OLD Stafford had changed wonderfully in the six years which passed after Fred Walton's flight. The building of President Galt's trunk-line to the sea had marked the turning-point in the town's career. The older portion of the place remained quite as it was, but new suburbs and new centres of commerce had sprung up beyond the old incorporated limits. Where farms, fields, and pastures had once been, now lay even, well-graded, and electric-lighted streets. No small city in the South had a better freight-rate to all points, and this had brought about the establishment of various manufacturing enterprises which had greatly increased the population. The clang and clatter of new growth was in the air; speculation in building-sites was rife. The modest price of one day was the jest of the next. Owning a great deal of the land along the new railway, General Sylvester was now more wealthy than ever, and the new interest in life had given him back his youth and health.
As for Kenneth Galt, he had scarcely spent a day in the town of his birth since his hurried journey to New York to meet the capitalists whose co-operation had made the road a certainty. His explanation to Sylvester was that other points on the long line constantly demanded his attention. His old home was still cared for by Mrs. Wilson as housekeeper and John Dilk as gardener, and now and then a false report had emanated from these proud and worshipful menials that the distinguished owner was coming back to reside there permanently. Indeed, he had promised General Sylvester to do so time after time, only to make more delays and more excuses.
“He's coming this time sure,” the old soldier said to his nephew on the veranda one day in the early part of the present summer. “I had a letter from him this morning, in which he promised to come and spend the hot weather here and take a good long rest. Mrs. Wilson said, also, that he had written her about renovating his rooms, so I reckon it is settled. And when he comes you will see that I was right about my prophecy concerning him and Madge. He's a woman-hater, they say—won't have a thing to do with society; and, quiet and reserved as your sister is, the two will naturally drift together. I'll be glad to have him back. That shady old place, with its early associations, will fairly make him over. When I spent that week with him in Savannah I naturally expected to find him at the top of the social heap, but he went nowhere at all, and even seemed to shun the men who extended courtesies to him. He's had too big a load on him; his face shows wrinkles, and his hair is turning at the temples.”
“Yes, he is a strange chap,” Dearing answered. “I have been thrown with him in Atlanta several times of late, and while he really seemed glad to see me, and was cordial enough, in a way, I couldn't exactly make him out. As usual, I found him moping over his favorite books, and every bit as anxious, as of old, to prove that the grave ends everything. That will ruin any man, Uncle Tom. When a fellow actually gets to fighting the belief that we are more than sticks and stones he can't rise very high in any spiritual sense. Why, Kenneth has even reached the point of defending some of the lowest things that men do. He and I were walking away out in the outskirts of the city one night. He had asked me to go, because he wanted to avoid some clubmen who were bent on having him preside at a banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce. We were all alone, and it was dark. He had asked me, I remember, if any news had come as to the whereabouts of Fred Walton, and I had told him that nothing at all had been heard except that his father had cut him off forever. To my astonishment, Kenneth actually sighed. Then I distinctly heard him muttering to himself: 'Poor fellow. Poor chap! He's been treated like a dog!”' “Huh, the idea!” Sylvester broke in. “Well, that's like Kenneth. He is always ready to take up for somebody or something that no one else believes in.”
“Well, feeling as I did, and knowing what I do of the case,” Dearing continued, warmly, “I couldn't hold my tongue. I didn't leave a grain of sand for Fred Walton to stand on, and it made me hot for Galt not to agree with me. He made some weak remark about men obeying natural laws, and being cursed with uncontrollable passions, and the like; but I flatter myself that I silenced him. I gave him a picture of that beautiful girl's isolated life with her son and old mother, wholly ostracized in the only community they had ever known or loved. I saw, then, that I had touched his sympathies in another direction.
“'You think,' he said, 'that Walton ought, evennow, to go back and marry her—at this late date?”
“I told him that I had grave doubts as to whether a woman who had suffered as she had at a man's hands would ever want to see her betrayer again, and he answered that he felt sure she wouldn't. Then he asked about the boy. You know, he was always fond of children—that is one redeeming quality he has, and it makes me hope that he isn't so heartless as he would have us believe. He listened attentively to all I said about Lionel, even asking me questions as to how the child looked and how he amused himself. When I told him that the little fellow was completely cut off from other children, and that his association only with his mother and grandmother had made him act and speak more like an older person than a child, he seemed actually shocked.”
