THE July sun beat fiercely on the tin slate roofs of the houses forming square of Stafford. It was noon, business was at a standstill. The clerks and typewriters in Walton's bank yawning and fanning themselves heat. The only occupied individual in the building was the banker himself, who was crouched over his desk in his little office making calculations on a pad of paper with a pencil. Toby Lassiter was at the window of the receiving-teller when an old man came in at the folding-screen door and asked if he might see Mr. Walton personally. It was Stephen Whipple, and he carried a travelling-bag in his hand; he was covered with dust, and marked in the creases of his face by drifts of fine cinders.
“I'll see, sir, if you'll wait a minute,” Toby answered, with his best window-manners; then he went to his employer, and returned to pilot the caller back to the office.
“Stranded on a trip and wants a check cashed without identification,” was Toby's mental comment as he led the way. “Well, he's come to the wrong man, as he will mighty soon find out.”
Whipple gave a searching glance at the man who was rising from the desk with impatiently lifted brows. He put his bag down at his feet, but failed to extend his hand, as Walton evidently expected him to do.
“Take a seat, sir, take a seat,” and the banker motioned to a chair near the desk.
“Thanks.” The Westerner kicked his bag along toward the chair, and sat down rather clumsily. He took out an enormous handkerchief, also considerably begrimed, and mopped his perspiring face.
“You've got a hot town, sir,” Whipple said, introductively.
“Some say so, and some say not,” Walton replied, succinctly. “Well, sir,” he continued, “is there anything I can do for you? The reason I make so bold as to ask is because my clerk said you wanted to see mepersonally.”
“Yes, it is of a sort of personal nature; at least, I reckon, you might call it that,” and the merchant reached down and caught the handle of his bag for no obvious reason than that he wanted to move it to a point equidistant between his two splaying feet. Then he looked up, and there was a decided flush of embarrassment in his face, which extended down to the soiled collar on his pudgy neck. The banker, ever quick at the reading of countenances, came to the conclusion that some sort of unbusiness-like request in regard to needed funds was forthcoming, and he was already framing his refusal.
“Well, sir—well, sir?” he said.
“The truth of the matter is that it is ofsucha personal nature that it is purty hard to know how to get started at it,” Whipple finally got out. “Of course, I am a stranger to you, and I've come, too, without any letters of introduction or papers of identification, and—is there any danger of anybody listening?”
“None whatever—none on earth!” Walton sniffed, impatiently. “You can talk at the top of your voice if you want to; the walls are thick; besides, I don't have secrets, and I don't know as I am in the market for any.”
“No, of course not, Mr. Walton.” The flush in the visitor's face was dying out and giving place to an expression of rather anxious rigidity. “Well, I am glad we won't be overheard, at any rate, for I want to talk to you in behalf of your son.”
“Oh, that's it, huh? I see! I see!” And Walton swept the form before him with eyes in which the lights of anger were slowly but positively kindling. “It is about him, is it? Well, wait till I send this letter to the mail. I'll be back, sir. I'll be back.”
“All right, Mr. Walton. There's no hurry.”
With the letter in his hand the banker rose as if from the sheer heat of the growing anger within him and went out. Standing in the door of the main counting-room he caught Lassiter's eye and signalled him to approach. Giving him the letter, Walton said: “Mail that, and then come back and keep a peeled eye on that fat chap at my desk. Do you remember what I said when that three thousand dollars came from nowhere in particular by express awhile back, along with the mealy-mouthed yarn from Fred about changing his ways, and all that gush?”
“Yes, sir, I think so,” answered the startled Toby. “You said you thought—”
“That it was a deep-laid plan amongst him and some other sharpers to hoodwink me; and I told you, Toby, that I'd be willing to bet money that it wouldn't be many days before somebody would hike along this way to talk it over—some go-between, you understand. Well, he's in there now, setting humped over his satchel like a spider watching a fly. He thinks I'm the fly. I want to know what he's got to say. I want to see his hand, you know, and I come out here to take a whiff of air and steady myself so I wouldn't blurt out what I thought too quick and drive him away. Keep your eye on him after he leaves me, Toby, and see which way he goes. He looks to me like some shyster lawyer who has taken up the matter and thinks he is smart enough to fool me. Somebody has invested three thousand in this scheme, and the deal is to be clinched this morning. Huh! I'll sorter tote 'im along, Toby, and see if I can get onto his game,” and, with a sly and yet nervous wink, Walton turned away.
“Yes, sir; all right now, sir,” he said, breezily, as he returned to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. “We've got this room all to ourselves, and are as snug as a bug in a rug, as the fellow said. Now, fire ahead.”
“Of course, it must be a sort o' disagreeable subject for you to talk about,” Whipple began, awkwardly, “and I'll admit to you, Mr. Walton, that I thought over it a powerful long time before I finally made up my mind to come.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Walton said, pulling his whiskers with his long hand—“of course, you naturally would.”
“Especially as Fred had no idea of what I had in view,” the Westerner said. “You see, I had to act wholly on my own responsibility.”
