HEARTS HYPOTHECATED

The next morning at the proper hour I started for the Sheraton mansion.  This time it was not my old horse Satan that I rode.  My mother told me that Satan had been given over under the blanket chattel mortgage, and sold at the town livery stable to some purchaser, whom she did not know, who had taken the horse out of the country.  I reflected bitterly upon the changes in my fortunes since the last time I rode this way.

At least I was not so much coward as to turn about.  So presently I rode up the little pitch from the trough road and pulled the gate latch with my riding crop.  And then, as though it were by appointment, precisely as I saw her that morning last spring—­a hundred years ago it seemed to me—­I saw Grace Sheraton coming down the walk toward me, tall, thin.  Alas! she did not fill my eye.  She was elegantly clad, as usual.  I had liefer seen dress of skins.  Her dainty boots clicked on the gravel.  A moccasin would not.

I threw my rein over the hook at the iron arm of the stone gate pillar and, hat in hand, I went to meet her.  I was an older man now.  I was done with roystering and fighting, and the kissing of country girls all across the land.  I did not prison Grace Sheraton against the stone gate pillar now, and kiss her against her will until she became willing.  All I did was to lift her hand and kiss her finger tips.

She was changed.  I felt that rather than saw it.  If anything, she was thinner, her face had a deeper olive tint, her eyes were darker.  Her expression was gay, feverish, yet not natural, as she approached.  What was it that sat upon her face—­melancholy, or fear, or sorrow, or resentment?  I was never very bright of mind.  I do not know.

“I am glad to see you,” she said to me at length, awkwardly.

“And I to see you, of course.”  I misdoubt we both lied.

“It is very sad, your home-coming thus,” she added; at which clue I caught gladly.

“Yes, matters could hardly be worse for us.”

“Your mother would not come to us.  We asked her.  We feel deeply mortified.  But now—­we hope you both will come.”

“We are beggars now, Miss Grace,” I said.  “I need time to look around, to hit upon some plan of life.  I must make another home for myself, and for—­”

“For me?” She faced me squarely now, eye to eye.  A smile was on her lips, and it seemed to me a bitter one, but I could not guess what was hidden in her mind.  I saw her cheek flush slowly, deeper than was usual with a Sheraton girl.

“For my wife, as soon as that may be,” I answered, as red as she.

“I learn that you did not see Colonel Meriwether,” she went on politely.

“How did you know it?”

“Through Captain Orme.”

“Yes,” said I, quietly, “I have heard of Captain Orme—­much of him—­very much.”  Still I could not read her face.

“He was with us a long time this summer,” she resumed, presently.  “Some two weeks ago he left, for Charleston, I think.  He has much business about the country.”