A WEEK went by. To Cynthia its days were veritable months of mental torture. Porter came in one day at sundown from the village. As usual, he had something to say regarding the all-absorbing topic of Nelson Floyd's mysterious disappearance. Through the day neighbors had been in with many vague and groundless rumors, all of which were later discredited, but Nathan Porter, sardonic old observer that hie was, usually got nearer the facts than any one else, and in consequence he was always listened to.

“What's anybody heard now?” his wife asked him, as he came through the gate to where she and Cynthia sat on the porch.

“They've heard a lots,” he said. “Among other things, it's finally leaked out that Lee's surrendered an' the niggers is all declared free. Some say George Washington has jest crossed the Delaware in a tippy-canoe, an' that Napoleon discovered America, but I doubt it. What I want to know is whether supper is ready or not.”

“No, it isn't,” Mrs. Porter made haste to inform him, “but it will be in a few minutes. The table's set an' all is ready, except the bread isn't quite done. Now, what have you heard in town?”

“A body kin hear a lots,” Porter drawled out. “The trouble is to keep from listenin' to so much. People are standin' as thick about Mayhew & Floyd's shebang as flies over a fresh ginger-cake. You two are the only women in the county that hain't been thar, an' I'm proud of the distinction. Old Mrs. Snodgrass mighty nigh had a fisticuff fight to retain her corner in the store, whar she's had 'er distributin' office fer the last week. Joe Peters needed the space. He tried to put a coop o' chickens thar, but you bet the chickens had to go some'rs else. Mrs. Snod' said she was gittin' hard o' hearin', an' ef she wasn't right thar in the front she wouldn't git a thing till it was second-handed.”

“Oh, I get out of all patience with you,” cried Mrs. Porter. “Why does it take you so long to get to a point?”

“The truth is, thar ain't any rale developments as I kin see,” Porter gave in, reluctantly. “Old Mayhew, though, is back from Atlanta. He sets thar, as yaller as a pumpkin, without much to say. He's got a rope tied to every nickel he owns, an' he sees absolute ruin ahead o' the firm. He's depended on Nelson Floyd's popularity an' brains to keep things a-goin' so long that now he's like a loaded wagon runnin' downhill without a tongue, swingle-tree, or hold-back strop. You see, ef Nelson Floyd is dead, or put out o' the way—accordin' to Mrs. Snodgrass, who heard a Darley lawyer say it—why the young man's interest in the business will slide over to his new kin—a receiver will have to be appointed an' Mayhew closed up. Mrs. Snod' is authority fer the statement that Floyd's uncle has connived agin the boy to git his pile, an' bliffed 'im in the head with a sock full o' sand or some'n' equally as deadly. I dunno. I never knowed her to be right about anything, an' I hain't a-goin' to believe Floyd's dead till the report comes from some other direction. But this much seems to have foundation in fact: Mayhew did go down; he did make inquiries of the police; an' some say—now, mind you, I hain't a-standin' fer this—some say he paid out solid coin to git expert detectives a-holt o' the matter. They say the detectives run across a low-class hotel out in the edge o' town whar a feller answerin' Floyd's description had come in the night after the boy left here an' axed fer a room. They say he was lookin' awful—like he had been on a big jag, an' when they give 'im the pen to register he studied a minute an' then thro wed it at the clerk, an' told 'im he didn't have no name to sign, an' turned an' stalked out. That was the last seed of 'im.”

“An' that's all you heard,” said Mrs. Porter, in disgust.

“All but one thing more,” Porter replied. “Folks about here that has missed Pole Baker fer the last three days 'lowed he was off on another bender, but he was down thar in Atlanta nosin' around tryin' to find Floyd. Old Mayhew paid his expenses. He said Pole had a longer head on 'im than any detective in the bunch. Pole got back about two hours ago, but what he discovered not even Mrs. Snod' knows. Him an' Mayhew had the'r heads clamped together in the rear end o' the store fer an hour, but Joe Peters helt the crowd back, an' thar it stands.”

“Pig-oop-pig-oo! Pig-oop-pig-oo!” The mellow, resonant sound floated to them on the still air. Porter smiled.

“That's Pole now callin' his hogs,” he said, laconically. “The blamed fool told me t'other day he was goin' to fatten them pigs on buttermilk, but that sort o' fat won't stick any more'n whiskey bloat on a reformed drunkard. By the time he drives 'em to market they'll look as flabby as a ripe tomato with the inside squashed out. Speakin' o' hogs, I want you-uns to fry me a piece o' that shuck-sausage on the top shelf in the smoke-house. You'd better go git it now. Swallowin' all that gush in town has made me want some'n' solid.”

When her mother and father had gone into the house Cynthia hastened across the fields through the gathering dusk in the direction of Pole Baker's voice. He would tell her, she was sure, if anything of importance had turned up concerning Floyd, and she could not bear the thought of another night of suspense.

