Part 44 (1/2)
She shook her head slowly, while Mr. Weil looked on, uncertain what to do or say. He wanted more than anything else in his life to lay hands upon the cause of all her woes.
”You have not told me yet what he has done,” she said.
”He shall tell you,” replied Roseleaf, sharply. ”Stand up, Hannibal, and answer truly the questions I am about to propound to you.”
The crouching figure tottered to his feet. The negro was weak from fear.
”Did you try twice this morning to murder me?”
”Yes,” replied the shaking voice. ”But I was insane with my troubles--I did not realize what I was doing--I--”
Daisy's slight hand, still on the barrel of the rifle, was bearing it steadily to the ground.
”Once,” she said to Roseleaf, impressively, ”you told me you loved me!
Have you regard enough left to grant me a favor?”
He shook his head.
”There are favors,” he said, ”that are crimes. It is one's duty to exterminate vermin, in the interest of the human race.”
But, even as he spoke, she was having her way. Her slight strength had taken the weapon from him.
Then, with the face of a forgiving angel she turned toward the negro and uttered very softly one word, ”Go!”
Glancing at the others to see if he might safely follow this direction, Hannibal disappeared in the thick woods behind him. He walked with an unsteady step. There was a strange lightness in his brain. Some distance away he found the boat in which he had come, and entered it, staggeringly. Pus.h.i.+ng from the sh.o.r.e with a feeble touch on his paddle he set out for his home.
The negroes who found his body, a week later, could not decide whether he had perished by accident or by deliberate intention. The boat was not capsized, but it was partially filled with water, indicating either that he had tried to sink the craft or had leaned too heavily to one side in something like a stupor. When his gun was discovered on the sh.o.r.e, new speculations were set in motion.
Those who knew him recalled that he had been moody for a long time--in fact, ever since he came from the north. They remembered him as a young fellow, four or five years previous, not very different from his mates; and they had stared in wonder when he returned with fine clothes and money in his pocket. The dislike between him and his old acquaintances was mutual. They could not understand him; and what an inferior mind does not comprehend it always views with suspicion.
A grave was made near the border of the lake, and the single word ”HANNIBAL” was written on the board that marked the spot. But later some envious hand scrawled beneath it:
”HE WANTED TO BE A GENTLEMAN!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
”THE GREATEST NOVEL.”
Archie Weil and Daisy Fern were married in June. There was no need of waiting longer. It was a case of true love sanctified by suffering and devotion. The bright eyes and ruddy cheeks of the bride testified to her renewed health and spirits. The news of Hannibal's death--albeit it brought a tear to her eyes, had removed the only shadow that stretched across her pathway.
s.h.i.+rley Roseleaf did not come to the wedding, to which he was the only invited guest. He wrote that an important mission from his magazine made it impossible to accept the invitation, but he sent a handsome present and a letter to Archie, congratulating him in the warmest manner.
For some time Lawrence Gouger had been urging the novelist to hasten the wonderful story that was to make his fortune and give a new impetus to the house of Cutt & Slashem. They had consulted together a hundred times, and the thirty chapters already finished seemed to leave but a few weeks' steady work to be accomplished. Shortly after the wedding Gouger went to Roseleaf's rooms, one evening, and begged him to lose no further time.
”What is there to wait for now?” he asked. ”All the dramatic incidents have occurred. You only need to wind up with a glory of fireworks, showing virtue triumphant and vice buried under a North Carolina sycamore. Come, my dear boy, when may I expect to see the work completed?”
Roseleaf did not answer for some seconds.