Part 150

“I mean that I ain't going to dump any more money in, now that you ain't making good! I might have believed you the first time you came. I reckon I must have. But you can't fool me again. No use to coax! Not another cent.”

“Aren't you worried about how you're going to get back what you have already lent?” demanded Mayo, with exasperation.

“The Lord will provide,” declared Deacon Rowley, devoutly.

The young man stared at this amazing creditor, worked his jaws a few moments wordlessly, found no speech adequate, and stamped out of the store. He no longer dreaded to meet Polly Candage. He felt that he needed to see her. He was seeking the comfort of sanity in that shore world of incomprehensible lunacy; he had had experience with Polly Candage's soothing calmness.

She came out from her little school and controlled her emotions with difficulty when she saw his piteous condition.

“Let's walk where I can feel the comfort of green grass under my feet,” he pleaded; “that may seem real! Nothing else does!”

By her matter-of-fact acceptance of him and his appearance and his mood she calmed him as they walked along.

“And even Rowley,” he added, after his blunt confession of failure, “he has just turned me down. He won't follow his five thousand with another cent. The old rascal deserves to be cheated if we fail. He is telling me that he always believed we would never make good in the job. Is he crazy, or am I?”

“Make all allowances for Deacon Rowley,” she pleaded. “Keep away from him. He is not a consoling man. But there must be some way for you, Boyd. Let us think! You have been keeping too close to the thing--to your work--and there are other places besides Limeport.”

“There's New York--and there's a way,” he growled.

“You must try every chance; it means so much to you!”

“Is that your advice?”

“Certainly, Boyd!”

He stopped and pulled the sealed packet from his coat. In the stress of his despair and resentment he was brutal rather than considerate.

“There are papers in there with which I can club Julius Marston until he squeals. I haven't seen them, but I know well enough what they are. I can scare him into giving back all he has taken away from me. I can make him give back a lot to other folks. And from those other folks I can get money to finish our work on the Conomo. Look at the monogram on that seal, Polly!” He pointed grimy finger and held the packet close.

“From--Miss Marston?” she asked, tremulously.

“Yes, Polly.”

“And she is helping you?”

“I suppose she is trying to.”

“Well, it's what a girl should do when she loves a man,” she returned. But she did not look at him and her lips were white.

“And you think I ought to use her help?”

“Yes.” She evidently realized that her tone was a mere quaver of assent, for she repeated the word more firmly.

“But these papers are not hers, Polly. She stole them--or somebody stole them for her--from her own father,” he went on, relentlessly.

“She must love you very much, Boyd.”

They turned away from each other and gazed in opposite directions. He was wondering, as he had through many agonized hours, just what motive was influencing Alma Marston in those later days. With all his soul he wanted to question Polly Candage--to get the light of her woman's instinct on his troubled affairs; but the nature of the secret he was hiding put effective stopper on his tongue.

“Under those circumstances, no matter what kind of a sacrifice she has made for you, you ought to accept it, Boyd.”

“I want to accept it; every impulse in me says to go in and grab. Polly, hell-fire is blazing inside of me. I want to tear them down--the whole of them. I do! You needn't jump! But if I use those papers which that girl has stolen from her father I'll be a dirty whelp. You know it, and I know it! Suppose you should tell me some secret about your own father so I could use it to cheat him out of his share of our partnership? You might mean all right, but after I had used it you would hate me! Now wouldn't you?”

“Perhaps--probably I wouldn't hate you,” she stammered. “But I'd think more of you if you--yes, I'm sure I'd think more of you if you didn't take advantage of my foolishness.”