Sam saw nothing now of the inviting homes and their lovely gardens as he rode back to the station. The world seemed black shot through with little darts of scarlet. They kept teasing him—these darting flecks of red, sharp-pointed and angry. At the station he found that it was an hour and a half before train time, so he sat down stolidly to wait. He had missed his luncheon, and it was now near dinner time, but it did not occur to him to get anything to eat.

The time, too, raced by, keeping pace with those swift-speeding thoughts of his, on which he could not have drawn the reins had he tried. And presently he was on the train again, going homeward. He soon would see his father, who would not, Sam had to confess with biting shame, look him in the eye nor answer any question frankly. Moreover, it would be his fate to add to his mother’s misery; he would see Hannah turning away from him even more than she had. And all the town would be looking at him with the eyes of suspicion. He would read: “Son of a thief! Son of a thief!” in their averted glances.

Of course his father might not be guilty. And yet, somehow, shamefully, heart-breakingly, it was borne in upon him that he was. And why should he, Sam, who had done no harm to anyone, go back to face it? Why should Annie Laurie and her friends see his shame? He could disappear now—slip off the train at the next station—and walk and walk till he reached some place where nobody knew him, and then he could go to work and care for himself, and win an honorable name. That was what America was for, he had heard Mr. Carson say, to give a chance to the individual. A man had a right to prove himself, and to be judged by himself, apart from and regardless of his family.

Yet, to run away from a thing like that, to let the old neighbors think him a poor wretch, to lose the regard of—of all those he cared about, was out of the question. And moreover, he couldn’t let his father go on keeping back the fortune that belonged to others. He’d have to go back and make him right himself.His thoughts came clashing together as a returning wave meets and breaks against an advancing one upon the seashore. And the tumult and raging was too much for him. He found himself incapable of going on just then. The train stopped for a moment at some woodland siding—the track was but a single one and such stops were occasionally necessary—and almost without thinking, Sam leaped from the platform and slipped away into the twilight.

He walked along, hardly knowing where he was going. His suit case was not much of a handicap, for there was little enough in it. He could not have told, if any one had asked him, why he kept on pounding along the road, nor why, when he came to a heavily wooded hill, he should have gone in through an opening in the trees and begun to climb its gentle slope. He only knew that he was grateful to have the trees closing around him like that, hiding him from the sight of men.

He went on, stumbling over roots, half-starting at deep shadows, and reached the summit. Here the trees had been cut away, and though the songs of those beneath him surged up to his ears, he presently found himself standing beneath the clear sky, perfectly sheltered from view. There was a scythe-like young moon, well toward the zenith, and a few pale stars. The weather had softened and warmed and spring was sending her sweet messages abroad. He stood for a moment looking upward; then he cast himself on the ground, with his face to the earth, and in the solitude his sharp suffering gave vent to itself in sobs.

Nor was it alone for the shame and sorrow of the present that he wept. It seemed as if all the tears he had held back during his lonely and baffled boyhood had their way now and streamed from his eyes. He cried blindly, passionately. He emptied his soul of grief. And then he sat up weakly and looked around him. The whippoorwills were calling to each other. Distant hounds were barking. The delicate little moon was running her fragile skiff over the sky-sea toward its western port. It was night, and the world was asleep. What was it Annie Laurie sang?

“All are sleeping, weary heart.
Thou, thou only sleepless art.”

He hoped she was sleeping—that poor Annie Laurie, who was having so much trouble, and none of it in any way her fault. And had she, too, been suspecting him? Had she held this terrible idea of his father and kept it to herself? Had she come to his house that day she had been so kind and good, to see what they were like—the Disbrows? He seemed to be on fire from head to foot with shame. Back and forth, like wild beasts pacing, raged his thoughts. He had no idea of the passage of time. Only the stars kept moving on, beautifully, in their wonderful order, and the wind, growing chillier now, blew upon him, and still the whippoorwills called. By and by the color of the world began to change. Something strange happened to the night—it grew pale, thin, transparent. The birds began stirring about, making soft noises. The cattle lowed in the near-by fields. Then a kind of milky lightness, delicate as one of Carin’s scarfs, drifted up into the sky. Presently it turned a soft pink; then rosy red; then it was edged with orange and embroidered with saffron. It was sunup, and Sam Disbrow faced the most important day of his life.

He had to make up his mind whether he was a coward or a brave man—whether he was going to run away or stay and fight. And he didn’t know. As he got dizzily to his feet, he hadn’t an idea which he was. But the colors in the sky seemed to be cheering him on like trumpets. Something wild, strange and splendid swept into his spirit—something that made him feel as if he were about to set out on a march with brave men—men who could die for an idea. It was as if he had swung into the ranks, and his leader had shouted “Forward, march!”

