Chapter XLI

Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her.

"I got your message," the visitor said, "and came in as quickly as I could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told."

"Yes, she knows," Mrs. Whaley sighed, resignedly. "Her father came in and let it out awfully rough-like. I hold that against him, so I do. He showed her the paper that it was in and told her that, although the court had dissolved the marriage tie, God had made the separation doubly sure. Tilly sat sorter dead-like for a long time. That was yesterday evening about sundown. I tried to comfort her, but she shudders and screams when me or her pa comes near her. This morning the doctor came to see her. I sent for him. He said she had to have a change. He was mad at her pa, and they had sharp words at the gate. The doctor said she simply must not stay here with us for a while--that it would drive her out of her senses or kill her."

"So you sent for me?" Martha Jane faltered.

"Yes, because you are the only one she talks about wanting to see. She loves you, and intimated that she would like to go out to your house for a few days. I am sure it will do her good, and I thought maybe you wouldn't mind--"

"Oh, I should love it above all things!" The girl grasped Mrs. Whaley's hands and wrung them eagerly. "I have the buggy. I could take her right back with me."

"Then you ought to do it while her pa is away," Mrs. Whaley said, her beetling brows lowered. "He is in the country to-day. If he was here he might raise a row, but he won't be apt to object when it is already done. I think she ought to go. I hate to say it, but this is no place for her right now. I'm afraid sometimes that her pa's got some trouble of the brain. 'Softening,' some call it. He is not like he was. He wakes up in the dead of night and comes stumbling over things to my bed to talk all this over, and he would go to Tilly's bed, too, if I'd let him. He is even suspicious of me--says I dispute his Bible views behind his back, or when he is expounding them to somebody before me. But I don't. I'm sick and tired of it all. I am coming to see that he is wrong, because religion is intended to help, not ruin folks, and between you and me, Martha Jane, every bit of trouble me and him ever had came out of his peculiar way of looking at Scripture. La me! wouldn't it have been better to have left Tilly down there with the man she picked out than to--to-- Well, you know what I mean? You see how it ended."

With moist eyes, Martha Jane nodded. "May I see her now?" she asked, her lips twitching.

"Yes, go right up. She will be glad to see you."

* * * * *

Two days later Joel Eperson and Tilly sat on the veranda of Joel's farm-house. "Martha Jane said you had something to say to me," he said, gravely. "I hope it is something that I can do to help you, Tilly. God knows I want to do so."

"Yes, I want you to help me," Tilly said, lifting her sad eyes to his face, "but first I must make a confession. Joel, I deliberately planned this visit to Martha Jane for a purpose. There was something to be done that would have been impossible at home, owing to my father's close watching over me."

"I see-- I see, and I am ready for anything," Joel declared, fervently.

Tilly was silent for several minutes, her glance on the lap of her black dress, and the black-bordered handkerchief which she held balled in her little hand.

"Of course," Joel began, considerately, "if you don't feel like saying any more at present, why, I--"

"It is not that," Tilly broke in; "but, oh, Joel, I am afraid that you may not agree with me, and this is a thing that lies very heavily on my sense of duty. There is something that I must do right away. Joel, I must go to Ridgeville for a day or so."

"To Ridgeville!" He stared blankly, after his astounded ejaculation.

"Yes, Joel. I want to visit our little house again and get some things I left-- No, that isn't it. Why am I not telling the truth? I want to get anything--anything that John may have left. You see"--filling up and sobbing now--"I haven't a single thing with me that was actually his."

"I understand." Joel raised his tortured eyes from her sweet, grief-swept face and let them rove unguided over his fields of cotton and ripening corn which lay along the red-clay road sloping mountainward. "I see, and you think that I--"

"It is like this, Joel." Tilly was controlling her sobs now and bending anxiously toward him. "So many people know me at Cranston that if I took the train there it would cause talk of an unpleasant sort. Father would know I was going and he would not allow it. But Bellewood, two miles from here, you know, is a station, and if you would put me on there at eight o'clock in the morning no one at home would know anything about it."

Joel's honest and worshipful eyes crept back to her face. "I see," he said, slowly, "and your people would think that you were here under the protection of my sister, my mother, and myself."

"Yes, Joel, but I have mentioned it to your mother and sister and they see it as I do. They are women and understand. They were afraid, however, that you would not want to do it, and so I came to you. You must help me, Joel. As I see it, a deception of this sort is not wrong, for it springs from a right motive."

Joel was deeply perturbed. His whole mental and spiritual being rose and fell on the billows of indecision. Finally he asked: "Is it just to visit the house and get some things? Is that all, Tilly?"

He saw her glance waver and sink to her lap. She took a deep, resolute breath. "What is the use?" she said, tremulously. "I cannot lie to you, Joel. You will either help me, knowing fully what I'm going for, or not at all. Joel, I want to see John's mother."

"His mother?" The plain man started and recoiled. "But why, oh, why, Tilly?"

She put her handkerchief to her writhing lips; she gulped and, with lowered eyes, half sobbed: "Because she is John's mother--that's all, Joel. I want to see, close at hand, the woman who gave my husband birth and nursed him when he was a baby. I saw her once when she sat behind me at a show. She looked at me and I looked at her. Somehow I think I'd know her better than any one else. Joel, she has lost her child and I have lost my husband. They have gone from us forever and ever. No power on earth ought to keep us two apart. No one else can tell how I feel or how she feels. I don't think she is as bad as people say, not deep down in her heart, anyway. She's done wrong, but so have all of us. Joel, you can help me or not, as you think best, but if you don't take me to that train I shall walk to it alone. I know my duty before God, and I shall do it. Joel, Joel, Joel"--she was speaking slowly, as if to formulate into words thoughts which lay deep beneath the surface of her torn being--"Joel, God is holding me accountable, in a way. Joel, if I had not deserted John he would have been alive to-day. Something would have arisen to have prevented my father from shooting him. I thought I was acting for the best, but I was excited and terrified. Do you think, feeling as I do, that I care what a few people here or at Ridgeville think about me?"

Joel rose to his feet. He was wearing his working-clothes. His coarse shoes and the hat in his gaunt hand were covered with dust from the barn which he had been cleaning in preparation for the winter's storage of grain. His rough shirt was open at the neck, the muscles of which were drawn taut. His brow and hands were beaded with sweat. He stood staring mountainward for a moment, rocked between two impulses. Presently he turned to her.

"It would be a question between old-fashioned men of honor," he said, "whether a gentleman could act as you ask me to act while you are intrusted to his protection, but you are now speaking of things, Tilly, which men have no right to decide upon. No bishop, no cardinal should refuse to go to a woman in distress, and neither should I!--neither should you. And so, if you feel that it is your duty to the memory of your husband to do this thing, I shall help you."

"Thank you, Joel." Tilly sobbed aloud. "I knew you would not desert me."

"And when do you want to go?" he inquired.

"In the morning, Joel."

"Then I shall be ready to take you," he said, turning away.

He had to clean and oil the wheels of his road-wagon, and he went to the barn-yard and set to work.