“Yes, I see—I see, sir.” It was only by an effort that Walton kept a sarcastic ring of irritation out of his voice, and he stroked into the roots of his beard a smile of contempt at such puerile attempts to deceive.
“And that's what makes the whole thing so hard on me,” the merchant went on. “You see, I took it on myself to act for Fred in, I might say, actual opposition to his wishes and judgment.”
Whipple then proceeded to give a full and accurate account of his first introduction to Fred and all that had happened to him since, withholding only his own name and the name of the town he was from. And while he talked, pausing to wipe his wet brow at times, or to clear his shaky voice, the banker watched him as a cat might a mouse. He held a pencil in his long, steady fingers, and kept the point of it on a pad of paper, raising his shrewd glance and lowering it as suited his fancy. Had he been an artist, old Simon might have sketched what to his understanding was the most subtly designing face he had ever seen. Here was a man, he told himself, who resorted even to the emotional methods of a ranting revivalist to gain his nefarious aims. It was a wonderful conception, but it wofully missed its mark, for it was being applied to a man who had no emotions. It was being applied to a man, too, who was as eagerly on the lookout for new tricks as a biologist for a new species of insect. What a weakling the fellow was, for a man of that age, and what fun it would be to suddenly undeceive him—let him know the manner of man he was attempting, in such a shallow way, to bunco!
“Yes, I decided not to wait longer,” Whipple concluded, with a sigh. “I didn't intend to act till the remaining three thousand was paid; but, as I say, I—”
“It is only two, according to my calculations.” Walton thought he had tripped him up, and smiled knowingly.
“Fred said he felt that another thousand, at least, was due as interest at the rate you usually get.”
“Oh, I see; he's certainly liberal.” Walton smiled at his joke, and bent his head over his pad to hide it.
“As I say,” the merchant resumed, “I intended to wait till the debt was entirely paid, but things took a sudden turn that I didn't expect. I offered to advance the money to Fred, but he wouldn't take it.”
“Oh, he wouldn't take it!” Walton said, with a hurried regret that Toby was not present to enjoy the feast of stupidity being spread before him. “I see; he didn't want it. That's a little bit like him.” Simon's amusement showed itself now in his voice rather than in the visage which he managed to keep unruffled. “But you say things had sorter taken a twist around?”
“Yes; he was brave enough, and bearing up mighty well till me and him took a trip, as much for pleasure as anything else, to New York, and we passed through this very town, and—”
“So you passed through here?” Walton interrupted, and then to himself he added: “I knew it. I knew Fred was hanging about Atlanta and sending money to that woman. Huh, his fat agent is certainly giving the snap away!”
“Yes, we passed through here one night, and, as our train was delayed below town by a wreck ahead of us, Fred got out and walked around. He was gone till after midnight, and when he came back to the Pullman where I was I noticed that he was powerfully upset, and begun to suspect that maybe this was his old home. He started to tell me about it then, but I stopped him, and it was not till we had been to New York and got back home that he finally told me your name and where you lived. As I said, he has not been the same since then, and, to be honest with you, Mr. Walton, I don't know of anything in the world that will restore his peace of mind, except—”
“Except having me send for him,” Simon suddenly let himself go, “and kill the fatted bull-yearling, and put a dinky-dinky cap on his brow, and give him a key to the vault, and start in, hit or miss, exactly where me and him left off!”
“You are hard on him, Mr. Walton,” Whipple gasped, fairly staggered by the unexpected retort—“much harder, I must say, than I had hoped to find you. He declared that you wasn't the sort that would forgive easily, but, having been a father once myself, I didn't believe you would, after hearing about your boy's life since he left you, refuse to—”
“See here!” Walton interrupted, laying down his pencil and staring at the visitor from eyes which fairly snapped with blended triumph and rage, “you've held the floor long enough; now step aside and let me take it. I don't know as I ever had the luck to run across just such a specimen as you are. You've evidently had very little to do withbusinessmen. You seem to have as little common sense as a mountain school-teacher or a young preacher on his first circuit. Here you come with a long, roundabout, hatched-up tale that is so thin and full of holes that a body could throw a straw hat through it. I'd have you understand that this here house is abank. My own granddaddy would have to be identified, if he was alive, before he could cash a check at that front window, and yet here you come—pitapat, pitapat, as unconcerned as a house-cat looking for a place to lie down—back into my private quarters, and propose something that may, or may not, involve every dollar I own on the top-side of the earth. You do all that without even taking the trouble to hint at who you are or where you hail from, and—”
“I'm not afraid to give you my name!” the merchant gasped, taken wholly off his guard by the withering attack. “It is Stephen Whipple, sir—W-h-i-double p-l-e, Whipple!” he spelled, and he leaned forward and pointed a stiff finger at Walton's pad. “Write it down. It might get away from you.”
“Are you plumb sure it ain'tJenkins?” the banker grinned, significantly.
“No; nor Jones, nor Smith, nor Brown. It's Whipple—Stephen Whipple. Put it down on your paper. Huh, I'm not ashamed of it!”
