morrow to Memphis and business. This meant that he would leave Belle Plain at sun-up and return after nightfall.

"You may not like Tom, but you can always count on him," said Norton. Then he ordered his horse and rode off in the direction of Raleigh, but before leaving the house, he scribbled a line or two to be handed Carrington, who had gone down to the nearest river landing.

It was nightfall when the Kentuckian returned, Hearing his step in the hall, Jeff came from the dining-room, where he was laying the cloth for supper.

"Mas'r Charley has rid to Raleigh, Sah," said he; "but he done lef' this fo' me to han' to yo"—extending the letter.

Carrington took it. He guessed its contents. Breaking the seal he read the half dozen lines.

"To-morrow—" he muttered under his breath, and slowly tore the sheet of note-paper into thin ribbons. He turned to Jeff. "Mr. Charley won't be home until late," he said.

"Then I 'low yo' want yo' supper now, Sar?" But Carrington shook his head.

"No, you needn't bother, Jeff," he said, as he turned toward the stairs.

Ten minutes later and he had got together his belongings and was ready to quit Thicket Point. He retraced his steps to the floor below. In the hall he paused and glanced about him. He seemed to feel her presence—and very near—to-morrow she would enter there as Norton's wife. With his pack under his arm he entered the dining-room in search of Jeff.

"Tell your master I have gone to Memphis," he said briefly.

"Ain't yo' goin' to have a hoss, Mas'r Carrington?" demanded Jeff in some surprise. He had come to regard the Kentuckian as a fixture.

"No," said Carrington. "Good-by, Jeff," he added, turning away.

But when he left Thicket Point he did not take the Memphis road, but the road to Belle Plain. Walking rapidly, he reached the entrance to the lane within the hour. Here he paused irresolutely, it was as if the force of his purpose had already spent itself. Then he tossed his pack into a fence corner and kept on toward the house.



CHAPTER XXII. AT THE CHURCH DOOR

There was the patter of small feet beyond Betty's door, and little Steve, who looked more like a nice fat black Cupid than anything else, rapped softly; at the same time he effected to squint through the keyhole.

"Supper served, Missy," he announced, then he turned no less than seven handsprings in the upper hall and slid down the balustrade to the floor below. He was far from being a model house servant.

His descent was witnessed by the butler. Now in his own youth big Steve with as fair a field had cut similar capers, yet he was impelled by his sense of duty to do for his grandson what his own father had so often done for him, and in no perfunctory manner. It was only the sound of Betty's door opening and closing that stayed his hand as he was making choice of a soft and vulnerable spot to which he should apply it. Little Steve slid under the outstretched arm that menaced him and fled to the dining-room.

Betty came slowly down the stairs. Four hours since Jeff had ridden away with the letter. Already there had come to her moments when, she would have given much could she have recalled it, when she knew with dread certainty that whatever her feeling for Charley, it was not love; moments when she realized that she had been cruelly driven by circumstances into a situation that offered no escape.

"Mas'r Tom he say he won't come in to supper, Missy; he 'low he's powerful busy, gittin' ready to go to Memphis in the mo'ning," explained Steve, as he followed Betty into the dining-room.

His mistress nodded indifferently as she seated herself at the table; she was glad to be alone just then; she was in no mood to carry on the usual sluggish conversation with Tom; her own thoughts absorbed her more and more they became terrifying things to her.

She ate her supper with big Steve standing behind her chair and little Steve balancing himself first on one foot and then on the other near the door. Little Steve's head was on a level with the chair rail and but for the rolling whites of his eyes he was no more than a black shadow against the walnut wainscoting; he formed the connecting link between the dining-room and the remote kitchen. Betty suspected that most of the platters journeyed down the long corridor deftly perched on top of his woolly head. She frequently detected him with greasy or sticky fingers, which while it argued a serious breach of trust also served to indicate his favorite dishes. These two servitors were aware that their mistress was laboring under some unusual stress of emotion. In its presence big Steven, who, with the slightest encouragement, became a medium through which the odds and ends of plantation gossip reached Betty's ears, held himself to silence; while little Steve ceased to shift his weight from foot to foot, the very dearth of speech fixed his attention.

The long French windows, their curtains drawn, stood open. All day a hot September sun had beaten upon the earth, but with the fall of twilight a soft wind had sprung up and the candles in their sconces flared at its touch. It came out of wide solitudes laden with the familiar night sounds. It gave Betty a sense of vast unused spaces, of Belle Plain clinging on the edge of an engulfing wilderness, of her own loneliness. She needed Charley as much as he seemed to think he needed her. The life she had been living had become suddenly impossible of continuance; that it had ever been possible was because of Charley; she knew this now as she had never known it before.

Her thoughts dealt with the past. In her one great grief, her mother's death, it had been Charley who had sustained and comforted her. She was conscious of a choking sense of gratitude as she recalled his patient tenderness at that time, the sympathy and understanding he had shown; it was something never to be forgotten.

Unrest presently sent her from the house. She wandered down to the terrace. Before her was the wide sweep of the swampy fore-shore, and beyond just beginning to silver in the moonlight, the bend of the river growing out of the black void. With her eyes on the river and her hands clasped loosely she watched the distant line of the Arkansas coast grow up against the sky; she realized that the moon was rising on Betty Malroy for the last time.

She liked Charley; she needed some one to take care of her and her belongings, and he needed her. It was best for them both that she should marry him. True she might have gone back to Judith Ferris; that would have been one solution of her difficulties. Why hadn't she thought of doing this before? Of course, Charley would have followed her East. Charley met the ordinary duties and responsibilities of his position somewhat recklessly; it was only where she was concerned that he became patiently determined.

"I suppose the end would have been the same there as here," thought Betty.

A moment later she found herself wondering if Charley had told Carrington yet; certainly the Kentuckian would not remain at Thicket Point when he knew. She was sure she wished him to leave not Thicket Point merely, but the neighborhood. She did not wish to see him again—not see him again—not see him again—She found herself repeating the words over and over; they shaped themselves into a dreadful refrain. A nameless terror of the future swept in upon her. She was cold and sick. It was as though an icy hand was laid upon her heart. The words ran on in endless repetition—not see him again—they held the very soul of tragedy for her, yet she was roused to passionate protest. She must not think of him, he was nothing to her. She was to be married to another man, even now she was almost a wife—but battle as she might the struggle went on.

There was the sound of a step on the path. Betty turned, supposing it to be Tom; but it was not Tom, it was Carrington himself who stood before her, his face haggard and drawn. She uttered an involuntary exclamation and shrank away from him. Without a word he stepped to her side and took her hands rather roughly.

For a moment there was silence between them, Betty stared up into his face with wide scared eyes, while he gazed down at her as if he would fasten something on his mind that must never be forgotten. Suddenly he lifted her soft cold hands to his lips and kissed them passionately again and again; then he held them in his own against his cheek, his glance still fixed intently upon her; it held something of bitterness and reproach, but now she kept her eyes under their quivering lids from him.

"What am I to do without you?"—his voice was almost a whisper. "What is this thing you have done?" Betty's heart was beating with dull sickening throbs, but she dared not trust herself to answer him. He took both her hands in one of his, and, slipping the other under her chin, raised her face so that he could look into her eyes; then he put his arm loosely about her, holding her hands against his breast. "If I could have had one moment out of all the years for my own—only one. I am glad you don't care, dear; it hurts when you reach the end of something that has been all your hope and filled all your days. I have come to say good-by, Betty; this is the last time I shall see you. I am going away."

