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He now began to realize the truth of Mrs. Willoughby's belief and Bodine's conviction, that he might find as much trouble at home as elsewhere. It quickly became clear to him that he must reveal the truth at once, but how to set about it he scarcely knew, and he hesitated like one on the brink of icy water.
The clerk was dismissed with cordial thanks; George and the physician watched unweariedly, for the latter said that everything depended on the patient's condition when he awoke. In Mrs. Bodine's humbler home there was another patient who also had found such respite as anodynes can bring.
When he ended with Bodine's final words she said thoughtfully, "Such language as that, combined with Ella's message, does seem to end the affair." "Well, I know this much," he replied ruefully, "I am a gentleman. No matter what it costs me I must continue to be one." "Yes, Mr. Houghton, you have acted like a gentleman, and, as you say, you must continue to do so.
The only question between us is, 'Will you buy my labor as you would any other commodity in the Charleston market?" Captain Bodine's words proved his keen appreciation of character. The old man unconsciously possessed the spirit of a soldier, and it had been evoked by the honest, uncompromising attitude of the Southerner. His emotion passed away.
"There wasn't any fair fight at all," cried the old man passionately. "It was an atrocious, wicked, causeless rebellion." The dark blood mounted to Captain Bodine's very brow, but he controlled himself by a strong effort, and only said calmly, "That is your opinion." The veins fairly stood out on Mr. Houghton's flushed, usually pallid, face.
Slowly, carefully, noiselessly, Jack wormed his way to the rear and when he considered he must be in Tom Bodine's neighborhood he began whispering in a tone that could not be heard more than three feet away: "Tom. Tom. Tom." A hand gripped his leg. A voice whispered so low it was barely audible to him: "That you, Jack?" "Yes. Listen."
On the morning following that of Bodine's dismissal, Mara saw at once from Ella's expression that something unpleasant had occurred. "What has happened?" she asked anxiously. "Oh, we've had an earthquake at our house," was the somewhat bitter reply.
At last the dawn was again greeted with thankfulness beyond words. There was no paper that morning, for compositors and pressmen could not be induced to work, and at first there was a feeling of great uncertainty and depression. Mrs. Bodine's spirit was again like a cork on the surface.
Hunter's lamentations and clinched her argument. Captain Bodine's errand was characteristic of the man. He had accepted his cousin's hospitality and sympathy most gratefully, and his quick apprehension had gathered from some of her words that she was bent on moving her little segment of "heaven and earth," to secure him employment.
One swept Jack's hat from his head. From behind them Tom Bodine's revolver spoke, as the enemy thus betrayed themselves. The soft thud of a bullet striking flesh, a groan, choked off in the middle, a hasty scrambling to get away from the danger point on the part of the man struck, then silence.
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