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 CONTENTS IN DETAIL

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
Who Should Read This Book?
What’s in This Book?
Why Python?
Information Accessibility
Online Resources

PART I: ENVIRONMENT AND CONVENTIONS

CHAPTER 1: SETTING UP THE ENVIRONMENT
Simple Environment Configuration with Anaconda
Linux
Windows
macOS
Setting Up a Virtual Environment
 Installing the IDE with Anaconda
Advanced Setup
Setting Up virtualenv
Installing the IDE without Anaconda
Jupyter Notebooks
Summary

CHAPTER 2: PROGRAMMING AND MATH CONVENTION

S
Syntactical Constructs
List Comprehensions
Dictionary Comprehensions
Zipping and Unpacking
Mathematical Notation
Boolean Notation
Set Notation
Attribute Characters
Greek Letters and Functions
Summary

PART II: GRAPH THEORY AND COMPUTATIO

NAL GEOMETRY
CHAPTER 3: SECURING NETWORKS WITH GRAPH THE
ORY
Graph Theory for Security Applications
Creating Graphs in NetworkX
Discovering Relationships in Data
Measuring Node Importance
 Analyzing Cliques to Track Associations
Determining the Connectedness of the Network
Using Graph Edges to Capture Important Details
Summary

CHAPTER 4: BUILDING A NETWORK TRAFFIC ANALYSI

S TOOL
Network Topology Visualization
Converting Network Information into a Graph
Building a Communication Map
Building the Graph
Identifying Suspicious Machine Behavior
Subgraph of Port Data Volume
Identifying Unusual Levels of Traffic
Examining How Machines Interact on the Network
The Proof of Concept: Network Traffic Analysis
Summary

CHAPTER 5: IDENTIFYING THREATS WITH SOCIAL NE

TWORK ANALYSIS
The Small-World Phenomenon
Graphing Social Network Data
Structuring the Data
Visualizing the Social Network
Network Analysis Insights
Calculating Information Propagation
Identifying Cliques and Most Influential Users
Finding the Most Influenced Users
Using Topic-Based Information Exchange
 Analyzing Network Organization
The Proof of Concept: Social Network Analysis
The Darker Side of Social Network Analysis
Summary

CHAPTER 6: ANALYZING SOCIAL NETWORKS TO PREV

ENT SECURITY INCIDENTS
Using Monte Carlo Simulations to Predict Attacks
Finite State Machines
Network Modeling with Random Walks
Monte Carlo Simulation
Simulating Social Networks
Modeling User Interaction
Modeling Topic-Based Influence
Modeling Information Flow
The Proof of Concept: Disrupting the Flow of Infor
mation
Modeling an Evolving Network
Moving the Message Through the Network
Measuring the Amount of Information Flow
How the Game Works
The Game Objective
The Game Simulation
Improvements to Player 2
Summary

CHAPTER 7: USING GEOMETRY TO IMPROVE SECURIT

Y PRACTICES
Describing Shapes
 Points and Lines
Polygons
Vertex Order
Scenario: Planning Security for a Concert
Calculating Safe Occupancy Limits
Determining Placement of Security Personnel
Estimating Guard Patrol Timing
Improving Guard Placement
Summary

CHAPTER 8: TRACKING PEOPLE IN PHYSICAL SPACE

WITH DIGITAL INFORMATION
Gathering Cellular Network Data
Ethics of Tracking Devices and People
The OpenCellID API Structure
The Proof of Concept: Locating a Device from Nearb
y Cell Towers
Gathering Tower Locations
Translating a Geographic Point to a Polygon
Calculating the Search Area
Mapping the Search Area for Investigators
Reducing the Search Area
Summary

CHAPTER 9: COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY FOR SAFET

Y RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION
Using Voronoi Tessellation for Resource Distribution
The Proof of Concept: Analyzing Fire Station Covera
ge
 Defining the Distance Function
Determining the City Shape
Gathering the Locations of Existing Fire Stations
Performing the Voronoi Analysis
Limitations of the Algorithm
Summary

CHAPTER 10: COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY FOR FACI

AL RECOGNITION
Uses of Facial Recognition in Security
Ethics of Facial Recognition Research
The Facial Recognition Algorithm
Using Decision Tree Classifiers
Representing Facial Geometry
Processing Image Data
Locating Facial Landmarks
The Proof of Concept: Developing a Facial Recogniti
on System
Facial Statistics
Memory Management
Data Loading
Feature Engineering
Model Training
Model Persistence
Summary

PART III: THE ART GALLERY PROBLEM

CHAPTER 11: DISTRIBUTING SECURITY RESOURCES T
O GUARD A SPACE
Determining the Minimum Number of Guards
Art Gallery Problem Theory
Geometric and Graph Representations of the Gallery
Securing the Gallery
Mapping Guard Coverage
Defining Obstructed Areas
Prioritizing Guard Coverage Areas
Mapping Security Camera Field of View
Summary

CHAPTER 12: THE MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT APPRO

ACH TO SECURITY SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Mapping the User’s Interactions
Planning Application States
Documenting the Application
Developing the State Manager
Accelerating Security with Parallel Processing
Threading Parallelism
Processor Parallelism
Adding a Graphical User Interface
Displaying and Managing Images in PyGame
Organizing Graphics with Sprites and Layers
Saving and Reloading Project Data
Saving to a Dictionary
Loading from JSON Files
Running the Example Application
 Summary

CHAPTER 13: DELIVERING PYTHON APPLICATIONS

Using Setup Scripts
Packaging with Python Interpreters
Distributing with Cloud Microservices
Licensing with PyArmor
Open Source Delivery
Summary

NOTES

INDEX
 MATH FOR SECURITY

From Graphs and Geometry to

Spatial Analysis

by Daniel Reilly
MATH FOR SECURITY. Copyright © 2023 by Daniel Reilly.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
First printing
27 26 25 24 23 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-1-7185-0256-7 (print)
ISBN-13: 978-1-7185-0257-4 (ebook)
Publisher: William Pollock
Managing Editor: Jill Franklin
Production Manager: Sabrina Plomitallo-González
Production Editor: Miles Bond
Developmental Editor: Alex Freed
Cover Illustrator: Gina Redman
Interior Design: Octopod Studios
Technical Reviewer: Ricardo M. Czekster
Copyeditor: Rachel Monaghan
Compositor: Jeff Lytle, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Proofreader: James M. Fraleigh
Indexer: BIM Creatives, LLC
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contact No Starch Press® directly at info@nostarch.com or:

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No Starch Press and the No Starch Press logo are registered trademarks of No
Starch Press, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be
the trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than use a trademark symbol
with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only in an
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The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the
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with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by the information contained in it.
To my family.
You are the
reason for all
that I do.
About the Author
Daniel Reilly is a security researcher, analyst, and consultant based
out of Seattle, Washington. He has worked in the security field for 20
years, more than half of which has been spent developing and
managing operational security for small businesses.

