“Ugh!” he again exploded, as he pulled his bundles after him as he went through the door.
That night Gena Filson sat in her room alone and very quiet, after all the lights had winked out on the college campus. The bundles and boxes of candy and flowers were piled about untouched. She cared not a straw for candy and flowers now. Thoughts were surging about in her troubled mind, reaching out beyond such trivial things as candy and flowers. Moving over to her window, she could see the great oaks on the campus towering up in the moonlight. Only a few moments ago she had sat under one of those oaks and listened to the ejaculations and babblings of “Mr. Texas.” Yet she had heard but little of what he had said to her there. The while she had found herself continually trying to recall the meeting with Paul Waffington in the earlier part of the night in the college chapel. Even to this present moment she found herself unable to throw it off her mind. But Mr. Texas was gone now, so was Paul Waffington. Then suddenly she heard the lonely whistle of a locomotive coming through the still night air to her ears, and she knew that it was no other than the one that was carrying Paul Waffington back to his city home at lightning speed.
The happy faces that she had learned to know and love so well during the school year would separate on the morrow, each going back to home and friends. She, too, must go. Back to the hills and Blood Camp and to the little cabin upon the side of the mighty Snake Gena Filson would go. For a long time she stood at the open window and looked out into the night.
“Yes, I did very wrong not to thank him. I should have sent a note expressing my appreciation of the pretty gloves. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I?” she cried as she stood in the night, wringing her hands. Then hastily she laid a sheet of paper on the window sill and scribbled something upon it in the moonlight, folded it and laid it away in the little trunk.
The night was wearing away. Midnight had passed when she finally lit the tallow candle that she was accustomed to use in emergencies after the lights had gone out. Then began the packing and the other preparations for the going away on the morrow.
There were college colors and pennants to be taken down from the walls and carefully packed. There were trinkets and knots of ribbons, and pictures of dear chums that were taken from their places and packed away with care. Little paper fans, that were covered with scribblings of someone that told a story of a happy day. They were, indeed, souvenirs that told of that happy college life (a time in life with many without responsibility), souvenirs that tell the story of many a happy jaunt. By and by, the last thing was put into its place. The lid on the little old trunk refused to go down at first, but in the end yielding to pressure the key turned in the lock.
Gena Filson lay awake for a long time upon her pillow that night. But when the belated messenger of sleep did come to her, he found her tired and weary young mind pondering over the serious problem: If after all, in the end, should happiness or remorse be hers?
CHAPTER XII
Back to the Old Home and the Hills
Back to the noisy city and to hard work went Paul Waffington. He turned over to the paper on his desk and read the paragraph again. It was the column of local items from Tusculum College, of the week preceding the commencement of that institution that was absorbing his attention in the paper just now.
“Mr. L. Texas won the tennis pennant,” he read, “who in turn in a beautiful little ceremony presented it to his partner, Miss Gena Filson.” Still a little further down the column another paragraph attracted his attention. The paragraph ended by saying: “It was a beautiful affair. Those who stood together were —— and Miss Gena Filson and Mr. L. Texas.” He folded the paper and turned again to his work, with the firm belief in his heart that the man who tried for the hand of Gena Filson had an aggressive and formidable rival.