WHEN Cynthia heard the gate close behind the preacher, and from the window of her room had seen him striding away, she put a shawl over her shoulder and started out.

“Where on earth are you going?” her mother asked from the end of the porch, where she stood among the honeysuckle vines.

“I want to run across to Mrs. Baker's, just a minute,” Cynthia said. “I won't be long. I'll come right back.”

“I'd think you'd be afraid to do that,” her mother protested, “with so many stray negroes about. Besides, it's the Bakers' bedtime. Can't you wait till to-morrow?”

“No, I want to walk, anyway,” said Cynthia. “I feel as if it will do me good. I'm not afraid.”

“Well, I sha'n't go to bed till you come back,” Mrs. Porter gave in.

In a few minutes the girl was at the back-yard fence of Pole Baker's cottage. The door was open wide, and in the firelight Cynthia saw Mrs. Baker bending over the dining-room table.

“Oh, Mrs. Baker!” the girl called, softly.

“Who's that? Oh, it's you, Cynthia!” and the older woman came out into the moonlight, brushing her white apron with her hand. She leaned over the fence. “Won't you come in?”

“No, I promised mother I'd be right back. I thought maybe you could tell me if Mr. Baker had heard anything yet.”

“I'm sorry to say he hain't,” replied the little woman, sadly. “Him and Mr. Mayhew has been working all sorts of ways, and writing constant letters to detectives and the mayors of different cities, but everything has failed. He came in just now looking plumb downhearted.”

Cynthia took a deep breath. Her lips quivered as if she had started to speak and failed.

“But, la me! I haven't give up,” Mrs. Baker said, in a tone of forced lightness. “He'll come home all safe and sound one of these days, Cynthia. I have an idea that he's just mad at his ill-luck all round, and, right now, doesn't care what folks about here think. He'll git over all that in due time and come back and face his trouble like other men have done. It's a bitter pill fer a proud young man to swallow, but a body kin git used to most anything in time.”

“I'm afraid he's never coming home,” Cynthia said, in rigid calmness. “He once told me if he ever had any great trouble he would be tempted to drink again. Mr. Baker thinks he's been drinking, and in that condition there is no telling what has happened to him.”

“Well, let me tell you some'n'—let me give you a piece of sound advice,” said Mrs. Baker. “It's unaxed; but I'm a sufferin' woman, an' I'm a-goin' to advise you as I see fit, ef you never speak to me ag'in. Ef whiskey is keepin' Nelson Floyd away, an' he does come back an' wants to marry you, don't you take 'im. Tear 'im from yore young heart 'fore the roots o' yore love git too big an' strong to pull out. It may not be whiskey that's keepin' 'im away. He may 'a' taken a dram or two at the start an' be livin' sober somewhar now; or, then ag'in, as you say, some'n' may 'a' happened to 'im; but, anyhow, don't you resk livin' with 'im, not ef he has all the money on earth. Money won't stick to a drinkin' man no longer than the effects of a dram, an' in the mind of sech a fellow good intentions don't amount to no more than a swarm o' insects that are born an' die in a day. Of course, some men do reform. I'm prayin' right now that the awful thing that happened t'other night to Pole will be his tumin'-p'int, but I dunno. I'll walk on thin ice over a lake o' fire till I kin see furder. Be that as it may, Cynthia, I can't stand by an' see another unsuspectin' woman start in on the road I've travelled—no, siree!”

“I think you are exactly right,” Cynthia said, under her breath, and then she sighed deeply. “Well, good-night. I must go.” She was turning away, when Mrs. Baker called to her.

“Stop, Cynthia!” she said. “You ain't mad at me, are you?”

“Not a bit in the world,” Cynthia answered. “In fact, I'm grateful for your advice. I may never have a choice in such a matter, but I know you mean it for my own good.”

As Cynthia entered the gate at home, her mother rose from a chair on the porch. “Now I can go to bed,” she remarked. “I have been awfully uneasy, almost expecting to hear you scream out from that lonely meadow.”

“There was nothing to be afraid of, mother,” and Cynthia passed on to her own room. She closed the door and lighted her lamp, and then took her Bible from the top drawer of her bureau and sat down at her table and began to read it. She read chapter after chapter mechanically, her despondent eyes doing work which never reached her throbbing brain. Presently she realized this and closed the book. Rising, she went to her window and looked across the grass-grown triangle to her mother's window. It was dark. All the other windows were so, too. The house was wrapped in slumber. She heard the clock strike nine. Really she must go to bed, and yet she knew she would not sleep, and the thought of the long, conscious hours till daybreak caused her to shudder.

