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Viola Gwyn, a novel by George Barr McCutcheon |
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Chapter 25. Minda Carter |
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_ CHAPTER XXV. MINDA CARTER Viola was alone on the porch when Kenneth came into view at the bend in the road. He had chuckled more than once after parting from the gambler; a mental vision of the inwardly agitated though outwardly bland Mr. Trentman making tracks as fast as his legs would carry him to warn Lapelle of his peril afforded him no small amount of satisfaction. If he knew his man,--and he thought he did,--Barry would lose no time in shaking the dust of Lafayette from his feet. The thought of that had sent his spirits up. He went even farther in his reflections and found himself hoping that Barry's flight might be so precipitous that he would not have the opportunity to disclose his newfound information concerning Rachel Carter. He was nearing his own gate before he saw Viola, seated on the porch. Involuntarily he slackened his pace. A sort of panic seized him. Was she waiting there to question him? He experienced a sudden overwhelming dismay. What was he to say to her? How was he to face the unhappy, stricken,--but even as he contemplated a cowardly retreat, she arose and came swiftly down the path. He groaned inwardly. There was no escape. Now, as he hesitated uncertainly at his own gate, his heart in his boots, she serenely beckoned to him. "I want to see you, Kenny," she called out. This was no stricken, unhappy creature who approached him. Her figure was proudly erect; she walked briskly; there was no trace of shame or humiliation in her face; if anything, she was far more at ease than he. "I want to thank you," she said calmly, "for what you did this morning. Not only for what you did to him but for keeping me from shooting him." She held out her hand, but lowered it instantly when she saw that his own was rather significantly hidden inside the breast of his coat. A look of pain fluttered across her eyes. "Where is your mother?" he asked lamely. She seemed to read his thoughts. "Mother and I have talked it all over, Kenneth. She has told me everything." "Oh, you poor darling!" he cried. "Don't waste any sympathy on me," she retorted, coldly. "I don't want it. Not from Robert Gwynne's son at any rate." He was now looking at her steadily. "I see. You don't care for the breed, is that it?" "Kenny," she began, a solemn note in her voice, "there is no reason why you and I should hurt each other. If I hurt you just now I am sorry. But I meant what I said. I do not want the pity of Robert Gwynne's son any more than you want to be pitied by the daughter of Rachel Carter. We stand on even terms. I just want you to know that my heart is as stout as yours and that my pride is as strong." He bowed his head. "All my life I have thought of my father as a Samson who was betrayed by a Delilah. I have never allowed myself to think of him as anything but great and strong and good. I grew to man's estate still believing him to be the victim of an evil woman. I am not in the ordinary sense a fool and yet I have been utterly without the power to reason. My eyes have been opened, Viola. I am seeing with a new vision. I have more to overlook, more to forgive in my father than you have in your mother. I speak plainly, because I hope this is to be the last time we ever touch upon the subject. You, at least, have grown up to know the enduring love of a mother. She did not leave you behind. She was not altogether heartless. That is all I can say, all I shall ever say, even to you, about my father." He spoke with such deep feeling and yet so simply that her heart was touched. A wistful look came into her eyes. "I am still bewildered by it all, Kenny," she said. "In the wink of an eye, everything is altered. I am not Viola Gwyn. I am Minda Carter. I am not your half-sister. You seem suddenly to have gone very far away from me. It hurts me to feel that we can never be the same toward each other that we were even this morning. I had come to care for you as a brother. Now you are a stranger. I--I loved being your sister and--and treating you as if you were my brother. Now all that is over." She sighed deeply. "Yes," he said gently, "all that is over for you, Viola. But I have known for many weeks that you are not my sister." "I bear no grudge against you," she said, meeting his gaze steadily. "My heart is bitter toward the man I have always looked upon as my father. But it does not contain one drop of bitterness toward you. What matters if I have walked in darkness and you in the light? We were treading the same path all the time. Now we meet and know each other for what we really are. The path is not wide enough for us to walk beside each other without our garments touching. Are we to turn back and walk the other way so that our unclean garments may not touch?" "For heaven's sake, Viola," he cried in pain, "what can have put such a thought into your head? Have I ever said or done anything to cause you to think I--" "You must not forget that you can walk by yourself, Kenny. Your father is dead. The world is kind enough to let the dead rest in peace. But it gives no quarter to the living. My mother walks with me, Kenneth Gwynne. The world, when it knows, will throw stones at her. That means it will have to throw stones at me. She did not abandon me. I shall not abandon her. She sinned,"--here her lip trembled,--"and she has been left to pay the penalty alone. It may sound strange to you, but my mother was also deserted by your father. God let him die, but I can't help feeling that it wasn't fair, it wasn't right for him to die and leave her to face this all alone." "And you want to know where I stand in the matter?" "It makes no difference, Kenny. I only want you to understand. I don't want to lose you as a friend,--I would like to have you stand up and take your share of the--" "And that is just what I intend to do," he broke in. "We occupy strange positions, Viola. We are,--shall I say birds of a feather? This had to come. Now that it has come and you know all that I know, are we to turn against each other because of what happened when we were babies? We have done no wrong. I love you, Viola,--I began loving you before I found out you were not my half-sister. I will love you all my life. Now you know where I stand." She looked straight into his eyes for a long time; in her own there was something that seemed to search his soul, something of wonder, something groping and intense as if her own soul was asking a grave, perplexing question. A faint, slow surge of colour stole into her face. "I must go in the house now," she said, a queer little flutter in her voice. "After dinner I am going down with mother to see Moll Hawk. If--if you mean all that you have just said, Kenny, why did you refuse to shake hands with me?" He withdrew his bruised right hand from its hiding-place. "It is an ugly thing to look at but I am proud of it," he said. "I would give it for you a thousand times over." "Oh, I'm--I'm sorry I misjudged you--" she cried out. Then both of her hands closed on the unsightly member and pressed it gently, tenderly. There was that in the touch of her firm, strong fingers that sent an ecstatic shock racing into every fibre in his body. "I will never question that hand again, Kenny," she said, and then, releasing it, she turned and walked rapidly away. He stood watching her until she ran nimbly up the porch steps and disappeared inside the house. Whereupon he lifted the swollen but now blessed knuckles to his lips and sighed profoundly. "Something tells me she still loves Barry, in spite of everything," he muttered, suddenly immersed in gloom. "Women stick through thick and thin. If they once love a man they never--" "Dinner's ready, Marse Kenneth," announced Zachariah from the door-step. _ |
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