“'You don't mean to tell me,' he said, 'that the people of old Stafford would turn against a helpless child because of any fault or mistake of its parents!'
“I explained to him that it was mostly due to the pride of his mother, and to the natural fear that such an intelligent boy, and one so sensitive and observant as he is, might learn of his misfortune and suffer from it. That conversation raised Kenneth Galt in my estimation, Uncle Tom. I know now that he has true feeling and sympathy for the unfortunate, and that his ambition is not all there is to him.”
“I must confess that the child has greatly interested me,” the General said. “From my window I can see him playing in that narrow yard, always dressed neatly, and as strong and straight as an Indian in his bearing. I have never seen him outside the fence. I have stopped to speak to him once or twice in passing, and have been actually charmed by his face and manner. I don't think I ever heard of a case exactly like his. Of course, there have been thousands of children born like that in straitlaced communities, but I never heard of one being brought up in that prison-like way. It surely is wrong, and it will make the truth all the harder to bear when it does come out, as it must sooner or later. She is a wonderful woman—I started to say girl, for she seems almost like a child to me with that sad, young face, and wistful, artistic beauty. I have met her mother on the street a few times, her old face thickly veiled, but I have not seen Dora or the child away from the cottage.”
“As their family doctor,” said Dearing, “I urged Dora to go out herself for exercise and to take the boy with her. At first she flatly refused. I frightened her, however, by saying that the constant confinement would injure Lionel's health. Since then she has taken him with her in fine weather when she goes sketching in the woods and swamp back of the cottage, but she is as shy as a fawn about it. I venture to say that no one has ever met her on those excursions. I've seen mother-love, Uncle Tom, in all its phases. I've met it at the death-beds of scores of children, but the love between that unfortunate mother and child is the prettiest thing on earth. No pair of lovers were ever more constant and affectionate. Lionel is really a sort of psychological oddity in his way. I have a theory that the mother's morbid suffering was in some prenatal way stamped on her offspring.' He is queerly supersensitive for one so young, and seems constantly afraid that he won't be liked. He is rather fond of me—perhaps it is because I'm the only visitor at the house; and when I take him in my lap to hold him, I can see that he enjoys it as if it were an unusual luxury. He closes his eyes sometimes and smiles, and says he wants to go to sleep that way. Then he will ask me over and over again if I lovehim. After being told that I do, he will detect some slight change in my face or voice and cry out, 'Now, you don't like me—do you?' I am not sentimental, Uncle Tom, but that little chap's condition has worried me a lot. I pity him as I've never pitied a human being before.”
“I have often wondered whether Madge has taken notice of him,” General Sylvester remarked, reflectively. “A woman is hard to read on the surface, and while Madge never mentions Fred Walton's name any more than if he were dead, I've been afraid that the mere sight of his child might keep the old memory alive. Do you know, my son, a woman will condone exactly that failing in a man more quickly than any other? I suppose they lay most of the blame on the woman in the case. A high-strung creature like your sister wouldn't for a moment consider herself a rival of a fallen woman, and it may be that the explanation of her never having shown interest in other men is that—”
“That she still cares for the rascal?” Dearing broke in, his face darkening.
“Yes, and that she still clings to some sort of faith in his constancy,” the General added. “You can't crush love in a woman's heart so long as she believes she is loved by a man who is longing for her and is kept away by adverse circumstances. You see, if our dear girl attributes Walton's predicament to a simple act oflow, impulsive passion, and believes that he loved her, and her alone, in apureway, why—”
“I see, I see, and I am afraid you may be right,” Dearing said, bitterly. “And instead of curing her, the scoundrel's absence is only making the thing worse. Did you tell her about Kenneth's coming?”
“Yes, only an hour ago, and it seemed to me that she was rather pleased. She remarked that she was glad John Dilk had kept up the place so well, and that the flowers would gratify him. I really fancied that she was more pleased by the news than she was willing to show, for she changed the subject by offering to play for me.”
