"I don't think I could stay to dinner"--Mostyn was thinking that it might prevent a possible chat with Dolly in the parlor or a stroll to the spring--"but I'll ride over with you and walk back. I need the exercise."

"All right, hop in!" There was a ring of elation in Saunders's voice which was not often heard from him during business hours.

"These outings seem to do you a lot of good," Mostyn remarked. "You are as lively as a cricket this morning."

"I love the mountains," was the answer. "I love these good, old-fashioned people. Back at the station as I left the train I saw some revenue officers with the wreck of a mountain still piled up in the street. I know the moonshiners are breaking the law, but they don't realize it. Many a poor mountain family will suffer from that raid. Do you know, I was glad to hear that no arrests were made. Imprisonment is the hardest part of ft."

Mostyn was discreetly non-communicative, and as they drove along the conversation drifted to other topics. Suddenly Saunders broke into a laugh. "You know, Mostyn, you are doing your very best to force me to talk about business. You have edged up to it several times."

Mostyn frowned. "I have succeeded in keeping my mind off of it fairly well so far," he declared; "but still, if anything of importance has taken place down there I'd like to know it."

"Of course, you would," Saunders answered; "and from now on you'd fairly itch to get back to your desk. Oh, I know you!"

"Not if everything was all right." There was a touch of rising doubt in Mostyn's voice.

Saunders hesitated for a moment, then he said: "I have something for you from--from Marie Winship." He rested the reins in his lap, took a letter from his pocket, and gave it to his companion. It was a small, pale blue envelope addressed in a woman's handwriting. In the lower left-hand corner was written "Personal and important."

Mostyn started and his face hardened as he took it. He thrust it clumsily into his pocket. "How did you happen to--to get it?" he asked, almost angrily. "I see it was not mailed."

Saunders kept his eyes on the back of the plodding horse.

"The truth is, she came to the bank twice to see you--once last week and again yesterday. I managed to see her both times alone in your office. The clerks, I think, failed to notice her. She was greatly upset, and I did what I could to calm her. I'm not good at such things, as you may know. She demanded your address, and, of course, I had to refuse it, and that seemed to make her angry. She is--inclined, Mostyn, to try to make trouble again."

Mostyn had paled; his lower lip twitched nervously. "She had better let me alone!" he said, coldly. "I've stood it as long as I intend to."

"I don't know anything about it," Saunders returned. "I could not pacify her any other way, and so I promised to deliver her letter. She would have made a scene if I had not. She has heard some way that you are to marry Miss Mitch.e.l.l, and it was on that line that her threats were made."

"Marry? I have never said that I intended to marry--_any one_," Mostyn snarled, a dull, hunted look in his eyes.

"I know," Saunders said, still unperturbed, "but you know that the people at large are generally familiar with all that society talks about, and they have had a lot to say about you and that particular young lady. If you wish to read your letter, don't mind me--I--"

"I don't want to read it!" Mostyn answered. "I can imagine what's in it. I'll attend to it later. But you have seen her, Saunders, since I have, and you would know whether the situation really is such that--"

"To be frank"--Saunders had never spoken more pointedly--"I don't feel, Mostyn, that I ought to become your confidant in exactly such a thing.

But through no intention of mine I have been drawn into it--drawn into it, Mostyn, to protect the dignity and credit of the bank. She was about to make a disturbance, and I _had_ to speak to her."

"I know--of course, I understand that"--Mostyn's fury robed him from head to foot like a visible garment--"but that is not answering my question."

"Well, if you want my opinion," Saunders said, firmly, "I think if the woman is not appeased in some way that you and I, the directors, and all concerned--friendly depositors and everybody-will regret it.

Scandal of this sort has a bad effect on business confidence. Mitch.e.l.l came in just as she was leaving. Of course, he is not a great stickler on such matters, but--"

"I didn't know he was in town," Mostyn said, in surprise.

"Yes, they returned rather suddenly the day before yesterday. By the way, he is impatient to see you. He wouldn't mind my telling you, for that is what he wants to do. He has had a great streak of luck. You remember the big investments you advised him to make in wild timberlands in Alabama and North Georgia a few years ago? Well, your judgment was good--capital. His agent has closed out his entire holdings for a big cash sum. I don't know the exact figure, but he banked a round one hundred thousand with us yesterday, and said more was coming."

Mostyn stared excitedly. "I thought it would be a good thing, but I didn't expect him to find a buyer so soon."

Saunders smiled. "I know you thought so," he chuckled. "He is as happy as a school-boy. He is crazy to tell you about it. He thinks a lot of you. He swears by your judgment. In fact, he said plainly that he expected you to handle this money for him. He says he has some ideas he wants you to join him in. He sticks to it that you are the greatest financier in the South."

Mostyn drew his lips tight. "He is getting childish," he said, irritably. "I have no better judgment than any one else--Delbridge, for instance, is ahead of me."

"Delbridge _is_ lucky," Saunders smiled. "They say he has made another good deal in cotton."

"How was that?" Mostyn shrugged his shoulders and stared, his brows lifted.

"Futures. I don't know how much he is in, but I judge that it is considerable. You can always tell by his looks when things are going his way, and I have never seen him in higher feather."

Mostyn suppressed a sullen groan. "That is what _they_ are doing while I am lying around here like this," he reflected. "Mitch.e.l.l thinks I am a financial wonder, does he? Well, he doesn't know me; Irene doesn't know me. Dolly doesn't dream--my G.o.d, I don't know _myself!_ A few minutes ago I was sure that I would give up the world for her, and yet already I am a different man--changed--full of h.e.l.l itself. I am a slave to my imagination. I don't know what I want."