Presently, through the dusk, she saw Pole at his hog-pen in the edge of a little thicket behind his cottage.

“Pig-oop-pig-oo!” she heard him calling. “Dem yore lazy hides, ef you don't come on I'll empty this bucket o' slop on the ground an' you kin root fer it. I've mighty nigh ripped the linin' out o' my throat on yore account.” Then he descried Cynthia coming towards him over the dew-damp grass and he paused, leaning on the rail-fence, his eyes resting expectantly on her.

“Oh, it's you, little sister!” he exclaimed, pleasantly. “That's sorter foolish o' you gittin' them little feet o' yore'n wet in this dew. It may settle on yore lungs an' keep you from j'inin' in the singin' Sunday.”

“I want to see you,” Cynthia said, in a voice that shook. “I heard you calling your hogs, and thought I'd catch you here.”

“Well, little sister, I hain't very nice-lookin' in this old shirt an' pants of many colors, like Joseph's coat, but every patch was sewed on by the fingers o' the sweetest, most patient little woman God ever made, an' I hain't ashamed of 'em; but she is—God bless 'er!—an' she'd have a spasm ef she knowed I talked to you in 'em.”

“My father says you went down to Atlanta,” Cynthia said, falteringly, “and I thought—”

“Yes, I went down.” Pole avoided her fixed stare.

“You went to see if you could learn anything of Mr. Floyd's whereabouts, didn't you?”

“Yes, I did, little sister. I hain't a-talkin' much. Mayhew says it's best to sorter lie low until some'n' accurate is found out, an' while I did my level best down thar, I've got to acknowledge I'm as much in the dark as anybody else. In fact, I'm mighty nigh bothered to death over it. Nelson, poor boy, seems to have disappeared clean off'n the face o' the earth. The only thing I have to build on is the fact that—an' I hate to say it, little sister—the fact that he evidently did start to drinkin' again. He told me once that he wasn't plumb sure o' hisse'f, an' that any big trouble or despair might overthrow his resolutions. Now, he's been drinkin', I reckon—an' what could 'a' been his trouble? I went three times to his uncle's, but the doctors wouldn't let me see 'im. The old man's broke down with nervous prostration from business troubles, an' they are afeard he's goin' to kick the bucket. Comin' back on the cars—”

Pole's voice died away. He crossed and recrossed his hands on the fence. He avoided her steady stare. His massive eyebrows met on his wrinkled forehead. It was as if he were suffering inward pain. “I say—as I set in the train on the way back tryin' an' tryin' to find some explanation, the idea come to me that—since trouble was evidently what upset Nelson—that maybe you mought be able to throw some light on it.”

“Me, Mr. Baker?”

Pole hung his head; he spat slowly. Was she mistaken, or had he actually turned pale? Was it that, or a trick of her vision in the vague starlight?

“Little sister,” he said, huskily, “you could trust me with yore life. I'd die rather than—than not stand to you in anything on earth. You see, if you happened to know any reason why Nelson Floyd—” Pole was interrupted by the loud grunting and squealing of his drove of hogs as they rushed round the fence-corner towards him. “Wait,” he said—“wait till I pour the'r feed in the trough.”

He took up the pail and disappeared for a moment behind the cow-house.

Cynthia felt a great lump of wondering suspense in her throat. What could he mean? What was coming? She had never seen Pole act so strangely before. Presently he came back to her, holding the dripping paddle with which he had stirred the dregs in the bottom of his slop-bucket. He leaned over the fence again.

“You see, it's this away, little sister,” he began, lamely. “You an' Nelson—that is, you an' him was sorter runnin' together. He went with you, I reckon, more, on the whole, than with any other young lady in this section, an', you see, ef anybody was in a position to know any particular trouble or worry he had, you mought be that one.”

“But I'm afraid I don't know anything of the kind,” she said, wonderingly, her frank eyes resting blankly on his face.

“I see you don't understand me,” he went on. “The God's truth is that I hain't no hand to talk about delicate matters to a young gal, an' you above all, but I want to know—I want some'n'' to build on. I don't know how to put what I want to ax. Maybe I'm away—away off, an' will want to kill myse'f fer even dreamin' that—but—well, maybe you'll git at what I mean from this. You see, I run in the room on you an' my wife not long ago an' ketched Sally an' you a-cryin' over some'n' or other you'd confided to 'er, an' then other things of a like nature has crapped up lately, an'—”

“I don't understand you, Mr. Baker,” said Cynthia, anxiously, when she saw he was going no further. “I really don't. But I assure you, I'm ready to tell you anything.”

“Ah! Are you? Well, I started to say Sally don't cry over other folks' matters unless they are purty sad, an' you know at the time you refused to tell me what yore trouble was. Maybe you ain't ready yet, little sister. But could you tell me, right out plain, what ailed you that day?”

Cynthia stared and then dropped her glance to the ground.

“I don't see that it would help in the matter,” she said, awkwardly.

