He lay thus debating what he should do, sometimes almost resolved to renounce his scruples and endeavor to win Isa, sometimes bravely determined to leave with Gray in the morning, never to come back to Metropolisville again. Sleep was not encouraged by the fact that Westcott occupied the bed on the other side of a thin board partition. He could hear him in that pitiful state of half-delirium that so often succeeds a spree, and that just touches upon the verge of mania-à-potu.
"So he's out, is he?" Charlton heard him say. "How the devil did he get out? Must a swum out, by George! That's the only way. Now her face is goin' to come. Always does come when I feel this way. There she is! Go 'way! What do you want? What do you look at me for? What makes you look that way? I can't help it. I didn't drown you. I had to get out some way. What do you call Albert for? Albert's gone to penitentiary. He can't save you. Don't look that way! If you're goin' to drown, why don't you do it and be done with it? Hey? You will keep bobbin' up and down there all night and staring at me like the devil all the time! I couldn't help it. I didn't want to shake you off. I would 'ave gone down myself if I hadn't. There now, let go! Pullin' me down again! Let go! If you don't let go, Katy, I'll have to shake you off. I couldn't help it. What made you love me so? You needn't have been a fool. Why didn't somebody tell you about Nelly? If you'd heard about Nelly, you wouldn't have—oh! the devil! I knew it! There's Nelly's face coming. That's the worst of all. What does she come for? She a'n't dead. Here, somebody! I want a match! Bring me a light!"
Whatever anger Albert may have had toward the poor fellow was all turned into pity after this night. Charlton felt as though he had been listening to the plaints of a damned soul, and moralized that it were better to go to prison for life than to carry about such memories as haunted the dreams of Westcott. And he felt that to allow his own attachment to Isa Marlay to lead to a marriage would involve him in guilt and entail a lifelong remorse. He must not bring his dishonor upon her. He determined to rise early and go over to Gray's new town, sell off his property, and then leave the Territory. But the Inhabitant was to leave at six o'clock, and Charlton, after his wakeful night, sank into a deep sleep at daybreak, and did not wake until half-past eight. When he came down to breakfast, Gray had been gone two hours and a half.
He sat around during the forenoon irresolute and of course unhappy. After a while decision came to him in the person of Mrs. Ferret, who called and asked for a private interview.
Albert led her into the parlor, for the parlor was always private enough on a pleasant day. Nobody cared to keep the company of a rusty box stove, a tattered hair-cloth sofa, six wooden chairs, and a discordant tinny piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with meekness even to Mrs. Ferret.
"Mr. Charlton, do you think you're acting just right—just as you would be done by—in paying attentions to Miss Marlay when you are just out of—of—the—penitentiary?"
Albert was angered by her way of putting it, and came near telling her that it was none of her business. But his conscience was on Mrs. Ferret's side.
"I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I called to see her as an old friend." Charlton spoke with some irritation, the more that he knew all the while he was not speaking with candor.
"Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to have your sister marry a man just out of—well, just—just as you are, just out of penitentiary, you know? I have heard remarks already about Miss Marlay—that she had refused a very excellent and talented preacher of the Gospill—you know who I mean—and was about to take up with—well, you know how people talk—with a man just out of the—out of the penitentiary—you know. A jail-bird is what they said. You know people will talk. And Miss Marlay is under my care, and I must do my duty as a Chrischen to her. And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her. You know the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be done by; and I wouldn't want a daughter of mine to marry a young man just—well—just out of—the—just out of the penitentiary, you know."
"Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss Marlay is not at all under your care, I have not proposed marriage to her, she is an old friend who was very kind to my mother and to me, and there is no harm in my seeing her when I please."