All in an instant Betty pressed close to him, hiding her face in his arm; she clung to him in a panic of pain and horror. She felt something stir within her that had never been there before, as a storm of passionate longing swept through her. Her words, her promise to another man, became as nothing. All her pride was forgotten. Without this man the days stretched away before her a blank. His arm drew her closer still, until she felt her heart throb against his.

"Do you care?" he said, and seemed to wonder that she should.

"Bruce, Bruce, I didn't know—and now—Oh, my dear, my dear—" He pressed his lips against the bright little head that rested in such miserable abandon against his shoulder.

"Do you love me?" he whispered. The blood ran riot in his veins.

"Why have you stayed away—why didn't you come to me? I have promised him—" she gasped.

"I know," he said, and shut his lips. There was another silence while she waited for him to speak. She felt that she was at his mercy, that whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be. At length he said. "I thought it wasn't fair to him, and it seemed so hopeless after I came here. I had nothing—and a man feels that—so I kept away." He spoke awkwardly with something of the reserve that was habitual to him.

"If you had only come!" she moaned.

"I did—once," he muttered.

"You didn't understand; why did you believe anything I said to you? It was only that I cared—that in my heart I knew I cared—I've cared about you ever since that trip down the river, and now I am going to be married to-morrow—to-morrow, Bruce—do you realize I have given my promise? I am to meet him at the Spring Bank church at ten o'clock—and it's tomorrow!" she cried, in a laboring choked voice. For answer he drew her closer. "Bruce, what can I do?—tell me what I can do."

Carrington made an involuntary gesture of protest.

"I can't tell you that, dear—for I don't know." His voice was steady, but it came from lips that quivered. He knew that he might have urged the supreme claim of his love and in her present desperate mood she would have listened, but the memory of Norton would have been between them always a shame and reproach; as surely as he stood there with his arms about her, as surely as she clung to him so warm and near, he would have lived to see the shadow of that shame in her eyes.

"I can not do it—I can not, Bruce!" she panted.

"Dear—dear—don't tempt me!" He held himself in check.

"I am going to tell you—just this once, Bruce—I love you—you are my own for this one moment out of my life!" and she abandoned herself to the passionate caressing with which he answered her. "How can I give you up?" he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. He put her from him almost roughly, and leaning against the trunk of a tree buried his face in his hands. Betty watched him for a moment in wretched silence.

"Don't feel so bad, Bruce," she said brokenly. "I am not worth it. I tried not to love you—I didn't want to." She raised a white face to his.

"I am going now, Betty. You—you shouldn't stay here any longer with me." He spoke with sudden resolution.

"And I shall not see you again?" she asked, in a low, stifled voice.

"It's good-by—" he muttered.

"Not yet—oh, not yet, Bruce—" she implored. "I can not—"

"Yes—now, dear. I don't dare stay—I may forget—" but he turned again to her in entreaty. "Give me something to remember in all the years that are coming when I shall be alone—let me kiss you on the lips—let me—just this once—it's good-by we're saying—it's good-by, Betty!"

She went to him, and, as he bent above her, slipped her arms about his neck.

"Kiss me—" she breathed.

He kissed her hair, her soft cheek, then their lips met.

He helped her as she stumbled blindly along the path to the house, and half lifted her up the steps to the door. They paused there for a moment. At last he turned from her abruptly in silence. A step away he halted.

"If you should ever need me—" "Never as now," she said.

She saw his tall figure pass down the path, and her straining eyes followed until it was lost in the mild wide spaces of the night.

Another hot September sun was beating upon the earth as Betty galloped down the lane and swung her horse's head in the direction of Raleigh. Her grief had worn itself out and she carried a pale but resolute face. Carrington was gone; she would keep her promise to Charley and he should never know what his happiness had cost her. She nerved herself for their meeting; somewhere between Belle Plain and Thicket Point Norton would be waiting for her.

He joined her before she had covered a third of the distance that separated the two plantations.

"Thank God, my darling!" he cried fervently, as he ranged up alongside of her.

"Then you weren't sure of me, Charley?"

"No, I wasn't sure, Betty—but I hoped. I have been haunting the road for more than an hour. You are making one poor unworthy devil happy, unless—"

"Unless what, Charley?" she prompted.

"Unless you came here merely to tell me that after all you couldn't marry me." He put out his hand and covered hers that held the reins. "I'll never give you cause to regret it—you know how I love you, dear?"

"Yes, Charley—I know." She met his glance bravely.

"We are to go to the church. Mr. Bowen will be there; I arranged with him last night; he will drive over with his wife and daughter, who will be our witnesses, dear. We could have gone to his house, but I thought it would seem more like a real wedding in a church, you know."

Betty did not answer him, her eyes were fixed straight ahead, the last vestige of color had faded from her face and a deathly pallor was there. This was the crowning horror. She felt the terrible injustice she was doing the man at her side, the depth and sincerity of his devotion was something for which she could make no return. Her lips trembled on the verge of an avowal of her love for Carrington. Presently she saw the church in its grove of oaks, in the shade of one of these stood Mr. Bowen's horse and buggy.

"We won't have to wait on him!" said Norton.

"No—" Betty gasped out the monosyllable.

"Why—my darling—what's the matter?" he asked tenderly, his glance bent in concern on the frightened face of the girl.

"Nothing—nothing, Charley."

They had reined in their horses. Norton sprang to the ground and lifted her from the saddle.

"It will only take a moment, dear!" he whispered encouragingly in the brief instant he held her in his arms.

"Oh, Charley, it isn't that—it's dreadfully serious—" she said, with a wild little laugh that was almost hysterical.

"I wouldn't have it less than that," he said gravely.

Afterward Betty could remember standing before the church in the fierce morning light; she heard Mr. Bowen's voice, she heard Charley's voice, she heard another voice—her own, though she scarcely recognized it. Then, like one aroused from a dream, she looked about her—she met Charley's glance; his face was radiant and she smiled back at him through a sudden mist that swam before her eyes.

Mr. Bowen led her toward the church door. As they neared it they caught the clatter of hoofs, and Tom Ware on a hard-ridden horse dashed up; he was covered with dust and inarticulate with rage. Then a cry came from him that was like the roar of some mortally wounded animal.

"I forbid this marriage!" he shrieked, when he could command speech.

"You're too late to stop it, Tom, but you can attend it," said Norton composedly.

"You—you—" Words failed the planter; he sat his horse the picture of a grim and sordid despair.

Mr. Bowen divided a look of reproach between his wife and daughter; his own conscience was clear; he had told no one of the purpose of Norton's call the night before.

"I'll tie the horses, Betty," said Norton.

Ware turned fiercely to Bowen.

"You knew better than to be a party to this, and by God!—if you go on with it you shall live to regret it!"

The minister made him no answer, he thoroughly disapproved of the planter. It was well that Betty should have a proper protector, this half-brother was hardly that measured by any standard.

Norton, leading the horses, had reached the edge of the oaks when from the silent depths of the denser woods came the sharp report of a rifle. The shock of the bullet sent the young fellow staggering back among the mossy and myrtle-covered graves.

