She was moving toward the door when her brother, with a catch in his voice and a firm step after her, said: “No, not to-night, dear. Uncle Tom wouldn't listen, anyway. He's simply daft about the new railroad, and couldn't hold his tongue even for a minute. Look at those damp shoes. You will catch pneumonia. Run up to your room and change them at once!”
“I did get them wet, didn't I?” the girl said, glancing down at her feet. The next moment they heard her ascending the stairs. Her brother stood at the door peering after her till she was out of sight; then he went back to his chair, and sank into it. The General was eager to take up the startling topic, now that they were alone, but Dearing's ears were closed to what he was saying.
“Poor child!” the young doctor said to himself. “To think that it should come to her—to beautiful, gentle Dora, with her wonderful ideals! And he could deliberately desert her! He could look another man in the face and confess that he was without the courage to lift a woman up after he had knocked her down.”
Leaving his uncle, he went up to his room and sat alone in the darkness before an open window. Across the lawn he saw a solitary light in Mrs. Barry's cottage. It was from the window of Dora's room, and for an hour he sat watching it. He kept his eyes on it till it went out; then he rose, and began to undress.
CHAPTER XI
A FEW days after the report of Dora Barry's fall had permeated Stafford from the town's centre to its scattering outskirts, and the beautiful girl's disgrace had been duly recorded as the now certain explanation of Fred Walton's flight, it came to his father's ears in a rather indirect manner. Old Simon was erroneously supposed to have learned the truth, even before it became town-talk; for it was vaguely whispered that the banker had been so moved by Mrs. Barry's personal appeal to him in behalf of her daughter that he had called in the sheriff with the intention of having his son held to honor by sheer force, but for some reason had refrained from taking action.
There are individuals in every community, too, who are bold enough to mention a delicate topic even to those most sensitively concerned, and as old Walton was going to the bank on the morning in question Bailey Thornton, a man of great size, who kept a grocery where the banker bought his supplies, essayed a jest as he passed the old man's morning cigar to him over the showcase. The bystanders thoroughly understood what was meant, as was evinced by the hearty laugh which went round, but the old man didn't.
“Don't be hard on the boy, Mr. Walton,” Thornton added, and he smiled broadly enough to explain any ordinary innuendo. “Remember your own young days. I'll bet Fred came by it honestly. The whole town knows the truth; there is no good in trying to hide it. Tell him it is all right, and make him come back home.”