About the Technical Reviewer

Ricardo M. Czekster is an assistant professor in computer science at
Aston University in Birmingham, UK, where he focuses on
dependability and cybersecurity with quantitative analysis. Having
worked with security-driven tools and practical applications of
modeling and simulation throughout his career, Ricardo is interested
in modeling adversaries across systems, cyber threat intelligence,
automated risk assessment, threat modeling, and intrusion
detection. He has worked in research laboratories and organizations
throughout the world, including Siemens in Princeton, the
Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science in Edinburgh, and
the Secure and Resilient Systems in Newcastle upon Tyne.
 Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they
wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure
which has no relation to reality.
—Nikola Tesla
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book like this can’t exist without the effort of dozens of people,
either directly or indirectly. When I decided to publish my work in
2016, I had no idea just how many people would pitch in to help me
finish what I started. Then I started thinking about all the people I
really owed my career growth to over the years. It has made me
realize it would be impossible for me to list each of you individually,
so let me start by saying a general thank-you to everyone who has
contributed to any of my projects over the last 20 years. The hacker
community has always been about the open sharing of knowledge.
It’s through this sharing and encouragement that I was able to
develop the skills to be a security analyst. The organizers of
conferences like DEF CON and local BSides events deserve a special
thanks for all the effort they put in. Attending these events is a
chance to bond with the members of our community and learn from
one another. These events can also be chaotic whirlwinds behind the
scenes, and organizing this chaos is no small feat! I’d also like to
thank the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Daniel Trujillo at the
Artists Rights Society for helping me navigate the licensing process
for the Guggenheim images used in the book. I’ve never worked
copyrights, but you made the whole process exceedingly simple,
which I appreciate!
I also want to say a huge thank-you to the team at No Starch Press.
The time you’ve all put in to making my scribbles into a book is truly
amazing. I never really understood the work it takes to produce a No
Starch title, and now that I do, I appreciate my collection even more!
Athabasca and Alex, you’ve both spent so much time revising my
drafts that I can honestly say this book wouldn’t exist without you!
Jill, Miles, and Rachel, you’ve all taught me so much about the
editorial process. I cannot think of a better team of people to have
supported me through this process.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
down thar, fust to Nelson an' later to business houses, not a thing
has been heard o' the young man since last Wednesday. He hain't
registered at no hotel in Atlanta. One man has been found that said
he knowed Floyd by sight, an' that he had seed 'im walkin' about at
night in the vilest street in Atlanta lookin' like a dead man or one
plumb bereft of his senses.”
Cynthia stood staring at her father with expanded eyes, and then
she sat down near a window, her face averted from the others. She
said nothing.
“He's crazy,” said Mrs. Porter. “I've always thought something was
wrong with that man. His whole life shows it. He was an outlaw
when he was a child, and when he grew up he put on high' an'
mighty airs, an' started to drinkin' like a lord. He'd no sooner let up
on that than he got into that Wade trouble, an'—”
“Some think he was drugged, an' maybe put out of the way on the
sly,” said Porter, bluntly. “But I don't know. Thoughts is cheap.”
“Hush, Nathan!” Mrs. Porter said, under her breath, for Cynthia
had risen, and without looking to the right or left was moving from
the room. “This may kill that poor child.”
“Kill her, a dog's hind foot!” Porter sneered. “To be a woman
yorse'f, you are the porest judge of 'em I ever seed. You women are
so dead anxious to have some man die fer you that you think the
same reckless streak runs in yore own veins. You all said Minnie
Wade had tuck powdered glass when she was sick that time an' was
goin' to pass in 'er checks on this feller's account, but she didn't die
fer him, nor fer Thad Pelham, nor the two Thomas boys, nor Abe
Spring, nor none o' the rest.”
“You ought to be ashamed of speaking of your own child in the
same breath with that girl,” said Mrs. Porter, insincerely, her eyes
anxiously on the door through which Cynthia had gone.
“I hain't bunchin' 'em together at all,” Porter declared. “I was only
tryin' to keep you from layin' in a burial outfit that may go out o'
fashion 'fore Cynthy wants to use it. You watch 'er an' you'll see 'er
pick up' in a day or so. I've seed widows wear black so heavy that
the dye in the goods seemed to soak into the'r skins an' drip of'n
the'r eyelashes, an' them same women was wearin' red stockin's an'
flirtin' em at another fool inside of a month.”
“You don't know what you are talking about,” responded Mrs.
Porter. “It is going hard with her, but I really hope Floyd'll not come
back to Spring-town. I don't feel safe with him around.”
“You don't want 'im here,” sneered Porter, “but yo're dead sure his
absence is a-goin' to lay our only child under the sod. That's about
as sensible as the stand a woman takes on most questions. As fer
me, I confess I'm sorter upset. I'd about made up my mind that our
little gal was goin' to yank that chap an' his boodle into this family
before long, but it looks like I was off in my calculations. To look at
her now, a body wouldn't think she was holdin' the drivin'-reins very
tight. But come what may, storm, hail, wind, rain, or sunshine an'
fine crops, I'll be the only one, I reckon, in this house that will sleep
sound to-night. An' that's whar you are all a set o' fools. A person
that loses sleep wonderin' whether another person is dead or alive
mought be in better business, in this day and time, when just
anybody is liable to drap dead in the'r tracks. La, me! What you got
fer dinner? I smell some'n' a-cookin'.”
And Porter went into the kitchen, got down on his knees at the
stove, and looked into it.
“That's all right,” he said to himself, with a chuckle, “but she hain't
put half enough gravy on it, an' ef I hadn't a-been here to 'a' turned
it, it 'ud not 'a' got cooked clean through. If it's tough I'll raise a row.
I told 'em to sell the tough 'uns. What's the use o' raisin' hens ef you
have to eat the scrubs an' don't git half-pay fer the ones you send to
market?”
 XXVII