“Well, maybe it wouldn't,” he declared, in despair; “an' I reckon thar are things one woman would tell another woman that she wouldn't speak of to a man.”

“I guess that's so,” said Cynthia, still perplexed over the turn the conversation had taken and yet firm in her determination to say nothing that would involve Mrs. Baker's secret.

“Well, maybe you won't mind it much ef I put it this away,” Pole continued. “Now, remember, you don't have to say yes or no unless you want to. Little sister, I'll put it this away: ef Nelson Floyd was to never come back here again, could you, as—as a good, true woman—could you conscientiously marry another man? Could you with a clear conscience, I mean, before God, ever marry another man? Thar, it's out! Could you?”

Cynthia started. She looked down. She was silent. Her color rose.

“Now, mind,” Pole said, suddenly, “you don't have to answer unless you want to. No man's got a right to hem a weak, excited woman up in a corner and get at her heart's secrets.”

“Would it do any good for you to know that, Mr. Baker?” the girl said, in a low voice.

“I think so, little sister.”

“Well, then”—she turned her face away—“I don't think I'd ever want to marry any other living man.”

“Oh, my God!” Pole averted his face, but not before she had seen its writhing torture. She stared at him in astonishment, and, to avoid her eyes, he lowered his head to his arms, which were folded on the top rail of the fence. Fully a minute passed; still he did not look up. She saw his broad shoulders rising and falling as if he were trying to subdue a torrent of emotion. She laid her hand firmly on his arm.

“Tell me what you mean,” she suddenly demanded. “I want to know. This has gone far enough. What do you mean?”

He raised a pair of great, blearing eyes to hers. He started to speak, but his voice hung in his throat. Tightening her clasp on his arm she repeated her demand.

“I see through it now,” he found voice to say, huskily. “I don't mean to say Nelson Floyd is afeard o' man, beast, nor devil when it comes to a just encounter, but he knows now that ef me an' him was to come face to face one of us ud have to die, an' he's man enough not to want to kill me in sech a cause. I gave 'im due warnin'. I told 'im the day he drove you to bush-arbor meetin' that ef he tuck advantage o' you I'd kill 'im as shore as God give me the strength. I knowed whar that stormy night was spent, but I refused to believe the wust. I give 'im the benefit o' that doubt, but now since you tell me with your own lips that—”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” The cry burst from her lips as if she were in sudden pain. “I don't mean that. Why, I'm a good girl, Mr. Baker! I'm a good girl!”

Pole leaned over the fence and laid his big, quivering hands on her shoulders. “Thank God!” he gulped, his eyes flashing with joy. “Then I've still got my little sister an' I've got my friend. Thank God! thank God!”

Cynthia stood for a moment with hanging head, and then with a deep sigh she turned to go away. He climbed over the fence and caught up with her, the light of a new fear now in his eyes, its fire in his quickened pulse.

“I see you ain't never goin' to forgive me in the world fer sayin' what I did,” he said, humbly; “but God knows I wasn't thinkin' wrong o' you. It was him, damn 'im!—his hot-blooded natur', an' a lots o' circumstances that p'inted jest one way. I ain't more'n human, little sister, an' through that I've offended you beyond forgiveness.”

“A woman learns to bear a great many things,” Cynthia said. “My mother and others have hardened me so that I scarcely feel what you said as any other pure-minded woman might. Then—then—” She faced him squarely, and her voice rang out sharply. “We don't know—you don't—I don't know whether he is alive or—” Her words failed her, a sob, dry and deep, shook her from head to foot. “Don't curse him as you did just now, Mr. Baker; you may be cursing a dead man who, himself, was only human. But I know what he was—I saw his real and higher nature, and, as it struggled for growth in good and bad soil, it was the most beautiful flower God ever made. He can't be dead—he must not be dead. I—I could not bear that. Do you hear me? Call me what you will for my imprudent conduct with him, but don't admit that bare possibility for one instant—even in your thoughts. Don't do it, I say!”

Pole gulped down his tense emotion. “I'll tell you what I'll do, little sister,” he proposed. “Promise me you'll overlook what I said just now, an' I'll work these here hands”—he held them up in the starlight—“to the naked bone; I'll use this here brain”—he struck his broad brow with a resounding slap—“till it withers in the endeavor to fetch 'im back safe an' sound, ef you'll jest forgive me.”

“Forgive you!” She laughed harshly and tossed her head. “That's already done. More than that, I want to tell you that I've always looked on you as a brother. You made me love you a long time ago by your gentleness and respect for women.”

“Oh, little sister,” Pole cried, “I don't deserve that!”

“Yes, you do; but find him—find him, and bring him back.”

“All right, little sister; I'll do my best.”

He stood still and watched her hurry away through the darkness.

“Poor little trick,” he sighed. “I was countin' on that one thing to explain Nelson's absence. Since it ain't that, what the hell is it, unless he's been sandbagged down thar in Atlanta an' put out o' the way?”