Then he thought of the unopened letter in his pocket. Light as it was, he could all but feel its weight against his side. They were now at the gate of Saunders's house. No one was in sight. The tall white pillars of the Colonial porch gleamed like shafts of snow in the sunlight. It was a s.p.a.cious building in fine condition; even the gra.s.s of the lawn and beds of flowers were well cared for.

"You'd better decide to stop," Saunders said, cordially. "I will soon get over my talk with the overseer, and then I'll take you around and show you some of the richest land in the South--black as your hat in some places. I wouldn't give this piece of property for all you and Delbridge and Mitch.e.l.l ever can pile up. Both my grandfather and father died in the room up-stairs on the left of the hall. It seems sacred to me."

Mostyn nodded absently. "No, thanks, I'll walk home," he said, getting out of the buggy. He was turning away, but paused and looked back.

"Would you advise--" he began, hesitatingly, "would you advise me to return to Atlanta to-morrow--on--on account of this silly thing?"

Saunders hesitated. "I hardly know what to say," he answered, frankly.

"Perhaps you can tell better when you have read her letter. The situation is decidedly awkward. In her present nervous condition the woman is likely to give trouble. Somehow I feel that it is nothing but your duty to all of us to do everything possible to prevent publicity.

She seems to me to have a dangerous disposition. She even spoke of--of using force. In fact, she said she was armed--spoke of killing you in cold blood. You might restrain her by law, but you wouldn't want to do that."

A desperate shadow hovered over Mostyn's face. "I'll go back in the morning," he said, doggedly. "Mitch.e.l.l, you say, wants to see me. I'm not afraid of the woman. If I had been there she wouldn't have made such a fool of herself."

CHAPTER XIII

When Mostyn got back to the farmhouse he found no one at home, the entire family being at church. He strolled about the lawn, smoked many cigars, and tried to read a Sunday paper on the porch. His old nervous feeling had him in its grasp. Try as he would to banish them, the things Saunders had told him swept like hot streams through his veins.

Mitch.e.l.l had doubled his fortune; Irene was now a richer heiress than ever; Delbridge was in great luck; and a shallow-pated woman, whom Mostyn both feared and despised, was threatening him with exposure.

Mitch.e.l.l, and other men of the old regime, laughed at the follies of youth, it was true, but a public scandal which would cripple business was a different matter in any man's eyes. Besides, the old man must be told of his intention to marry Dolly, and that surely would be the last straw, for all of Mitch.e.l.l's intimate friends knew that the garrulous old man was counting on quite another alliance.

Mostyn heard the voices of the Drakes down the road, and to avoid them he went up to his room, and from a window saw them enter the gate. How wonderfully beautiful Dolly seemed as she walked by her mother! The girl was happy, too, as her smile showed. The others came into the house, but Dolly turned aside to a bed of flowers to gather some roses for the dinner-table. Bitterly he reproached himself. He had won her heart--there was no doubt of it; she was his--soul and body she was his, and with his last breath he would stand to her. From that day forth, in justice to her, he would cleanse his life of past impurities and be a new man. Delbridge, Mitch.e.l.l, Henderson, Marie Winship--all of them--would be wiped out of consideration. He would get rid of Marie first of all. He would force her to be reasonable. He had made her no actual promises. She had known all along what to expect from him, and her present method was unfair in every way. He had paid her for her favors, and for aught he knew other men had done the same. However, that did not lessen the woman's power. She might even make trouble before he got back to Atlanta--there was no counting on what a woman of her cla.s.s would do. He would send her a telegram at once, stating that he would be down in the morning. But, no, that would only add to the tangible evidence against him. He would wait and see her as soon as possible after his arrival. Yes, yes, that would have to do, and in the mean time--the mean time--

Mostyn paced the floor as restlessly as a caged tiger. There were mental pictures of himself as already a discredited, ruined man.

Mitch.e.l.l had turned from him in scorn; Saunders was placidly appealing to him to withdraw from a tottering firm, and old Jeff Henderson was going from office to office, bank to bank, whining, "I told you so!" At any rate--Mostyn tried to grasp it as a solace worth holding--there was Dolly, and here was open sunlight and a new and different life. But she would hear of the scandal, and that surely would alter the gentle child's view of him. Irene Mitch.e.l.l would overlook such an offense if she gave it a second thought, but Dolly--Dolly was different. It would simply stun her.

Dinner was over. Tom Drake and John Webb were chatting under the apple trees in the orchard, where Webb had placed a cider-press of a new design which was to be tried the next day. Mrs. Drake had retired to her room for a nap. Ann had gone to see a girl friend in the neighborhood, and Dolly was in the parlor reading the books Saunders had given her. Mostyn hesitated about joining her, but the temptation was too great to be withstood. She looked up from her book as he entered and smiled impulsively, then the smile died away and she fixed him with a steady stare of inquiry.

"Why, what has happened?" she faltered.

"Nothing particular," he said, as he took a seat near her and clasped his cold, nervous hands over his knee.

She shook her head slowly, her eyes still on him. "I know better," she half sighed. "I can see it all over you. At dinner I watched you. You look--look as you did the day you came. You have no idea how you improved, but you are getting back. Oh, I think I know!" she sighed again, and her pretty mouth drooped. "You are in trouble. Mr. Saunders has brought you bad news of business."

He saw a loophole of escape from an embarra.s.sing situation, and in desperation he used it. "Things are always going crooked in a bank like ours," he said, avoiding her despondent stare. "Men in my business take risks, you know. Things run smoothly at times, and then--then they may not do so well."