Bles Alwyn had hurried through his dinner duties and hastened to the Oaks. The questions, the doubts, the uncertainty within him were clamoring for utterance. How much had Mrs. Cresswell ever known of Zora? What kind of a woman was Zora now? Mrs. Cresswell had seen her and had talked to her and watched her. What did she think? Thus he formulated his questions as he went, half timid, and fearful in putting them and yet determined to know.
Mrs. Cresswell, waiting for him, was almost panic-stricken. Probably he would beat round the bush seeking further encouragement; but at the slightest indication she must crush him ruthlessly and at the same time point the path of duty. He ought to marry some good girl—not Zora, but someone. Somehow Zora seemed too unusual and strange for him—too inhuman, as Mary Cresswell judged humanity. She glanced out from her seat on the upper veranda over the front porch and saw Alwyn coming. Where should she receive him? On the porch and have Mr. Maxwell ride up? In the parlor and have the servants astounded and talking? If she took him up to her own sitting-room the servants would think he was doing some work or fetching something for the school. She greeted him briefly and asked him in.
“Good afternoon, Bles”—using his first name to show him his place, and then inwardly recoiling at its note of familiarity. She preceded him upstairs to the sitting-room, where, leaving the door ajar, she seated herself on the opposite side of the room and waited.
He fidgeted, then spoke rapidly.
“Mrs. Cresswell—this is a personal affair.” She reddened angrily. “A love affair”—she paled with something like fear—“and I”—she started to speak, but could not—“I want to know what you think about Zora?”
“About Zora!” she gasped weakly. The sudden reaction, the revulsion of her agitated feelings, left her breathless.
“About Zora. You know I loved her dearly as a boy—how dearly I have only just begun to realize: I’ve been wondering if I understood—if I wasn’t—”
Mrs. Cresswell got angrily to her feet.
“You have come here to speak to me of that—that—” she choked, and Bles thought his worst fears realized.
“Mary, Mary!” Colonel Cresswell’s voice broke suddenly in upon them. With a start of fear Mrs. Cresswell rushed out into the hall and closed the door.
“Mary, has that Alwyn nigger been here this afternoon?” Mr. Cresswell was coming upstairs, carrying his riding whip.
“Why, no!” she answered, lying instinctively before she quite realized what her lie meant. She hesitated. “That is, I haven’t seen him. I must have nodded over my book,”—looking toward the little veranda at the front of the upper hall, where her easy chair stood with her book. Then with an awful flash of enlightenment she realized what her lie might mean, and her heart paused.
Cresswell strode up.
“I saw him come up—he must have entered. He’s nowhere downstairs,” he wavered and scowled. “Have you been in your sitting-room?” And then, not waiting for a reply, he strode to the door.
“But the damned scoundrel wouldn’t dare!”
He deliberately placed his hand in his right-hand hip-pocket and threw open the door.
Mary Cresswell stood frozen. The full horror of the thing burst upon her. Her own silly misapprehension, the infatuation of Alwyn for Zora, her thoughtless—no, vindictive—betrayal of him to something worse than death. She listened for the crack of doom. She heard a bird singing far down in the swamp; she heard the soft raising of a window and the closing of a door. And then—great God in heaven! must she live forever in this agony?—and then, she heard the door bang and Mr. Cresswell’s gruff voice—
“Well, where is he?—he isn’t in there!”
Mary Cresswell felt that something was giving way within. She swayed and would have crashed to the bottom of the staircase if just then she had not seen at the opposite end of the hall, near the back stairs, Zora and Alwyn emerge calmly from a room, carrying a basket full of clothes. Colonel Cresswell stared at them, and Zora instinctively put up her hand and fastened her dress at the throat. The Colonel scowled, for it was all clear to him now.
“Look here,” he angrily opened upon them, “if you niggers want to meet around keep out of this house; hereafter I’ll send the clothes down. By God, if you want to make love go to the swamp!” He stamped down the stairs while an ashy paleness stole beneath the dark-red bronze of Zora’s face.
They walked silently down the road together—the old familiar road. Alwyn was staring moodily ahead.
“We must get married—before Christmas, Zora,” he presently avowed, not looking at her. He felt the basket pause and he glanced up. Her dark eyes were full upon him and he saw something in their depths that brought him to himself and made him realize his blunder.
“Zora!” he stammered, “forgive me! Will you marry me?”
She looked at him calmly with infinite compassion. But her reply was uttered unhesitantly; distinct, direct.
“No, Bles.”
XXXV
The Cotton Mill
The people of Toomsville started in their beds and listened. A new song was rising on the air: a harsh, low, murmuring croon that shook the village ranged around its old square of dilapadated stores. It was not a song of joy; it was not a song of sorrow; it was not a song at all, perhaps, but a confused whizzing and murmuring, as of a thousand ill-tuned, busy voices. Some of the listeners wondered; but most of the town cried joyfully, “It’s the new cotton-mill!”
John Taylor’s head teemed with new schemes. The mill trust of the North was at last a fact. The small mills had not been able to buy cotton when it was low because Cresswell was cornering it in the name of the Farmers’ League; now that it was high they could not afford to, and many surrendered to the trust.
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