A
WEEK went by. To Cynthia its days were veritable months of
mental torture. Porter came in one day at sundown from the
village. As usual, he had something to say regarding the all-
absorbing topic of Nelson Floyd's mysterious disappearance.
Through the day neighbors had been in with many vague and
groundless rumors, all of which were later discredited, but Nathan
Porter, sardonic old observer that hie was, usually got nearer the
facts than any one else, and in consequence he was always listened
to.
“What's anybody heard now?” his wife asked him, as he came
through the gate to where she and Cynthia sat on the porch.
“They've heard a lots,” he said. “Among other things, it's finally
leaked out that Lee's surrendered an' the niggers is all declared free.
Some say George Washington has jest crossed the Delaware in a
tippy-canoe, an' that Napoleon discovered America, but I doubt it.
What I want to know is whether supper is ready or not.”
“No, it isn't,” Mrs. Porter made haste to inform him, “but it will be
in a few minutes. The table's set an' all is ready, except the bread
isn't quite done. Now, what have you heard in town?”
“A body kin hear a lots,” Porter drawled out. “The trouble is to
keep from listenin' to so much. People are standin' as thick about
Mayhew & Floyd's shebang as flies over a fresh ginger-cake. You two
are the only women in the county that hain't been thar, an' I'm
proud of the distinction. Old Mrs. Snodgrass mighty nigh had a
fisticuff fight to retain her corner in the store, whar she's had 'er
distributin' office fer the last week. Joe Peters needed the space. He
tried to put a coop o' chickens thar, but you bet the chickens had to
go some'rs else. Mrs. Snod' said she was gittin' hard o' hearin', an' ef
she wasn't right thar in the front she wouldn't git a thing till it was
second-handed.”
“Oh, I get out of all patience with you,” cried Mrs. Porter. “Why
does it take you so long to get to a point?”
“The truth is, thar ain't any rale developments as I kin see,” Porter
gave in, reluctantly. “Old Mayhew, though, is back from Atlanta. He
sets thar, as yaller as a pumpkin, without much to say. He's got a
rope tied to every nickel he owns, an' he sees absolute ruin ahead o'
the firm. He's depended on Nelson Floyd's popularity an' brains to
keep things a-goin' so long that now he's like a loaded wagon
runnin' downhill without a tongue, swingle-tree, or hold-back strop.
You see, ef Nelson Floyd is dead, or put out o' the way—accordin' to
Mrs. Snodgrass, who heard a Darley lawyer say it—why the young
man's interest in the business will slide over to his new kin—a
receiver will have to be appointed an' Mayhew closed up. Mrs. Snod'
is authority fer the statement that Floyd's uncle has connived agin
the boy to git his pile, an' bliffed 'im in the head with a sock full o'
sand or some'n' equally as deadly. I dunno. I never knowed her to
be right about anything, an' I hain't a-goin' to believe Floyd's dead
till the report comes from some other direction. But this much seems
to have foundation in fact: Mayhew did go down; he did make
inquiries of the police; an' some say—now, mind you, I hain't a-
standin' fer this—some say he paid out solid coin to git expert
detectives a-holt o' the matter. They say the detectives run across a
low-class hotel out in the edge o' town whar a feller answerin'
Floyd's description had come in the night after the boy left here an'
axed fer a room. They say he was lookin' awful—like he had been on
a big jag, an' when they give 'im the pen to register he studied a
minute an' then thro wed it at the clerk, an' told 'im he didn't have
no name to sign, an' turned an' stalked out. That was the last seed
of 'im.”
“An' that's all you heard,” said Mrs. Porter, in disgust.
“All but one thing more,” Porter replied. “Folks about here that has
missed Pole Baker fer the last three days 'lowed he was off on
another bender, but he was down thar in Atlanta nosin' around tryin'
to find Floyd. Old Mayhew paid his expenses. He said Pole had a
longer head on 'im than any detective in the bunch. Pole got back
about two hours ago, but what he discovered not even Mrs. Snod'
knows. Him an' Mayhew had the'r heads clamped together in the
rear end o' the store fer an hour, but Joe Peters helt the crowd back,
an' thar it stands.”
“Pig-oop-pig-oo! Pig-oop-pig-oo!” The mellow, resonant sound
floated to them on the still air. Porter smiled.
“That's Pole now callin' his hogs,” he said, laconically. “The blamed
fool told me t'other day he was goin' to fatten them pigs on
buttermilk, but that sort o' fat won't stick any more'n whiskey bloat
on a reformed drunkard. By the time he drives 'em to market they'll
look as flabby as a ripe tomato with the inside squashed out.
Speakin' o' hogs, I want you-uns to fry me a piece o' that shuck-
sausage on the top shelf in the smoke-house. You'd better go git it
now. Swallowin' all that gush in town has made me want some'n'
solid.”
When her mother and father had gone into the house Cynthia
hastened across the fields through the gathering dusk in the
direction of Pole Baker's voice. He would tell her, she was sure, if
anything of importance had turned up concerning Floyd, and she
could not bear the thought of another night of suspense.
Presently, through the dusk, she saw Pole at his hog-pen in the
edge of a little thicket behind his cottage.
“Pig-oop-pig-oo!” she heard him calling. “Dem yore lazy hides, ef
you don't come on I'll empty this bucket o' slop on the ground an'
you kin root fer it. I've mighty nigh ripped the linin' out o' my throat
on yore account.” Then he descried Cynthia coming towards him
over the dew-damp grass and he paused, leaning on the rail-fence,
his eyes resting expectantly on her.
“Oh, it's you, little sister!” he exclaimed, pleasantly. “That's sorter
foolish o' you gittin' them little feet o' yore'n wet in this dew. It may
settle on yore lungs an' keep you from j'inin' in the singin' Sunday.”
 “I want to see you,” Cynthia said, in a voice that shook. “I heard
you calling your hogs, and thought I'd catch you here.”
“Well, little sister, I hain't very nice-lookin' in this old shirt an'
pants of many colors, like Joseph's coat, but every patch was sewed
on by the fingers o' the sweetest, most patient little woman God
ever made, an' I hain't ashamed of 'em; but she is—God bless 'er!—
an' she'd have a spasm ef she knowed I talked to you in 'em.”
“My father says you went down to Atlanta,” Cynthia said,
falteringly, “and I thought—”
“Yes, I went down.” Pole avoided her fixed stare.
“You went to see if you could learn anything of Mr. Floyd's
whereabouts, didn't you?”
“Yes, I did, little sister. I hain't a-talkin' much. Mayhew says it's
best to sorter lie low until some'n' accurate is found out, an' while I
did my level best down thar, I've got to acknowledge I'm as much in
the dark as anybody else. In fact, I'm mighty nigh bothered to death
over it. Nelson, poor boy, seems to have disappeared clean off'n the
face o' the earth. The only thing I have to build on is the fact that—
an' I hate to say it, little sister—the fact that he evidently did start to
drinkin' again. He told me once that he wasn't plumb sure o' hisse'f,
an' that any big trouble or despair might overthrow his resolutions.
Now, he's been drinkin', I reckon—an' what could 'a' been his
trouble? I went three times to his uncle's, but the doctors wouldn't
let me see 'im. The old man's broke down with nervous prostration
from business troubles, an' they are afeard he's goin' to kick the
bucket. Comin' back on the cars—”
Pole's voice died away. He crossed and recrossed his hands on the
fence. He avoided her steady stare. His massive eyebrows met on
his wrinkled forehead. It was as if he were suffering inward pain. “I
say—as I set in the train on the way back tryin' an' tryin' to find
some explanation, the idea come to me that—since trouble was
evidently what upset Nelson—that maybe you mought be able to
throw some light on it.”
“Me, Mr. Baker?”
 Pole hung his head; he spat slowly. Was she mistaken, or had he
actually turned pale? Was it that, or a trick of her vision in the vague
starlight?
“Little sister,” he said, huskily, “you could trust me with yore life.
I'd die rather than—than not stand to you in anything on earth. You
see, if you happened to know any reason why Nelson Floyd—” Pole
was interrupted by the loud grunting and squealing of his drove of
hogs as they rushed round the fence-corner towards him. “Wait,” he
said—“wait till I pour the'r feed in the trough.”
He took up the pail and disappeared for a moment behind the
cow-house.
Cynthia felt a great lump of wondering suspense in her throat.
What could he mean? What was coming? She had never seen Pole
act so strangely before. Presently he came back to her, holding the
dripping paddle with which he had stirred the dregs in the bottom of
his slop-bucket. He leaned over the fence again.
“You see, it's this away, little sister,” he began, lamely. “You an'
Nelson—that is, you an' him was sorter runnin' together. He went
with you, I reckon, more, on the whole, than with any other young
lady in this section, an', you see, ef anybody was in a position to
know any particular trouble or worry he had, you mought be that
one.”
“But I'm afraid I don't know anything of the kind,” she said,
wonderingly, her frank eyes resting blankly on his face.
“I see you don't understand me,” he went on. “The God's truth is
that I hain't no hand to talk about delicate matters to a young gal,
an' you above all, but I want to know—I want some'n'' to build on. I
don't know how to put what I want to ax. Maybe I'm away—away
off, an' will want to kill myse'f fer even dreamin' that—but—well,
maybe you'll git at what I mean from this. You see, I run in the room
on you an' my wife not long ago an' ketched Sally an' you a-cryin'
over some'n' or other you'd confided to 'er, an' then other things of a
like nature has crapped up lately, an'—”
 “I don't understand you, Mr. Baker,” said Cynthia, anxiously, when
she saw he was going no further. “I really don't. But I assure you,
I'm ready to tell you anything.”
“Ah! Are you? Well, I started to say Sally don't cry over other folks'
matters unless they are purty sad, an' you know at the time you
refused to tell me what yore trouble was. Maybe you ain't ready yet,
little sister. But could you tell me, right out plain, what ailed you that
day?”
Cynthia stared and then dropped her glance to the ground.
“I don't see that it would help in the matter,” she said, awkwardly.
“Well, maybe it wouldn't,” he declared, in despair; “an' I reckon
thar are things one woman would tell another woman that she
wouldn't speak of to a man.”
“I guess that's so,” said Cynthia, still perplexed over the turn the
conversation had taken and yet firm in her determination to say
nothing that would involve Mrs. Baker's secret.
“Well, maybe you won't mind it much ef I put it this away,” Pole
continued. “Now, remember, you don't have to say yes or no unless
you want to. Little sister, I'll put it this away: ef Nelson Floyd was to
never come back here again, could you, as—as a good, true woman
—could you conscientiously marry another man? Could you with a
clear conscience, I mean, before God, ever marry another man?
Thar, it's out! Could you?”
Cynthia started. She looked down. She was silent. Her color rose.
“Now, mind,” Pole said, suddenly, “you don't have to answer
unless you want to. No man's got a right to hem a weak, excited
woman up in a corner and get at her heart's secrets.”
“Would it do any good for you to know that, Mr. Baker?” the girl
said, in a low voice.
“I think so, little sister.”
“Well, then”—she turned her face away—“I don't think I'd ever
want to marry any other living man.”
 “Oh, my God!” Pole averted his face, but not before she had seen
its writhing torture. She stared at him in astonishment, and, to avoid
her eyes, he lowered his head to his arms, which were folded on the
top rail of the fence. Fully a minute passed; still he did not look up.
She saw his broad shoulders rising and falling as if he were trying to
subdue a torrent of emotion. She laid her hand firmly on his arm.
“Tell me what you mean,” she suddenly demanded. “I want to
know. This has gone far enough. What do you mean?”
He raised a pair of great, blearing eyes to hers. He started to
speak, but his voice hung in his throat. Tightening her clasp on his
arm she repeated her demand.
“I see through it now,” he found voice to say, huskily. “I don't
mean to say Nelson Floyd is afeard o' man, beast, nor devil when it
comes to a just encounter, but he knows now that ef me an' him
was to come face to face one of us ud have to die, an' he's man
enough not to want to kill me in sech a cause. I gave 'im due
warnin'. I told 'im the day he drove you to bush-arbor meetin' that ef
he tuck advantage o' you I'd kill 'im as shore as God give me the
strength. I knowed whar that stormy night was spent, but I refused
to believe the wust. I give 'im the benefit o' that doubt, but now
since you tell me with your own lips that—”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” The cry burst from her lips as if she were in sudden
pain. “I don't mean that. Why, I'm a good girl, Mr. Baker! I'm a good
girl!”
Pole leaned over the fence and laid his big, quivering hands on her
shoulders. “Thank God!” he gulped, his eyes flashing with joy. “Then
I've still got my little sister an' I've got my friend. Thank God! thank
God!”
Cynthia stood for a moment with hanging head, and then with a
deep sigh she turned to go away. He climbed over the fence and
caught up with her, the light of a new fear now in his eyes, its fire in
his quickened pulse.
“I see you ain't never goin' to forgive me in the world fer sayin'
what I did,” he said, humbly; “but God knows I wasn't thinkin' wrong
o' you. It was him, damn 'im!—his hot-blooded natur', an' a lots o'
circumstances that p'inted jest one way. I ain't more'n human, little
sister, an' through that I've offended you beyond forgiveness.”
“A woman learns to bear a great many things,” Cynthia said. “My
mother and others have hardened me so that I scarcely feel what
you said as any other pure-minded woman might. Then—then—”
She faced him squarely, and her voice rang out sharply. “We don't
know—you don't—I don't know whether he is alive or—” Her words
failed her, a sob, dry and deep, shook her from head to foot. “Don't
curse him as you did just now, Mr. Baker; you may be cursing a dead
man who, himself, was only human. But I know what he was—I saw
his real and higher nature, and, as it struggled for growth in good
and bad soil, it was the most beautiful flower God ever made. He
can't be dead—he must not be dead. I—I could not bear that. Do
you hear me? Call me what you will for my imprudent conduct with
him, but don't admit that bare possibility for one instant—even in
your thoughts. Don't do it, I say!”
Pole gulped down his tense emotion. “I'll tell you what I'll do, little
sister,” he proposed. “Promise me you'll overlook what I said just
now, an' I'll work these here hands”—he held them up in the
starlight—“to the naked bone; I'll use this here brain”—he struck his
broad brow with a resounding slap—“till it withers in the endeavor to
fetch 'im back safe an' sound, ef you'll jest forgive me.”
“Forgive you!” She laughed harshly and tossed her head. “That's
already done. More than that, I want to tell you that I've always
looked on you as a brother. You made me love you a long time ago
by your gentleness and respect for women.”
“Oh, little sister,” Pole cried, “I don't deserve that!”
“Yes, you do; but find him—find him, and bring him back.”
“All right, little sister; I'll do my best.”
He stood still and watched her hurry away through the darkness.
“Poor little trick,” he sighed. “I was countin' on that one thing to
explain Nelson's absence. Since it ain't that, what the hell is it,
unless he's been sandbagged down thar in Atlanta an' put out o' the
way?”
 XXVIII

