He found himself almost alone, in the smoking-car. He took a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and, raising the window, blew the smoke outside. A baggage-truck was being trundled by. He could have put out his hand and touched the heap of trunks and bags with which it was laden. A burly negro was pushing it along. Raising his eyes suddenly, he saw Hoag, and there was no mistaking the startled look beneath the lines of his swarthy face. Another blow had been received. Hoag turned from the window. The train started on, slowly at first, and, going faster and faster, soon was passing through Hoag's property. Never on any other occasion had he failed to survey these possessions with pride and interest. The feeling had died within him. A drab disenchantment seemed to have fallen upon every visible object. All he owned--the things which had once been as his life's blood--had dwindled till they amounted to no more than the broken toys of babyhood. Beyond his fertile lands and the roofs of his buildings rose a red-soiled hill which was the property of the village. Hoag turned his head to look at it. He shuddered. Tall white shafts shone in the full yellow light. One, distinctly visible, marked the grave of his wife, on which Hoag had spared no expense. There was room for another shaft close beside it. Under it a murdered man would lie. That was inevitable unless something was done--and what could be done? “Death, death, death!” The smooth, flanged wheels seemed to grind the words into the steel rails. They were written on the blue sky along the earth-rimmed horizon. They were whispered from the lowest depths of himself. His blood crept, cold and sluggish, through his veins. A chill seemed to have attacked his feet and ankles and was gradually creeping upward. He remembered that this was said to be the sensation of dying, and he stood up and stamped his feet in vigorous, rebellious terror. CHAPTER XXVI |BY and by Atlanta was reached. Slowly and with a clanging bell the train crept into the grimy switch-yards bordered by sooty iron furnaces, factories, warehouses, planing-mills, and under street bridges and on into the big depot. Here his ears were greeted with the usual jumble, din, and babble of voices, the escaping of steam, the calls of train-porters. Hoag left the car, joined the jostling human current on the concrete pavement, and was soon in the street outside. Formerly he had ridden to his hotel in a trolley-car, but none was in sight, and seeing a negro cabman signaling to him with a smile and a seductive wave of his whip he went forward and got in. “Kimball House,” he said to the man, and with a snap of the latch the door was closed upon him.