For a moment no one grasped what had happened, only there was Norton who seemed to grope strangely among the graves. Black spots danced before his eyes, the little group by the church merged into the distance—always receding, always more remote, as he, stumbled helplessly over the moss and the thick dank myrtle and among the round graves that gave him a treacherous footing; and then he heard Betty's agonized cry. He had fallen now, and his strength went from him, but he kept his face turned on the group before the church in mute appeal, and even as the shadows deepened he was aware that Betty was coming swiftly toward him.

"I'm shot—" he said, speaking with difficulty.

"Charley—Charley—" she moaned, slipping her strong young arms about him and gathering him to her breast.

He looked up into her face.

"It's all over—" he said, but as much in wonder as in fear. "But I knew you would come to me—dear—" he added in a whisper. She felt a shudder pass through him. He did not speak again. His lips opened once, and closed on silence.



CHAPTER XXIII. THE JUDGE OFFERS A REWARD

The news of Charley Norton's murder spread quickly over the county. For two or three days bands of armed men scoured the woods and roads, and then this activity quite unproductive of any tangible results ceased, matters were allowed to rest with the constituted authorities, namely Mr. Betts the sheriff, and his deputies.

No private citizen had shown greater zeal than Judge Slocum Price, no voice had clamored more eloquently for speedy justice than his. He had sustained a loss that was in a peculiar sense personal, he explained. Mr. Norton was his friend and client; they had much in common; their political ideals were in the strictest accord and he had entertained a most favorable opinion of the young man's abilities; he had urged him to enter the national arena and carve out a career for himself; he had promised him his support. The judge so worked upon his own feelings that presently any mention of Norton's name utterly unmanned him. Well, this was life. One could only claim time as it was doled out by clock ticks; we planned for the years and could not be certain of the moments.

He spent two entire days at the church and in the surrounding woods, nor did any one describe the murder with the vividness he achieved in his description of it. The minister's narrative was pale and colorless by comparison, and those who came from a distance went away convinced that they had talked with an eyewitness to the tragedy and esteemed themselves fortunate. In short, he imposed himself on the situation with such brilliancy that in the end his account of the murder became the accepted version from which all other versions differed to their discredit.

In the same magnificent spirit of public service he would have assumed the direction of the search for the murderer, but Mr. Betts' jealousy proved an obstacle to his ambitious design. In view of this he was regretful, but not surprised when the hard-ridden miles covered by dusty men and reeking horses yielded only failure.

"If I had shot that poor boy, I wouldn't ask any surer guarantee of safety than to have that fool Betts with his microscopic brain working in unhampered asininity on the case," he told Mahaffy.

"Is it your idea that you are enlarging your circle of intimate friends by the way you go about slamming into folks?" inquired Mahaffy, with harsh sarcasm.

Later, the judge was shocked at what he characterized as official apathy. It became a point on which he expressed himself with surpassing candor.

"Do they think the murderer's going to come in and give himself up?—is that the notion?" he demanded heatedly of Mr. Saul.

"The sheriff owns himself beat, Sir; the murderer's got safely away and left no clue to his identity."

The judge waived this aside.

"Clues, sir? If you mean physical evidence the eye can apprehend, I grant it; the murderer has got away; certainly he's been given all the time he needed, but what about the motive that prompted the crime? An intelligently conducted examination such as I am willing to undertake might still bring it to light. Isn't it known that Norton was attacked a fortnight ago as he was leaving Belle Plain? He recovers and is about to be married to Miss Malroy when he is shot at the church door; I'll hazard the opinion the attack was in the nature of a warning for him to keep away from Belle Plain. Now, had he a rival? Clear up these points and you get a clue!" The judge paused impressively.

"Tom Ware has acted in a straightforward manner. He's stated frankly he was opposed to the match, that when he heard about it on his way to Memphis he turned back and made every effort to get to the church in time to stop it if he could," said Mr. Saul.

"Mr. Ware need not be considered," observed the judge.

"Well, there's been a heap of talk."

"If he'd inspired the firing of the fatal shot he'd have kept away from the church. No, no, Mr. Saul, is there anybody hereabout who aspired to Miss Malroy's hand—any rejected suitor?"

"Not that we know of."

"Under ordinary circumstances, sir, I am opposed to measures that ignore the constituted authorities, but we find ourselves living under extraordinary conditions, and the law—God save the name—has proved itself abortive. It is time for the better element to join bands; we must get together, sir. I am willing to take the initial steps and issue the call for a mass meeting of our best citizens. I am prepared to address such a meeting." The very splendor of his conception dazzled the judge; this promised a gorgeous publicity with his name flying broadcast over the county. He continued:

"I am ready to give my time gratuitously to directing the activities of a body of picked men who shall rid the county of the lawless element. God knows, sir, I desire the repose of a private career, yet I am willing to sacrifice myself. Is it your opinion, Mr. Saul, that I should move in this matter?"

"I advise you didn't," said Mr. Saul, with disappointing alacrity.

The judge looked at him fixedly.

"Am I wrong in supposing, Mr. Saul, that if I determine to act as I have outlined I shall have your indorsement?" he demanded. Mr. Saul looked extremely uncomfortable; he was finding the judge's effulgent personality rather compelling. "There is no gentleman whose support I should value in quite the same sense that I should value yours, Mr. Saul; I should like to feel my course met with your full approval," pursued the judge, with charming deference.

"You'll get yourself shot full of holes," said Mr. Saul.

"What causes me to hesitate is this: my name is unfamiliar to your citizens. You know their prejudices, Mr. Saul; how would they regard me if I put myself forward?"

"Can't say how they would take it," rejoined Mr. Saul.

Again the judge gave him a fixed scrutiny. Then ha shook him warmly by the hand.

"Think of what I have said; ponder it, sir, and let me have your answer at another time." And he backed from Mr. Saul's presence with spectacular politeness.

"A cheap mind!" thought the judge, as he hurried up the street.

He broached the subject to Mr. Wesley the postmaster, to Mr. Ellison the gunsmith, to Mr. Pegloe, employing much the same formula he had used with Mr. Saul, and with results almost identical. He imagined there must be some conspiracy afoot to keep him out of the public eye, and in the end he managed to lose his temper.

"Hasn't Norton any friends?" he demanded of Pegloe. "Who's going to be safe at this rate? We want to let some law into west Tennessee, a hanging or two would clear the air!" His emotions became a rage that blew through him like a gale, shaking him to his center.

Two mornings later he found where it had been placed under his door during the night a folded paper. It contained a single line of writing:

"You talk too much. Shut up, or you'll go where Norton went."

Now the judge was accessible to certain forms of fear. He was, for instance, afraid of snakes—both kinds—and mobs he had dreaded desperately since his Pleasantville experience; but beyond this, fear remained an unexplored region to Slocum Price, and as he examined the scrawl a smile betokening supreme satisfaction overspread his battered features. He was agreeably affected by the situation; indeed he was delighted. His activities were being recognized; he had made his impression; the cutthroats had selected him to threaten. Well, the damned rascals showed their good sense; he'd grant them that! Swelling with pride, he carried the scrawl to Mahaffy.

"They are forming their estimate of me, Solomon; I shall have them on the run yet!" he declared.

"You are going out of your way to hunt trouble—as if you hadn't enough at the best of times, Price! Let these people manage their own affairs, don't you mix up in them," advised the conservative Mahaffy.

