Moreton assured him that Reynolds would come home within a few days, and they parted.
White had been drinking some, but not enough to intoxicate him beyond a certain loosening of the tongue and a breaking of that crust of half-comical reserve which usually covers the Sand Mountain man. What he had said had affected Moreton peculiarly. As he slowly walked to the hotel "Milly she hain't stout, no how," kept ringing in the young man's mind, as some verse of a foolish song might have done, with an appealing, shadowy sort of sadness in it. He was far from being sentimental, he had never taken any interest in people socially much lower than himself, he had even been suspected of mild brutality in his feelings towards women of the lower classes, not because the brutality did really exist, but on account of his utter lack of sympathy with ignorance and ugliness; and now he was frankly acknowledging to himself that Milly White had touched a very sensitive chord in his nature. In some mysterious way he was actually sympathizing with her, as if in an elusive and nameless trouble. The feeling was not a deep or pervading one: it was, indeed, very slight, a mere breath, so to speak, barely rippling the surface of his consciousness, but it was so new and unique that it made itself distinctly and immediately separable in quality from all his past experiences. If the question had been put to him: Why do you think of Milly White—what is the basis of your interest in her? He would have answered: I have no interest in her—I think of her simply because her strangely sweet and yearning face stays in my memory and will not be cast out: there was an appeal in her eyes so mysteriously affecting.
White went afoot over the hills to his home, following the meanderings of a narrow, rugged road. He was not happy, though he sang nasal snatches of camp-meeting or revival songs as he trudged along. He had a sense of the unworthiness of his day's occupation that the jingle of the four dollars in his pocket could not neutralize. When he reached the rude gate in front of his cabin he encountered Milly. She was leaning against one of the low posts, her head bare and her face showing over-pale in the star-light.
"Hello, Milly!" he gently exclaimed. "Hain't ye gone ter bed yet?"
She unlatched the gate for him without speaking. He passed through and took her by the arm.
"He air down yer in town, Milly, down yer wi' the man 'at stopped in outen the rain thet air day," he almost whispered. "He air all right he air comin' home to-morrer er nex' day."
"I wush he would come," she murmured, and followed her father into the cabin.
Meantime Moreton went to his hotel, where he met Reynolds, to whom he gave the details of his street adventure.
Reynolds' face darkened a little.
"I wish I could have seen White," he said, in a tone that hinted of vexation. "I suspect that he has taken advantage of my absence by going on a spree. Are you sure he went directly home?"