HE following night was a cloudless, moonlit one, and restlessly and heart-sore Helen walked the upper floor of the veranda, her eyes constantly bent on the street leading past Dwight's on to the centre of the town. The greater part of the day she had spent with Linda, trying to pacify her and rouse the hope that Pete would not be implicated in the trouble in the mountains. Helen had gone down to Carson's office about noon, feeling vaguely that he could advise her better than any one else in the grave situation. She had found Garner seated at his desk, bent over a law-book, a studious expression on his face. Seeing her in the doorway, he sprang up gallantly and proffered a rickety chair, from which he had hastily dumped a pile of old newspapers.

“Is Carson in?” she asked, sitting down.

“Oh no, he's gone over to the farm,” Garner said. “I couldn't hold him here after he heard of the trouble. You see, Miss Helen, he thinks, from a few things picked up, that Pete is likely to be suspected and be roughly handled, and, you know, as he was partly the cause of the boy's going there, he naturally would feel—”

“I was the real cause of it,” the girl broke in, with a sigh and a troubled face. “We both thought it was for the best, and if it results in Pete's death I shall never forgive myself.”

“Oh, I wouldn't look at it that way,” Garner said. “You were both acting for what you thought was right. As I say, I tried my best to keep Carson from going over there to-day, but he would go. We almost had an open rupture over it. You see, Miss Helen, I have set my head on seeing him in the legislature, and he is eternally doing things that kill votes. There is not a thing in the category of political offences as fatal as this very thing. He's already taken Pete's part and abused the men who whipped him, and now that the boy is suspected of retaliating and killing the Johnsons, why, the people will—well, I wouldn't be one bit surprised to see them jump on Carson himself. Men infuriated like that haven't any more sense than mad dogs, and they won't stand for a white man opposing them. But, of course, you know why Carson is acting so recklessly.”

“I do? What do you mean, Mr. Garner?”

The lawyer smiled, wiped his facile mouth with his small white hand, and said, teasingly: “Why, you are at the bottom of it. Carson wants to save the boy simply because you are indirectly interested in him. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. He's been as mad as a wet hen ever since they whipped Pete, because he was the son of your old mammy, and now that the boy's in actual peril Carson has gone clean daft. Well, it's reported among the gossips about town that you turned him down, Miss Helen—like you did some of the balance of us presumptuous chaps that didn't know enough to keep our hearts where they belonged—but you sat on the best man in the bunch when you did it. It's me that's doing this talking.”

Helen sat silent and pale for a moment, unable to formulate a reply to his outspoken remark. Presently she said, evasively: “Then you think both of them are in actual danger?”

“Well, Pete hasn't one chance in a million,” Garner said, gently. “There is no use trying to hide that fact; and if Carson should happen to run across Dan Willis—well, one or the other would have to drop. Carson is in a dangerous mood. He believes as firmly in Pete's innocence as he does in his own, and if Dan Willis dared to threaten him, as he's likely to do when they meet, why, Carson would defend himself.”

Helen drew her veil down over her eyes and Garner could see that she was quivering from head to foot.

“Oh, it's awful—awful!” he heard her say, softly. Then she rose and moved to the open door, where she stood as if undecided what step to take. “Is there no way to get any—any news?” she asked, tremulously.

“None now,” he told her. “In times of excitement over in the mountains, few people come into town; they all want to stay at home and see it through.”

She stepped out on the sidewalk, and he followed her, gallantly holding his hat in his hand. Scarcely a soul was in sight. The town seemed deserted.

“Madam, rumor,” Garner said, with a smile, “reports that your friend Mr. Sanders, from Augusta, is coming up for a visit.”

“Yes, I had a letter from him this morning,” Helen said, in a dignified tone. “My father must have spoken of it. It will be Mr. Sanders' first visit to Darley, and he will find us terribly upset. If I knew how to reach him I'd ask him to wait a few days till this uncertainty is over, but he is on his way here—is, in fact, stopping somewhere in Atlanta—and intends to come on up to-morrow or the next day. Does—does Carson—has he heard of Mr. Sanders' coming?”

“Oh yes, it was sprung on him this morning for a deadly purpose,” Garner said, with a significant smile. “The whole gang—Keith, Wade, and Bob Smith—were in here trying to keep him from going to the farm. They had tried everything they could think of to stop him, and as a last resort set in to teasing. Keith told him Sanders would sit in the parlor and say sweet things to you while Carson was trying to liberate the ex-slaves of your family at the risk of bone and sinew. Keith said Carson was showing the finest proof of fidelity that was ever given—fidelity to the man in the parlor.”

“Keith ought to have been ashamed of himself,” Helen said, with her first show of vexation. “And what did Carson say?”

“The poor chap took it all in a good-humor,” Garner said. “In fact, he was so much wrought up over Pete's predicament that he hardly heard what they were saying.”