The judge drew himself up with an air of lofty pride.

"Do you think I am going to be silenced, intimidated, by this sort of thing? No, sir! No, Solomon, the stopper isn't made that will fit my mouth."

A few moments later he burst in on Mr. Saul.

"Glance at that, my friend!" he cried, as he tossed the paper on the clerk's desk. "Eh, what?—no joke about that, Mr. Saul. I found it under my door this morning." Mr. Saul glanced at the penciled lines and drew in his breath sharply. "What do you make of it, sir?" demanded the judge anxiously.

"Well, of course, you'll do as you please, but I'd keep still."

"You mean you regard this as an authentic expression, sir, and not as the joke of some irresponsible humorist?"

"It's authentic enough," said Mr. Saul impatiently.

The judge gave a sigh of relief; he could have hugged the little clerk who had put to rest certain miserable doubts that had assailed him.

"Sir, I wish it known that I hold the writer and his threats in contempt; if I have given offense it is to an element I shall never seek to conciliate." Mr. Saul was clearly divided between his admiration for the judge's courage and fear for his safety. "One thing is proven, sir," the judge went on; "the man who murdered that poor boy is in our midst; that point can no longer be disputed. Now, where are their fine-spun theories as to how he crossed to the Arkansas coast? What does their mass of speculation and conjecture amount to in the face of this?" He breathed deep. "My God, sir, the murderer may be the very next man you pass the time of day with!" Mr. Saul shivered uncomfortably. "And the case in the hands of that pin-headed fool, Betts!" The judge laughed derisively as he bowed himself out. He left it with Mr. Saul to disseminate the news. The judge strutted home with his hat cocked over one eye, and his chest expanded to such limits that it menaced all his waistcoat buttons. Perhaps he was under observation. Ah, let the cutthroats look their full at him!

He established himself in his office. He had scarcely done so when Mr. Betts knocked at the door. The sheriff came direct from Mr. Saul and arrived out of breath, but the letter was not mentioned by the judge. He spoke of the crops, the chance of rain, and the intricacies of county politics. The sheriff withdrew mystified, wondering why it was he had not felt at liberty to broach the subject which was uppermost in his mind. His place was taken by Mr. Pegloe, and on the heels of the tavern-keeper came Mr. Bowen. Judge Price received them with condescension, but back of the condescension was an air of reserve that did not invite questions. The judge discussed the extension of the national roads with Mr. Pegloe, and the religion of the Persian fire-worshipers with Mr. Bowen; he permitted never a pause and they retired as the sheriff had done without sight of the letter.

The judge's office became a perfect Mecca for the idle and the curious, and while he overflowed with high-bred courtesy he had never seemed so unapproachable—never so remote from matters of local and contemporary interest.

"Why don't you show 'em the letter?" demanded Mr. Mahaffy, when they were alone. "Can't you see they are suffering for a sight of it?"

"All in good time, Solomon." He became thoughtful. "Solomon, I am thinking of offering a reward for any information that will lead to the discovery of my anonymous correspondent," he at length observed with a finely casual air, as if the idea had just occurred to him, and had not been seething in his brain all day.

"There you go, Price—" began Mahaffy.

"Solomon, this is no time for me to hang back. I shall offer a reward of five thousand dollars for this information." The judge's tone was resolute. "Yes, sir, I shall make the figure commensurate with the poignant grief I feel. He was my friend and client—" The moisture gathered in his eyes.

"I should think that fifty dollars was nearer to being your figure," suggested the cautious Mahaffy.

"Inadequate and most insulting," said the judge.

"Well, where do you expect to get five thousand dollars?" cried Mahaffy in a tone of absolute exasperation.

"Where would I get fifty?" inquired the judge mildly.

For once Mahaffy frankly owned himself beaten. A gleam of admiration lit up his glance.

"Price, you have a streak of real greatness!" he declared.

Before the day was over it was generally believed that the judge was wearing his gag with humility; interest in him declined, still the public would have been grateful for a sight of that letter.

"Shucks, he's nothing but an old windbag!" said Mr. Pegloe to a group of loungers gathered before his tavern in the early evening.

As he spoke, the judge's door opened and that gentleman appeared on his threshold with a lighted candle in each hand. Glancing neither to the right nor the left he passed out and up the street. Not a breath of wind was blowing and the flames of the two candles burnt clear and strong, lighting up his stately advance.

At the corner of the court-house green stood a row of locust hitching posts. Two of these the judge decorated with his candles, next he measured off fifteen paces, strides as liberal as he could make them without sacrifice to his dignity; he scored a deep line in the dust with the heel of his boot, toed it squarely, and drew himself up to his fullest height. His right hand was seen to disappear under the frayed tails of his coat, it reappeared and was raised with a movement quicker than the eye could follow and a pistol shot rang out. One of the candles was neatly snuffed.

The judge allowed himself a covert glance in the direction of the loungers before the tavern. He was aware that a larger audience was assembling. A slight smile relaxed the firm set of his lips. The remaining candle sputtered feebly. The judge walked to the post and cleared the wick from tallow with his thumb-nail. There was no haste in any of his movements; his was the deliberation of conscious efficiency. Resuming his former station back of the line he had drawn in the dusty road he permitted his eye to gauge the distance afresh, then his hand was seen to pass deftly to his left hip pocket, the long barrel of the rifle pistol was leveled, the piece cracked, and the candle's yellow flame vanished.

The judge pocketed his pistol, walked down the street, and with never a glance toward the tavern reentered his house.

The next morning it was discovered that sometime during the night the judge had tacked his anonymous communication on the court-house door; just below it was another sheet of paper covered with bold script:

"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Judge Slocum Price assumes that the above was intended for him since he found it under his office door on the morning of the twenty-fifth inst.

"Judge Price begs leave to state it as his unqualified conviction that the writer is a coward and a cur, and offers a reward of five thousand dollars for any information that will lead to his identification.

"Judge Price has stated that he would conduct an intelligently directed investigation of the Norton murder mystery without remuneration. He has the honor to assure his friends that he is still willing to do so; however, he takes this opportunity to warn the public that each day's delay is a matter of the utmost gravity.

"Furthermore, judge Price avails himself on this occasion to say that he has no wish to avoid personal conclusions with the murderers and cutthroats who are terrorizing this community; on the contrary, he will continue earnestly to seek such personal conclusions."



CHAPTER XXIV. THE CABIN ACROSS THE BAYOU

Tom Ware was seated alone over his breakfast. He had left his bed as the pale morning light crept across the great fields that were alike his pride and his despair—what was the use of trying to sleep when sleep was an impossibility! The memory of that tragedy at the church door was a black horror to him; it gave substance to his dreams, it brought him awake with writhing lips that voiced his fear in the dead stillness of the night. The days were scarcely less terrible. Steeled and resolute as his will could make him, he was not able to speak of what he had seen with composure. Being as he was in this terribly perturbed state he had shirked his morning toilet and presented a proportionately haggard and unkempt appearance. He was about to quit the table when big Steve entered the room to say there was a white fellow at the door wished to see him.

"Fetch him along in here," said Ware briefly, without lifting his bloodshot eyes.

