Champney simply. "She runs theshop."
"Were there not some French investors--relations of Miss Dows? Doesanybody represent THEM?" asked Courtland pointedly.
Yet he was not quite prepared for the naive change in his companion'sface. "No. There was a sort of French cousin who used to be a good dealto the fore, don't you know? But I rather fancy he didn't come here tolook after the PROPERTY," returned Champney with a quick laugh. "I thinkthe aunt must have written to his friends, for they 'called him off,'and I don't think Miss Sally broke her heart about him. She's not thatsort of girl--eh? She could have her pick of the State if she went infor that sort of thing--eh?"
Although this was exactly what Courtland was thinking, it pleased himto answer in a distrait sort of fashion, "Certainly, I should think so,"and to relapse into an apparently business abstraction.
"I think I won't go in," continued Champney as they neared the houseagain. "I suppose you'll have something more to say to Miss Dows. Ifthere's anything else you want of ME, come to the office. But SHE'LLknow. And--er--er--if you're--er--staying long in this part of thecountry, ride over and look me up, don't you know? and have a smokeand a julep; I have a boy who knows how to mix them, and I've some oldbrandy sent me from the other side. Good-by."
More awkward in his kindliness than in his simple business confidences,but apparently equally honest in both, he shook Courtland's hand andwalked away. Courtland turned towards the house. He had seen the farmand its improvements; he had found some of his own ideas practicallydiscounted; clearly there was nothing left for him to do but to thankhis hostess and take his leave. But he felt far more uneasy than whenhe had arrived; and there was a singular sense of incompleteness inhis visit that he could not entirely account for. His conversation withChampney had complicated--he knew not why--his previous theories of MissDows, and although he was half conscious that this had nothing to dowith the business that brought him there, he tried to think that it had.If Miss Sally was really--a--a--distracting element to contiguous man,it was certainly something to be considered in a matter of business ofwhich she would take a managerial part. It was true that Champney hadsaid she was "not that sort of girl," but this was the testimony of onewho was clearly under her influence. He entered the house through theopen French window. The parlor was deserted. He walked through the fronthall and porch; no one was there. He lingered a few moments, a slightchagrin beginning to mingle with his uneasiness. She might have been onthe lookout for him. She or Sophy must have seen him returning. He wouldring for Sophy, and leave his thanks and regrets for her mistress.He looked for a bell, touched it, but on being confronted with Sophy,changed his mind and asked to SEE Miss Dows. In the interval between herdeparture and the appearance of Miss Sally he resolved to do the verything which he had dismissed from his thoughts but an hour before asill-timed and doubtful. He had the photograph and letter in his pocket;he would make them his excuse for personally taking leave of her.
She entered with her fair eyebrows lifted in a pretty surprise.
"I declare to goodness, I thought yo' 'd ridden over to the red barn andgone home from there. I got through my work on the vines earlier thanI thought. One of Judge Garret's nephews dropped in in time to help mewith the last row. Yo' needn't have troubled yo'self to send up for mefor mere company manners, but Sophy says yo' looked sort of 'anxious andparticular' when yo' asked for me--so I suppose yo' want to see me forsomething."
Mentally objurgating Sophy, and with an unpleasant impression in hismind of the unknown neighbor who had been helping Miss Sally in hisplace, he nevertheless tried to collect himself gallantly.
"I don't know what my expression conveyed to Sophy," he said with asmile, "but I trust that what I have to tell you may be interestingenough to make you forget my second intrusion." He paused, and stillsmiling continued: "For more than three years, Miss Dows, you have moreor less occupied my thoughts; and although we have actually met to-dayonly for the first time, I have during that time carried your imagewith me constantly. Even this meeting, which was only the result of anaccident, I had been seeking for three years. I find you here under yourown peaceful vine and fig-tree, and yet three years ago you came to meout of the thunder-cloud of battle."
"My good gracious!" said Miss Sally.
