Richard had been very successful in St. Louis. The business which took
him there had been more than satisfactorily arranged. He had collected a
thousand-dollar debt he never expected to get, and had been everywhere
treated with the utmost deference and consideration, as a man whose
worth was known and appreciated. But Richard was ill at ease, and his
face wore a sad, gloomy expression, which many remarked, wondering what
could be the nature of the care so evidently preying upon him. Do what
he might, he could not forget the white, stony face which had looked at
him so strangely in the gray morning, nor shut out the icy tones in
which Ethie had last spoken to him. Besides this, Richard was thinking
of all he had said to her in the heat of passion, and wishing he could
recall it in part at least. He was very indignant, very angry still, for
he believed her guilty of planning to meet Frank Van Buren at the party
and leave him at home, while his heart beat with keen throbs of pain
when he remembered that Ethie's first love was not given to him--that
she would have gone to her grave more willingly than she went with him
to the altar; but he need not have been so harsh with her--that was no
way to make her love him. Kindness must win her back should she ever be
won, and impatient to be reconciled, if reconciliation were now
possible, Richard chafed at the necessary delays which kept him a day
longer in St. Louis than he had at first intended.
Ethie had been gone just a week when he at last found himself in the
train which would take him back to Camden. First, however, he must stop
at Olney; the case was imperative--and so he stepped from the train one
snowy afternoon when the February light shone cold and blue upon the
little town and the farmhouse beyond. His brothers were feeding their
flocks and herds in the rear yard to the east; but they came at once to
greet him, and ask after his welfare. The light snow which had fallen
that day was lying upon the front door-steps undisturbed by any track,
so Richard entered at the side. Mrs. Markham was dipping candles, and
the faint, sickly odor of the hot melted tallow, which filled Richard's
olfactories as he came in, was never forgotten, but remembered as part
and parcel of that terrible day which would have a place in his memory
so long as being lasted. Every little thing was impressed upon his mind,
and came up afterward with vivid distinctness whenever he thought of
that wretched time. There was a bit of oilcloth on the floor near to the
dripping candles, and he saw the spots of tallow which had dropped and
dried upon it--saw, too, his mother's short red gown and blue woolen
stockings, as she got up to meet him, and smelled the cabbage cooking on
the stove, for they were having a late dinner that day--the boys'
favorite, and what Mrs. Markham designated as a "dish of biled vittles."