Brought into his presence the white fellow delivered a penciled note which proved to be from Murrell, and then on Ware's invitation partook of whisky. When he was gone, the planter ordered his horse, and while he waited for it to be brought up from the stables, reread Murrell's note. The expression of his unprepossessing features indicated what was passing in his mind, his mood was one of sullen rebellion. He felt Murrell was bent on committing him to an aggregate of crime he would never have considered possible, and all for love of a girl—a pink-cheeked, white-faced chit of a girl—disgust boiled up within him, rage choked him; this was the rotten spot in Murrell's make-up, the man was mad-stark mad!

As Ware rode away from Belle Plain he cursed him under his breath with vindictive thoroughness. His own inclination toward evil was never very robust; he could have connived and schemed over a long period of years to despoil Betty of her property, he would have counted this a legitimate field for enterprise; but murder and abduction was quite another thing. He would wash his hands of all further connection with Murrell, he had other things to lose besides Belle Plain, and the present would be as good a time as any to let the outlaw know he could be coerced and bullied no longer. But he had a saving recollection of the way in which Murrell dealt with what he counted treachery; an unguarded word, and he would not dare to travel those roads even at broad noon-day, while to pass before a lighted window at night would be to invite death; nowhere would he be safe.

Three miles from Belle Plain he entered a bridle path that led toward the river; he was now traversing a part of the Quintard tract. Two miles from the point where he had quitted the main road he came out upon the shores of a wide bayou. Looking across this he saw at a distance of half a mile what seemed to be a clearing of considerable extent, it was the first sign of human occupation he had seen since leaving Belle Plain.

An impenetrable swamp defended the head of the bayou which he skirted. Doubling back as though he were going to retrace his steps to Belle Plain, finally he gained a position opposite the clearing which still showed remotely across the wide reach of sluggish water. Here he dismounted and tied his horse, then as one tolerably familiar with the locality and its resources, he went down to the shore and launched a dugout which he found concealed in some bushes; entering it he pointed its blunt bow in the direction of the clearing opposite. A growth of small timber was still standing along the water's edge, but as he drew nearer, those betterments which the resident of that lonely spot had seen fit to make for his own convenience, came under his scrutiny; these consisted of a log cabin and several lesser sheds. Landing and securing his dug-out by the simple expedient of dragging half its length out of the water, he advanced toward the cabin. As he did so he saw two women at work heckling flax under an open shed. They were the wife and daughter of George Hicks, his overseer's brother.

"Morning, Mrs. Hicks," he said, addressing himself to the mother, a hulking ruffian of a woman.

"Howdy, sir?" she answered. Her daughter glanced indifferently in Ware's direction. She was a fine strapping girl, giving that sense of physical abundance which the planter admired.

"They'd better keep her out of Murrell's way!" he thought; aloud he said, "Anybody with the captain?"

"Colonel Fentress is."

"Humph!" muttered Ware. He moved to the door of the cabin and pushing it open, entered the room where Murrell and Fentress were seated facing each other across the breakfast table. The planter nodded curtly. He had not seen Murrell since the murder, and the sight of him quickened the spirit of antagonism which he had been nursing. "You roust a fellow out early enough!" he grumbled, rubbing his unshaven chin with the back of his hand.

"I was afraid you'd be gone somewhere. Sit down—here, between the colonel and me," said Murrell.

"Well, what the devil do you want of me anyhow?" demanded the planter.

"How's your sister, Tom?" inquired Murrell.

"I reckon she's the way you'd expect her to be." Ware dropped his voice to a whisper. Those women were just the other side of the logs, he could hear them at their work.

"Who's at Belle Plain now?" continued Murrell.

"Bowen's wife and daughter have stayed," answered Ware, still in a whisper.

"For how long, Tom? Do you know?"

"They were to go home after breakfast this morning; the daughter's to come out again to-morrow and stay with Betty until she leaves."

"What's that you're saying?" cried Murrell.

"She's going back to North Carolina to those friends of hers; it's no concern of mine, she does what she likes without consulting me." There was a brief pause during which Murrell scowled at the planter.

"I reckon your heart's tender, too!" he presently said. Ware's dull glance shifted to Fentress, but the colonel's cold and impassive exterior forbade the thought that his sympathy had been roused.

"It isn't that," Ware muttered, moistening his lips. He felt the utter futility of opposition. "I am for letting things rest just where they are," again his voice slid into a husky whisper. "You'll be running all our heads into a halter, the first thing you know—and this isn't any place to talk over such matters, there are too many people about."

"There's only Bess and the old woman busy outside," said Murrell.

"What's to hinder them from sticking an ear to a chink in the logs?"

"Go on, and finish what you've got to say, and get it off your mind," said Murrell.

"Well, then, I want to tell you that I consider you didn't regard me at all in the way you managed that business at the church! If I had known what was due to happen there, do you think I'd have gone near the place? But you let me go! I met you on the road and you told me you'd learned Norton had been to see Bowen, you told me that much, but you didn't tell me near all you might!" Ware was bitter and resentful; again he felt the sweat of a mortal terror drip from him.

"It was the best thing for you that it happened the way it did," rejoined Murrell coolly. "No one will ever think you had a hand in it."

"It wasn't right! You placed me in the meanest kind of a situation," objected Ware sullenly, mopping his face.

"Did you think I was going to let the marriage take place? You knew he had been warned to keep away from her," said Murrell. There was a movement overhead in the loft, the loose clapboards with which it was floored creaked under a heavy tread.

"Who's that? Hicks?" asked Ware.

"It isn't Hicks—never mind who it is, Tom," answered Murrell quietly.

"I thought you'd sent him out of the county?" muttered Ware, his face livid.

"Look here, Tom, I don't ask your help, but I won't stand your interference. I'm going to have the girl."

"John, you'll ruin yourself with your damned crazy infatuation!" It was Fentress, no longer able to control himself, who spoke.

"No, I won't, Colonel, but I'm not going to discuss that. All I want is for Tom to go to Memphis and stay there for a couple of days. When he comes back Belle Plain and its niggers will be as good as his. I am going to take the girl away from there to-night. I don't ask your help and you needn't ask what comes of her afterward. That will be my affair." Murrell's burning eyes shifted from one to the other.

"A beautiful and accomplished young lady—a great heiress—is to disappear and no solution of the mystery demanded by the public at large!" said Fentress with an acid smile. Murrell laughed contemptuously.

"What's all this fuss over Norton's death amounted to?" he said.

"Are you sure you have come to the end of that, John?" inquired Fentress, still smiling.

"I don't propose to debate this further," rejoined Murrell haughtily. Instantly the colonel's jaw became rigid. The masterful airs of this cutthroat out of the hills irked him beyond measure. Murrell turned to Ware.

"How soon can you get away from here, Tom?" he asked abruptly.

"By God, I can't go too soon!" cried the planter, staggering to his feet. He gave Fentress a hopeless beaten look. "You're my witness that first and last I've no part in this!" he added.

The colonel merely shrugged his shoulders. Murrell reached out a detaining hand and rested it on Ware's arm.

"Keep your wits about you, Tom, and within a week people will have forgotten all about Norton and your sister. I am going to give them something else to worry over."

Ware went from the cabin, and as the door swung shut Fentress faced Murrell across the table.

