Harry trusted to the novelty of his father's new wealth to make the latter complacent; he himself felt an impatient longing for the haven of a home. He had been too long untethered. He distrusted himself. The devil within was too fond of taking the bit in his teeth. He would remember to his dying day one awful shriek in the night, as of a soul tormenting and tormented. He wanted the protection of a good woman, and sometimes against the clear whiteness of her letters so joyous and generous, even if a bit prim and didactic, he saw a vision of himself reflected as he was, and he feared.
It was distinctively disconcerting to Colonel Cresswell to find Harry quite in favor of early nuptials, and to learn that the sole objection even in Helen's mind was the improbability of getting a wedding-gown in time. Helen had all a child's naive love for beautiful and dainty things, and a wedding-gown from Paris had been her life dream. On this point, therefore, there ensued spirited arguments and much correspondence, and both her brother and her lover evinced characteristic interest in the planning.
Said Harry: "Sis, I'll cable to Paris today. They can easily hurry the thing along."
Helen was delighted; she handed over a telegram just received from John Taylor. "Send me, express, two bales best cotton you can get."
The Colonel read the message. "I don't see the connection between this and hurrying up a wedding-gown," he growled. None of them discerned the handwriting of Destiny.
"Neither do I," said Harry, who detected yielding in his father's tone. "But we'd better send him the two prize bales; it will be a fine advertisement of our plantation, and evidently he has a surprise in store for us."
The Colonel affected to hesitate, but next morning the Silver Fleece went to town.
Zora watched it go, and her heart swelled and died within her. She walked to town, to the station. She did not see Mrs. Vanderpool arriving from New Orleans; but Mrs. Vanderpool saw her, and looked curiously at the tall, tragic figure that leaned so dolorously beside the freight car. The bales were loaded into the express car; the train pulled away, its hoarse snorting waking vague echoes in the forest beyond. But to the girl who stood at the End, looking outward to darkness, those echoes roared like the crack of doom. A passing band of contract hands called to her mockingly, and one black giant, laughing loudly, gripped her hand.
"Come, honey," he shouted, "you'se a'dreaming! Come on, honey!"
She turned abruptly and gripped his hand, as one drowning grips anything offered—gripped till he winced. She laughed a loud mirthless laugh, that came pouring like a sob from her deep lungs.