Lifting the glass with a shaking hand, Will drained it at a single swallow, feeling his depleted courage revive as the raw spirit burned his throat.A sudden heat invaded him; his eyes saw clearer, and the tips of his fingers were endowed with a new quality of touch.As his hands travelled slowly over his face he became aware that he was looking through his finger ends, and he noted distinctly his haggard features and the short growth of beard which made him appear jaded and unwashed.Then almost instantly the quickness died out of his perception, and he felt the old numbness creeping back.
"Another glass--I must have another glass," he called out irritably to the empty room.His hands hung stone dead again at his sides, and his head dropped limply forward upon his breast.
He had forgotten his quarrel with Molly; he had forgotten everything except his own miserable bodily condition.
When Susan Spade came in with a plate of bread and ham, he roused himself with a nervous start and inhaled quickly the strong odour of the meat, endeavouring through the sense of smell to reawaken the pang of hunger he had felt earlier in the evening.But in place of the gnawing emptiness there had come now a deadly nausea, and after the first mouthful or two he pushed the food away and called hoarsely for more whisky.His head ached in loud, reverberating throbs, and a queer fancy possessed him that the sound must be as audible to others as to himself.With the thought, he glanced about suspiciously, but Tom Spade was stopping the keg that he had tapped, and Susan was wiping off the table with energetic sweeps of her checked apron.Relieved by their impassiveness, he braced himself with the determination to drink to the dead-line of unconsciousness and then lie down somewhere in the darkness to sleep off the effects.
"Whisky--give me more whisky," he repeated angrily.
But Mrs.Spade, true to her nature, saw fit to intervene between him and destruction.
"Not another drop, Mr.Will," she said decisively."Not another drop shall you have in this room if it's the last mortal word Ispeak.An' if you'd had me by you in the beginning, I'm not afeard to say, things would have held up a long sight sooner than this.""Don't you see I'm in downright agony?" groaned Will, rapping the glass upon the table."My head is splitting, I tell you, and Imust have it."
"Not another drop, suh," replied Mrs.Spade with adamantine firmness of tone."I ain't a weak woman, thank the Lord, an' as far as that goes, you might split to pieces inside and out right here befo' my eyes an' I wouldn't be a party to sendin' you a step nearer damnation.I ain't afeard of seein' folks suffer.Tom will tell you that.""That she ain't, suh," agreed Tom with pride."If I do say it who shouldn't, thar never was a woman who could stand mo' pain in other people than can Susan.Mo' than that, Mr.Will, she's right, though I'd be sayin' so even if she wasn't--seein' that the only rule for makin' a woman think yo' way is always to think hers.But she's right, and that's the truth.You've had too much.""Oh, you're driving me mad between you!" cried Will in desperation."I'm in awful trouble, and there's nothing under heaven will make me forget it except drink.One glass more--just one.That can't hurt me.""May he have one glass, Susan?" asked Tom, appealing to his wife.
"Not another drop, suh," returned Mrs.Spade, immovable as a rock.
"Not another drop, she says," repeated the big storekeeper in a sinking voice.Then he laid his hand sympathetically on Will's shoulder."To be sure, I know you're in trouble," he said, "an'
I'll swear it's an out-an'-out shame, I don't care who hears me.
Yes, I'll stand to it in the very face of Bill Fletcher himself.""Oh, he's a devil!" cried Will, stung by the name he hated.
"I ain't sayin' you've been all you should have been," pursued Tom in his friendly tones, "but as I told Susan yestiddy, a body can't sow wild oats in one generation without havin' a volunteer crop spring up in the next.Now, yo' wild oats were sown long befo' you were born.Ain't that so, Susan?"Mrs.Spade planted her hands squarely upon her hips and stood her ground with a solidity which was as impressive in its way as dignity.
"I've spoken my mind to Bill Fletcher," she said, "an' I'll speak it again.'How's that boy goin' to live, suh?' That's what Iasked, an' 'twas after he told me to shut my mouth, that it was.
Right or wrong, that's what I told him.You've gone an' made the meanest will this county has ever seen.""What?" cried Will, springing to his feet, while the room whirled round him.
"Thar, thar, Susan, you've talked too much," interposed Tom, a little frightened."What she means is just some foolishness yo'
grandpa's been lettin' out," he added; "but he'll live long enough yet to change his mind an' his will, too.""What is it about? Speak louder, will you? My ears buzz so Ican't hear thunder."
Tom coughed reproachfully at Susan.
"Well, he was talkin' down here last night about havin' changed his will," he said apologetically."He's tied it up, it seems, so you can't get it, an' he's gone an' left the bulk of it to Mrs.
Wyndham."
"To Maria!" repeated Will, and saw scarlet.
"That's what he says; but he'll last to change his mind yet, never fear.Anger doesn't live as long as a man--eh, Susan?"But Will had risen and was walking quite steadily toward the door.His face was dead white, and there were deep blue circles about his eyes, which sparkled brilliantly.When he turned for a moment before going out, he sucked in his under lip with a hissing sound.
"So this was Maria's trick all along," he said hoarsely.
