She shook her head sorrowfully.
“You are tearing the anchors loose, one by one. Will nothing make you realize what you are doing?”
“What would you have me do? It has come to that, Richardia: I don’t care for anything else. A little further along, you may be another man’s wife, and I may be another woman’s husband; but it will make no difference——”
“Don’t!” she cried sharply; and then, before he could add another word, she had left him and was walking down the road to meet the tonneau party which was stringing along on its return to the car, with Carfax in the lead.
Tregarvon tramped moodily away when Carfax began to help his charges into the car, going back to the tangle which Tryon had finally contrived to straighten out. Taking over the command, he flung himself once more into the work, but the fine fire was gone, and when evening came and the machinery truck was left blocked at the roadside to wait for another day, he trudged back to Coalville at the tail of the mule cavalcade, sodden with weariness.
Carfax had not returned when Uncle William served dinner, and Tregarvon ate alone, morosely thankful for the solitude. Afterward he went directly to his room on the second floor; and Carfax, coming in a little after nine o’clock, had no chance to tell him of Thaxter’s visit and its probable object.
XX
Limitations
DAY following day in the conflict with steepness on the mountain road, Tregarvon toiled early and late, breakfasting before Carfax was visible, eating at midday out of a basket brought to the scene of the activities by Uncle William, and missing the golden youth two evenings in succession by reason of Carfax’s continued popularity at Highmount.
Such sacrifices to the morose deities of materialism bring their own revenges. By the Friday evening, when the new engine and boiler had been dragged painfully up the final ascent and had been halted for the night at a point nearly opposite the college campus, Tregarvon had become a bitter man-driver and was facing the consequences in a strike on the part of his farmer helpers.
John Teppenpaw, a husky young Wehatcheean from the farther side of the valley who had brought four of the best-pulling beasts to the job, was the first to raise the standard of revolt.