Perhaps twenty minutes had passed since the clock struck, when a sound suddenly fell upon her ears that thrilled every muscle in her body. It was the far-off call of a whippoorwill! Was it the cry of the real bird or an imitation—his imitation? She stood like a thing of stone, straining her ears for its repetition. There! There it was again, and nearer, clearer, more appealing. Ah, no creature of mere feathers and flesh could have uttered that tentative, soulful note! It was Nelson Floyd alive!—alive and wanting her—her first of all! Standing before her mirror, she tried to tie up her hair, which had fallen loose upon her shoulders, but her hands refused to do their office. Without a second's deliberation she sprang to her door, opened it, and ran on to the outer one. Passing through this, she glided across the porch and softly sped over the grass in the direction of the sound. She heard it again, in startling shrillness, and then, in the clear moonlight, she saw Floyd standing in front of the grape-arbor. As she drew near her heart stood still at the sight of the change which had come on him. It lay like the tracing of Death's pencil on his brow, in his emaciated features and loosely fitting, soiled, and unpressed clothing. For the first time in her life she yielded herself without resistance to his out-stretched arms. With no effort to prevent it, she allowed him to press his lips to hers. Childlike, and as if in fear of losing him again, she slid her arm round his neck and drew him tightly to her. Neither uttered a word. Thus they remained for a moment, and then he led her into the arbor and they sat down together, his arm still about her body, her head on his breast. He was first to speak.

“I was so afraid you'd not come,” he panted, as if he had been walking fast. “Have you heard of my trouble?” he went on, his voice sounding strange and altered.

She nodded on his breast, not wanting to see the pain she knew was mirrored in his face.

“Oh no, surely you haven't—that is, not—not what I learned in Atlanta about my—my mother and father?”

Again she nodded, pressing her brow upward against his chin in a mute action of consolation and sympathy.

He sighed. “I didn't think anybody knew that,” he said. “That is, anybody up here.”

“Mr. Mayhew went down and saw your uncle,” Cynthia found voice to say, finally.

“Don't call him my uncle—he's not that, except as hell gives men relatives. But I don't want to speak of him. The memory of his ashy face, glittering eyes, and triumphant tone as he hurled those facts at me is like a horrible nightmare. I'm not here to deny a thing, little girl. I came to let you see me just as I am. I fell very low. No one knows I'm here. I passed through Darley without meeting a soul I knew and walked all the way here, dodging off the road when I heard the sound of hoofs or wheels. I've come to you, Cynthia—only you. You are the only one out of this part of my life that I ever want to see again. I am not going to hide anything. After that revelation in Atlanta I sank as low as a brute. I drank and lost my head. I spent several days in New Orleans more like a demon than a human being—among gamblers, thieves, and cutthroats. Two of my companions confessed to me that they were escaped convicts put in for murder. I went on to Havana and came back again to New Orleans. Yesterday I reached Atlanta. I learned that the police had been trying to find me, and hid out. Last night, Cynthia, I was drunk again; but this morning I woke up with a longing to throw it all off, to be a man once more, and while I was thinking about it a thought came to me like a flash of light from heaven thrown clear across the black waste of hell. The thought came to me that, although I am a nobody (that name has never passed my lips since I learned it was not my own)—the thought came to me, I say, that there was one single and only chance for me to return to manhood and obtain earthly happiness. Do you follow me, dearest?”

She raised her head and looked into his great, staring eyes.

“Not quite, Nelson,” she said, softly. “Not quite.”

“You see, I recalled that you, too, are not happy here at home, and, as in my case, through no fault of your own—no fault, except being born different from others around you. I remembered all you'd told me about your mother's suspicious, exacting nature, and how hard you worked at home, and how little real joy you got out of life, and then it came to me that we both had as much right to happiness as any one else—you for your hard life and I for all that I'd suffered. So I stopped drinking. I have not touched a drop to-day, although a doctor down there said I really needed a stimulant. You can see how nervous I am. I shake all over. But I am stimulated by hope—that's it, Cynthia—hope! I've come to tell you that you can make a man of me—that you have it in your power to blot out all my trouble.”

“I don't see how, Nelson.” Cynthia raised her head and looked into his shadowy face wonderingly.

“I've come here to ask you to leave this spot with me forever. I've got unlimited means. Even since I've been away my iron lands in Alabama and coal lands in Tennessee have sprung up marvellously in value. This business here at the store is a mere trifle compared to other investments of mine. We could go far away where no one knows of my misfortune, and, hand-in-hand, make us a new home and new friends. Oh, Cynthia, that holds out such dazzling promise to me that, honestly, all the other fades away in contrast to it. Just to think, you'll be all mine, all mine—alone with me in the wide, wide world! I have no legal name to give you, it's true, but”—he laughed harshly—“we could put our heads together and pick a pretty one, and call ourselves by it. I once knew a man who was a foundling, and because they picked him up early in the morning he was called 'Early.' That wouldn't sound bad, would it? Mr. and Mrs. Early, from nowhere, but nice, good people. What do you say, little girl? It all rests with you now. You are to decide whether I rise or sink back again, for God knows I don't see how I could possibly give you up. I have not acted right with you all along in not declaring my love sooner, but I hardly knew my mind. It was not till that night at the mill that I began to realize how dear you were to me, but it was such a wonderful awakening that I did not speak of it as I should. But why don't you say something, Cynthia? Surely you don't love any one else—”