At this juncture a woman came round the house hurriedly, wiping her red, bare arms, and trying to adjust the damp dress she wore. It was Mrs. Chumley, the washerwoman. Her tawny hair was disarranged, and her fat, freckled face flushed with an excitement that was almost pleasurable.
“Oh, here you are, Doctor Wynn!” she panted. “I hain't been told to come; in fact, them highfalutin' neighbors of mine never let a body know anything they can get out of. But Mrs. Barry is having another of her falling spells. She was on the side porch brushing little Lionel's head when I heard her cry out to Dora for help, and then she struck the floor of the kitchen with a thump you could have heard up here if you'd been listening.”
“Well, I'll run down,” Dearing said to his uncle. “It may not be very serious. She is subject to such attacks.”
HURRYING down through the grounds, and vaulting over the low boundary fence, Dearing approached the gate of the Barry cottage just as Dora came out. Pretty as she had been in girlhood, she was rarely beautiful as a fully developed woman. And to-day, as ever, Dearing stood before her in absolute awe of her rare, exquisite, and appealing personality.
“She's had another attack, Wynn!” Dora said, with a brave effort to steady her faltering voice. “I really thought she was dying, and I suppose I screamed. She looked so bad for a few moments! Her face turned purple, and she lost consciousness. She came to herself a moment ago, and is still awake. Will you see her?”
He went to the sick woman's room on tiptoe. Seated in a chair at the head of the bed, and waving a palm-leaf fan to and fro, to keep the flies from his grandmother's face, was Lionel, his great, serious eyes, so like his mother's, filled with anxiety. He rose as Dearing entered, and moved round to the other side of the bed, but he still waved the fan and stood staring anxiously.
“I thought I was gone that time, Doctor Wynn,” Mrs. Barry said, with a wan smile, as he took her hand to test her pulse.
“Well, you certainly are far from it now,” he laughed, reassuringly. “I believe it would take a regiment of soldiers to put you out of business. That was only a fainting spell brought on by too close confinement to the house. You must get out more; that's all you need. Now, take a good nap and you will be all right.” He nodded and smiled reassuringly at Dora, who stood at the foot of the bed. She followed him from the room, seeing that he wished to speak to her.
“She is all right now,” he told her. “She is doing very well. It is only a sluggish liver, due to lack of exercise. Let her sleep as long as she will now, and I'll send you a tonic which will brace her up. There is nothing really to fear. She has a splendid constitution in all other respects.”
Dora sank into a chair as if utterly overcome with relief, and he stood looking at her in blended admiration and sympathy.
Aside from her beauty of face and form, there was a ripeness of intellect and character in her face, which had come to her from the years of isolated suffering which she had undergone.
“You are so kind to me, Wynn,” she said, with a faint, sad smile. “You have always been the best friend we ever had.”
“Why, what are you talking about?” Dearing said, lightly and with a flush. “Any other jack-leg country doctor would have taken care of you fully as well.”
“You have done hundreds of thoughtful things,” she cried. “You have left nothing undone that could possibly help us. Oh, you aretoogood! You haven't allowed my poor mother to pay you one penny for your services in all these years. She has tried and tried to make you take it till she has almost given up in despair.”
“I haven't done anything really worth while, Dora,” he said, lightly. “You see, you live right at hand, too, and it is no trouble at all to jump over your fence and mine. I couldn't take money from a next-door neighbor under those circumstances. You just wait until you really need a doctor, and then I'll send in a bill as long as my arm.”
“You can't help being good,” Dora said, feelingly, her wonderful violet eyes filling. “Your great heart simply went out to us in our trouble, and you have determined to help us in every way possible. Mother thinks all the world of you, and Lionel actually believes you are some sort of god.”
“Well, he's badly fooled, I tell you!” Dearing laughed. “But speaking of him, I must lecture you good and hard. You are not treating the child at all right. He oughtn't to be cooped up here in this little yard like he is. It is too small. A growing boy like that needs room, and plenty of it.”
