ON the morning of the fourth day after the meeting of Dora and Kenneth Galt, f old Stafford was stirred to its outskirts by the return of the most popular young man who had ever lived in the town. Fred Walton got in an hour or so before noon.
He had sent a telegram to his father announcing his coming, but had failed to mention the hour of his arrival, and so there was no special conveyance at the station to meet him, though old Simon, in his Sunday frock-suit and a fresh collar, with a five-cent shoe-shine and a ten-cent shave at the barber-shop adjoining the bank, sat in the counting-room waiting, not sure whether his son would get in during the morning or by the afternoon train.
He was not long kept in doubt, for the electric trolley-car that whizzed up from the station was fairly packed with individuals of both sexes and all classes, who, it seemed, had ridden up chiefly that they might be among the first to pay tribute to their old favorite and hear him talk.
It was all joyous and reassuring enough to Fred at first, and might have continued so had the car not stopped at a crossing half-way between the station and the square, and taken on Wynn Dearing, who, having returned home, had been visiting a patient near by. The eyes of the two met. Fred colored high; but with a hard, grave countenance Dearing simply turned to the conductor, paid his fare, and sat down near a window, through which he stared stonily all the way to the square.
The heart of the returning exile sank into a veritable slough of despair. His admirers, packed about him, were stilled for a moment by the “cut” he had received, and then, not being able to interpret it, they valiantly passed it over, and showed by their excessive cordiality that if one of his old companions had been coarse enough to snub him on that day of all days, they remained true.
But the light and joy of it all was blotted out for the one most concerned. He sat trying to answer the innumerable questions, trying to return humorous sallies and references to the gay old days with smiles that would reflect their good-will, but it was a poor effort at best. He endeavored, in a miserable maze, to recall the exact words of his father’s hurried letter ordering him home, and his spirits sank lower and lower as he made the effort. After all, he told himself, he had misunderstood Margaret’s message—the message which had raised him to the very skies of delight. The letter, which he had read hundreds of times, was in the pocket of his coat, and he could feel its now grim and satirical pressure against his breast.
“She told me she wanted to see you,” old Simon had written, “and for me to write you so. She said she was sure when you and her got together you and her would understand each other perfectly. She was powerful flushed and excited, and I could hardly make out just what she did or did not mean. It was the way she acted more than what she actually said in so many plain words that made me believe she had concluded to let bygones be bygones. So, if I was you, Fred, and still thought she would be a proper mate, why, I should lay business aside and make hay for a while. The sun seems shining up this way for you right now, and so, as I say, I would come right on before some other cloud rises. Women are changeable, and she may be no exception to the rule. I can’t quite understand why she shut off my proposition in your behalf when I went up to see her, and then come down all in a tilt and hustle the next day, and did what she did, and talked like she did. I am too much of a business man by habit, I reckon, to encourage anybody in a deal that ain’t fully closed, signed, sealed; and delivered; so, you see, all I can say is to come on and work out your own salvation.”
Now, sure that he had made a grave mistake, and with the heaviest of hearts, Fred left the car at the postoffice, noting that Wynn Dearing, with a hard, set face, was striding across the street to his office with never another look in his direction.
“He is furious because I have come back,” Fred said to himself. “I promised him I’d stay away, and I have broken my word. General Sylvester is as much against me as ever, and so is Wynn. It is all up. I’ll never live it down. These persons who seem glad to see me have nothing at stake, or they would snub me too. My father has forgiven me, but that has nothing to do with Margaret. After he wrote as he did, I hoped—hoped—well, I was a fool! I hoped too much. I’ll go back West and stay there. I’ll see Wynn Dearing and tell him of my mistake. Surely that will justify me if my—my presumption ends there.”
As he neared the bank he saw his father standing in the door, backed up by all his clerks. The gaunt, grizzled visage of the old man, under its half-sheepish look, was lighted up as it had never been in his son’s memory, and the faces around him were wreathed in welcoming smiles, but it was a hand of lead that Fred extended, a smile that was dead lay on his handsome face.
Dearing, to his surprise, on reaching his office after leaving the car, found Margaret waiting for him. He stared at her almost fiercely for a moment; then, as she avoided his eyes and was silent, he broke out:
“You have come down here to see him?”
“Yes, brother,” she answered, simply. “I want to be among the first to welcome him home. He has suffered enough, and has proved his genuine nobility. I can’t explain everything just now, for I have no right to; but you will know all that I know very, very soon.”
“I know this, Madge,” he said, and he sat down before her, looking like a figure carved in stone, so ghastly pale and rigid was he. “I know this: if you pardon that man for what he has done, I’ll never speak to you again. I can stand some things, but I can’t stand that. No man can marry my sister who has stamped the very heart out of my life, as this one has! Now, perhaps ............