She flung out an arm dramatically, pointing down at the slight figure of a man coming toward them, slowly toiling up the slope of the valley.
“There he is,” she cried. “Your artist-patient. Your dypsomaniac rancher. A symbol, a symbol of the bonds which are crushing the brave spirits of our – ahem! – young hearts.”
But Kate ignored the approaching man. She had eyes only for the bright face before her.
“You’re a great child,” she declared warmly. “I ought to be angry. I ought to be just mad with you. I believe I really am. But – but the cabbage business has broken up the storm of my feelings. Cabbage? Oh, dear.” She laughed softly. “You, with your soft, wavy hair, dressed as though we had a New York hairdresser in the village. You, with your great gray eyes, your charming little nose and cupid mouth. You, with your beautiful new frock, only arrived from New York two days ago, and which, by the way, I don’t think you ought to wear sprawling upon dusty ground. You – a cabbage! It just robs all you’ve said of, I won’t say truth, but – sense. There, child, you’ve said your say. But you needn’t worry about me. I’m not changed – really. Maybe I do many things that seem strange to you, but – but – I know what I’m doing. Poor old Charlie. Look at him. I often wonder what’ll be the end of him.”
Kate Seton sighed. It seemed as though there were a great depth of motherly tenderness in her heart, and just now that tenderness was directed toward the man approaching them.
But the lighter-minded Helen was less easily stirred. She smiled amusedly in her sister’s direction. Then her bright eyes glanced swiftly down at the man.
“If all we hear is true, his end will be the penitentiary,” she declared with decision.
Kate glanced round quickly, and her eyes suddenly became quite hard.
“Penitentiary?” she questioned sharply.
Helen shrugged.
“Everybody says he’s the biggest whisky smuggler in the country, and – and his habits don’t make things look much – different. Say, Kate, O’Brien told me the other day that the police had him marked down. They were only waiting to get him – red-handed.”
The hardness abruptly died out of Kate’s eyes. A faint sigh, perhaps of relief, escaped her.
“They’ll never do that,” she declared firmly. “Everybody’s making a mistake about Charlie. I’m – sure. With all his failings Charlie’s no whisky-runner. He’s too gentle. He’s too – too honest to descend to such a traffic.”
Suddenly her eyes lit. She came close to Helen, and one firm hand grasped the soft flesh of the girl’s arm, and closed tightly upon it.
“Say, child,” she went on, in a deep, thrilling tone, “do you know what these whisky-runners risk? Do you? No. Of course you don’t. They risk life as well as liberty. They’re threatened every moment of their lives. The penalty is heavy, and when a man becomes a whisky-runner he has no intention of being taken – alive. Think of all that, and see where your imagination carries you. Then think of Charlie – as we know him. An artist. A warm-hearted, gentle creature, whose only sins are – against himself.”
But the younger girl’s face displayed skepticism.
“Yes – as we know him,” she replied quickly. “I’ve thought of it while he’s been giving me lessons in painting, when I’ve watched him with you, with that wonderful look of dog-like devotion in his eyes, while hanging on every word you uttered. I’ve thought of it all. And always running through my mind was the title of a book I once read – ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ You are sure, and I – I only wonder.”
Kate’s hand relaxed its hold upon her sister’s arm. Her whole expression changed with a suddenness which, had she observed it, must have startled the other. Her eyes were cold, very cold, as she surveyed the sister to whom she was so devoted, and who could find it in her heart to think so harshly of one whom she regarded as a sick and ailing creature, needing the utmost support from natures morally stronger than his own.
“You must think as you will, Helen,” she said coldly. “I know. I know Charlie. I understand the gentle heart that guides his every action, and I warn you you are wrong – utterly wrong. Everybody is wrong, the police – everybody.”
She turned away and moved a few steps down the slope toward the approaching figure.
CHAPTER VII
CHARLIE BRYANT
As Kate stood out from the shadow of the trees, the man approaching, looking up, beheld her, and his dark eyes gladdened with a smile of delight. His greeting came up to her on the still air in a tone thrilling with warmth and deep feeling.
“Ho, Kate,” he cried, in his deeply musical voice. “I saw you and Helen making this way, and guessed I’d just get around.”
He was breathing hard as he came up the hill, his slight figure was bending forward with the effort of his climb. Kate watched him, much as an anxious mother might watch, with doubtful eyes, some effort of her ailing child. He reached her level and stood breathing heavily before her.
“I was around watching the boys at work down there on the new church,” he went on. His handsome boyish face was flushing. The delicate, smooth, whiskerless skin was almost womanish in its texture, and betrayed almost every emotion stirring behind it. “Allan Dy came along with my mail. When I’d read it I felt I had to come and tell you the news right away. You see, I had to tell someone, and wanted you – two to be the first to hear it.”
Kate’s eyes were full of a smiling tender amusement at the ingenuousness of the man. Helen was looking on with less tenderness than amusement. He had not come to tell her the news – only Kate. The Kate whom she knew he worshipped, and who was the only rival in his life to his passionate craving for drink.
She surveyed the man now with searching eyes. What was it that inspired in her such mixed feeling? She knew she had a dislike and liking for him, all in the same moment. There was something fascinating about him. Yes, there certainly was. He was darkly handsome. Unusually so. He had big, soft, almost womanish eyes, full of passionate possibilities. The delicate moulding of his features was certainly beautiful. They were too delicate. Ah, that was it. They were womanish. Yes, he was womanish, and nothing womanish in a man could ever appeal to the essentially feminine heart of Helen. His figure was slight, but perfectly proportioned, and quite lacking in any suggestion of mannish strength. Again the thought of it brought Helen a feeling of repugnance. She hated effeminacy in a man. And yet, how could she associate effeminacy with a man of his known character? Was he not the most lawless of this lawless village? Then there was his outward seeming of gentleness. Yes, she had never known him otherwise, even in his moments of dreadful drunkenness, and she had witnessed those frequently enough during the past few years.
The whole personality of the man was an enigma to her. Nor was it altogether a pleasant enigma. She felt that somehow there was an ugly streak in him which her sister had utterly missed, and she only half guessed at. Furthermore, somehow in the back of her mind, she knew that she was not without fear of him.
In spite of Kate’s denial, when the man came under discussion between them, her conviction always remained. She knew she liked him, and she knew she disliked him. She knew she despised him, and she knew she feared him. And through it all she looked on with eyes of amusement at the absurd, dog-like devotion he yielded to her strong, reliant, big-hearted, handsome sister.
“What’s your news, Charlie?” she demanded, as Kate remained silent, waiting for him to continue. “Good, I’ll bet five dollars, or you wouldn’t come rushing to us.”
The man turned to her as though it were an effort to withdraw