The tension was relieved by what seemed propriety on the stranger's part.
"I'll go away, then," he said. "I don't want to make the young lady cry. I sha'n't make you any trouble, ladies." He backed out to where Durgan stood on the verandah.
"Wait, I'll give you something," said Miss Smith. "You ought to have good food." She went to her desk, and came out giving him a folded bank-note.
"Thank you, ma'am. Good-day." He went on a few steps and looked back, as if expecting Durgan to conduct him off the premises.
"I'd be much obliged, sir, if you'd show me the short way—I'm weak, sir."
Durgan indicated the trail, and followed to make sure that the negro did not return through the bushes.
As they went, Durgan saw him unfold the bank-note and take from inside a slip of written paper.
The mulatto went steadily down the mountain, without so much as looking at the kitchen door, whence Eve was regarding him with eager interest.
Adam had been in the meadow at the time of this incident. When going down to the post-office on his regular evening errand, he stopped to ask Durgan if the "yaller boy" had any genuine errand. And on the way up he stopped again, with trouble in his eyes, to give the information that 'Dolphus was spending the night there, and had suggested staying in this salubrious spot for his health.
Durgan discovered that Adam and his own negro laborers regarded the sickly and tawdry New Yorker as a peculiarly handsome specimen of their race—quite the gentleman, and irresistibly attractive to any negress—and that they agreed in denouncing his looks and manners solely on account of the possibly vagrant affections of their own women.