Sam went down the hill, and struck a road on the far side of it. He followed it to a farmhouse and asked if he might have some breakfast. They gave him good bacon and corn bread, butter and milk. He ate like one famished, and then, having learned the schedule of the trains, and that he had barely time to catch the next one bound toward Lee, he ran as hard as he could to the distant station. The train drew in while he was yet a block away, but he sent out a shout that startled the engineer in his cab. Good-naturedly, they held the train for him. He swung on the rear platform. And, though he could not forget for a moment all that he was going back to, still he was indefinably happy.

“Forward, march,” his invisible leader had commanded. Sam did not stop to find a name for this leader—to call him God. He obeyed, and having placed himself under marching orders, he fell asleep, and when the conductor called him at Lee, arose refreshed, and went out to fight his battle.

There were not many persons on the street. A mid-forenoon quietude rested over the little town. A few neighbors Sam did meet, but they had no chance to turn the cold shoulder to him this morning for he hardly saw them. He was bent for home, and he strode forward with no thought of anything but meeting his father face to face and hurling at him the question:

“Did you take Simeon Pace’s money?”

He forgot that he was a son, and must pay a son’s deference, or that Hector Disbrow, suspected of being a thief, was his father. He felt as if his soul must put that inquiry to the soul of the man. And on his answer depended honor, happiness, everything.

As he drew near the house, he saw that there was something unusual about it. With a sick feeling, he realized that it looked even more vacant and dejected than ordinarily. He tried the front door; found it locked; sped to the rear; was unable to enter; and then, rushing to the stable, realized the whole truth. His family had gone. They had run away in the night. The whole thing was true. His father was a thief—and now he was making of himself a fugitive.

But the feeling of having come back to fight a battle as a brave man would fight it, did not desert him. The black despair of the night before had been routed by all the better angels of his nature. He was in the thick of the battle now, beyond question. He turned his back on the house and went toward the town.

On his way, he met Hi Kitchell, who had been excused from school because of a toothache, and who was running along, his hand to his face, quite willing to talk about his misery to anyone. Sam called him.

“Hello, Hi. Toothache?”

“You bet!”

“What you going home for? Why don’t you go to a dentist?”

“Naw. I’m going home.”

“No use in that. Turn around the other way. Come on down to the dentist’s.”

Hi wriggled. “I’m afraid.”

“I’ll go with you.”“Will yeh?”

“You bet I will. And Hi, I’ve got a trouble that’s much worse than toothache.”

“Have you, Sam—for sure?”

“For sure I have, Hi. Now if you had a terrible trouble what would you do? I’ve told you where to go to get a toothache cured, but where would you go if—if everything you cared for seemed tumbling to pieces?”

Hi came up close to Sam. He had forgotten about his toothache, and he looked at Sam with his ferret eyes, in which the tears had now gathered.

“Sam,” he said under his breath, “I know about your trouble. I’ve heard of it. And—and you know your people have gone away. They’ve gone over the mountain, I reckon. Why, Sam, if I was in trouble like that I’d go straight to Mr. Summers.”

“But he’s the Methodist preacher, you know, and my folks are Baptists.”

“What’s the difference?” cried Hi defiantly. “I don’t see no difference. Anyway, if Mr. Summers was a Populist I’d go to him just the same.”

Sam was surprised to hear himself laughing.“I will,” he declared, and he and Hi tramped on toward town. At the dentist’s office Sam started to turn in with Hi, but Hi stopped him.

“You don’t need to come,” he said. “I reckon I can stand a little tooth-tinkering. You get on to Mr. Summers. And—and, Sam—”

“Yes?”

“If you don’t want to stay up there to the house alone, you come down to our place. My ma, she’d love to have you. Sam—”

“Yes.”

“We know what trouble is, ma and me, see? Don’t nobody around these parts know better than we do. Mr. Carson, he set us on our feet, and now we can hold up our heads and look people in the face. My, but it feels good! But we know what trouble is—all kinds, pretty near. You come to us.”

Sam held out a tense hand.

“Put it there, Hi.”

Hi “put it there” and turned valorously up the dentist’s terrible stairs.

As for Sam, he kept vigorously on his way. He thought of those automobiles he had seen the day before, and he felt as if he were all cranked up, with a good spark on, and was ready for a long hard run. So he turned up Burchard Avenue, and in at the gate of the little Methodist parsonage.

The first person he saw was Mrs. Summers, who had just got baby Jonathan asleep and was setting him out of doors in his carriage, to grow. She held up a small brown finger to warn Sam that conversation was not to be permitted in the vicinity of the sleeping prince, and led the way into the living room. Then she went in search of her husband, who, it appeared, was shut up in the cell-like room he called his study. He came striding out of his retreat and grasped Sam by the hand.

“Thought you were off to Rutherford, son.”

“So I was, sir, but—I came back.”

“So I see. Why?”

“I—I heard what they were saying about my father, sir. Dick Heller told me.”

