Part 4 (1/2)

Ann took up her theme again fiercely. ”Look here, Bart Toyner; I want to know one thing, honour bright--that is,” scornfully, ”if you care about honour now that you've got religion.”

He gave a silent sarcastic smile, such as one would bestow upon a naughty, ignorant child. ”Well, at least as much as I did before,” he said.

”Well, then, I want to know if you're a-going to stop spying on me now that father has got well off? There ain't no cause nor reason for you to hang about me any longer. You know what my life has been, and you know that through it all I've kept myself like a lady. It ain't nice, knowing as people do that you came courting once, 'tain't nice to have you hanging round in this way.”

He knew quite well that the reason she gave for objecting to his spying was not the true one. He had enough insight into her character, enough knowledge of her manner and the modulations in her voice, to have a pretty true instinct as to when she was lying and when she was not; but he did not know that the allusion to the time when he used to court her was thrown out to produce just what it did in him, a tender recollection of his old hopes.

”Until Markham is arrested, you know, and every one else at Fentown knows, that it is my duty to see that you don't communicate with him.

You've fooled me to-night, and I'll have to keep closer watch; but if you don't want me to do the watching, I can pay another man.”

She had hoped faintly that he would have shown himself less resolute; now there was only one thing to be done. After all, she had known for days that she might be obliged to do it.

”I wouldn't take it so hard, Bart, if it was any one but you,” she said softly. She went on to say other things of this sort which would make it appear that there was in her heart an inward softness toward him which she had never yet revealed. With womanly instinct she played her little part well and did not exaggerate; but she was not speaking now to the man of drug-weakened mind and over-stimulated sense whom she had known in former years.

He spoke with pain and shame in his voice and att.i.tude. ”There isn't anything that I could do for you, Ann, that I wouldn't do as it is, without you pretending that way.”

She did not quite take it in at first that she could not deceive him.

”I thought you used to care about me,” she said; ”I thought perhaps you did yet; I thought perhaps”--she put well-feigned shyness into her tone--”that you weren't the sort that would turn away from us just because of what father has done. All the other folks will, of course.

I'm pretty much alone.”

”I won't help you to break the laws, Ann. Law and righteousness is the same for the most part. Your feeling as a daughter leads you the other way, of course; but it ain't no good--it won't do any good to him in the long run, and it would be wrong for me to do anything but just what I ought to do as constable. When that's done we can talk of being friends if you like, but don't go acting a lie with the hope of getting the better of me. It hurts me to see you do it, Ann.”

For the first time there dawned in her mind a new respect for him, but that did not alter her desperate resolve. She had been standing before him in the moonlight with downcast face; now she suddenly threw up her head with a gesture that reminded him of the way a drowning man throws up his hands.

”You've been wanting to convert me,” she said. ”You want me to sign the pledge, and to stop going to dances and playing cards, and to bring up Christa that way.”

All the thoughts that he had had since his reform of what he could do for this girl and her sister if she would only let him came before his heart now, lit through and through with the light of his love that at that moment renewed its strength with a power which appalled him.

She took a few steps nearer to him.

”Father didn't mean to do any harm,” she whispered hastily; ”he's got no more sin on his soul than a child that gets angry and fights for what it wants. He's just like a child, father is; but it's been a lesson to him, and he'll never do it again. Think of the shame to Christa and me if he was hanged. And I've striven so to keep us respectable--Bart, you know I have. There's no shame in the world like your father being----”

(there was a nervous gasp in her throat before she could go on)--”and he'd be awfully frightened. Oh, you don't know how frightened he'd be!

If I thought they were going to do that to him, it would just kill me.

I'll do anything; I wouldn't mind so much if they'd take me and hang me instead--it wouldn't scare me so much: but father would be just like a child, crying and crying and crying, if they kept him in jail and were going to do that in the end. And then no one would expect Christa and me to have any more fun, and we never would have any. There's a way that you can get father off, Bart, and give him at least one more chance to run for his life. If you'll do it, I'll do whatever you want,--I'll sign the pledge; I'll go to church; I'll teach Christa that way. She and I won't dance any more. You can count on me. You can trust me. You know that when I say a thing I'll do it.”

He realised now what had happened to him--a thing that of all things he had learned to dread most,--a desperate temptation. He answered, and his tone and manner gave her no glimpse of the shock of opposing forces that had taken place within a heart that for many months had been dwelling in the calm of victory.

”I cannot do it, Ann.”

”Bart Toyner,” she said, ”I'm all alone in this world; there's not a soul to help me. Every one's against me and against him. Don't turn against me; I need your help--oh, I need it! I never professed to care about you; but if your father was in danger of dying an awful death and you came to me for help, I wouldn't refuse you, you know I wouldn't.”

He only spoke now with the wish to conceal from her the panic within; for with the overwhelming desire to yield to her had come a ghastly fear that he was going to yield, and faith and hope fled from him. He saw himself standing there face to face with his idea of G.o.d, and this temptation between him and G.o.d. The temptation grew in magnitude, and G.o.d withdrew His face.

”I know, Ann, it sounds hard about your father” (mechanically); ”but you must try and think how it would be if he was lying wounded like Walker and some other man had done it. Wouldn't you think the law was in the right then?”

”No!” (quickly). ”If father'd got a simple wound, and could be nursed and taken care of comfortably until he died, I wouldn't want any man to be hanged for it. It's an awful, awful thing to be hanged.”