"I've gone as far with you in this affair as I can go; after all, as you say, it is a private matter. You reap the benefits—you and Tom between you—I shall give you a wide berth until you come to your senses. Frankly, if you think that in this late day in the world you can carry off an unwilling girl, your judgment is faulty."

"Hold on, Colonel—how do you know she is going to prove unwilling?" objected Murrell, grinning.

Fentress gave him a glance of undisguised contempt and rose from his seat.

"I admit your past successes, John—that is, I take your word for them—but Miss Malroy is a lady."

"I have heard enough!" said Murrell angrily.

"So have I, John," retorted the colonel in a tone that was unvexed but final, "and I shall count it a favor if you will never refer to her in my hearing." He moved in the direction of the door.

"Oh, you and I are not going to lose our tempers over this!" began Murrell. "Come, sit down again, Colonel!" he concluded with great good nature.

"We shall never agree, John—you have one idea and I another."

"We'll let the whole matter drop out of our talk. Look here, how about the boy—are you ready for him if I can get my hands on him?"

Fentress considered. From the facts he had gathered he knew that the man who called himself Judge Price must soon run his course in Raleigh, and then as inevitably push out for fresh fields. Any morning might find him gone and the boy with him.

"I can't take him to my place as I had intended doing; under the circumstances that is out of the question," he said at length.

"Of course; but I'll send him either up or down the river and place him in safe keeping where you can get him any time you want."

"This must be done without violence, John!" stipulated Fentress.

"Certainly, I understand that perfectly well. It wouldn't suit your schemes to have that brace of old sots handled by the Clan. Which shall it be—up or down river?"

"Could you take care of him for me below, at Natchez?" inquired Fentress.

"As well there as anywhere, Colonel, and he'll pass into safe hands; he won't give me the slip the second time!"

"Good!" said Fentress, and took his leave.

From the window Murrell watched him cross the clearing, followed by the girl, Bess, who was to row him over to the opposite shore. He reflected that these men—the Wares and Fentresses and their like—were keen enough where they had schemes of their own they wished put through; it was only when he reached out empty hands that they reckoned the consequences.

Three-quarters of an hour slipped by, then, piercing the silence, Murrell heard a shrill whistle; it was twice repeated; he saw Bess go down to the landing again. A half-hour elapsed and a man issued from the scattering growth of bushes that screened the shore. The new-comer crossed the clearing and entered the cabin. He was a young fellow of twenty-four or five, whose bronzed and sunburnt face wore a somewhat reckless expression.

"Well, Captain, what's doing?" he asked, as he shook hands with Murrell.

"I've been waiting for you, Hues," said Murrell. He continued, "I reckon the time's here when nothing will be gained by delay."

Hues dropped down on a three-legged stool and looked at the outlaw fixedly and in silence for a moment. At length he nodded understandingly.

"You mean?"

"If anything's to be done, now is the time. What have you to report?"

"Well, I've seen the council of each Clan division. They are ripe to start this thing off."

Murrell gave him a moment of moody regard.

"Twice already I've named the day and hour, but now I'm going to put it through!" He set his teeth and thrust out his jaw.

"Captain, you're the greatest fellow in America! Inside of a week men who have never been within five hundred miles of you will be asking each other who John Murrell is!"

Murrell had expected to part with Hues then and there and for all time, but Hues possessed qualities which might still be of use to him.

"What do you expect to do for yourself?" he demanded. The other laughed shortly.

"Captain, I'm going to get rich while I have the chance. Ain't that what we are all after?"

"How?" inquired Murrell quietly. Hues shifted his seat.

"I'm sensitive about calling things by their short names;" he gave way to easy laughter; "but if you've got anything special you're saving for yourself, I'm free to say I'd rather take chances with you than with another," he finished carelessly.

"Hues, you must start back across Tennessee. Make it Sunday at midnight—that's three days off." Unconsciously his voice sank to a whisper.

"Sunday at midnight," repeated Hues slowly.

"When you have passed the word into middle Tennessee, turn south and make the best of your way to New Orleans. Don't stop for anything—push through as fast as you can. You'll find me there. I've a notion you and I will quit the country together."

"Quit the country! Why, Captain, who's talking of quitting the country?"

"You speak as though you were fool enough to think the niggers would accomplish something!" said Murrell coolly. "There will be confusion at first, but there are enough white men in the southwest to handle a heap better organized insurrection than we'll be able to set going. Our fellows will have to use their heads as well as their hands or they are likely to help the nigger swallow his medicine. I look for nothing else than considerable of a shake-up along the Mississippi... what with lynchers and regulators a man will have to show a clean bill of health to be allowed to live, no matter what his color—just being white won't help him any!"

"No, you're right, it won't!" and again Hues gave way to easy laughter.

"When you've done your work you strike south as I tell you and join me. I'm going to keep New Orleans for myself—it's my ambition to destroy the city Old Hickory saved!"

"And then it's change your name and strike out for Texas with what you've picked up!"

"No, it isn't! I'll have my choice of men—a river full of ships. Look here, there's South America, or some of those islands in the gulf with a black-and-tan population and a few white mongrels holding on to civilization by their eye-teeth; what's to hinder our setting up shop for ourselves? Two or three hundred Americans could walk off with an island like Hayti, for instance—and it's black with niggers. What we'd done here would be just so much capital down there. We'd make it a stamping-ground for the Clan! In the next two years we could bring in a couple of thousand Americans and then we'd be ready to take over their government, whether they liked it or not, and run it at a profit. We'd put the niggers back in slavery where they belong, and set them at work raising sugar and tobacco for their new bosses. Man, it's the richest land in the world, I tell you—and the mountains are full of gold!"

Hues had kindled with a ready enthusiasm while Murrell was speaking.

"That sounds right, Captain—we'd have a country and a flag of our own—and I look at those free niggers as just so much boot!"

"I shall take only picked men with me—I can't give ship room to any other—but I want you. You'll join me in New Orleans?" said Murrell.

"When do you start south?" asked Hues quickly.

"Inside of two days. I've got some private business to settle before I leave. I'll hang round here until that's attended to."



CHAPTER XXV. THE JUDGE EXTENDS HIS CREDIT

That afternoon Judge Price walked out to Belle Plain. Solomon Mahaffy had known that this was a civility Betty Malroy could by no means escape. He had been conscious of the judge's purpose from the moment it existed in the germ state, and he had striven to divert him, but his striving had been in vain, for though the judge valued Mr. Mahaffy because of certain sterling qualities which he professed to discern beneath the hard crust that made up the external man, he was not disposed to accept him as his mentor in nice matters of taste and gentlemanly feeling. He owed it to himself personally to tender his sympathy. Miss Malroy must have heard something of the honorable part he had played; surely she could not be in ignorance of the fact that the lawless element, dreading his further activities, had threatened him. She must know, too, about that reward of five thousand dollars. Certainly her grief could not blind her to the fact that he had met the situation with a largeness of public spirit that was an impressive lesson to the entire community.'

These were all points over which he and Mahaffy had wrangled, and he felt that his friend, in seeking to keep him away from Belle Plain, was standing squarely in his light. He really could not understand Solomon or his objections. He pointed out that Norton had probably left a will—no one knew yet—probably his estate would go to his intended wife—what more likely? He understood Norton had cousins somewhere in middle Tennessee—there was the attractive possibility of extended litigation. Miss Malroy needed a strong, clear brain to guide her past those difficulties his agile fancy assembled in her path. He beamed on his friend with a wide sunny smile.

