"I am sorry"--just as if he had never rebuked him at all, "I am sorry
that there seems to be no other way. If I had a car I would take you to
the nearest railway station, but there are no trains to-night, not even
twenty miles away until six in the morning. There are only four cars
owned in the village. Two are gone off on a summer trip, the third is
out of commission being repaired, and the fourth belongs to the doctor,
who happens to be away on the mountain to-night attending a dying man.
You see how it is."
The young man opened his mouth to curse once more, and strangely enough
closed it again: Somehow cursing seemed to have lost its force.
"There is just one chance," went on the minister thoughtfully, "that a
young man who was visiting his mother to-day may still be here. I can
call up and find out. He would take you I know."
Almost humbly the great man's son followed the minister back to the
house and listened anxiously while he called a number on the telephone.
"Is that you Mrs. Carter? I'm sorry if I have disturbed you. What? You
hadn't gone to bed yet? Oh, waiting for Mark? Then he isn't there?
That's what I called up for. There is some one here in trouble, needing
to be taken to Monopoly. I was sure Mark would help him out if
possible. Yes, please, if he comes soon, ask him to call me. Just leave
a note for him, can't you? I wouldn't sit up. Mark will take good care
of himself. Yes, of course, that's the mother of it. Well, good-night,
Mrs. Carter."
The young man strode angrily out to the door, muttering--but no words
were distinct. He wanted to be away from the compelling calmness of
those eyes that seemed to search him through. He dashed out the screen
door, letting it slam behind him, and down the steps, intending to
make his car go on at all odds until he reached another town
somewhere. It had gone so far, it could go on a little farther perhaps.
This country parson did not know about cars, how should he?
And then somewhere right on the top step he made a false step and
slipped, or was it his blindness of rage? He caught at the vines with
frantic hands, but as if they laughed at him they slipped from his
grasp. His feet clattered against the step trying for footing, but he
was too near the edge, and he went down straight into a little rocky
nook where ferns and violets were growing, and a sharp jagged rock
stuck up and bit him viciously as he slid and struggled for a firm
footing again. Then an ugly twist of his ankle, and he lay in a
humiliating heap in the shadow of the vines on the lawn, crying out and
beginning to curse with the pain that gripped him in sharp teeth, and
stung through his whole excitable inflamed being.