When Westerfelt went to bed that night after his talk with Mrs. Bradley about the conversion of Mrs. Dawson, it was with a certain lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirits that he had not experienced for a long time. He did not know exactly how his new feeling would show itself in regard to Harriet, but he believed he might, in time, cease to look upon her love for Wambush as such an unpardonable offence. "Surely," he argued, "if Mrs. Dawson can forgive me for all I have done, I ought to pardon the girl I love for what she did before she knew me."
These were admirable intentions, but he was counting on a depth of nature that was not his either by inheritance or cultivation. The inflammable material was still bound up in his breast, and it needed but one spark to fire it. What he was struggling against had come down to him from a long line of ancestors, men who would rather have died than brook the thought of a rival, especially in an inferior; men who would have spurned the love of their hearts if it were stained with falsehood under any circumstances, and when, as it was in Westerfelt's case, the provocation was not only deceit, but ardent love for such a man—ah, there was the rub!
The next morning he watched Bates's office from the stable till he saw the lawyer come down the street and enter. He waited awhile longer, for he saw Bates go out to the wood-pile and return with an armful of wood. Presently blue smoke began to rise from the chimney, and Westerfelt went over and rapped on the door.
"Come in!" Bates called out. Westerfelt found him with his back to the door, sitting over the fire, a leather-bound tome in his lap.
"Hello!" he cried, seeing who it was; "pull up a seat."
Westerfelt drew a rickety chair from beneath a dusty desk and sat down.
"Did you get home all right?" he asked.
"Yes." Bates closed his book, leaving his forefinger in it for a book-mark; he removed his foot from the side of the chimney and cleared his throat. "Miss Harriet asked me to fetch her home early; dang it! I believe she would a-stayed longer, but she was sorry for me."
"Sorry for you—why?"
"Because she couldn't see it my way, I reckon."