"You mean she needs a lawyer, Price?" insinuated Mahaffy.

"That slap at me, Solomon, is unworthy of you. Just name some one, will you, who has shown an interest comparable to mine? I may say I have devoted my entire energy to her affairs, and with disinterestedness. I have made myself felt. Will you mention who else these cutthroats have tried to browbeat and frighten? They know that my theories and conclusions are a menace to them! I got 'em in a panic, sir—presently some fellow will lose his nerve and light out for the tall timber—and it will be just Judge Slocum Price who's done the trick—no one else!"

"Are you looking for some one to take a pot shot at you?" inquired Mahaffy sourly.

"Your remark uncovers my fondest hope, Solomon—I'd give five years of my life just to be shot at—that would round out the episode of the letter nicely;" again the judge beamed on Mahaffy with that wide and sunny smile of his.

"Why don't you let the boy go alone, Price?" suggested Mahaffy. He lacked that sense of sublime confidence in the judge's tact and discretion of which the judge, himself, entertained never a doubt.

"I shall not obtrude myself, Solomon; I shall merely walk out to Belle Plain and leave a civil message. I know what's due Miss Malroy in her bereaved state—she has sustained no ordinary loss, and in no ordinary fashion. She has been the center of a striking and profoundly moving tragedy! I would give a good deal to know if my late client left a will—"

"You might ask her," said Mahaffy cynically. "Nothing like going to headquarters for the news!"

"Solomon, Solomon, give me credit for common sense—go further, and give me credit for common decency! Don't let us forget that ever since we came here she has manifested a charmingly hospitable spirit where we are concerned!"

"Wouldn't charity hit nearer the mark, Price?"

"I have never so regarded it, Solomon," said the judge mildly. "I have read a different meaning in the beef and flour and potatoes she's sent here. I expect if the truth could be known to us she is wondering in the midst of her grief why I haven't called, but she'll appreciate the considerate delicacy of a gentleman. I wish it were possible to get cut flowers in this cussed wilderness!"

The judge had been occupied with a simple but ingenious toilet. He had trimmed the frayed skirts of, his coat; then by turning his cuffs inside out and upside down a fresh surface made its first public appearance. Next his shoes had engaged his attention. They might have well discouraged a less resolute and resourceful character, but with the contents of his ink-well he artfully colored his white yarn socks where they showed though the rifts in the leather. This the judge did gaily, now humming a snatch of song, now listening civilly to Mahaffy, now replying with undisturbed cheerfulness. Last of all he clapped his dingy beaver on his head, giving it an indescribably jaunty slant, and stepped to the door.

"Well, wish me luck, Solomon, I'm off—come, Hannibal!" he said. At heart he cherished small hope of seeing Betty, advantageous as he felt an interview might prove. However, on reaching Belle Plain he and Hannibal were shown into the cool parlor by little Steve. It was more years than the judge cared to remember since he had put his foot inside such a house, but with true grandeur of soul he rose to the occasion; a sublimated dignity shone from every battered feature, while he fixed little Steve with so fierce a glance that the grin froze on his lips.

"You are to say that judge Slocum Price presents his compliments and condolences to Miss Malroy—have you got that straight, you pinch of soot?" he concluded affably. Little Steve, impressed alike by the judge's air of condescension and his easy flow of words, signified that he had. "You may also say that judge Price's ward, young Master Hazard, presents his compliments and condolences—" What more the judge might have said was interrupted by the entrance of Betty, herself.

"My dear young lady—" the judge bowed, then he advanced toward her with the solemnity of carriage and countenance he deemed suitable to the occasion, and her extended hand was engulfed between his two plump palms. He rolled his eyes heavenward. "It's the Lord's to deal with us as His own inscrutable wisdom dictates," he murmured with pious resignation. "We are all poorer, ma'am, that he has died—just as we were richer while he lived!" The rich cadence of the judge's speech fell sonorously on the silence, and that look of horror which had never quite left Betty's eyes since they saw Charley Norton fall, rose out of their clear depths again. The judge, instantly stricken with a sense of the inadequacy of his words, doubled on his spiritual tracks. "In a round-about way, ma'am, we're bound to believe in the omnipresence of Providence—we must think it—though a body might be disposed to hold that west Tennessee had got out of the line of divine supervision recently. Let me lead you to a chair, ma'am!"

Hannibal had slipped to Betty's side and placed his hand in hers. The judge regarded the pair with great benevolence of expression. "He would come, and I hadn't the heart to forbid it. If I can be of any service to you, ma'am, either in the capacity of a friend—or professionally—I trust you will not hesitate to command me—" The judge backed toward the door.

"Did you walk out, Judge Price?" asked Betty kindly.

"Nothing more than a healthful exercise—but we will not detain you, ma'am; the pleasure of seeing you is something we had not reckoned on!" The judge's speech was thick and unctuous with good feeling. He wished that Mahaffy might have been there to note the reserve and dignity of his deportment.

"But you must let me order luncheon for you," said Betty. At least this questionable old man was good to Hannibal.

"I couldn't think of it, ma'am—"

"You'll have a glass of wine, then," urged Betty hospitably. For the moment she had lost sight of what was clearly the judge's besetting sin.

The judge paused abruptly. He endured a moment of agonizing irresolution.

"On the advice of my physician I dare not touch wine—gout, ma'am, and liver—but this restriction does not apply to corn whisky—in moderation, and as a tonic—either before meals, immediately after meals or at any time between meals—always keeping in mind the idea of its tonic properties—" The judge seemed to mellow and ripen. This was much better than having the dogs sicked on you! His manner toward Betty became almost fatherly. Poor young thing, so lonely and desolate in the midst of all this splendor—he surreptitiously wiped away a tear, and when little Steve presented himself and was told to bring whisky, audibly smacked his lips—a whole lot better, surely!

"I am sorry you think you must hurry away, Judge Price," said Betty. She still retained the small brown hand Hannibal had thrust into hers.

"The eastern mail gets in to-day, ma'am, and I have reason to think my share of it will be especially heavy, for it brings the bulk of my professional correspondence." In ten years the judge had received just one communication by mail—a bill which had followed him through four states and seven counties. "I expect my secretary—" boldly fixing Solomon Mahaffy's status, "is already dipping into it; an excellent assistant, ma'am, but literary rather than legal."

Little Steve reappeared bearing a silver tray on which was a decanter and glass.

"Since you insist, ma'am," the judge poured himself a drink, "my best respects—" he bowed profoundly.

"If you are quite willing, judge, I think I will keep Hannibal. Miss Bowen, who has been here—since—" her voice broke suddenly.

"I understand, ma'am," said the judge soothingly. He gave her a glance of great concern and turned to Hannibal. "Dear lad, you'll be very quiet and obedient, and do exactly as Miss Malroy says? When shall I come for him, ma'am?"

"I'll send him to you when he is ready to go home. I am thinking of visiting my friends in North Carolina, and I should like to have him spend as much time as possible with me before I start for the East."

It had occurred to Betty that she had done little or nothing for the child; probably this would be her last opportunity.

The state of the judge's feelings was such that with elaborate absence of mind he poured himself a second drink of whisky; and that there should be no doubt the act was one of inadvertence, said again, "My best respects, ma'am," and bowed as before. Putting down the glass he backed toward the door.

