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"Yes, we're back," said she, as they passed into the dining-room where some refreshments were awaiting them, "and glad I am to be back. Vernons smells good after Grangersons. Oh, dear me, what is it that clings to that place? It's like opening an old trunk that's been shut for years.
"I don't know, but I met him in the street and we walked as far as the Battery and and " She hesitated for a moment, then it all came out. To no one but Maria Pinckney could she have told that story. "Well, of all the astounding creatures," said Miss Pinckney at last. "Did he ask you to marry him?" "No." "Just to run away with him kissed you." "He kissed me at Grangersons." "At Grangersons. When?"
He was not there, but he must have come back when I was asleep and left some food for me, for there was a bundle outside the door with some bread and bacon in it. Then I started off to walk and found a village with some coloured people. I told them I was lost and wanted to get to Grangersons.
"I'll see to that, Miss Pinckney, an' if I catch Dinah openin' her mouth to say more'n 'potatoes' I'll dress her down so's she won't know which end of her's which." Miss Pinckney went upstairs, dressed hurriedly, packed a few things in a bag and the automobile being now at the door, started. It was after one o'clock when she reached Grangersons.
The Colonel, like his son Silas, as will presently be seen, had a direct way with women; the Grangersons had pretty nearly always fallen in love at sight and run away with their wives.
If you have altered your mind you can go back when we reach Grangersons, you can wire from there. The old man will make it all right with Maria Pinckney." Phyl hesitated, then she began to cry. It was the rarest thing in the world for her to cry like this. Tears with her meant a storm, but now she was crying quietly, hopelessly, like a lost child.
He would seize her and carry her off, trap her like a bird. He determined on the morrow to return early to Grangersons and think things out. Whilst he was lying in bed thinking things out, the folk at Vernons were retiring to rest. Maria Pinckney knew nothing of what had occurred between Silas and Richard.
The coloured groom was walking the horses, they were only a few yards away. He went to the man and gave him some money with the order to return to Charleston and go back to Grangersons by train, or at least to the station that was ten miles from Grangerville. Then as the man went off along the road he stood holding the near horse by the bridle and talking to Phyl.
"What's all this nonsense you have been talking," said she, "coming here saying Miss Phyl has run away with Mr. Silas? She started out this morning to meet him and drive to Grangersons; I'm going there myself at eleven and you come here talking of people running away. Do you know you could be put in prison for saying things like that?
"I suppose you know, least I suppose you think, that the Civil War was fought for the emancipation of the darkies and that they were emancipated." "Yes!" "Well, they weren't at least not at Grangersons. While the Colonel's father was fighting in the Civil War, his first wife, she was a Dawson, kept things going at home, and after the war was over and he was back he took up the rule again.
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