“All right, there you are, in big letters.” Walton laughed, still victoriously, as he pencilled the name on the pad. “Now, one other formality, please—your postoffice address?”
“My post-office—” Whipple hesitated. His astounded gaze went down; he was all of a quiver, even to his bushy eyebrows.
“Why, it's this way—this way—” he stammered, and, raising his helpless eyes to the banker's taunting ones, he came to a dead halt.
“I think itmustbe,” Walton chuckled. “In fact, it mighty nigh always is that way when a feller gits in a corner. But surely, out of all the places in the United States, you could think ofsometown, railroad station, or cross-roads store. A word as uncommon asWhipplewould be hard formeto think of in a pinch. It seemed to come handy to you. Maybe you've used it before, or had some dead friend by that name.”
“You are not fair, sir!” The merchant was becoming exasperated by the human riddle before him. “I told you I had come against your son's knowledge or wish. He has kept his whereabouts from you up to now, and I have no moral right to let it out. I reckon he is afraid you will hound him down before he has a chance to pay back what he owes you. The Lord knows, he has plenty of reason for being cautious, for, if I am any judge, you are as hard and unforgiving as a stone wall.”
“I haven't seen any reason to forgive him, or bother one way or another about it,” old Simon hurled into the flushed face before him. “I don't see any difference between the way me and him stand now and six years ago. I reckon he thinks I'm on my last legs, and that the three thousand he got by some hook or crook—orfromsome crook—would be well invested as a gum-stickum plaster to put over my eyes before I am put under ground. After he had staked that much, he thought some oily-tongued friend of his might come and reconnoitre and report favorable. Well, you've reconnoitred, Mr.—Mr. Whipstock, and you can go back to Atlanta and tell him it is no go. You may tell him I am much obliged to you all—whoever your gang is—for the three thousand on account. I may be making a mistake now by shooting off my mouth so quick, for if I had worked my cards right I might have secured another payment by dropping a tear or two; but it is worth something to say what I've said in the way I've said it.”
“So you don't believe what I have told you?” Whipple gasped, in astonishment.
“Not a blessed word—not a syllable,” Walton laughed, and he threw himself back in his chair in sheer enjoyment of his visitor's discomfiture.
“You don't believe he is in my employment—you don't believe he earned the money by faithful work which he sent you—you don't believe—” Whipple paused, at the end of his resources.
“No, I don't believe eventhat,” Walton jested. “But I'll tell you one thing, and I mean it. I don't intend to have you coming around bothering me with this matter any more at all. It is strictly my affair, anyway. That boy was a bad egg when he was here, and from the looks of you and your game I can't see that he has improved a dang bit. I don't say I'd arrest him, neither; half the debt has been paid, if itwaspaid for a sneaking reason, and he can rove where he will. He is a good riddance. I used to bother about what might become of him, but I don't now.”
“Say, look me in the eye!” Whipple suddenly demanded, and with a fierceness that almost sent a shock of surprise through the banker. “You've not believed what I have told you, it seems, because you thought I was after your dirty money. Hard cash is the only thing youcanbelieve in, I see, and so I am going to use some of it to convince you. You have no faith in your son—the only child God gave you, and who is now honoring your gray hairs as they don't deserve to be honored, but, thank Heaven! I believe in him from head to foot. Before I left Atlanta, this morning, I prepared myself for some sort of emergency like this.”
Whipple took out a long envelope and threw it on the desk under the banker's eyes. “That contains three thousand dollars—six bills of five hundred each. Take them! Your boy's debt is paid in full. I may have spoiled his chances withyouby coming here against his knowledge, but he shall not lose by it. If I live to get back home I shall provide for him in my will. I may look like a faker, but I flatter myself—from all I have heard of you—that I am worth more to-day in the financial world than you could be if you could live another twenty-five years. Good-day, sir.”
TAKING up his satchel, the merchant strode heavily from the room. Doubting if he had heard aright, Walton tore open the envelope and took out the bills. He spread them on the desk; he fumbled them with quivering fingers; he took out a big magnifying glass and essayed to examine them one by one, but his excitement and perturbation rendered it impossible. Dropping his hand on his call-bell, he gave a sharp ring, and Toby Lassiter came in quickly. Brushing the money toward his clerk, Walton said:
“See if they are counterfeit. By gum!”
The clerk examined them with the glass while Walton watched him with staring eyes.
“They seem to me to be all right, Mr. Walton,” Toby said, wonderingly, as he laid the bills down.
“I reckon they are—my Lord, I reckon they are!” the banker said, in his throat. “Credit it on my private account, Toby. Credit me with three—my Lord, I didn't think—I had no idea that the dang fellow—no, I'll attend to the money. Toby, you run out and see where he goes. He may make for a hotel, or he may—but hurry!”
Twenty minutes later Toby came back and found Walton still at his desk, the money before him; his face had taken on an ashen tinge, the eye he raised had a lacklustre expression.
“Well?” he said, eagerly.
