“Dear, dear Fred!” she said, fervently, “in spite of all the faults they say you have, you are the best and truest friend a poor girl ever had. If I'd only listened to your advice I'd never have been like this. Oh, what will you think when you hear the truth--the awful, awful truth!”
She threw herself on her bed, and with her face covered she lay trying to sob, trying to shed tears, but the founts of her agony were dry.
|DR. DEARING'S house was an old-fashioned structure built long before the Civil War. It fronted on the main residential street of the town, and was of red brick partly covered with clinging ivy. It had a colonial veranda with the usual tall, fluted columns, which were painted white and rested on square blocks of masonry. It had been the property of several generations of Dearings more or less distinguished in the history of the State, and since the death of the doctor's father, a prosperous merchant, slave-holder, and planter, it had been in the possession of the brother and sister, who, with an aged maternal uncle, General Sylvester, now occupied it.
As Dearing entered the lower gate of the grounds he saw Kenneth Galt, his next-door neighbor, crossing the lawn to reach his own house just beyond a low hedge of well-trimmed boxwood. And hearing the clicking of the iron gate-latch, Galt paused, turned, and advanced toward his friend. He was a handsome man, tall, dark, well-built, about thirty-five years of age, and with a strong, secretive face--the face of a man full of nervous force and the never-satisfied hunger of ambition.
“You've been to church like a good little boy,” he laughed, as he paused and stood cutting at the grass with his cane.
“Yes, and it is exactly where you ought to have been,” Dearing retorted, with a smile. “If you would only listen to a few good sermons on the right line you'd burn up that free-thought library of yours, and quit thinking you know more than your good old Godfearing ancestors.”
“I simply couldn't sit and listen to such stuff with a straight face,” Galt answered. “Goodness knows, I've tried it often enough. It really seems an insult to a fellow's intelligence. I can't agree with you that any man ought to try to think as his forefathers did. You don't in your profession, why should a man do it in more vital matters? You don't bleed your patients as doctors did fifty years ago, because you know better. I believe in evolution of mind as well as of matter. We are constantly advancing. Your old-time preacher, with all his good intentions, is a stumbling-block to intelligence. You may listen to a man who tells you your house is burning down over your head and urges you to save your life, but if you don't believe him you wouldn't care to have him pull you out by the heels on a cold night to convince you. But you don't hear what I am saying!” Galt finished, with a short laugh. “I am sowing my seed on stony ground. I've been in to see the General. I have some important letters about the railroad that he and I are going to get built one of these days. As a rule, he is more than eager to talk about it, but he was certainly out of sorts just now. I have never seen him so upset before. While I was talking to him he kept walking up and down the room, and not hearing half I was saying. He is not well, is he?”