Creole beauties, negroes, planters, roughs, gamblers, passed me.  The streets were noisy with trucks.  The air was hot and lifeless.  The scene about me suspired like the brilliant and deadly scales of a poisonous reptile.  I was sick at heart.  I was overcome with terrible loneliness.  I was in love with Dorothy and I was Zoe’s brother.  I was caught in this great dramatic ordeal of America without any fault on my part.  What should I do?  Yes, my ambition.  To get rich.  That was labor enough.  And there was my farm back in Illinois.  Why was I here after all?  Was it some dream?  I would wake myself.  I would return to my place, my duty.  What else could I do?  I went to the wharf to find a boat to St. Louis.

CHAPTER XIX

I was listless all the way home.  Passing through Jacksonville I seemed to sense a coldness in the manner of some of the people.  Even where there was a smile and a bow, to which I could take no exception, I interpreted an attitude which said:  “The Englishman:  the fellow who killed Lamborn.”

Was the town dividing as to me?  I was sure of Reverdy and Sarah, and Douglas, and the president of the college and his wife, and some others; but for the rest I suspected that envy had seized upon a pretext for its exercise.  For I was rich; I had availed myself of mowers and all the new machinery for farming and I was a competitor, a man possibly growing more and more in the way.  My reception in many quarters seemed distant.

I went directly to the farm.  There was my house which I had built with many hopes.  There was the hearth to which I longed to bring a wife.  But here it was, only for me, for my habitation and rest from labors in the ambition to be rich!  Mrs. Brown opened the door and welcomed me with a diffidence.  “Where is Zoe?” I asked.  Mrs. Brown replied quickly:  “Zoe has not been seen nor heard of for more than a week.  I got up one morning, and as she didn’t appear I went and called her.  She was gone.  I saw Mr. Clayton about it.  The last I heard no one had seen her.”

My feelings were mixed of regret and relief.  I was fond of Zoe.  My sense of justice was enlisted in her behalf.  I was fearful for her future, both for the misfortune that might befall her and for the complications that might accrue to me in her living away from my guidance.  For there was Zoe’s property.  But on the other hand, if Zoe were completely out of my life I might win Dorothy.

I walked reflectively toward the fireplace.  Should I not write to Dorothy and tell her of Zoe’s disappearance?  For surely Zoe would not go away unless she meant to stay.  She had roving, adventurous blood in her, and an English will.  Could I rely upon the hope of her staying away, and that she would not figure in my life in the future except as to the land, the money?  Yes, here my hands were stuck as in honey.  And when could they be freed and cleaned of it?  While I was reflecting upon these things Mrs. Brown walked to the mantle and taking a letter from it handed it to me.  It was from Dorothy.