“I missed him for the first few minutes,” the clerk said. “He was on the way to the train. I took the belt-line down. He was on the car ahead. I was just in time to see him board the Atlanta special.”
“So he's gone?”
“Yes, he's gone, Mr. Walton.”
The old man stared helplessly for a minute into the puzzled face of his clerk, and then he drew the pad to him on which he had written the name of his caller.
“Me 'n' him had a tiff,” he said. “We had a sort o' tiff—I reckon you might call it that—after he had told me a long cock-and-bull tale about Fred reforming, and I laughed at him. I reckon I was rough. Then he threw this money at me all in a chunk to settle off the boy's account, and said it might talk plainer thanhehad. Toby, it don't lookexactlylike a fake. Fakes ain't worked that way. You see, it was all up between me and him, and there wasn't a thing he could gain by it, and yet he yanked out this wad and threw it at me like so much waste paper. He refused to say where he lives, but here's his name. Fred wrote that the fellow he was with was a merchant, and a big one at that. I wonder if there is any way of finding out just who and what the dang fool is?”
“You say you didn't get his address?” Toby inquired, as he helplessly stroked his colorless face and sparse mustache.
“No.” The banker uttered something like a moan of self-disgust. “He intimated that he kept it back to keep me from running the boy down. I reckon I made a big fool of myself in the presence of a man that may have unlimited capital for all I know. That's where my judgment slipped a cog for once, I reckon. I set in to believe he was out after my money, and went a little mite over the limit. He didn'tlookrich, covered with dust like he was, but hemaybe—he may be all Fred has claimed. Can you think of any way, Toby, to get a report on him?”
“I might take Bradstreet's by States,” the clerk suggested, “and run through all the towns and cities far and near.”
“It would take a month to go through that big book,” Walton said, dejectedly, “and I want to know to-day, right off. If—if I've made a break as big as that, and—and gone and insulted a man who has befriended my boy, and one who, in fact, says he intends to provide for him liberally, why, it would be nothing but good business to make what amend lies in my power. If the boy reallyhasbuilt himself up, and made good connections, and the like, why, you see, Toby, I ought not to be thefirst—the veryfirst—to—to damage his interests. What I said, in my rough way, you see, might have a tendency to sort o' make this Whipple—if he is all right—think twice before helping out the son of a man who rode as high a horse as I was astride of just now. I must have a report on him, I tell you.”
“I'll go through the book, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said. “It wouldn't take so awful long. I would only have to run through the W's, you know, and needn't look in thelittleplaces. If he is in the wholesale line, he must be in a town of over ten thousand.”
“That's a fact, that's a fact,” Walton agreed. “I reckon he didn't think of that when he gave me his name, though I acknowledge I kinder gouged it out of him when he was good and hot. Go bring the book here and set at my desk. I'll not let the rest bother you. My Lord! my Lord! What a mess!”
All that afternoon the clerk bent over the huge volume with its closely printed columns on very thin paper. The closing hour came. The typewriters and clerks went home and the front door was shut, but still Toby read, patiently running the point of his pencil down column after column. Night came on, and less than half of the book still remained to be scanned.
“Go home to supper and come back,” Walton said, a strange light burning in his shrewd eyes. “I'll meet you here. I want this thing settled. I don't believe I could sleep with the doubt on my mind as to whether that man was fooling me or not. It is a big thing—a powerful big thing. If Fred has made himself of enough importance to have a man like that come a long distance in his behalf, why, you see, I ought to know about it, that's all—I ought to know about it.”
“Yes, you ought to know, Mr. Walton,” Lassiter said, as he laid a blotter between the pages and reached for his hat. They went out together and walked side by side to the corner, where the clerk had to turn off.
“You sort o' believed in Fred all along, Toby,” the banker said, tentatively—“that is, you used to talk him up to some extent.”
“I thought he was in earnest about what he wrote in that last good-bye letter, Mr. Walton. It made a deep impression on me. It sounded perfectly straight. And awhile back, when hisotherletter came, bringing all that cash, I was more sure than ever. Even when you said you believed it was a trick, somehow I couldn't exactly look at it that way.”
“Well, see if you can locate this Whipple,” Walton said, and, turning off, he trudged heavily homeward through the gathering shadows.
He was on his way back to the bank about nine o'clock when he saw Toby coming toward him. The clerk was walking rapidly, swinging his long arms to and fro like pendulums.
“Well, well?” Walton exclaimed, as they met face to face on the sidewalk in the flare of a gas-light.
“I have found him!” Toby chuckled. “There is no mistake. Stephen Whipple is a whopping big wholesale grocer at Gate City, Oklahoma. He's rated at over a million, with credit at the top notch.”
“You don't say!” A negro laborer with a bag of flour on his shoulder was passing close by, and Walton laid his hand warmingly on the arm of his clerk and drew him slowly along.
“You don't say!” he repeated, under his breath, as he clutched Toby's thin arm, “and I talked to him like a dog—like a hound-dog. I did that, when he could buy and sell me over and over. I sneered at him, and just as good as called him a thief, when he was right then befriending the son I'd cast off. Say, Toby, you've got a sight more sense than I have; what do you think I ought to do about it?”