“Oh, you don't understand!” Dora sighed, while a look of deepest pain tortured her mobile face. “I couldn't bear to have him running around a neighborhood as—as heartless as this one is. He is so observant, and has such an inquiring mind, and people are so—so cruel, so utterly unforgiving. But you are trying to change the subject. You think I have no money with which to pay a doctor's bill.” She laughed suddenly and mysteriously as she went on: “I believe I'll let you into a secret. I'll show you something. Come into the parlor.”
She led him, with graceful step and bearing, through the little central passage of the cottage to the parlor door, and they entered together. She laughed like a merry child; it was the sweet, rippling laugh he remembered so well as belonging to his youth and hers, as she pointed to the easel before a window. On it was a good water-color picture of a child at play on the grass near a stream, with a pastoral scene sketched in the background.
“Oh,” he exclaimed, admiringly, “that's the best you've shown me! It is very, very good.”
“That's only one of many,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I wanted something to occupy my mind after I gave up music, and I began these studies merely as an experiment. I worked for a year while Lionel was a baby just to—you know, Wynn—just to forget!” He was silent, being unable to formulate any reply that was appropriate to the delicate situation, and she went on simply, and still in the winsome tone which had always appealed to him so strongly.
“Then—now comes thebestpart—one day I happened to read the advertisement of an Atlanta dealer who was in need of such things, and I forwarded some sketches I had done. They were bad—oh, so bad—and he wrote that he would not offer them to his customers, but he encouraged me to keep on. Then I worked harder, and finally I sent him some pictures of children—little pickaninnies, brown as chestnuts, little white ragamuffins, babies in old-fashioned, crude, box-cradles like the mountain people have, and he sold them. Think of that! He actually sold them! I have not signed any of them. He has written me several times begging that I should do so, but I have always refused. He has agreed not to use my name at all, and I believe he has kept his word. The whole thing has made me—almosthappy. Wynn, I saw your face after your first successful operation, and didn't understand then what it meant to you, but I do now. The day that dealer's letter came, and his money followed by express, in a big wax-sealed envelope—well, it was the happiest moment of my life-I sang; I talked to myself; I danced. I told Baby all about it as I hugged him in my arms. I had, as they say, discovered myself. Here I was, cut off from intercourse with everybody in my home town, but God hadn't wholly forsaken me. He had given me something to make up for what I'd lost—a way of speaking to the big outer world.”
“I see, and I congratulate you with all my heart,” Dearing said, as he stood watching the shifting tones in her expressive face. “I understand you better now. I got in the habit of listening for your piano at night, when everything was still, and I fancied I could read your various moods. A long time ago you played too sadly; really it used to get next to me, and make me worry about you; but of late there has been more hope and cheerfulness in your music, and it did me a lot of good. I understand you better now. I have always thought that creative work was the most satisfying and uplifting occupation possible, and now I am sure of it.”
“And I am getting better and better prices, too,” Dora said, modestly. “My agent sends my things everywhere, even to far-off New York and Boston. I don't do them so fast now, for I try harder and I think they are better. Now, you will send me your bill, won't you?”
“I shall certainly be hoping that somebody will get really sick under this roof,” he laughed, evasively, “for I'd like to get a whack at your roll of cash, but so far my dealings have been only with your mother, and she doesn't make it interesting. She was good to me when I was a boy. I used to crawl over the back fence when she was making jelly and jam in the kitchen, and I collected some fees then that did me more good than any I have since received. She performed the first surgical operation on me, too, that I ever had. I was barefoot, and while trying to hide from some other boys I stuck a rusty nail through my big toe. She heard me yelling and came to my assistance. She extracted the nail, washed out my wound, filled it with turpentine—the only household antiseptic used in that day—and bound it up for me. I have always believed that she saved me from lockjaw.”
“The opportunity to earn money means more to me than you might think, Wynn,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you know what my dream of dreams is? It is to be able to go to Paris, and take Lionel and my mother. She has always wanted to go, because papa was buried there. Do you know, I feel that away off in a free, art-loving country like France I could rear my child to manhood without his ever knowing about his—his history. It seems to me that God has given me this talent for that particular purpose. The only trouble is the delay. You see, it may be years before I can save enough, and then it might be too late.”
“I see, I understand,” Dearing said, gravely; “and you'd never come back to old Stafford again, I suppose?”
