Paul Rundel: A Novel

by Will N. Harben

IT was the evening of the following day. Ethel had heard of the return of Jeff Warren and was quite disturbed. Since early morning Paul had been away, and Ethel fancied that he was unaware of the arrival of the little family. In many ways she pitied Paul, and she gravely feared for his safety, for there was no mincing the fact that Jeff Warren was a most dangerous man, with a quick, uncontrollable temper. Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Mayfield, Cato, and Aunt Dilly were all discussing the situation. That the two men would meet was not to be doubted; that Paul would have to defend himself or be injured was regarded as a certainty.

Ethel was at the window of her room just as the night began to fall, when Paul came in at the gate, and, with a weary step, advanced up the walk toward the house. Hoag was seated on the veranda, and Ethel heard the posts of his chair jar the floor as he rose and descended the steps. The two men met almost beneath her open window. Ethel was aware that their words might not be intended for other ears, and yet she was chained as by some weird and ominous spell to the spot. She dropped on her knees, leaned against the window-sill, and peered cautiously through the overhanging vines.

“Oh, yes, I heard he was here,” she caught Paul's reply to an obvious question, and she was sure there was an odd, changed tone in his voice which seemed to have lost its old hopeful vitality. She saw him take his handkerchief from his pocket and slowly wipe his brow as he stood with his dusk-draped profile toward her.

“Well, I just thought I'd put you on your guard,” Hoag was heard to say, with an unction of tone which men of his own type could have fathomed better than a delicate, frightened woman. “I'm sure I'd appreciate it to have a friend of mine come to me at such a ticklish time. I know you've got grit. I've seed it put to a test. That's why folks are a-talkin' at such a rate. The opinion of one an' all is that what you did once you can an' will do ag'in.”

Ethel held her breath to catch Paul's tardy words. His head was lowered when he spoke. “So they think I'll shoot him again, do they—they think that?”

“You bet they know you won't let the skunk run roughshod over you, an' he's ready an' waitin'—bought 'im a gun right off—looked all about for you to-day, I'm told, an' some say he hinted that you'd skipped clean out to keep from facin' the music. I haven't met him. I hain't no use for the puppy, an' never did have. You've got a gun, haven't you?”

“No, I haven't owned one since I got back from the West.”

“You don't say—well, you'd better git one. I've got three. You can take your pick if you want to, but for the Lord's sake don't mix me up in it. I just offer it to you as I would to any other man in my employ.”

“Thank you.” They were moving toward the house, and the roof of the veranda hid them from the eyes of the awed and frightened observer. Ethel heard Paul uttering some unintelligible words in the hall below, and then he came up the stairs and entered his own room. She stood in the center of the floor, trembling from head to foot. He had been such a wonderful friend to her; under his advice she had soared to heights she had never reached before, and yet now he himself, strong as he had been in her behalf, was in peril—peril he was too brave to see. She heard her uncle's ponderous step as he strode through the long hall to the kitchen, and then it occurred to her to pray for guidance. She sank down on the edge of her bed and folded her delicate hands between her tense knees. Her lips moved, but she was not conscious of the words mutely escaping her lips. Suddenly she sprang up and started to the door, for Paul had left his room and was going down the stairs with a firm and hurried stride. Her hand on the door-knob, she leaned out into the darkened hall and peered after him. She had an impulse to call to him, yet the thought that she had no excuse for stopping him which would not reveal the fact that she had been eavesdropping checked both her voice and movement. She heard him crossing the veranda swiftly, and, returning to the window, she saw him on the walk striding toward the gate. Again she tried to cry out to him, and again she failed. As he reached the gate and passed out into the road she prayed that he would go toward the village rather than toward the cabin in which his stepfather lived. Her breast seemed to turn to stone the next instant, for he was taking the shortest cut toward the cabin. How calmly, fearlessly, he moved! How erectly he walked, and it was perhaps to his death! Ethel staggered back to her bed, sank on it face downward, and began to sob, began to pray as only he had taught her to pray, with all her young soul bent to its holy purpose.

Paul strode on through the gloaming. Overhead arched the infinite symbol of endlessness, with here and there a twinkling gem of light. On either side of him the meadows and fields lay sleeping, damp with rising dew. Fireflies were flashing signals to their fellows; insects were snarling in the trees and grass; a donkey was braying in the far distance; dogs were barking.