“I really don't know, Mr. Walton,” Toby replied, awkwardly. “Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go out there. From the way Fred wrote, it stands to reason he'd be glad to see you, anyway, and—”
“I couldn't do that, Toby,” Walton said, under his breath. “After the stand I took and have held all these years, I couldn't go running after him. I could dosomethings, but I couldn't do that. Besides, you see, Whipple would know we'd looked up his standing, and think I'd come because he was rich. But, say, I have an idea, Toby. Don't you think you could get on the train and go out there and take a look around?”
“Why, yes, if you advise it, Mr. Walton.”
“And you could go and hang about, in a quiet, know-nothing way, without letting Fred see you, I reckon?”
“Easy enough, Mr. Walton, in a bustling place like that.”
“Well, then, I'll tell you what you do. Pack your grip to-night, and take the eight-thirty train in the morning. Put up at some out-of-the-way hotel, and lie low and pick up what information you can. Don't go about Whipple's place of business; if Fred saw you, it would spoil it all. I'll defray your expenses. You deserve a trip, anyway. Of course, even if the boy has made such a good, comfortable nest for himself out there, that woman business is still hanging over him, and he wouldn't feel exactly like facing Stafford folks right now. But I reckon he's been doing an honest man's part by her along with his rise. He's been providing for her and the child pretty well, I'll be bound. And in case hedoescome back, even on a visit, we'll help him smooth over the matter as far as is in our power. He ain't the first young chap that's let his blood get the upper hand. Some of the great men of history have made like slips along at the start. Yes, we'll try to manage that some way. We might even get her and her mother to move off somewhere. I don't know—I only say itmightbe done. Folks in a plight of that sort will do most anything when they are paid, and it looks like Fred won't go a-begging. Now, good-bye, Toby. You've got a job of detective work before you, but I believe you'll be smart enough to put it through.”
“I'll do my best, Mr. Walton,” the clerk said. “Goodbye.”
IT was a delightfully cool and crisp morning for midsummer, and Doctor Dearing was on the lawn between his house and Galt's, when he noticed that the railroad president had come out into his own grounds for a smoke. The two exchanged greetings through cordial signals, and Galt crossed over and joined his friend.
“What news from New York?” he asked, as he flicked the ashes from his cigar.
“They will be here to-morrow,” Dearing replied. “Madge has been homesick for fully two weeks; but Uncle Tom made her stay longer, hoping that she would become more interested in what was going on. They have had all sorts of attentions paid them, but he writes me that he has never been worried so much in his life over her. He says she enjoyed the first two weeks thoroughly, but lately she has been actually depressed. He tried everything imaginable, but home was what she wanted and would have.”
“And so they are coming?” Galt said, reflectively.
“Yes, they are on the way now. After all, what better could one ask for than a snug retreat like this in hot weather? Madge is fond of home. She doesn't care for giddy social things among a lot of money-spending Yankees, and I admire her taste.”
“Yes, so do I,” Galt answered, and he smoked steadily, his eyes bent on the ground. .
“I have an unpleasant job on hand,” Dearing remarked. “I have delayed it several times, but I have decided to do it to-day and have it over with.”
“What is it?” Galt asked.
“It is a slight operation I have to perform on little Lionel.”
“Operation? Lionel?” Galt started, and then checked himself and stared blankly. “I didn't know there was anything at all wrong with him.”
“Oh, it is only a slight and common thing with children,” Dearing explained. “Enlarged tonsils and adenoidal growth which must be removed. Outwardly the little chap is as sound as a dollar, and, so far, his wonderful strength has fought the thing off; but for a child so nervous as he is, and high strung and imaginative, it might, later on affect him seriously. Neglected cases have brought on permanent deafness and lung trouble. It is inherited, as a rule; you,yourself, had something of that sort, I think you told me.”
“Yes, yes,” Galt replied. Deep down within him something seemed to clutch his vitals. In the ear of his naked soul an accusing voice was sounding: “Inherited! Inherited!” The word rang out like a threat from the Infinite—from the vast mystery of life which had of late been so tenaciously closing around him. Even the pain Lionel was to undergo was the outcome of another's sin.
“Oh, it is a very simple operation,” Dearing went on, “and in any ordinary case I shouldn't give it a second thought; but, by George, I have become attached to that little chap. He is the pluckiest little man I ever knew. I had an exhibition of his grit one day that was ahead of anything I ever saw in a child. He had fallen, and his upper teeth had cut a deep gash in his tongue. They sent for me, and I saw that I'd have to take a stitch in it to close the ugly gap. It was a ticklish job, and I hardly saw how I could do it, for I didn't want to use an anaesthetic. But I talked to him just as I would to a man, and he promised me he wouldn't cry. He didn't. I give you my word, old man, he didn't whimper as the needle went through, and even while I was tying the thread; but I could see from his big, strained eyes that it hurt him like rips. A child with grit like that, Kenneth, is bound to make a stir in the world. I have noticed that you like him too, and I am glad you do. The truth is, darn you, you are taking my place! I'm jealous; he thinks you are a regular king. He is always talking about you.”