She had been clasping her knee with her linked fingers, but separatedthem and leaned backward on the sofa with affected consternation, butan expression of growing amusement in her bright eyes. Courtland saw themistake of his tone, but it was too late to change it now. He handedher the locket and the letter, and briefly, and perhaps a little moreseriously, recounted the incident that had put him in possession ofthem. But he entirely suppressed the more dramatic and ghastly details,and his own superstition and strange prepossession towards her.
Miss Sally took the articles without a tremor, or the least deepeningor paling of the delicate, faint suffusion of her cheek. When she hadglanced over the letter, which appeared to be brief, she said, withsmiling, half-pitying tranquillity:--
"Yes!--it WAS that poor Chet Brooks, sure! I heard that he was killedat Snake River. It was just like him to rush in and get killed the firstpop! And all for nothing, too,--pure foolishness!"
Shocked, yet relieved, but uneasy under both sensations, Courtland wenton blindly:
"But he was not the only one, Miss Dows. There was another man picked upwho also had your picture."
"Yes--Joyce Masterton. They sent it to me. But you didn't kill HIM,too?"
"I don't know that I personally killed either," he said a little coldly.He paused, and continued with a gravity which he could not help feelingvery inconsistent and even ludicrous: "They were brave men, Miss Dows."
"To have worn my picture?" said Miss Sally brightly.
"To have THOUGHT they had so much to live for, and yet to have willinglylaid down their lives for what they believed was right."
"Yo' didn't go huntin' me for three years to tell ME, a So'th'n girl,that So'th'n men know how to fight, did yo', co'nnle?" returned theyoung lady, with the slightest lifting of her head and drooping of herblue-veined lids in a divine hauteur. "They were always ready enough forthat, even among themselves. It was much easier for these pooah boys tofight a thing out than think it out, or work it out. Yo' folks in theNo'th learned to do all three; that's where you got the grip on us. Yo'look surprised, co'nnle."
"I didn't expect you would look at it--quite in--in--that way," saidCourtland awkwardly.
"I am sorry I disappointed yo' after yo' 'd taken such a heap o'trouble," returned the young lady with a puzzling assumption of humilityas she rose and smoothed out her skirts, "but I couldn't know exactlywhat yo' might be expecting after three years; if I HAD, I might haveput on mo'ning." She stopped and adjusted a straying tendril of her hairwith the sharp corner of the dead man's letter. "But I thank yo', allthe same, co'nnle. It was real good in yo' to think of toting thesethings over here." And she held out her hand frankly.
Courtland took it with the sickening consciousness that for the lastfive minutes he had been an unconscionable ass. He could not prolong theinterview after she had so significantly risen. If he had only takenhis leave and kept the letter and locket for a later visit, perhaps whenthey were older friends! It was too late now. He bent over her hand fora moment, again thanked her for her courtesy, and withdrew. A momentlater she heard the receding beat of his horse's hoofs on the road.
She opened the drawer of a brass-handled cabinet, and after a moment'scritical survey of her picture in the dead man's locket, tossed it andthe letter into the recesses of the drawer. Then she stopped, removedher little slipper from her foot, looked at THAT, too, thoughtfully, andcalled "Sophy!"
"Miss Sally?" said the girl, reappearing at the door.
"Are you sure you did not move that ladder?"
"I 'clare to goodness, Miss Sally, I never teched it!"
Miss Sally directed a critical glance at her handmaiden's red-coifedhead. "No," she said to herself softly, "it felt nicer than wool,anyway!"
CHAPTER III.
In spite of the awkward termination of his visit,--or perhaps BECAUSE ofit,--Courtland called again at the plantation within the week. But thistime he was accompanied by Drummond, and was received by Miss MirandaDows, a tall, aquiline-nosed spinster of fifty, whose old-timepoliteness had become slightly affected, and whose old beliefs had givenway to a half-cynical acceptance of new facts. Mr. Drummond, delightedwith the farm and its management, was no less fascinated by Miss Sally,while Courtland was now discreet enough