“Oh no,” she answered; “all this would have to be laid aside forever.”
“I shouldn't like to see you go,” he said. “I have—you see, I have become attached to Lionel—he and I are great chums. But if you have decided, and wish it so very much, why not? Look here, Dora, I have money lying idle in the bank. I have absolutely no need for it, and—”
“Oh no!” she cried. “It is lovely of you to offer it, but I couldn't think of taking it. I couldn't—I really-couldn't!”
“Not from your big brother?” he asked, his pleading eyes on her.
“No, not even from you, you dear boy. It ismyproblem, Wynn, and I must work it out alone—all alone.”
They had gone back to the porch, and the sight of the extensive grounds around his house prompted him to say:
“I know now why you don't realize Lionel's need for more fresh air. You have that absorbing occupation, and it keeps you from putting yourself in the boy's place, as you might otherwise do.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, quite gravely. “It may be true, Wynn, and yet what am I to do? I really can't bear to have him running about, meeting other children. I could never answer his questions—never, never! Some one would have to watch him, and mother and I both shrink from going out in—in public.”
“I was thinking of that, too,” Dearing replied, “and that is why a certain plan occurred to me. There is that big lot of mine right over the fence. Nothing could possibly happen to him there. It is quiet, and there are many things he could amuse himself with. It is really like a little farm, you know. We have chickens, ducks, turkeys, puppies, kittens, pigs, and horses, and even a cow and a calf about the barn, to say nothing of the pigeons that nest in the hay-loft. To a child, judging by my own memory of boyhood, it would be a regular paradise.”
“You don't mean that you would allow—that you would—” There was a catch in the young mother's voice; a tinge of anxious pallor crept into her appealing face. “Oh, Wynn, you are too kind! You are thinking only of helping me. There is your uncle and your sister—I could not bear to trust my darling where he might not be—wanted.”
“I know my uncle and sister better than you do,” Dearing said. “Margaret has never seen Lionel that I know of, but she would love to make him happy. As for my uncle, he greatly admires the little fellow, and would be delighted to have him come and romp over the place to his heart's content.”
“Oh, how you tempt me!” Dora cried, covering her face with her shapely hands. “Of all things, I can think of nothing right now that I'd like better than that. I have been trying to forget Lionel's confinement in this little yard and house—trying to convince myself that he is wholly happy only with mother and me, but it is no use. It is really pitiful to think of. He has a wonderful imagination, and he sometimes sits here on the porch and tries to picture to himself what the inside of a big house like yours is. He thinks you all must be kings and princes like those in the fairy-tales we read to him. He asked me one day if we'd ever have a home like yours, and when I told him I didn't think so, he answered, 'Then God isn't so very good, after all, is He?' I tried to get him to explain what he meant, but he only shook his head and went to play in the yard.”
At this moment the boy himself came from his grandmother's room, along the passage, and out to them.
“She is still asleep,” he announced, gravely. “I drew the netting over her face, so that the flies won't wake her.”
“That's right—that's a good boy.” Dearing rested his strong hand on the golden head and looked down into the child's face, and then he laughed as he caught the boy's arm and taught him how to contract his muscles.
“You'll be able to protect yourself, young man,” he said. “You have a splendid arm and fist already. I'd hate to have those knuckles try to knock a fly off my nose and miss the fly. Say, kid, do you see that big lot of mine beyond the fence? Well, you are going to play over there from morning to night: climb the trees, build houses out of that pile of old bricks. I'm going to have a swing put up for you to the highest limb of that big oak, and I'll make you a see-saw and a flying-jinny, and you may feed my puppies and cats.”
The boy's eyes danced as he stared eagerly. Dora was looking away, her handkerchief pressed to her face.
Dearing saw a wave of emotion pass through her, but she remained silent.
“But I couldn't go over there!” Lionel sighed. “You are very kind, but my mother always wants me to stay at home.”
“She is going to let you come, because I asked it as a special favor to me,” Dearing answered. “I'm the doctor, you know, and my orders go on this ranch.”
Wonderingly, the boy leaned across his mother's lap, and put his arm around her neck.
“Is he joking, mother dear?” he inquired, and he held his breath in visible suspense. “Does he really mean that I may play over there?”