“You really think Carson is in danger, too?” Helen continued, after a moment's silence.

“If he meets Dan Willis, yes,” said Garner. “If he opposes the mob, yes again. Dan Willis has already succeeded in creating a lot of unpopularity for him in that quarter, and the mere sight of Carson at such a time would be like a torch to a dry hay-stack.”

So Helen had gone home and spent the afternoon and evening in real torture of suspense, and now, as she walked the veranda floor alone with a realization of the grim possibilities of the case drawn sharply before her mental vision, she was all but praying aloud for Carson's safe return, and anxiously keeping her gaze on the moonlit street below. Suddenly her attention was drawn to the walk in front of the Dwight house. Some one was walking back and forth in a nervous manner, the intermittent flare of a cigar flashing out above the shrubbery like the glow of a lightning-bug. Could it be—had Carson returned and entered by the less frequently used gate in the rear? For several minutes she watched the figure as it strode back and forth with never-ceasing tread, and then, fairly consumed with the desire to set her doubts at rest, she went down into the garden at the side of the house, softly approached the open gate between the two homesteads, and called out: “Carson, is that you?”

The figure paused and turned, the fire of the cigar described a red half-circle against the dark background, but no one spoke. Then, as she waited at the gate, her heart in her mouth, the smoker came towards her. It was old Henry Dwight. He wore no hat nor coat, the night being warm, and one of his fat thumbs was under his broad suspender.

“No, it's not him, Miss Helen,” he said, rather gruffly. “He hasn't got back yet. I've had my hands full since supper. My wife is in a bad way. She has been worrying awfully since twelve o'clock, when Carson didn't turn up to dinner as usual. She's guessed what he went to the farm for, and she's as badly upset as old Linda is over that trifling Pete. I thought I had enough trouble before the war over my niggers, but here, forty years later, yours are upsetting things even worse. I only wish the men that fought to free the black scamps had some part of the burden to bear.”

“It really is awful,” Helen responded; “and so Mrs. Dwight is upset by it?”

“Oh yes, we had the doctor to come, and he gave some slight dose or other, but he said the main thing was to get Carson back and let her know for sure that he was safe and sound. I sent a man out there lickety-split on the fastest horse I have, and he ought to have got back two hours ago. That's what I'm out here for. I know she's not going to let me rest till her mind is at ease.”

“Do you really think any actual harm could have come to Carson?” Helen inquired, anxiously.

“It could come to anybody who has the knack my boy has for eternally rubbing folks the wrong way,” the old man retorted from the depths of his irritation; “but, Lord, my young lady, you are at the bottom of it!”

“I? Oh, Mr. Dwight, don't say that!” Helen pleaded.

“Well, I'm only telling you the truth,” said Dwight, throwing his cigar away and putting, both thumbs under his suspenders. “You know that as well as I do. He sees how you are bothered about your old mammy, and he has simply taken up your cause. It's just what I'd 'a' done at his age. I reckon I'd 'a' fought till I dropped in my tracks for a girl I—but from all accounts you and Carson couldn't agree, or rather you couldn't. He seems to be agreeing now and staking his life and political chances on it. Well, I don't blame him. It never run in the Dwight blood to love more than once, an' then it was always for the pick of the flock. Well, you are the pick in this town, an' I wouldn't feel like he was my boy if he stepped down and out as easy as some do these days. I met him on his way to the farm and tried to shame him out of the trip. I joined the others in teasing him about that Augusta fellow, who can do his courting by long-distance methods in an easy seat at his writing-desk, while up-country chaps are doing the rough work for nothing, but it didn't feaze 'im. He tossed his stubborn head, got pretty red in the face, and said he was trying to help old Linda and Lewis out, and that he know well enough you didn't care a cent for him.”

Helen had grown hot and cold by turns, and she now found herself unable to make any adequate response to such personal allusions.

“Huh, I see I got you teased, too!” Dwight said, with a short, staccato laugh. “Oh, well, you mustn't mind me. I'll go in and see if my wife is asleep, and if she is I'll go to bed myself.”

Helen, deeply depressed, and beset with many conflicting emotions, turned back to the veranda, and, instead of going up to her room, she reclined in a hammock stretched between two of the huge, fluted columns. She had been there perhaps half an hour when her heart almost stopped pulsating as she caught, the dull beat of horses' hoofs up the street. Rising, she saw a horseman rein in at the gate at Dwight's. It was Carson; she knew that by the way he dismounted and threw the rein over the gate-post.

“Carson!” she called out. “Oh, Carson, I want to see you!”

He heard, and came along the sidewalk to meet her at the gate where she now stood. What had come over him? There was an utter droop of despondent weariness upon him, and then as he drew near she saw that his face was pale and haggard. For a moment he stood, his hand on the gate she was holding open, and only stared.