“When do you think you will do the—the operation?” Galt faltered, as he averted his shrinking glance from Dearing's face.
“Why, I want to do it right off. It is like this: his mother knows it has to be done, and has agreed to leave it entirely to me; but she is very nervous over it. She has a vein of morbid superstition running through her. She fancies that some disaster is bound, sooner or later, to happen to him—in fact, as she has often put it to me, she hardly believes that a just God would allow such a sensitive and ambitious child to grow up to a full comprehension of his humiliation.
“I see—I see what you mean,” Galt managed to say, and his soul seemed to writhe anew as he stood trying to make his words sound casual.
“So I thought,” the doctor went on, “that I'd like, if possible, to get it over without her knowledge, or without her mother knowing of it. Nervous people standing around, half frightened out of their wits, at such a time, unsteady my hand and upset me generally. Now, as I have everything in readiness up-stairs, I think, when Lionel comes over this morning, as I've asked him to do, I'll talk him into it. Young Doctor Beaman, my new assistant, is up-stairs sterilizing my instruments, and he will give the chloroform. You see, it would be a pleasant surprise and a relief to those doting women to suddenly find out that the thing they have made such a fuss about is over and no harm done.” Galt made no reply. He had seen a trim little figure darting across the lower end of the lawn, and saw a flash of golden tresses in the sunlight, and knew that Lionel was coming—and to what? Galt suppressed an inward groan. The unsuspecting child was bounding along, joyous and full of life, to the grim, inexplicable snare which had been set for him. Young as he was, he was to be asked to be firm and brave, that his little form might take on the semblance of death and submit to the knife, a thing at the thought of which even strong men had quailed. And what might, after all, be the as yet unrevealed outcome? One case in every ten thousand, at least, failed to survive the artificial sleep, owing to this or that overlooked internal defect. Would this child of malignant misfortune be that one?
Lionel drew near, sweeping the two men with merry eyes of welcome. There was an instant's hesitation as to which to greet first, and then instinct seemed to swerve him toward Galt, his hand outstretched. With a queer throb of appreciation, the father took it and felt it pulsate in his clasp.
“Come here, Lionel, my boy,” Dearing said, with affected lightness of manner. “You remember what I said one day about those ugly lumps down there in your little throat which are going to get bigger and bigger, till after a while you can't eat any jam and cake? You wouldn't like that, would you?”
“I remember.” Lionel passed his tapering hand over his white throat. “I can feel them when I swallow.”
“And that is why you have those bad dreams, and jump in your sleep, and think you are falling,” Dearing added, adroitly. “You know you promised to let me get them out.”
“Oh, not to-day!” the boy protested, throwing a wistful glance up at the unclouded sky. “I was going to build a really-really house out of the bricks at the barn. I have a stove-pipe for a smoke-stack. I'll show you both. Come with me! Oh, it's great!”
“Not to-day. Lionel, listen.” Dearing drew the boy close to him, and tenderly stroked back his hair from his fine brow. “Mamma, you know, is terribly nervous about it.Womenare that way, aren't they? Men and boys, like us, know better. She can hardly sleep at night for thinking about it—even a little thing like that. We can do it now, and I can run over and tell her you are sleeping like a kitten in my big bed up-stairs, and she and Granny will be so glad. It won't hurt a bit, you know, for the medicine will make you sleep through it all.” A shadow of deep disappointment came into Lionel's expressive eyes. The warm color of life in his face faded into tense gravity, and they saw him clasp his little hands and wring them undecidedly.
“And you think to-day is the best time?” he faltered, on the edge of refusal.
“The very best of all, Lionel,” Dearing said, gently. “You wouldn't be afraid of me, would you?”
The child stared dumbly. To Galt's accusing sense the world had never held a more desolate sentient being than this incipient repetition of himself. The child had proved that he knew no physical fear. To what, then, did he owe this evident clutch of horror? Could it be due to some psychic warning of approaching danger, or was the sensitive child telepathically governed by the morbid fears which, at that moment, were raging in the heart of his father?
“Come, that's a good, nice boy!” Dearing urged. “I see you are going to be a brave little man.”
“I'm not afraid it willhurt,” Lionel faltered, “but I don't like to be put to—to sleep.”
“But it must be so, my boy,” the doctor said. “Come on. Mamma will see us in a minute and smell a mouse.” For a moment yet the child stood undecided, his gaze alternately on the two faces before him. Suddenly, while they waited and his eyes were resting in strange appeal on Galt, he asked:
“Will you come, too?”
A shock as if from some unknown force went through the man addressed, but, seeing no alternative, he answered:
“If you wish it, yes, of course.”
“Andyouthink I ought to—to do it?”
“Yes,” Galt nodded, his head rocking like that of an automaton. “The doctor knows best.”