I
T was quite dark when Pole went into the cottage. There was a
fire in the little sitting-room, and by its light he could see his
wife through the open door of the next room as she quietly
moved about. He paused in the door-way and whispered:
“Are the childern asleep, Sally?”
“Yes, an' tucked away.” She came to him with a cautious step, and
looked up into his face trustingly. “Little Billy kept askin' fer papa,
papa, papa! He said he jest wasn't goin' to sleep anywhar except in
his own place in yore lap.”
Pole went to the children's bed, looked down at the row of yellow
heads for a moment, then suddenly bent and took the eldest boy
into his arms.
“You goose!” Mrs. Baker exclaimed. “I'm sorry I said what I did.
You'll spile 'im to death. Thar, I knowed he'd wake up! It's jest what
you wanted.”
“Did you want yore papa?” Pole said, in cooing tones of
endearment. “Well, Billy-boy, papa's got you, an' he ain't a-goin' to
let no booger git you, nuther. Thar now, go back to sleep.” And in a
big arm-chair before the fire Pole sat and rocked back and forth with
the child's head on his shoulder.
“Whar've you been, papa?” Billy asked, sliding his arm around
Pole's rough, sunbrowned neck and pressing his face to his father's.
“To feed the hogs, Billy-boy.”
“But you never took so long before,” argued the child.
“I had to watch 'em eat, Billy-boy—eat, eat, eat, Billy-boy! They
hadn't had anything since mom-in' except roots, an' snags, an'
pusley weeds, an' it was a purty sight to watch 'em stick the'r snouts
in that slop. Now, go to sleep. Here we go—here we go—across the
bridge to Drowsy Town.”
In a moment the child was sleeping soundly and Pole bore him
tenderly back to bed. As he straightened up in the darkened room
his wife was beside him.
“I declare you are a good man,” she said—“the best-hearted,
tenderest man in the world, Pole Baker!”
He looked at her steadily for an instant, then he said:
“Sally, I want you to do me a special favor.”
“What is it, Pole?” Her voice was full of wonder.
“Sally, now don't laugh at me, but I want you to go put on a piece
o' red ribbon, an' let yore hair hang down yore back loose like you
used to. Fix it that away an' then come in to the fire.”
“Pole, yo're foolish!” Mrs. Baker was really pleased, and yet she
saw no reason for his whim.
“You do as I ax you, an' don't be long about it, nuther.”
He turned back into the firelight, and, watching him cautiously
from the adjoining room, Mrs.
Baker saw him straightening out his shirt and brushing his coarse
hair. Then, to her further surprise, she saw him take down his best
coat from its peg on the wall and put it on. This was followed by a
dusting of his rough shoes with a soiled, red handkerchief. In great
wonder, Sally, with her hair loose on her shoulders, looked into the
room.
“You ain't in earnest about that—that red ribbon, are you, Pole?”
she faltered.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, without lifting his eyes from the fire. “I
mean exactly what I say.”
“All right, then, I'll do it, but I don't see a bit o' sense in it,” she
retorted. “It's about our bedtime, an' I know in reason that we ain't
a-goin' nowhar at this time o' night an' leave the childem by the'r-
selves.”
Still Pole did not look up.
 “You go an' do as I tell you,” he repeated, a flush of growing
embarrassment on his face.
Presently Mrs. Baker came in, even redder and more confused
than he.
“Pole, what in the name o' common-sense—”
But he was gallantly placing a chair for her in front of the fire near
his own. “Take a seat,” he said, bowing and motioning downward
with his hands. “When you stood in the door jest then, lookin' fer all
the world like you did away back in our courtin'-day, I come as nigh
as peas callin' you 'Miss Sally.' Gee whiz! It's Mrs. Baker now—ain't
it? How quar that sounds when a body looks back!”
“Pole,” she asked, as she sat down wonderingly, “are you goin'
some'rs at this time o' night?”
“No, it ain't that,” he said, awkwardly—“it ain't that, Sally. It ain't
meetin', nor singin'-school, nor a moonlight buggy-ride.'Tain't none
o' them old, old things.” Pole crossed his long legs and leaned back
in his chair. “I know in reason that you are a-goin' to laugh at me,
an' say I'm plumb crazy, but it's this away, Sally: some'n's jest
happened that's set me to thinkin', an' it occurred to me that I
wasn't half thankful enough to the Almighty fer all His many
blessin's, an'—”
“Pole”—Mrs. Baker was misled as to his meaning—“somebody's
been talkin' religion to you. You want to begin holdin' family prayer
ag'in, I reckon. Now, looky' here, ef you do, I want you to keep it
up. I feel wuss ever'time you start in an' break off.”
“'Tain't that, nuther,” Pole said, eying the red chunks under the
fire-logs. “Sally, thar ortn't to be no secret betwixt man an' wife. I
had a talk with Cynthia Porter out at the hog-pen jest now about
Nelson Floyd, an' the way she talked an' acted worked on me
powerful. Seein' the way she feels about her sweetheart started me
to thinkin' how awful I'd feel without you. An' with that come the
feelin' that, somehow—somehow or other, Sally—me'n' you ain't jest
pine-blank the way we used to be, an' I believe thar's a screw loose.
I'd liter'ly die ef I didn't have you, an' I've been spittin' in the face o'
Providence by the careless way I've been actin'. Now, Sally, I want
you jest to set right thar, an' let's forget about them towheads in the
next room, an' try an' forget all I've made you suffer fust an' last, an'
let's git back—let's git back, Sally, to the old sweetheart-time. I know
I'm tough, an' a sorry cuss before God an' man, but I've got the
same heart a-beatin' in me to-night that was in me away back on
Holly Creek. In this firelight you look as plump an' rosy an' bright-
eyed as you did then, an' with that red ribbon at yore neck, an' yore
hair down yore back, I feel—well, I feel like gittin' down on my
knees an' beggin' you, like I did that time, not to take Jim Felton,
but to give me a showin'. I wonder”—Pole's voice broke, and he
covered his mouth impulsively with his hand—“I wonder ef it's too
late to ax you to give me a chance to prove myself a good husband
an' a father to them thar childern.”
“Oh, Pole, stop!” Mrs. Baker cried out, as if in pain. “I won't let
you set thar an' run yorese'f down, when you are the best-hearted
man in this state. What is a little spree now an' then compared to
the lot o' some pore women that git kicked an' cuffed, with never a
tender word from the'r husbands. Pole, as the Lord is my judge, I
kin honestly say that I—I almost want you jest like you are. Some
men don't drink, but they hain't got yore heart an' gentle way, an' ef
I had to take my choice over an' over ag'in, I'd choose a man like
you every time.”
She rose suddenly, and with a face full of pent-up emotion she left
the room. She returned in a moment.
“I thought I heard the baby wakin',” she said.
He caught her hand and pulled her gently down into her chair.
“Yo're a liar, Sally,” he said, huskily. “You know yo're a-lyin'. You went
out to wipe yore eyes. You didn't want me to see you cry.”
She made no denial, and he put his rough hand, with a reverent
touch, on her hair.
“It ain't quite as heavy as it was,” he said. “Nor so fluffy. I reckon
that's beca'se you keep it bound up so tight. When I fust tuck a
shine to you, you used to run about them old hills as wild as a deer,
an' the wind kept it tousled. Do you remember the day it got full o'
cockleburs an' I tried to git 'em out? La me! I was all of a tremble.
The Lord knows I never thought then that sech a sweet, scared,
rosy little thing ud ever keep house fer me an' cook my grub an' be a
mother to my childern. I never dreamt, then, that instead o' bein'
grateful fer the blessin', I'd go off weeks at a time an' lie in a gutter,
leavin' you to walk the floor in agony—sometimes with a nursin'
baby an' not a scrap to eat. No, I never—”
“Hush, Pole!” With a sob, half of joy, half of sadness, Mrs. Baker
put her hand over his mouth and pressed her face against his.
“Hush, hush, hush!”
“But, thank God, I hope that day is over,” he said, taking her hand
from his lips. “I've passed through a great crisis, Sally. Some'n' you
don't know about—some'n' you may never know about—that
happened right here in these mountains, but it may prove to be my
turnin'-p'int.”
His wife looked uneasily at the fire. “It's gittin' late, Pole,” she said.
“We'd better go to bed.”
 XXIX

