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A Deathwatch
As Melanie Wilkes was dying, Rhett Butler waited in the parlor of his mansion on Peachtree Street, listening to the clock.
It was October. A dark, drizzly afternoon.
His glass of cognac had been distilled from grapes Napoléon's armies might have passed. It tasted like ashes.
The Governor of Georgia, Senators, and United States Congressmen had been entertained in this room. The workman who'd fitted its chair rails had got more pleasure from this house than Rhett ever had.
The big house was quiet as a tomb. After Bonnie died, he'd shunned Ella and Wade. He was afraid he'd look at the living children and think, it might have been you instead of Bonnie. If only it had been you. . . .
Mammy and Prissy took the children out of the house to play. When it rained, Ella and Wade played in the carriage house.
He'd quit going to his desk at the Farmer's and Merchants' Bank.
Yesterday -- or was it the day before? -- the bank's president had come, deeply worried. Although the Farmer's and Merchants' hadn't invested in the Northern Pacific, when Jay Cooke declared bankruptcy, the New York
Stock Exchange collapsed. All over the country, depositors raced to their banks to withdraw their savings. Banks had failed in New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston, and Nashville. The Farmer's and Merchants' didn't have enough cash to meet the demand.
"Rhett," the president begged, "could you help?"
Rhett Butler pledged his fortune so Farmer's and Merchants' depositors could withdraw their savings in cash -- every cent. Since they could, they didn't.
Rhett didn't care.
The clock chimed the hour: six funereal strokes.
A gust in the still room ruffled the hair on the nape of his neck and
Rhett knew Miss Melly was dead.
Melanie Wilkes was one of the few creatures Rhett had ever known who would not be deceived.
As the brown autumnal light leaked out of the room, Rhett lit the gaslights.
Had he loved Scarlett, or had he loved what she might become? Had he deceived himself -- loving the image more than the flesh and blood woman?
Rhett didn't care.
If she had betrayed him again and again with Ashley Wilkes, Rhett didn't care. Ashley was free now. If she still wanted the man, she could have him.
That evening, when Rhett's wife came home from Melanie Wilkes's deathbed, she told her husband she loved him. Scarlett had never said that before, and Rhett may have believed her. But he didn't care.
Rhett Butler looked into the pale green eyes that had mesmerized him for so many years and did not give a damn.