“Well, then, I'll go,” the boy sighed, with another wistful look over the lawn. “I'll go.”
As they were entering the house, by some strange mandate of fate or instinct the boy again took his father's hand, and Galt held it as they began to ascend the broad, walnut stairs. Argue as he would that the operation was only a most ordinary thing, to Galt's morbid state of mind it assumed the shape of a tragedy staged and enacted by the very imps of darkness.
On the way up the boy tripped on the stair-carpeting and slipped and fell face downward. He was unhurt, but Galt raised him in his arms and bore him up the remainder of the steps into a big, light room off the corridor.
“Here we are, Doctor Beaman!” Dearing cheerily called out to a slender, beardless young man, who, with a towel in hand, was bending over some polished instruments on the bureau. “This is the little chap who never cries when he is hurt. He is a regular soldier, I tell you!”
“No, I'm not afraid,” the boy said, as he stood alone in the centre of the room; but still, as his father noted, there was a certain contradictory rigidity of his features which he had never remarked before.
Galt told himself that the child's evident dread, vague as it was, was also an inheritance; for he recalled how he himself had once taken ether to have a slight operation performed. He had been a man in years at the time, and yet the effect on his mind as to what might be the outcome had been most depressing. That day, as he was doing now, he had looked upon the drug-induced sleep as a dangerous approach to death; and now, as then, he gravely feared that the tiny thread of reduced vitality might be torn asunder. He stood dumb with accusing horror as the two doctors hastily made their grewsome arrangements, such as securing warm water, fresh towels and sheets, which, in their very whiteness, suggested a shroud.
The noise made as they drew a narrow table across the resounding floor into the best light between the two windows jarred harshly on his tense nerves. These things were grim enough, but the wan isolation of the waiting child, as he stood with that war against fear and shame of fear going on in his great, fathomless eyes, so like those of his artist-mother—that appealing little figure, nameless, disowned among men, was stamped on the retina of Galt's eye for the remainder of his life.
“Now, take off your waist and collar and necktie,” Dearing said to Lionel—“that will be enough. We'll have you all right in a jiffy. You are not afraidnow, are you?”
Galt's heart sank like a plummet, for the child's lips moved, but no sound issued. The little fellow turned his face away as he began to undress. He removed the flowing necktie, but his little fingers could not unfasten the stiff linen collar.
“Help him, Kenneth,” Dearing said. “My hands are full.”
Galt obeyed, his fingers coming into contact with the cold chin of the child and the soft flesh of his neck. He felt like snatching the boy from the damnable spot, as a mother might her young from the claws of a wild beast. Yet, outwardly calm, he drew the sleeves of the child's blouse off and laid it on a chair.
“Now we are ready for you, young man,” Dearing said, lightly. “I see you are not afraid I'll hurt you.”
“No, I know it won'thurt,” Lionel said, “but—”
“Don't you begin butting me,” Dearing laughed. “You are not a goat like the one that butted Grover Weston heels over head the other day.”
“If I shouldn't wake up—I mean if I reallyshouldn't, you know,” Lionel finished, with a faint effort to smile at the doctor's jest, “won't you please not tell my mother too quick? She gets frightened so easily, and, you see, if I didn't wake up—if I never woke again—”
“Ah, come off!” Dearing laughed, as he turned to his assistant. “Doctor, this kid hints that we don't know our business.”
“But if I didn't wake, if Ididn't!” Lionel insisted, “you'd not scare her, would you? And—and”—his lower lip quivered—“wouldn't you tell her that I wasn't a bit afraid, and that I didn't cry, and—wait! wait! Won't you tell her that it didn't hurt a single bit, not even a littleteensy bit?”
“Yes, yes,” Dearing said, and, considerably taken aback, he stared at Galt rather than at the insistent speaker. “I'll tell her you are the best boy in the world—the best, the bravest, and the sweetest. And God knows I'll mean it,” he finished, in a lower tone to Galt. “I've seen thousands of kids, Kenneth, but this one gets nearer me than all the rest put together. I swear I am almost tempted to throw the darn job up. But, you see, it has to be done. Doctor,” turning to his assistant, “put him on the table, and I'll tickle his nose and make him laugh. We'll make him have the funniest dreams he ever had.”
Doctor Beaman went to the boy and held out his arms, and Lionel was lifted to the table and stretched out on the crisp sheet which had been spread over it. Just then, happening to look round, Dearing saw Galt's face, and hastily stepped to his side. “My Lord!” he whispered, “I see this thing is going against you, old man. You are nauseated; you look faint. Many men are that way—young students sometimes have to give up surgery for that reason. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You like the little chap, and your sympathies are worked up, that's all. But, really, I don't think you ought to stay. I become nervous if others are, and I must have a free hand. Besides, if you were to keel over in a faint at an important moment I couldn't look after you. You'd better run down-stairs and take a whiff of air. I'll call you when it is over.”
“Is he going?—must he go?” Lionel asked, as he turned his head and saw Galt moving to the door. “Yes,” Dearing said, “but only down-stairs.”