She drew herself quite from his embrace, but, still clasping one of his hands like an eager child, she said:

“Nelson, I don't believe I'm foolish and impetuous like some girls I know. You are asking me to take the most important step in a woman's life, and I cannot decide hastily. You have been drinking, Nelson, you acknowledge that frankly. In fact, I would have known it anyway, for you are not like you used to be—even your voice has altered. Nelson, a man who will give way to whiskey even in great trouble is not absolutely a safe man. I'm unhappy, I'll admit it. I've suffered since you disappeared as I never dreamed a woman could suffer, and yet—and yet what you propose seems a very imprudent thing to do. When did you want me to leave?”

“A week from to-night,” he said. “I can have everything ready by then and will bring a horse and buggy. I'll leave them down below the orchard and meet you right here. I'll whistle in the old way, and you must come to me. For God's sake don't refuse. I promise to grant any request you make. Not a single earthly wish of yours shall ever go unsatisfied. I know I can make you happy.”

Cynthia was silent for a moment. She drew her hand from his clasp. “I'll promise this much,” she said, in a low, firm voice. “I'll promise to bring my decision here next Friday night. If I decide to go, I suppose I'd better pack—”

“Only a very few things,” he interposed. “We shall stop in New Orleans and you can get all you want. Oh, little girl, think of my sheer delight over seeing you fairly loaded down with the beautiful things you ought always to have had, and noting the wonder of everybody over your rare beauty of face and form, and to know that you are all mine, that you gave up everything for a nameless man! You will not go back on me, dearest? You won't do it, after all I've been through?”

Cynthia was silent after this burst of feeling, and he put his arm around her and drew her, slightly resisting, into his embrace.

“What is troubling you, darling?” he asked, tenderly.

“I'm worried about your drinking,” she faltered. “I've seen more misery come from that habit than anything else in the world.”

“But I swear to you that not another drop shall ever pass my lips,” he said. “Why, darling, even with no promise to you to hold me back, I voluntarily did without it to-day, when right now my whole system is crying out for it and almost driving me mad. If I could do that of my own accord, don't you see I could let it alone forever for your sake?”

“But”—Cynthia raised her eyes to his—“between now and—and next Friday night, will you—”

“I shall be as sober as a judge when I come,” he laughed, absorbing hope from her question. “I shall come to you with the clearest head I ever had—the clearest head and the lightest heart, little girl, for we are going out together into a great, mysterious, dazzling world. You will not refuse me? You are sent to me to repay me for all I've been through. That's the way Providence acts. It brings us through misery and shadows out into joy and light. My shadows have been dark, but my light—great God, did mortal ever enter light such as ours will be!”

“Well, I'll decide by next Friday night,” Cynthia said; “that's all I can promise now. It is a most important matter and I shall give it a great deal of thought. I see the way you look at it.”

“But, Cynthia,” he cautioned her, “don't tell a soul that I've been here. They think I'm dead; let them continue to do so. Friday night just leave a note saying that you have gone off with me and that you will write the particulars later. But we won't write till we have put a good many miles behind us. Your mother' will raise a lot of fuss, but we can't help that.”

“I shall not mention it to any one,” the girl agreed, and she rose and stood before him, half turned to go.

“Then kiss me, dearest,” he pleaded, seizing her hands and holding them tight—“kiss me of your own accord; you know you never have done that, not even once, since I've known you.”

“No; don't ask me to do that,” she said, firmly, “for that would be absolute consent, and I tell you, Nelson, frankly, I have not yet fully decided. You must not build on it too much.”

“Oh, don't talk that way, darling. Don't let me carry a horrible doubt for a whole week. Do say something that will keep up my hopes.”

“All I can say is that I'll decide by Friday night,” she repeated. “And if I go I shall be ready. Good-night, Nelson; I can't stay out longer.” He walked with her as far as he could safely do so in the direction of the farm-house, and then they parted without further words.

“She'll go—the dear little thing,” he said to himself, enthusiastically, as he walked through the orchard. When he had climbed over the fence he paused, looked back, and shrugged his shoulders. An unpleasant thrill passed over him. It was the very spot on which he had met Pole Baker that night and had been so soundly reprimanded for his indiscretion in quitting Nathan Porter's premises in such a stealthy manner.

Suddenly Floyd pressed his hand to his waistcoat-pocket and drew out a tiny object that glittered in the moonlight. “The engagement ring!” he exclaimed, in a tone of deep disappointment; “and I forgot to give it to her. What a fool I was, when she's never had a diamond in her life! Well”—he looked hesitatingly towards the farm-house—“it wouldn't do to call her back now. I'll keep it till Friday night. Like an idiot, I forgot, too, in my excitement, to tell her where we are to be married—that is, if she will go; but she won't desert me—I can trust her. She will be my wife—my wife!”

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