"I trust you will not hesitate to call upon me if I can be of any use to you, ma'am—a message will bring me here without a moment's delay." He was rather disappointed that no allusion had been made to his recent activities. He reasoned correctly that Betty was as yet in ignorance of the somewhat dangerous eminence he had achieved as the champion of law and order. However, he reflected with satisfaction that Hannibal, in remaining, would admirably serve his ends.

Betty insisted that he should be driven home, and after faintly protesting, the judge gracefully yielded the point, and a few moments later rolled away from Belle Plain behind a pair of sleek-coated bays, with a negro in livery on the box. He was conscious of a great sense of exaltation. He felt that he should paralyze Mahaffy. He even temporarily forgot the blow his hopes had sustained when Betty spoke of returning to North Carolina. This was life—broad acres and niggers—principally to trot after you toting liquor—and such liquor!—he lolled back luxuriantly with half-closed eyes.

"Twenty years in the wood if an hour!" he muttered. "I'd like to have just such a taste in my mouth when I come to die—and probably she has barrels of it!" he sighed deeply, and searched his soul for words with which adequately to describe that whisky to Mahaffy.

But why not do more than paralyze Solomon—that would be pleasant but not especially profitable. The judge came back quickly to the vexed problem of his future. He desired to make some striking display of Miss Malroy's courtesy. He knew that his credit was experiencing the pangs of an early mortality; he was not sensitive, yet for some days he had been sensible of the fact that what he called the commercial class was viewing him with open disfavor, but he must hang on in Raleigh a little longer—for him it had become the abode of hope. The judge considered the matter. At least he could let people see something of that decent respect with which Miss Malroy treated him.

They were entering Raleigh now, and he ordered the coachman to pull his horses down to a walk. He had decided to make use of the Belle Plain turnout in creating an atmosphere of confidence and trust—especially trust. To this end he spent the best part of an hour interviewing his creditors. It amounted almost to a mass-meeting of the adult male population, for he had no favorites. When he invaded virgin territory he believed in starting the largest possible number of accounts without delay. The advantage of his system, as he explained its workings to Mahaffy, was that it bred a noble spirit of emulation. He let it be known in a general way that things were looking up with him; just in what quarter he did not specify, but there he was, seated in the Belle Plain carriage and the inference was unavoidable that Miss Malroy was to recognize his activities in a substantial manner.

Mahaffy, loafing away the afternoon in the county clerk's office, heard of the judge's return. He heard that Charley Norton had left a will; that Thicket Point went to Miss Malroy; that the Norton cousins in middle Tennessee were going to put up a fight; that Judge Price had been retained as counsel by Miss Malroy; that he was authorized to begin an independent search for Charley Norton's murderer, and was to spare no expense; that Judge Price was going to pay his debts. Mahaffy grinned at this and hurried home. He could believe all but the last, that was the crowning touch of unreality.

The judge explained the situation.

"I wouldn't withhold hope from any man, Solomon; it's the cheapest thing in the world and the one thing we are most miserly about extending to our fellows. These people all feel better—and what did it cost me?—just a little decent consideration; just the knowledge of what the unavoidable associations of ideas in their own minds would do for them!"

What had seemed the corpse of credit breathed again, and the judge and Mahaffy immediately embarked upon a characteristic celebration. Early candlelight found them making a beginning; midnight came—the gray and purple of dawn—and they were still at it, back of closed doors and shuttered windows.



CHAPTER XXVI. BETTY LEAVES BELLE PLAIN

Hannibal had devoted himself loyally to the judge's glorification, and Betty heard all about the letter, the snuffing of the candles and the reward of five thousand dollars. It vastly increased the child's sense of importance and satisfaction when he discovered she had known nothing of these matters until he told her of them.

"Why, where would Judge Price get so much money, Hannibal?" she asked, greatly astonished.

"He won't have to get it, Miss Betty; Mr. Mahaffy says he don't reckon no one will ever tell who wrote the letter—he 'lows the man who done that will keep pretty mum—he just dassent tell!" the boy explained.

"No, I suppose not—" and Betty saw that perhaps, after all, the judge had not assumed any very great financial responsibility. "He can't be a coward, though, Hannibal!" she added, for she understood that the risk of personal violence which he ran was quite genuine. She had formed her own unsympathetic estimate of him that day at Boggs' race-track; Mahaffy in his blackest hour could have added nothing to it. Twice since then she had met him in Raleigh, which had only served to fix that first impression.

"Miss Betty, he's just like my Uncle Bob was—he ain't afraid of nothing! He totes them pistols of his—loaded—if you notice good you can see where they bulge out his coat!" Hannibal's eyes, very round and big, looked up into hers.

"Is he as poor as he seems, Hannibal?" inquired Betty.

"He never has no money, Miss Betty, but I don't reckon he's what a body would call pore."

It might have baffled a far more mature intelligence than Hannibal's to comprehend those peculiar processes by which the judge sustained himself and his intimate fellowship with adversity—that it was his magnificence of mind which made the squalor of his daily life seem merely a passing phase—but the boy had managed to point a delicate distinction, and Betty grasped something of the hope and faith which never quite died out in Slocum Price's indomitable breast.

"But you always have enough to eat, dear?" she questioned anxiously. Hannibal promptly reassured her on this point. "You wouldn't let me think anything that was not true, Hannibal—you are quite sure you have never been hungry?"

"Never, Miss Betty; honest!"

Betty gave a sigh of relief. She had been reproaching herself for her neglect of the child; she had meant to do so much for him and had done nothing! Now it was too late for her personally to interest herself in his behalf, yet before she left for the East she would provide for him. If she had felt it was possible to trust the judge she would have made him her agent, but even in his best aspect he seemed a dubious dependence. Tom, for quite different reasons, was equally out of the question. She thought of Mr. Mahaffy.

"What kind of a man is Mr. Mahaffy, Hannibal?"

"He's an awful nice man, Miss Betty, only he never lets on; a body's got to find it out for his own self—he ain't like the judge."

"Does he—drink, too, Hannibal?" questioned Betty.

"Oh, yes; when he can get the licker, he does." It was evident that Hannibal was cheerfully tolerant of this weakness on the part of the austere Mahaffy. By this time Betty was ready to weep over the child, with his knowledge of shabby vice, and his fresh young faith in those old tatterdemalions.

"But, no matter what they do, they are very, very kind to you?" she continued quite tremulously.

"Yes, ma'am—why, Miss Betty, they're lovely men!"

"And do you ever hear the things spoken of you learned about at Mrs. Ferris' Sunday-school?"

"When the judge is drunk he talks a heap about 'em. It's beautiful to hear him then; you'd love it, Miss Betty," and Hannibal smiled up sweetly into her face.

"Does he have you go to Sunday-school in Raleigh?"

The boy shook his head.

"I ain't got no clothes that's fitten to wear, nor no pennies to give, but the judge, he 'lows that as soon as he can make a raise I got to go, and he's learning me my letters—but we ain't a book. Miss Betty, I reckon it'd stump you some to guess how he's fixed it for me to learn?"

"He's drawn the letters for you, is that the way?" In spite of herself, Betty was experiencing a certain revulsion of feeling where the judge and Mahaffy were concerned. They were doubtless bad enough, but they could have been worse.