“Oh,” the child exclaimed, regretfully, and averted his face, “I thought he could stay!”
Down into the still silence of the great hall Galt went. There was something heartlessly maddening in the calm, yellow sunlight on the grass, which he could see through the doorway. The birds in the trees, as they flitted about with twigs in their mouths and chirped in glee, seemed mocking voices of despair from the deliberate tyranny of the universe.
“God have mercy and spare him!” the man cried out from the depths of his agony. “Spare him, O God, spare him!”
Unconscious of the incongruous prayer which had fallen from his lips, he turned into the drawing-room, on the left of the hall, and sank into an easy-chair, covering his face with his stiff hands. Suddenly he heard a light step on the veranda, and, raising his eyes, he saw Dora standing in the hall, glancing wildly and excitedly about her. Possessed by the fear that she might call out, and thus make her presence known at that most crucial moment, he rose and hastened to her. She did not see him till he was close at her side, and then she turned and their eyes met.
“Where is Lionel—where is my child?” she panted.
He stood staring at her, unable to formulate a reply, and, brushing past him with an air of contempt, which he read all too clearly, she turned to the stairs, and started to ascend.
“Oh, you mustn't—you really mustn't!” he called out in protest, and he put a detaining hand on her arm.
Shrinking from his touch, she stared at him piteously.
“Then they really are doing it!” she cried. “They are up there operating on my child! I knew it when Doctor Beaman drove up, and Doctor Wynn came and asked Lionel to play over here.”
Galt made no denial. He stood beside her, swept out of himself by the sheer power of her astounding beauty, as he now beheld it for the first time since their parting. In his wildest stretch of fancy as to what the years might have brought her, he had not dreamed that she had become such a flower among women. There was a seductive maturity of intellect in her faultless face. The strange, appealing, and yet unreadable lights of genius were burning in her dark, mystic eyes. He stood before her with the smitten humility, the cringing shame, of a subject rebuked by his queen.
“Yes, I am sure of it!” she moaned, and she lowered her glorious head to the newel of the stairs and shuddered. “They are cutting my darling, and I can't go to him. Doctor Wynn thought he'd spare my feelings—as if that counted.”
She suddenly looked him squarely in the face, and he shrank before the calm penetration of her stare. “We'll never see him alive again,” she said, in a low, husky voice—“never again on earth!”
“Oh no, don't say that!” he cried, finding his submerged voice in the agony produced by her suggestion. “God wouldn't be so unmerciful—the child has harmed no one!”
“You speak of God,” she suddenly retorted, standing farther from him and drawing herself erect. “The word was a joke with you once,” she added, with a bitter sneer. “And I believed your puny theories, and blindly followed out the deductions you made with your nose in the earth during our vain dream of intellectual supremacy. But a change was wrought in me. Into my wretched darkness Lionel came, and I saw and was convinced. He was my living, pulsating, immortal link to the Infinite. But he is not for the earth. He is above it. God allowed Christ to suffer the pangs of a material existence for the salvation of the world, but He is too merciful to let my sensitive darling face what he would have to face. Lionel was sent to lift me, with his tiny hands, from the slough into which I had fallen, but his mission is over—oh, God, it is over! How can I bear it—how can I live without him? He is my life, mysoul!” She covered her tortured face with her bloodless hands and remained still, save for the emotion which quivered through her hysterical frame.
Galt stood gazing at her for a moment, an almost uncontrollable yearning on him to clasp her in his arms and beg her forgiveness. He might have done so but for the fear of offending her. He glanced up the stairs. How still it was above! How like death! In his alarmed fancy he saw the two doctors standing aghast over the still, senseless form of his child. They had miscalculated! The physical examination had misled them; ether should have been the drug employed rather than chloroform!
Uncovering her face, Dora read his thoughts. She uttered a low, despairing wail, and they stood looking into each other's eyes. There was a sound of sudden movement on the floor above. Some one was raising a window-sash at the top of the stairs.
“I am sweating like an ox!” they heard Dearing say; and—could they believe their ears?—he was actually laughing, and calling out to Lionel: “I told you you'd not know when it was done. Now, lie down and go to sleep. You are as sound as a silver dollar. It may sting just a little tiny bit when you swallow, but that will be gone by to-morrow. Go to sleep, and when you wake I'll have that tricycle ready.”
“Thank God—thank God,” Dora exclaimed, “he is saved!”
She started up the stairs, and in desperation Galt caught her arm. “Wait one moment, Dora,” he implored, “I have something to say. You must hear me. I am—”
“Don't stop me!” She shook his hand loose from her sleeve, and the haughty look of contempt he had noticed before rose into her fathomless eyes as she glanced back at him. “I am going up to him. I won't waken him. I'll be very quiet, but I must be near him.”
Standing at the foot of the stairs, he saw her ascend and disappear above. How beautiful she was! How rare and exquisite—how infinitely removed from her kind. And that was Dora—the Dora of all that was good and pure of his past, the guileless victim of all that was low, sordid, and unworthy within him!