“Oh, what has happened?” she cried. “I've been waiting for you. We haven't heard a word.”

In a tired, husky voice, for he had made many a speech through the day, he told her of Pete's escape. “He's still hiding somewhere in the mountains,” he said.

“Oh, then he may get away after all!” she cried.

Dwight said nothing, seeming to avoid her great, staring, anxious eyes. She laid her hand almost unconsciously on his arm.

“Don't you think he has a chance, Carson?” she repeated—“a bare chance?”

“The whole mountain is surrounded, and they are beating the woods, covering every inch of the ground,” he said. “It is now only a question of time. They will wait till daybreak, and then continue till they have found him. How is Mam' Linda?”

“Nearly dead,” Helen answered, under her breath.

“And my mother?” he said.

“She is only worried,” Helen told him. “Your father thinks she will be all right as soon as she is assured of your return.”

“Only worried? Why, he sent me word she was nearly dead,” Carson said, with a feeble flare of indignation. “I wanted to stay, to be there to make one final effort to convince them, but when the message reached me, and things were at a standstill anyway, I came home, and now, even if I started back to-night, I'd likely be too late. He tricked me—my father tricked me!”

“And you yourself? Did you meet that—Dan Willis?” Helen asked. He stared at her hesitatingly for an instant, and then said: “I happened not to. He was very active in the chase and seemed always to be somewhere else. He killed all my efforts.” Carson leaned heavily against the white paling fence as he continued. “As soon as I'd talk a crowd of men into my way of thinking, he'd come along and fire them with fury again. He told them I was only making a grandstand play for the negro vote, and they swallowed it. They swallowed it and jeered and hissed me as I went along. Garner is right. I've killed every chance I ever had with those people. But I don't care.”

Helen sighed. “Oh, Carson, you did it all because—because I felt as I did about Pete. I know that was it.”

He made no denial as he stood awkwardly avoiding her eyes.

“I shall never, never forgive myself,” she said, in pained accents. “Mr. Garner and all your friends say that your election was the one thing you held desirable, the one thing that would—would thoroughly reinstate you in your father's confidence, and yet I—I—oh, Carson I did want you to win! I wanted it—wanted it—wanted it!”

“Oh, well, don't bother about that,” he said, and she saw that he was trying to hide his own disappointment. “I admit I started into this because—because I knew how keenly you felt for Linda, but to-day, Helen, as I rode from mad throng to mad throng of those good men with their dishevelled hair and bloodshot eyes, their very souls bent to that trail, that pitiful trail of revenge, I began to feel that I was fighting for a great principle, a principle that you had planted within me. I gloried in it for its own sake, and because it had its birth in your sweet sympathy and love for the unfortunate. I could never have experienced it but for you.”

“But you failed,” Helen almost sobbed. “You failed.”

“Yes, utterly. What I've done amounted to nothing more than irritating them. Those men, many of whom I love and admire, were wounded to their hearts, and I was only keeping their sores open with my fine-spun theories of human justice. They will learn their lesson slowly, but they will learn it. When they have caught and lynched poor, stupid Pete, they may learn later that he was innocent, and then they will realize what I was trying to keep them from doing. They will be friendly to me then, but Wiggin will be in office.”

“Yes, my father thinks this thing is going to defeat you.” Helen sighed. “And, Carson, it's killing me to think that I am the prime cause of it. If I'd had a man's head I'd have known that your effort could accomplish nothing, and I'd have been like Mr. Garner and the others, and asked you not to mix up in it; but I couldn't help myself. Mam' Linda has your name on her lips with every breath. She thinks the sun rises and sets in you, and that you only have to give an order to have it obeyed.”

“That's the pity of it,” Carson said, with a sigh.

At this juncture there was the sound of a window-sash sliding upward, and old Dwight put out his head.

“Come on in!” he called out. “Your mother is awake and absolutely refuses to believe you haven't a dozen bullet-holes in you.”

“All right, father, I'm coming,” Carson said, and impulsively he held out his hand and clasped Helen's in a steady, sympathetic pressure.

“Now, you go to bed, little girl,” he said, more tenderly than he realized. In fact, it was a term he had used only once before, long before her brother's death. “Pardon me,” he pleaded; “I didn't know what I was saying. I—I was worried over seeing you look so tired, and—and I spoke without thinking.”

“You can say it whenever you wish, Carson,” she said. “As if I could get angry at you after—after—” But she did not finish, for with her hand still warmly clasping his fingers, she was listening to a distant sound. It was a restless human tread on a resounding floor.

“It's Mam' Linda,” Helen said. “She walks like that night and day. I must go to her and—tell her you are back, but oh, how can I? Good-night, Carson. Ill never forget what you have done—never!”