After many horrible days, hideous nights, she realized that she still loved Garrison. Loved with a love that threatened to absorb even her physical existence. It seemed as if the very breath of her lungs had been diverted to her heart, where it became tissue-searing flame.
And at Calvert House life had resolved itself into silence. The major and his wife were striving to live in the future; striving to live against Garrison's return. They were ignorant of the true cause of his leaving. For Sue, the keeper of the secret, had not divulged it. She had been left with a difficult proposition to face, and she could not face it. She temporized. She knew that sooner or later the truth would have to come out. She put it off. She could not tell, not now, not now. Each day only rendered it the more difficult. She could not tell.
She had only to look at the old major; to look at his wife, to see that the blow would blast them. She had had youth to help her, and even she had been blasted. What chance had they? And so she said that Garrison and she had quarreled seriously and that in sudden anger, pique, he had left. Oh, yes, she knew he would return. She was quite sure of it. It was all so silly and over nothing, and she had no idea he would take it that way. And she was so sorry, so sorry.
It had all been her fault. He had not been to blame. It was she, only she. In a thoughtless moment she had said something about his being dependent on his uncle, and he had fired up, affirming that he would show her that he was a man, and could earn his own salt. Yes, it had been entirely her own fault, and no one hated herself as she did. He had gone to prove his manhood, and she knew how stubborn he was. He would not return until he wished.
Sue lied bravely, convincingly, whole-heartedly. Everything she did was done thoroughly. She would not think of the future. But she could not tell that Garrison was an impostor; a father of children. She could not tell. So she lied, and lied so well that the old major, bewildered, was forced to believe her. He was forced to acquiesce. He could not interfere. He could do nothing. It was better that his nephew should prove his manhood; return some time and love the girl, than that he should hate her for eternity.
Each day he hoped to see Garrison back, but each day passed without that consummation. The strain was beginning to tell on him. His heart was bound up in the boy. If he did not return soon he would advertise, institute a search. He well knew the folly of youth. He was broad-minded, great-hearted enough not to censure the girl by word or act. He saw how she was suffering; growing paler daily. But why didn't Garrison write? All the anger, all the quarrels in the world could not account for his leaving like that; account for his silence.
The major commenced to doubt. And his wife's words: “It's not like Sue to permit William to go like that. Nor like her to ever have said such a thing even unthinkingly. There's more than that on the girl's mind. She is wasting away”—but served to strengthen the doubt. Still, he was impotent. He could not understand. If his nephew did not wish to return, all the advertising in creation could not drag him back.
Yes, his wife was right. There was more on the girl's mind than that. And it was not like Sue to act as she affirmed she had. Still, he could not bring himself to doubt her. He was in a quandary. It had begun to tell on him, on his wife; even as it had already told on the girl.
And old Colonel Desha was likewise breasting a sea of trouble. Waterbury's death had brought financial matters to a focus. Honor imperatively demanded that the mortgage be settled with the dead man's heirs. It was only due to Sue's desperate financiering that the interest had been met up to the present. That it would be paid next month depended solely on the chance of The Rogue winning the Carter Handicap. Things had come to as bad a pass as that.
The colonel frantically bent every effort toward getting the thoroughbred into condition. How he hated himself now for posting his all on the winter books! Now that the great trial was so near, his deep convictions of triumph did not look so wonderful.