But I could not bring myself to do so. I needed some one in my
life. But I was just twenty, and Dorothy seemed so much more mature and
wise than I. Then always there was this matter of Zoe. I lived in the
expectation that something would come out of Zoe's misfortune; and if it
did my name was bound to be connected with it. What would Dorothy say if
in the midst of our engagement, if she engaged herself to me, the word
should be brought to her that I was the father of Zoe's aborted child
and that by some one, perhaps Mrs. Brown, Zoe had been saved the open
shame of giving birth to the child and while an inmate of my house? I
could see the probative force of these facts against me. This is what
kept me from speaking to Dorothy on the subject of becoming my wife and
having it settled before she went to Nashville. And then something
happened that made my situation infinitely worse before it was any
better.
The spring had come on early and I had much to do. I was buying
machinery. The mowers that I had ordered were soon to be delivered and I
had need to be in town almost daily. There were always loafers about the
streets; and among them, not infrequently, the McCall boys or Lamborn.
Reverdy had told me that Lamborn had been talking in the barber shop,
saying that I was living in a state of adultery with my nigger sister.
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