T
HE following evening was balmy and moonlit. Hillhouse was at
Porter's just after supper, seated on the porch in conversation
with Mrs. Porter.
“Yes, I believe I'd not ask her to see you to-night,” she was
advising him. “The poor girl seems completely fagged out. She tries
to do as much about the house as usual, but it seems to tire her
more. Then she doesn't eat heartily, and I hear her constantly
sighing.”
“Ah, I see,” Hillhouse said, despondently. “Yes,” the old woman
pursued, “I suppose if you finally get her to marry you, you'll have to
put up with the memory that she did have a young girl's fancy for
that man, Brother Hillhouse. But she wasn't the only one. The girls
all liked him, and he did show a preference for her.”
“Has she—has she heard the latest news—the very latest?”
Hillhouse asked, anxiously. “Has she heard the report that Henry A.
Floyd told Mr. Mayhew he had met Nelson and revealed that awful
news about his parentage?”
“Oh yes; Mrs. Snodgrass came in with that report this morning.
She knew as well as anything that Cynthia was excited, and yet she
sat in the parlor and went over and over the worst parts of it,
watching the girl like a hawk. Cynthia got up and left the room. She
was white as death and looked like she would faint. Mrs. Snodgrass
hinted at deliberate suicide. She declared a young man as proud and
high-strung as Nelson Floyd would resort to that the first thing. She
said she wouldn't blame him one bit after all he's suffered. Well, just
think of it, Brother Hillhouse! Did you ever hear of anybody being
treated worse? He's been tossed and kicked about all his life,
constantly afraid that he wasn't quite as respectable as other folks.
And then all at once he was taken up and congratulated by the
wealth and blood around him on his high stand—and then finally had
to have this last discovery rammed in his face. Why, that's enough to
drive any proud spirit to desperation! I don't blame him for getting
drunk. I don't blame him, either, for not wanting to come back to be
snubbed by those folks. But what I do want is fer him not to drag
me and mine into his trouble. When my girl marries, I want her to
marry some man that will be good to her, and I want him to have
decent social standing. Even if Floyd's alive, if I can help it, Cynthia
shall never marry him—never!”
“Does Miss Cynthia believe,” ventured the preacher, “that Floyd
has killed himself?”
“I don't think she believes that, quite,” was Mrs. Porter's reply;
“but she doesn't seem to think he'll ever come back to Springtown.
Don't you worry, Brother Hillhouse. She'll get over this shock after a
while, and then she'll appreciate your worth and constancy. If I were
you, I'd not press my claim right now.”
“Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing!” Hillhouse stroked a sort of
glowing resignation into his chin, upon which a two-days beard had
made a ragged appearance. “I've been awfully miserable, Sister
Porter, but this talk with you has raised my hopes.” Mrs. Porter rose
with a faint smile. “Now, you go home and write another good
sermon like that last one. I watched Cynthia out of the corner of my
eye all through it. That idea of its being our duty to bear our
burdens cheerfully—no matter how heavy they are—seemed to do
her a lot of good.” The color came into Hillhouse's thin face, and his
eyes shone. “The sermon I have in mind for next Sunday is on the
same general line,” he said. “I'm glad she listened. I was talking
straight at her, Sister Porter. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've been
unable to think of anything but her since—since Floyd disappeared.”
“You are a good man, Brother Hillhouse”—Mrs. Porter was giving
him her hand—“and somehow I feel like you will get all you want, in
due time, remember—in due time.”
“God bless you, sister,” Hillhouse said, earnestly, and, pressing the
old woman's hand, he turned away.
 XXX

