"Well," he bridled, "it is for your own good and the boys'. I'm having a tough job keeping John from suspecting the truth. If I hadn't got up that bogus letter from Texas he might have had his men searching the mountains, or watching you and that hobo circus man take food out to them in their cave. I'm doing all I can for you and I think you ought not to get on your high horse as you do sometimes."
"Forgive me," she said, tremulously, the muscles of her lips twitching. "I know what you are doing, and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart."
Her grateful words put him in a better mood. They were about to cross the street again; a wagon loaded with cotton-bales was passing. He was hardly justified in doing so, for she needed no assistance, but he took hold of her arm, and she felt his throbbing fingers pressing it. She drew away from him. "Don't!" she said, impulsively.
"There you go again," he cried, but not angrily, for her natural restraint had been one of her chief attractions. Other girls had given in more easily and had been forgotten by him, but Mary was different. There was, moreover, always that consciousness on his part of her social superiority. He wanted her for a wife, and, situated as she now was, he had never felt so sure of her.
"When are you going to let me give you that money?" it now occurred to him to ask. "Tobe must be removed, you know."
A look of deep pain struggled in the features she was trying to keep passive. "I haven't quite given up the hope of getting it elsewhere," she finally said. "If I quite fail, I'll come to you. I've said so, and I'll keep my word."
At this moment a farmer came up to Frazier and said that he wanted to speak to him a moment. Excusing himself and bowing, Frazier left her.
CHAPTER XVIII
As she walked on Mary was glad that Frazier had been called away before he had asked her whither she was going, for she did not want him to know that she had decided to call at Tobe Keith's home and inquire personally about his condition. It struck her as being incongruous that she was already keeping things from the man she might eventually marry. And at this moment various thoughts of Charles fairly besieged her brain. Somehow she could not imagine herself keeping any vital thing from him. How strange, and he such a new friend! She found herself blushing, she knew not why. What was it about the man that appealed to her so strongly? Was it the mystery that constantly enveloped him, and out of which had come such a stream of generous acts, or was it the constant heart-hungry and lonely look of the man who certainly was out of his natural sphere as a common laborer?