Ethelyn's Mistake

"He would do nothing to call her back," he said, when James suggested

the propriety of trying in a quiet way to ascertain where she had gone.

"She had chosen her own path to ruin, and she might tread it for all of

him. He would not put forth a hand to save her and if she came back, he

never could forgive her."

Richard was walking up and down the room, white with rage, as he said

this, and Andy, cowering in a corner, was looking on and listening. He

did not speak until Richard declared his incapacity for forgiving Ethie,

when he started up, and confronting the angry man, said to him

rebukingly: "Hold there, old Dick! You have gone a leetle too far. If God can

forgive you and me all them things we've done, which he knows about, and

other folks don't, you can, or or'to forgive sister Ethie, let her sin

be what it may. Ethie was young, Dick, and childlike, and so pretty,

too, and I 'most know you aggravated her some, if you talked to her as

you feel now; and then, too, Dick, and mother, and all of you, I don't

care who says it, or thinks it, it's a big lie! Ethie never went off

with a man--never! I know she didn't. She wasn't that kind. I'll swear

to it in the court. I won't hear anybody say that about her. I'll fight

'em, first, even if 'twas my own kin who did it!" And in his

excitement, Andy began to shove back his wrist-bands from his strong

wrists, as if challenging someone to the fight he had threatened.

Andy was splendid in his defense of Ethie, and both James and John

stepped up beside him, showing their adhesion to the cause he pleaded so

well. Ethie might have ran away, but she had surely gone alone, they

said, and their advice was that Richard should follow her as soon as

possible. But Richard would not listen to such a proposition now, and

quietly aided and abetted by his mother, he declared his intention of

"letting her alone." She had chosen her course, he said, and she must

abide by it. "If she has gone with that villain"--and Richard ground his

teeth together--"she can never again come back to me. If she has not

gone with him, and chooses to return, I do not say the door is shut

against her."

Richard seemed very determined and unrelenting, and, knowing how useless

it was to reason with him when in so stern a mood, his brothers gave up

the contest, Andy thinking within himself how many, many times a day he

should pray for Ethie that she might come back again. Richard would not

return to Camden that day, he said. He could not face his acquaintance

there until the first shock was over and they were a little accustomed

to thinking of the calamity which had fallen upon him. So he remained

with his mother, sitting near the window which looked out upon the

railroad track over which Ethie had gone. What his thoughts were none

could fathom, save as they were expressed by the dark, troubled

expression of his face, which showed how much he suffered. Perhaps he

blamed himself as he went over again the incidents of that fatal night

when he kept Ethelyn from the masquerade; but if he did, no one was the

wiser for it, and so the first long day wore on, and the night fell

again upon the inmates of the farmhouse. The darkness was terrible to

Richard, for it shut out from his view that strip of road which seemed

to him a part of Ethie. She had been there last, and possibly looked up

at the old home--her first home after her marriage; possibly, too, she

had thought of him. She surely did, if, as Andy believed, she was alone

in her flight. If not alone, he wanted no thoughts of hers, and

Richard's hands were clenched as he moved from the darkening window, and

took his seat behind the stove, where he sat the entire evening, like

some statue of despair, brooding over his ruined hopes.