W
HEN Cynthia heard the gate close behind the preacher, and
from the window of her room had seen him striding away,
she put a shawl over her shoulder and started out.
“Where on earth are you going?” her mother asked from the end
of the porch, where she stood among the honeysuckle vines.
“I want to run across to Mrs. Baker's, just a minute,” Cynthia said.
“I won't be long. I'll come right back.”
“I'd think you'd be afraid to do that,” her mother protested, “with
so many stray negroes about. Besides, it's the Bakers' bedtime. Can't
you wait till to-morrow?”
“No, I want to walk, anyway,” said Cynthia. “I feel as if it will do
me good. I'm not afraid.”
“Well, I sha'n't go to bed till you come back,” Mrs. Porter gave in.
In a few minutes the girl was at the back-yard fence of Pole
Baker's cottage. The door was open wide, and in the firelight
Cynthia saw Mrs. Baker bending over the dining-room table.
“Oh, Mrs. Baker!” the girl called, softly.
“Who's that? Oh, it's you, Cynthia!” and the older woman came
out into the moonlight, brushing her white apron with her hand. She
leaned over the fence. “Won't you come in?”
“No, I promised mother I'd be right back. I thought maybe you
could tell me if Mr. Baker had heard anything yet.”
“I'm sorry to say he hain't,” replied the little woman, sadly. “Him
and Mr. Mayhew has been working all sorts of ways, and writing
constant letters to detectives and the mayors of different cities, but
everything has failed. He came in just now looking plumb
downhearted.”
 Cynthia took a deep breath. Her lips quivered as if she had started
to speak and failed.
“But, la me! I haven't give up,” Mrs. Baker said, in a tone of forced
lightness. “He'll come home all safe and sound one of these days,
Cynthia. I have an idea that he's just mad at his ill-luck all round,
and, right now, doesn't care what folks about here think. He'll git
over all that in due time and come back and face his trouble like
other men have done. It's a bitter pill fer a proud young man to
swallow, but a body kin git used to most anything in time.”
“I'm afraid he's never coming home,” Cynthia said, in rigid
calmness. “He once told me if he ever had any great trouble he
would be tempted to drink again. Mr. Baker thinks he's been
drinking, and in that condition there is no telling what has happened
to him.”
“Well, let me tell you some'n'—let me give you a piece of sound
advice,” said Mrs. Baker. “It's unaxed; but I'm a sufferin' woman, an'
I'm a-goin' to advise you as I see fit, ef you never speak to me ag'in.
Ef whiskey is keepin' Nelson Floyd away, an' he does come back an'
wants to marry you, don't you take 'im. Tear 'im from yore young
heart 'fore the roots o' yore love git too big an' strong to pull out. It
may not be whiskey that's keepin' 'im away. He may 'a' taken a dram
or two at the start an' be livin' sober somewhar now; or, then ag'in,
as you say, some'n' may 'a' happened to 'im; but, anyhow, don't you
resk livin' with 'im, not ef he has all the money on earth. Money
won't stick to a drinkin' man no longer than the effects of a dram,
an' in the mind of sech a fellow good intentions don't amount to no
more than a swarm o' insects that are born an' die in a day. Of
course, some men do reform. I'm prayin' right now that the awful
thing that happened t'other night to Pole will be his tumin'-p'int, but
I dunno. I'll walk on thin ice over a lake o' fire till I kin see furder. Be
that as it may, Cynthia, I can't stand by an' see another unsuspectin'
woman start in on the road I've travelled—no, siree!”
“I think you are exactly right,” Cynthia said, under her breath, and
then she sighed deeply. “Well, good-night. I must go.” She was
turning away, when Mrs. Baker called to her.
 “Stop, Cynthia!” she said. “You ain't mad at me, are you?”
“Not a bit in the world,” Cynthia answered. “In fact, I'm grateful
for your advice. I may never have a choice in such a matter, but I
know you mean it for my own good.”
As Cynthia entered the gate at home, her mother rose from a
chair on the porch. “Now I can go to bed,” she remarked. “I have
been awfully uneasy, almost expecting to hear you scream out from
that lonely meadow.”
“There was nothing to be afraid of, mother,” and Cynthia passed
on to her own room. She closed the door and lighted her lamp, and
then took her Bible from the top drawer of her bureau and sat down
at her table and began to read it. She read chapter after chapter
mechanically, her despondent eyes doing work which never reached
her throbbing brain. Presently she realized this and closed the book.
Rising, she went to her window and looked across the grass-grown
triangle to her mother's window. It was dark. All the other windows
were so, too. The house was wrapped in slumber. She heard the
clock strike nine. Really she must go to bed, and yet she knew she
would not sleep, and the thought of the long, conscious hours till
daybreak caused her to shudder.
Perhaps twenty minutes had passed since the clock struck, when a
sound suddenly fell upon her ears that thrilled every muscle in her
body. It was the far-off call of a whippoorwill! Was it the cry of the
real bird or an imitation—his imitation? She stood like a thing of
stone, straining her ears for its repetition. There! There it was again,
and nearer, clearer, more appealing. Ah, no creature of mere
feathers and flesh could have uttered that tentative, soulful note! It
was Nelson Floyd alive!—alive and wanting her—her first of all!
Standing before her mirror, she tried to tie up her hair, which had
fallen loose upon her shoulders, but her hands refused to do their
office. Without a second's deliberation she sprang to her door,
opened it, and ran on to the outer one. Passing through this, she
glided across the porch and softly sped over the grass in the
direction of the sound. She heard it again, in startling shrillness, and
then, in the clear moonlight, she saw Floyd standing in front of the
grape-arbor. As she drew near her heart stood still at the sight of the
change which had come on him. It lay like the tracing of Death's
pencil on his brow, in his emaciated features and loosely fitting,
soiled, and unpressed clothing. For the first time in her life she
yielded herself without resistance to his out-stretched arms. With no
effort to prevent it, she allowed him to press his lips to hers.
Childlike, and as if in fear of losing him again, she slid her arm round
his neck and drew him tightly to her. Neither uttered a word. Thus
they remained for a moment, and then he led her into the arbor and
they sat down together, his arm still about her body, her head on his
breast. He was first to speak.
“I was so afraid you'd not come,” he panted, as if he had been
walking fast. “Have you heard of my trouble?” he went on, his voice
sounding strange and altered.
She nodded on his breast, not wanting to see the pain she knew
was mirrored in his face.
“Oh no, surely you haven't—that is, not—not what I learned in
Atlanta about my—my mother and father?”
Again she nodded, pressing her brow upward against his chin in a
mute action of consolation and sympathy.
He sighed. “I didn't think anybody knew that,” he said. “That is,
anybody up here.”
“Mr. Mayhew went down and saw your uncle,” Cynthia found voice
to say, finally.
“Don't call him my uncle—he's not that, except as hell gives men
relatives. But I don't want to speak of him. The memory of his ashy
face, glittering eyes, and triumphant tone as he hurled those facts at
me is like a horrible nightmare. I'm not here to deny a thing, little
girl. I came to let you see me just as I am. I fell very low. No one
knows I'm here. I passed through Darley without meeting a soul I
knew and walked all the way here, dodging off the road when I
heard the sound of hoofs or wheels. I've come to you, Cynthia—only
you. You are the only one out of this part of my life that I ever want
to see again. I am not going to hide anything. After that revelation
in Atlanta I sank as low as a brute. I drank and lost my head. I spent
several days in New Orleans more like a demon than a human being
—among gamblers, thieves, and cutthroats. Two of my companions
confessed to me that they were escaped convicts put in for murder. I
went on to Havana and came back again to New Orleans. Yesterday
I reached Atlanta. I learned that the police had been trying to find
me, and hid out. Last night, Cynthia, I was drunk again; but this
morning I woke up with a longing to throw it all off, to be a man
once more, and while I was thinking about it a thought came to me
like a flash of light from heaven thrown clear across the black waste
of hell. The thought came to me that, although I am a nobody (that
name has never passed my lips since I learned it was not my own)—
the thought came to me, I say, that there was one single and only
chance for me to return to manhood and obtain earthly happiness.
Do you follow me, dearest?”
She raised her head and looked into his great, staring eyes.
“Not quite, Nelson,” she said, softly. “Not quite.”
“You see, I recalled that you, too, are not happy here at home,
and, as in my case, through no fault of your own—no fault, except
being born different from others around you. I remembered all you'd
told me about your mother's suspicious, exacting nature, and how
hard you worked at home, and how little real joy you got out of life,
and then it came to me that we both had as much right to happiness
as any one else—you for your hard life and I for all that I'd suffered.
So I stopped drinking. I have not touched a drop to-day, although a
doctor down there said I really needed a stimulant. You can see how
nervous I am. I shake all over. But I am stimulated by hope—that's
it, Cynthia—hope! I've come to tell you that you can make a man of
me—that you have it in your power to blot out all my trouble.”
“I don't see how, Nelson.” Cynthia raised her head and looked into
his shadowy face wonderingly.
“I've come here to ask you to leave this spot with me forever. I've
got unlimited means. Even since I've been away my iron lands in
Alabama and coal lands in Tennessee have sprung up marvellously in
value. This business here at the store is a mere trifle compared to
other investments of mine. We could go far away where no one
knows of my misfortune, and, hand-in-hand, make us a new home
and new friends. Oh, Cynthia, that holds out such dazzling promise
to me that, honestly, all the other fades away in contrast to it. Just
to think, you'll be all mine, all mine—alone with me in the wide, wide
world! I have no legal name to give you, it's true, but”—he laughed
harshly—“we could put our heads together and pick a pretty one,
and call ourselves by it. I once knew a man who was a foundling,
and because they picked him up early in the morning he was called
'Early.' That wouldn't sound bad, would it? Mr. and Mrs. Early, from
nowhere, but nice, good people. What do you say, little girl? It all
rests with you now. You are to decide whether I rise or sink back
again, for God knows I don't see how I could possibly give you up. I
have not acted right with you all along in not declaring my love
sooner, but I hardly knew my mind. It was not till that night at the
mill that I began to realize how dear you were to me, but it was
such a wonderful awakening that I did not speak of it as I should.
But why don't you say something, Cynthia? Surely you don't love any
one else—”
She drew herself quite from his embrace, but, still clasping one of
his hands like an eager child, she said:
“Nelson, I don't believe I'm foolish and impetuous like some girls I
know. You are asking me to take the most important step in a
woman's life, and I cannot decide hastily. You have been drinking,
Nelson, you acknowledge that frankly. In fact, I would have known it
anyway, for you are not like you used to be—even your voice has
altered. Nelson, a man who will give way to whiskey even in great
trouble is not absolutely a safe man. I'm unhappy, I'll admit it. I've
suffered since you disappeared as I never dreamed a woman could
suffer, and yet—and yet what you propose seems a very imprudent
thing to do. When did you want me to leave?”
“A week from to-night,” he said. “I can have everything ready by
then and will bring a horse and buggy. I'll leave them down below
the orchard and meet you right here. I'll whistle in the old way, and
you must come to me. For God's sake don't refuse. I promise to
grant any request you make. Not a single earthly wish of yours shall
ever go unsatisfied. I know I can make you happy.”
Cynthia was silent for a moment. She drew her hand from his
clasp. “I'll promise this much,” she said, in a low, firm voice. “I'll
promise to bring my decision here next Friday night. If I decide to
go, I suppose I'd better pack—”
“Only a very few things,” he interposed. “We shall stop in New
Orleans and you can get all you want. Oh, little girl, think of my
sheer delight over seeing you fairly loaded down with the beautiful
things you ought always to have had, and noting the wonder of
everybody over your rare beauty of face and form, and to know that
you are all mine, that you gave up everything for a nameless man!
You will not go back on me, dearest? You won't do it, after all I've
been through?”
Cynthia was silent after this burst of feeling, and he put his arm
around her and drew her, slightly resisting, into his embrace.
“What is troubling you, darling?” he asked, tenderly.
“I'm worried about your drinking,” she faltered. “I've seen more
misery come from that habit than anything else in the world.”
“But I swear to you that not another drop shall ever pass my lips,”
he said. “Why, darling, even with no promise to you to hold me
back, I voluntarily did without it to-day, when right now my whole
system is crying out for it and almost driving me mad. If I could do
that of my own accord, don't you see I could let it alone forever for
your sake?”
“But”—Cynthia raised her eyes to his—“between now and—and
next Friday night, will you—”
“I shall be as sober as a judge when I come,” he laughed,
absorbing hope from her question. “I shall come to you with the
clearest head I ever had—the clearest head and the lightest heart,
little girl, for we are going out together into a great, mysterious,
dazzling world. You will not refuse me? You are sent to me to repay
me for all I've been through. That's the way Providence acts. It
brings us through misery and shadows out into joy and light. My
shadows have been dark, but my light—great God, did mortal ever
enter light such as ours will be!”
“Well, I'll decide by next Friday night,” Cynthia said; “that's all I
can promise now. It is a most important matter and I shall give it a
great deal of thought. I see the way you look at it.”
“But, Cynthia,” he cautioned her, “don't tell a soul that I've been
here. They think I'm dead; let them continue to do so. Friday night
just leave a note saying that you have gone off with me and that
you will write the particulars later. But we won't write till we have
put a good many miles behind us. Your mother' will raise a lot of
fuss, but we can't help that.”
“I shall not mention it to any one,” the girl agreed, and she rose
and stood before him, half turned to go.
“Then kiss me, dearest,” he pleaded, seizing her hands and
holding them tight—“kiss me of your own accord; you know you
never have done that, not even once, since I've known you.”
“No; don't ask me to do that,” she said, firmly, “for that would be
absolute consent, and I tell you, Nelson, frankly, I have not yet fully
decided. You must not build on it too much.”
“Oh, don't talk that way, darling. Don't let me carry a horrible
doubt for a whole week. Do say something that will keep up my
hopes.”
“All I can say is that I'll decide by Friday night,” she repeated.
“And if I go I shall be ready. Good-night, Nelson; I can't stay out
longer.” He walked with her as far as he could safely do so in the
direction of the farm-house, and then they parted without further
words.
“She'll go—the dear little thing,” he said to himself,
enthusiastically, as he walked through the orchard. When he had
climbed over the fence he paused, looked back, and shrugged his
shoulders. An unpleasant thrill passed over him. It was the very spot
on which he had met Pole Baker that night and had been so soundly
reprimanded for his indiscretion in quitting Nathan Porter's premises
in such a stealthy manner.
Suddenly Floyd pressed his hand to his waistcoat-pocket and drew
out a tiny object that glittered in the moonlight. “The engagement
ring!” he exclaimed, in a tone of deep disappointment; “and I forgot
to give it to her. What a fool I was, when she's never had a diamond
in her life! Well”—he looked hesitatingly towards the farm-house—“it
wouldn't do to call her back now. I'll keep it till Friday night. Like an
idiot, I forgot, too, in my excitement, to tell her where we are to be
married—that is, if she will go; but she won't desert me—I can trust
her. She will be my wife—my wife!”
 XXXI