“Well, well, he did, eh? It was better on the whole, I reckon. I had two minds to tell you myself, and then I just lacked the ginger. But now you know what you’re up against, don’t you? And your folks left last night, too. Some of the neighbors wanted to have a posse set out after them and bring them back, but Mr. Carson said Annie Laurie Pace was dead set against it. So he forbade it. You don’t mind my speaking right out? It’s best that way, isn’t it?”

“Best that way,” murmured Sam with dry lips.

“But you’ve come back, son, to face the music. Well, what can I do to help you?”

“Mr. Summers, do you think my father guilty? Do you think he took the money?”

“I’ve no more information on the subject than you,” said Mr. Summers. “What do you think—as man to man?”

“But you’ve come back, son, to face the music.”

They faced each other silently. Each knew that the other gave verdict and that it was “guilty.”

“And yet,” said Mr. Summers, “circumstantial evidence is a shaky thing. A very shaky, tricky thing.”

“Yes,” said Sam. But there was no hope in his tone.

“What do you mean to do, Sam?”

“I’ve come to ask you, sir. I’ve a hundred dollars that father gave me. I’d like to give that to Annie Laurie if it would help her out any. But what is a hundred dollars? Why, Mr. Pace had thousands and thousands! And I hear they’re having a terrible hard time altogether—that they can’t get fit helpers, and that Miss Adnah isn’t turning out so good a boss after all, and that the accounts are getting all mixed up. It looks as if the whole thing was going to pieces.”

“It needn’t,” said Mr. Summers rather sharply.

Sam looked up questioningly.

“If they had one good strong, capable helper on the place, say a man who was willing to work for nothing for the time being, a man with sense enough to find out the best ways of feeding cattle and caring for them, and peddling milk, and who wouldn’t mind sitting up after a hard day’s work to straighten out books, and who’d try to build up instead of putting in his best licks tearing down—the way those fool hands they have now seem to be doing—why, there’d be some hope. See?”

Sam got to his feet.

“Do you mean, Mr. Summers, that I—”

Mr. Summers took his pipe from the mantel shelf, deliberately knocked the tobacco out of it, refilled it from a generous tobacco can and lit a match. While the match burned he turned toward Sam.

“You can just stake your life I mean it, son,” said he.

“But will Annie Laurie—will the aunts let me?”

The reverend Mr. Summers nodded his long, thin head.

“I’ll tell ’em to,” he said. “Mr. Carson will advise ’em too. You’ll be making reparation, Samuel. You’ll be squaring yourself and your family. You’ll get back what belongs to you, the respect of the community, the regard of your—particular friends. And you’ll live here, in my house, understand?”

“Oh, Mr. Summers, I couldn’t do that.”

“I say you’ll live here,” roared the tall preacher. “Do you think I’d let you go back to that forsaken house and sit there with all the sneaking ghosts of memory putting their miserable noses in the doors and windows o’ nights, making goblin faces at you? Not much. Barbara! Barbara, I say!”

Mrs. Barbara came running on her little feet.

“Absalom,” she whispered excitedly, “what’s the use in waking the baby? Don’t you know any better than that?”

The giant collapsed.

“Willow waly,” he gasped. “Can’t I ever remember about that young-un? But, Barbara, I suppose you have been listening to our conversation?”

“I have been sitting in the next room,” replied little Mrs. Summers with dignity. “It would have been impossible for me to avoid hearing parts of it.”

“Well, then, what do you think? Is this boy going back to that shut-up house of his, or is he going to stay here at the parsonage? That’s what I want to know.”

Mrs. Barbara smiled her sidelong smile.

“What’s the use of asking such a silly question as that?” she inquired. “Of course he’s going to stay here. I was just thinking I’d run up that rosebud muslin into curtains for his room.”

The Reverend Summers turned a radiant smile on Sam.

“That’s the woman for you!” he cried. “You think you can get ahead of her, but you can’t! You’d have to be smarter than a possum to get ahead of her. Rosebud curtains! Now, what do you think of that, Sam? Could you have got as far as rosebud curtains in that length of time?”

He caught his little wife up in his great arms and tossed her toward the ceiling as if she had been a baby. Then he kissed her so loud that the smack must have been heard in the street, and dropped her in his sleepy hollow chair.

“Where’s my hat?” he demanded. “My nice, six-year-old Panama—the Panama of many journeys, of my courtship, of my marriage, and probably of my old age? Why, Sam, you ought to count the rings on that hat. It’s more’n a hundred, I reckon—if you judge it like you do oaks. Come, sneak out the back way so as not to shake the royal bed of the slumbering potentate. Where are we going? To talk with Miss Adnah Pace. Yes, I know she’s rather a difficult one to manage. But I can manage her. That’s my specialty, managing women.”

He stopped at the window to throw a kiss to his smiling wife.

“Come on, son,” he commanded; “forward, march!”Had he heard the words ringing in Sam’s brain?

Perhaps so. Anyway he spoke them. “Forward, march!” he said. He, too, knew Sam was going into battle.