Mr. Gifford, awaiting his employer at the station, was outwardly serene but inwardly fearful. Would the great man whom he worshiped, of whose majesty he had so often boasted, step from that train a broken, humiliated wreck? Would he slink away from the curious crowd there gathered to watch his homecoming?
He did not. The Gifford apprehensions along that line were groundless. Foster Townsend, when he crossed the platform to the dog-cart, was, to all appearances, quite unchanged. He acknowledged the bows and good-days with his usual careless condescension. He greeted Varunas with the accustomed gruff “Hello!” He even insisted upon taking the reins himself and driving the span along the main road to the gate of the mansion. The “mud frogs” were disappointed.
And disappointed they continued to be, for a while at least. Little by little tales of changes in the Townsend régime began to circulate. It was said that all the trotting horses were to be sold, that already several large tracts of land belonging to Townsend in various parts of the town had been put up for sale. Captain Snow, on a visit to Boston, learned from his broker, a close friend of the senior partner in a firm handling the Townsend stock transactions, that bonds and shares amounting to many thousands of dollars had been turned into money for their former owner. The second maid at the big house had been given a month’s notice. These were the stories, and there were many more. No one could vouch for their truth in entirety. Townsend disclosed nothing. His stops at the post office were less frequent. He remained at home in the evenings. Sometimes callers came and with them, even the most loyal of friends and satellites, he was no more confidential than ever concerning his private affairs. How badly he was hit and how greatly his circumstances would be reduced by the loss of the famous suit no one learned from him. From Denboro, of course, came more news. Elisha Cook was a rich man now, although it was said that his lawyers would get much more than half of the sum awarded by the Court. He was triumphant, vaingloriously so, but his health was poor and people believed he would live but a few years to enjoy his sudden rise to affluence.
In all Harniss there was but one person whose calls at the big house, it was noticed, were frequent and appeared to be welcome. That person was Reliance Clark. Her first visit was made the afternoon of the day following Townsend’s return from Washington. She came by the path across the fields and knocked at the kitchen door. Nabby, who answered the knock, was surprised to see her—surprised and not too cordial. In Nabby’s mind Reliance was associated with Esther’s desertion of her uncle and the humiliating elopement with the grandson of the loathed Elisha Cook. Mrs. Clifford, like many another female, old or young, in Harniss, had never quite forgotten the charming personality of young Mr. Covell. She had hinted and prophesied much, at sewing-circle or after prayer-meeting, concerning the match to be made between him and the Townsend niece. Since the night of the runaway marriage her lot, that of false prophet, had been unpleasant. The innuendoes and sly taunts from friends and acquaintances were hard to bear. Her husband had been particularly irritating on the subject. It was in Reliance’s sitting-room that the marriage had taken place and Nabby was convinced that she was largely responsible for the family disgrace. And now, with every tongue in the county clacking over the new thunderbolt which had struck the house of Townsend, for this woman to appear at its door, demanding to see its owner, was nothing short of brazen.
“Yes, he is in,” she admitted, reluctantly, “but I don’t believe he’ll want to see you. He don’t want to see anybody. I guess likely you’d better come some other time.”
She would have closed the door, but Reliance calmly pushed it open and entered the kitchen.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“He’s in the library, I suppose; at least he was there last time I looked. But he won’t want to see you, I tell you. Why, look at the folks—the kind of folks—that’s been here to-day. Cap’n Snow—and he wouldn’t see him. And Mr. Colton, the minister of his own church, and he wouldn’t even see him. Do you suppose likely if he turned that kind of folks away he’ll want to see—well—anybody?... Why, where are you goin’? Didn’t you hear what I said?”
Reliance had heard but she paid no attention. She walked calmly from the kitchen to the dining room. Nabby, after a moment of petrified resentment, ran after her and reached the library first.
“Cap’n Foster,” she cried, breathlessly, “there’s somebody here to see you. It ain’t my fault. I told ’em you didn’t want to see anybody. I said those very words. They’d ought to have been enough, I should think.”