T
HE next morning, after breakfast, Mrs. Porter told her husband
to harness the horse and hitch him to the buggy. “I've got
some butter ready to sell,” she explained, “and some few
things to buy.”
“You'll gain lots by it,” Nathan sneered, as he reluctantly
proceeded to do her bidding. “In the fust place it will take yore time
fer half a day, the hoss's time fer half a day, an' the wear an' tear on
the buggy will amount to more than all you git fer the butter. But
that's the way women calculate. They can't see an inch 'fore the'r
noses.”
“I can see far enough before mine to hear you grumbling at dinner
about the coffee being out,” she threw back at him; “something you,
with all your foresight, forgot yesterday.”
“Huh, I reckon the old lady did hit me that pop!” Nathan admitted
to himself as he walked away. “Fust thing I know I'll not be able to
open my mouth—women are gittin' so dern quick on the trigger—
an', by gum, I did forgit that coffee, as necessary as the stuff is to
my comfort.”
When Porter brought the horse and buggy around a few minutes
later his wife was ready on the porch with her pail of neatly packed
butter. Cynthia came to the door, but her mother only glanced at her
coldly as she took up her pail and climbed into the vehicle and
grasped the reins.
Reaching Mayhew & Floyd's store, she went in and showed the
butter to Joe Peters, who stood behind one of the counters.
“I want eighteen cents a pound,” she said. “If towns-people won't
pay it, they can't eat my butter. Butter for less than that is white and
puffy and full of whey.”
 “What did you want in exchange for it, Mrs. Porter?” the clerk
asked. “In trade, you know, we do better than for cash.”
“I want its worth in coffee,” she said, “that's all.”
“We'll take it, then, and be glad to get it,” Peters said, and he put
the firm, yellow lumps on the scales, made a calculation with a
pencil on a piece of wrapping-paper, and began to put up the coffee.
Meanwhile, she looked about her. Mayhew sat at a table in the rear.
The light from a window beyond him, falling on his gray head, made
it look like a bunch of cotton.
“I reckon he's keeping his own books now that Nelson Floyd's
away?” she said, interrogatively, to the busy clerk.
“A body mought call it book-keepin',” Peters laughed, “but it's all I
can do to make out his scratchin'. He writes an awful fist. The truth
is, we are terribly upset by Floyd's absence, Mrs. Porter. His friends—
folks that like 'im—come fer forty miles, clean across the Tennessee
line, to trade with him, and when they don't see him about they go
on with empty wagons to Darley. It's mighty nigh runnin' the old
man crazy. He sees now who was butterin' his bread. Ef Nelson was
to come back now the old cuss 'ud dress 'im out in purple an' fine
linen an' keep 'im in a glass case.”
“Do you expect Floyd to come back?” Mrs. Porter was putting the
damp napkin back into her empty pail. Indifference lay in her face
and voice but had not reached her nervous fingers.
“Mrs. Porter”—Peters spoke lower. He came around the counter
and joined her on the threshold of the door—“I'm a-goin' to let you
on to some'n' that I'm afeard to tell even the old man. The Lord
knows I wouldn't have Mrs. Snodgrass an' her team git hold of it fer
the world. You see, ef I was to talk too much I mought lose my job.
Anyway, I don't want to express an opinion jest on bare suspicion,
but I know you've got a silent tongue in yore head, an' I think I
know, too, why yo're interested, an' I'm in sympathy with you an'—
an' Miss—an' with all concerned, Mrs. Porter.”
“You said you were going to tell me something,” the old woman
reminded him, her glance on the court-house across the street, her
voice tense, probing, and somewhat resentful of his untactful
reference to Cynthia.
“I'm a-goin' to tell you this much,” said Peters, “but it's in strict
confidence, Mrs. Porter. Thar has been a lot o' letters fer Floyd on all
sorts o' business affairs accumulatin' here. Mayhew's been openin'
'em all an' keepin' 'em in a stack in a certain pigeon-hole of the
desk. Now, I seed them letters thar jest last night when I closed the
store, an' this mornin' early, when I opened up an' was sweepin' out,
I missed 'em.”
“Ah, I see!” exclaimed Mrs. Porter, impulsively. “Well, ef you do,
you see more'n me,” Peters went on, “fer I don't know how it
happened. It's bothered me all day. You see, I can't talk to the old
man about it, fer maybe he come down here some time last night
an' got 'em fer some purpose or other. An' then ag'in—well, thar is
jest three keys to the house, Mrs. Porter, the one the old man has,
the one I tote, an' the one Nelson Floyd tuck off with 'im.”
“So you have an idea that maybe—”
“I hain't no idea about it, I tell you, Mrs. Porter, unless—unless
Nelson Floyd come back here last night an' come in the store an' got
his mail.”
“Ah, you think he may be back?”
“I don't know that he is, you understand, but I'm a-goin' to hope
that he ain't dead, Mrs. Porter. Ef thar ever was a man I loved—that
is to say, downright loved—it was Nelson Floyd. La me! I could stand
here from now till sundown an' not git through tellin' you the things
he's done in my behalf. You remember—jest to mention one—that
mother had to be tuck to Atlanta to Dr. Winston to have a cancer cut
out. Well, she had no means, an' I didn't, an' we was in an awful
plight—her jest cryin' an' takin' on day an' night in the fear o' death.
Well, Nelson got onto it. He drawed me off behind the store one day
—as white as a sheet, bless your soul! fer it mighty nigh scared the
boy to death to be ketched at his good acts—an' he up an' told me
he was goin' to pay the whole bill, but that I mustn't tell nobody, an'
I wouldn't tell you now ef mean reports wasn't out agin 'im. I hardly
knowed what to do, fer I didn't want to be beholden to 'im to sech a
great extent, but he made me take the money, an', as you know,
mother got well ag'in. Then what did he do but raise my wages
away up higher than any clerk in this part o' the state gits. That
mighty nigh caused a split betwixt him an' the old man, but Nelson
had his way. I tried to pay some on the debt, but he wouldn't take it.
He wouldn't even let me give 'im my note; he'd always laugh an'
turn it off, an' of late it sorter made 'im mad, an' I simply had to quit
talkin' about it.”
“He had his good side.” Mrs. Porter yielded the point significantly.
“I never denied that. But a man that does good deeds half the time
and bad half the time gets a chance to do a sort of evil that men
with worse reputations don't run across.” Mrs. Porter moved away
towards her buggy, and then she came back, and, looking him
straight in the eye, she said, “I hardly think, Joe, the fact that those
letters are missing proves that Nelson Floyd was here last night.”
“You don't think so, Mrs. Porter?” Peters' face fell.
“No; Mr. Mayhew no doubt took them to look over. I understand
he and Pole Baker are trying to get track of Floyd. You see, they may
have hoped to get some clew from the letters.”
“That's a fact, Mrs. Porter,” and, grown quite thoughtful, the clerk
was silent as he helped her into her buggy.
“Huh!” she said to herself, as she started off.
“Floyd's done a lot o' good deeds, has he? I've known men to act
like angels to set their consciences at rest after conduct that would
make the bad place itself turn pink in shame. I know your kind,
Nelson Floyd, and a little of you goes a long way.”
 XXXII

