Archie nodded as if he understood perfectly and an unwilling gleam of respect shone in his cold eye. But understanding was far from Scarlett. The last half-hour had been so nightmarish that she felt nothing would ever be plain and clear again. However, Rhett seemed in perfect command of the bewildering situation and that was a small comfort.
Archie turned to go and then swung about and his one eye went questioningly to Rhett’s face.
“Him?”
“Yes.”
Archie grunted and spat on the floor.
“Hell to pay,” he said as he stumped down the hall to the back door.
Something in the last low interchange of words made a new fear and suspicion rise up in Scarlett’s breast like a chill ever-swelling bubble. When that bubble broke-
“Where’s Frank?” she cried.
Rhett came swiftly across the room to the bed, his big body swinging as lightly and noiselessly as a cat’s.
“All in good time,” he said and smiled briefly. “Steady that lamp, Scarlett. You don’t want to burn Mr. Wilkes up. Miss Melly-”
Melanie looked up like a good little soldier awaiting a command and so tense was the situation it did not occur to her that for the first time Rhett was calling her familiarly by the name which only family and old friends used.
“I beg your pardon, I mean, Mrs. Wilkes… ”
“Oh, Captain Butler, do not ask my pardon! I should feel honored if you called me ‘Melly’ without the Miss! I feel as though you were my-my brother or-or my cousin. How kind you are and how clever! How can I ever thank you enough?”
“Thank you,” said Rhett and for a moment he looked almost embarrassed. “I should never presume so far, but Miss Melly,” and his voice was apologetic, “I’m sorry I had to say that Mr. Wilkes was in Belle Watling’s house. I’m sorry to have involved him and the others in such a-a-But I had to think fast when I rode away from here and that was the only plan that occurred to me. I knew my word would be accepted because I have so many friends among the Yankee officers. They do me the dubious honor of thinking me almost one of them because they know my-shall we call it my ‘unpopularity’?-among my townsmen. And you see, I was playing poker in Belle’s bar earlier in the evening. There are a dozen Yankee soldiers who can testify to that. And Belle and her girls will gladly lie themselves black in the face and say Mr. Wilkes and the others were-upstairs all evening. And the Yankees will believe them. Yankees are queer that way. It won’t occur to them that women of-their profession are capable of intense loyalty or patriotism. The Yankees wouldn’t take the word of a single nice Atlanta lady as to the whereabouts of the men who were supposed to be at the meeting tonight but they will take the word of-fancy ladies. And I think that between the word of honor of a Scallawag and a dozen fancy ladies, we may have a chance of getting the men off.”
There was a sardonic grin on his face at the last words but it faded as Melanie turned up to him a face that blazed with gratitude.
“Captain Butler, you are so smart! I wouldn’t have cared if you’d said they were in hell itself tonight, if it saves them! For I know and every one else who matters knows that my husband was never in a dreadful place like that!”
“Well-” began Rhett awkwardly, “as a matter of fact, he was at Belle’s tonight.”
Melanie drew herself up coldly.
“You can never make me believe such a lie!”
“Please, Miss Melly! Let me explain! When I got out to the old Sullivan place tonight, I found Mr. Wilkes wounded and with him were Hugh Elsing and Dr. Meade and old man Merriwether-”
“Not the old gentleman!” cried Scarlett.
“Men are never too old to be fools. And your Uncle Henry-”
“Oh, mercy!” cried Aunt Pitty.
“The others had scattered after the brush with the troops and the crowd that stuck together had come to the Sullivan place to hide their robes in the chimney and to see how badly Mr. Wilkes was hurt. But for his wound, they’d be headed for Texas by now-all of them-but he couldn’t ride far and they wouldn’t leave him. It was necessary to prove that they had been somewhere instead of where they had been, and so I took them by back ways to Belle Watling’s.”
“Oh-I see. I do beg your pardon for my rudeness, Captain Butler. I see now it was necessary to take them there but-Oh, Captain Butler, people must have seen you going in!”
“No one saw us. We went in through a private back entrance that opens on the railroad tracks. It’s always dark and locked.”
“Then how-?”
“I have a key,” said Rhett laconically, and his eyes met Melanie’s evenly.
As the full impact of the meaning smote her, Melanie became so embarrassed that she fumbled with the bandage until it slid off the wound entirely.
“I did not mean to pry-” she said in a muffled voice, her white face reddening, as she hastily pressed the towel back into place.
“I regret having to tell a lady such a thing.”
“Then it’s true!” thought Scarlett with an odd pang. “Then he does live with that dreadful Watling creature! He does own her house!”
