“Where have they gone?Tell me quickly.It's life or death.”
Scarlett and Pitty,startled and bewildered,looked at each other in wonderment and,like a lean old cat,India streaked across the room to Melanie's side.
“Don't tell him anything,”she cried swiftly.“He's a spy,a Scallawag!”
Rhett did not even favor her with a glance.
“Quickly,Mrs.Wilkes!There may still be time.”
Melanie seemed in a paralysis of terror and only stared into his face.
“What on earth—”began Scarlett.
“Shet yore mouth,”directed Archie briefly.“You too,Miss Melly.Git the hell out of here,you damned Scallawag.”
“No,Archie,no!”cried Melanie and she put a shaking hand on Rhett's arm as though to protect him from Archie.“What has happened?How did—how did you know?”
On Rhett's dark face impatience fought with courtesy.
“Good God,Mrs.Wilkes,they've all been under suspicion since the beginning—only they've been too clever—until tonight!How do I know?I was playing poker with two drunken Yankee captains and they let it out.The Yankees knew there'd be trouble tonight and they've prepared for it.The fools have walked into a trap.”
For a moment it was as though Melanie swayed under the impact of a heavy blow and Rhett's arm went around her waist to steady her.
“Don't tell him!He's trying to trap you!”cried India,glaring at Rhett.“Didn't you hear him say he'd been with Yankee officers tonight?”
Still Rhett did not look at her.His eyes were bent insistingly on Melanie's white face.
“Tell me.Where did they go?Have they a meeting place?”
Despite her fear and incomprehension,Scarlett thought she had never seen a blanker,more expressionless face than Rhett's but evidently Melanie saw something else,something that made her give her trust.She straightened her small body away from the steadying arm and said quietly but with a voice that shook:
“Out the Decatur road near Shantytown.They meet in the cellar of the old Sullivan plantation—the one that's half-burned.”
“Thank you.I'll ride fast.When the Yankees come here,none of you know anything.”
He was gone so swiftly,his black cape melting into the night,that they could hardly realize he had been there at all until they heard the spattering of gravel and the mad pounding of a horse going off at full gallop.
“The Yankees coming here?”cried Pitty and,her small feet turning under her,she collapsed on the sofa,too frightened for tears.
“What's it all about?What did he mean?If you don't tell me I'll go crazy!”Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.
“Mean?It means you've probably been the cause of Ashley's and Mr.Kennedy's death!”In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India's voice.“Stop shaking Melly.She's going to faint.”
“No,I'm not,”whispered Melanie,clutching the back of a chair.
“My God,my God!I don't understand!Kill Ashley?Please,somebody tell me—”
Archie's voice,like a dusty hinge,cut through Scarlett's words.
“Set down,”he ordered briefly.“Pick up yore sewin'.Sew like nothin'has happened.For all we know,the Yankees might have been spyin'on this house since sundown.Set down,I say,and sew.”
Trembling they obeyed,even Pitty picking up a sock and holding it in shaking fingers while her eyes,wide as a frightened child's,went around the circle for an explanation.
“Where is Ashley?What has happened to him,Melly?”cried Scarlett.
“Where's your husband?Aren't you interested in him?”India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.
“India,please!”Melanie had mastered her voice but her white,shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring.“Scarlett,perhaps we should have told you but—but—you had been through so much this afternoon that we—that Frank didn't think—and you were always so outspoken against the Klan—”
“The Klan—”
At first,Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:
“The Klan!”she almost screamed it.“Ashley isn't in the Klan!Frank can't be!Oh,he promised me!”
“Of course,Mr.Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley,too,and all the men we know,”cried India.“They are men,aren't they?And white men and Southerners.You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and—”
“You all have known all along and I didn't—”
“We were afraid it would upset you,”said Melanie sorrowfully.
“Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings?Oh,he promised me!Now,the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail—oh,what did Rhett Butler mean?”
India's eyes met Melanie's in wild fear.Scarlett rose,flinging her sewing down.
“If you don't tell me,I'm going downtown and find out.I'll ask everybody I see until I find—”
“Set,”said Archie,fixing her with his eye.“I'll tell you.Because you went gallivantin'this afternoon and got yoreself into trouble through yore own fault,Mr.Wilkes and Mr.Kennedy and the other men are out tonight to kill that thar nigger and that thar white man,if they catch them,and wipe out that whole Shantytown settlement.And if what that Scallawag says is true,the Yankees suspected sumpin'or got wind somehow and they've sont out troops to lay for them.And our men have walked into a trap.And if what Butler said warn't true,then he's a spy and he is goin'to turn them up to the Yankees and they'll git kilt just the same.And if he does turn them up,then I'll kill him,if it's the last deed of m'life.And if they ain't kilt,then they'll all have to light out of here for Texas and lay low and maybe never come back.It's all yore fault and thar's blood on yore hands.”
Anger wiped out the fear from Melanie's face as she saw comprehension come slowly across Scarlett's face and then horror follow swiftly.She rose and put her hand on Scarlett's shoulder.