M
RS. PORTER drove down the village street between the rows
of scattered houses till she arrived at a modest cottage with
a white paling fence in front and a few stunted flowers. Here
she alighted. There was a hitching-post, with an old horseshoe
nailed near the top for a hook, and, throwing the reins over it, she
went into the yard. Some one came to a window and parted the
curtains. It was Hillhouse. He turned and stepped quickly to the
door, a startled expression of inquiry on his face.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Really, I wasn't looking for anybody
to drop in so early in the day; and this is the first time you've ever
called, Sister Porter.”
With a cold nod she walked past him into the little white-walled,
carpetless hall.
“You've got a parlor, haven't you?” she asked, cautiously looking
around.
“Oh yes; excuse me,” he stammered, and he awkwardly opened a
door on the right. “Walk in, walk in. I'm awfully rattled this morning.
Seeing you so sudden made me—”
“I hope the Marshall family across the street weren't watching as I
got out,” she broke in, as she preceded him into the parlor. “People
talk so much here, and I wanted to see you privately. Let a woman
with a grown daughter go to an unmarried preacher's house and you
never hear the last of it.”
She sat down in a rocking-chair and looked about her, he thought,
with an expression of subdued excitement. The room was most
simply furnished. On the floor lay a rag carpet, with rugs of the
same material. A cottage organ stood in one corner, and a round,
marble-topped table in the centre of the room held a lamp and a
plush-covered album. On the white walls hung family portraits,
black-and-white enlarged photographs. The window looking towards
the street had a green shade and white, stiffly starched lace
curtains..
“Your mother and sister—are they in the house?” Mrs. Porter
asked.
“No,” he answered, standing in front of her. “They went over to
McGill's as soon as breakfast was finished. You know their little boy
got kicked by a mule yesterday.”
“Yes, I heard so, and I'm glad they are not here—though you'd
better tell them I came. If you don't, and the Marshalls happen to
mention it to them, they might think it strange.”
“You wanted to see me alone, then?” Hillhouse put out his stiff,
tentative hand and drew a chair to him and sat down in it.
“Yes, I'm in trouble—great, great trouble,” the old woman said,
her steely glance on his face; “and to tell you the truth, I don't see
how I'm going to get around it. I couldn't mention it to any one else
but you, not even Nathan nor mother. In fact, you ought to know,
for it's bound to worry you, too.”
“Oh, Sister Porter, what is it? Don't keep me waiting. I knew you
were in some trouble when I saw your face as you came in at the
gate. Is it about—”
“Of course it's about Cynthia,” sighed the woman—“about her and
Nelson Floyd.”
“He's dead, and she—” Hillhouse began, but Mrs. Porter stopped
him.
“No, that isn't it,” she went on. “He's alive. He's back here.”
“Oh, is that so?” Hillhouse leaned forward, his face white, his thin
lips quivering.
“Yes, I'll tell you about it,” went on Mrs. Porter. “Of late I've been
unable to sleep for thinking of Cynthia and her actions, she's seemed
so reckless and despondent, and last night I left my bed and started
to creep in and see if she was asleep. I had on soft slippers and