Parke, then, had not only never given up his drinking; he had been actually initiating Fairfax Sevier into the great and inglorious guild of topers, while he deceived the sister with promises that he would find who it was Fair drank with and look after the boy.
She was free; but not yet could her heart rise to the knowledge. The bowed, boyish figure before her, the degradation of that sleeper upon the negro’s poor bed—these left her very pitiful. “He’ll be quiet and behave himself now, Uncle Vete.” she said; “I’ll take Fair with me—we can’t move him,” indicating Winchester. “Let him sleep.”
“O, yassum, yassum. He be all right in de mawnin’. He been all right ternight, ef I could jest er got hol’ ’er ’im. Dishyer negoshulatin’ wid ’er man th’oo er do’, an’ him er doin’ his talkin’ wid er gun, hit’s unsartin kin’ er wuyck.”
Still in a daze Virginia picked up a pistol from the floor, turned the cylinder to see that it was unloaded, and dropped it into the pocket of Parke’s light overcoat.
At the action, Fair showed his first consciousness of her presence “You’ll get yourself shot one—these days, Virginia,” he muttered, half irritably, half penitently. “—’dvise you—let such things ’lone.” And one could not have said whether he meant, by this, her present handling of the firearm itself, her former reckless demand that he open the door, or her presence on such a scene.
Uncle Vete assured Virginia that he would look after Parke for the night, and would see that he reached home in the morning. She gently declined the old man’s offer to return to town with her, and promised to send Beelzebub out by Sam, Cindy’s eldest, who was acting as house-boy at the Sevier home. The drive in the night air, and Virginia’s presence somewhat sobered her brother. “Does dad know?” he asked, as they neared home.
“I didn’t wake him,” responded Virginia.
Fair turned, as he lay with his head against her shoulder. He was beginning to be deathly sick—the end of all Fair’s essays at drinking. “You’re a good girl, Virginia. Mighty good girl. I reckon you’ll get your reward in heaven.”
But, driving home under the stars, freed from a self-imposed bond, warned that she might in future protect this well-beloved sinner whose head lay on her breast, ready now to accept the love of the man she loved, with no shadow on her conscience—Virginia felt that she had her reward here, now and in this world.