“Would you like it, darling boy?” Dora asked. There was a tremolo in her voice, and she kept her handkerchief to her eyes. The child started, looked suspiciously at Dearing, and then, leaning toward his mother, he firmly uncovered her face. He saw traces of tears, and stood erect. There was a fierce, angry flare in his eyes, his lower lip quivered, as he turned upon Dearing and blurted out:
“She is crying! What did you say to her?”
“Oh, I see!” Dearing jested. “You want to have it out with me, do you? Well, you pick your weapons, old chap, and I'll be your man. I won't take a dare from you or anybody else.”
Dora's arms enfolded her child and pressed his hot cheek passionately to hers. “Yes, I was crying, my baby,” she gulped, “but it is because I am so happy. It is very good of Doctor Wynn to ask you to go. Would you like it?”
“If you wished me to,” the boy replied, slowly, as he still uneasily studied her face.
“I should like it very much,” Dora said—“very, very much! You could have such a splendid time over there.”
“Would you love me just the same—just exactlythe same—if I went?” the boy asked, anxiously.
“Just exactly the same.” Dora laughed as she caught Dearing's glance, and remarked to him, in an undertone: “He is such a strange child! Mother says she has never seen one so peculiarly sensitive and concerned over trifles. He often comes in from his play for nothing else than to ask me if I still love him. The slightest change in my manner or tone of voice always brings out that one question. It is the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning. If I am at all impatient with him, when I am absorbed in my work, he will come and sit on the floor at my feet, and nothing will satisfy him till I have taken him in my arms and said over and over again that I love him.”
“It is his nature,” Dearing said, as he was turning to leave. “Well, remember, my boy, that my gate is not locked, and if you don't come over in my big lot, I'll come and ride you there on my back, like a two-legged horse; and I might get scared and kick up my heels and dump you over on your head.”
ONE warm, fair afternoon in May, Kenneth Galt, at the earnest solicitation of General Sylvester, came home. Under big captions the Stafford papers had proudly given the particulars to the public. The great man was slightly run down from the enormous duties which had pressed upon him since the very beginning of his giant enterprise, and was to take a long and much-needed rest in the town of his birth and in the quiet old house where he had spent his boyhood. The mayor and aldermen and a brass-band had met him as he stepped from his private car at the station, and he was welcomed with spirited music and a short but ponderous speech on the part of the mayor. Then John Dilk, in a new suit of clothes and a much-worn silk top-hat, haughtily drove his master and the doting General through the streets, across the square, and on to the old Galt mansion.
The crowd which had followed the carriage from the station to the square gradually dispersed, and the two friends were alone when they alighted at the gate.
“Do you see those chairs and that table under the oaks on our lawn?” Sylvester asked, with the bubbling pride of a boy in a victorious ball game, as they were strolling up the wide moss-grown brick walk.
Galt nodded, and smiled tentatively.
“Madge is going to give us a cup of tea outdoors,” Sylvester explained. “It was her own idea. It is warm inside, and that is the shadiest, coolest spot in Stafford. The tea will refresh us. Shall we go now, or do you want to nose over the old house first?”
“I see Mrs. Wilson looking out from a window,” Galt answered. “I think I'd better go in for a moment, anyway. The good old soul is in her best bib and tucker, and might feel hurt.”
“Right you are!” the General said, approvingly. “You haven't risen too high, my boy, to think of those dependent on you. Run in and take possession, and I'll stir Madge up. A cup of tea of my particular blend will do you good after your dusty ride.”
His niece was coming across the grass as the old gentleman reached the tea-table. Her arms were full of fresh-cut roses, which she proceeded to arrange in an old-fashioned silver punch-bowl in the centre of the table.
“I suppose you heard the band and cheering?” the old man said, as he stood watching her and rubbing his thin hands together in suppressed delight.
“Oh yes,” Margaret laughed; “and from my window I saw you and your conquering hero drive up in state. Well, did he accept our invitation or shirk it, as they say he usually does with everything of the sort?”
“On the contrary, he seemed glad to be asked,” returned the General. “In fact, it looks to me like he's happy to be home again, though one can never tell. The active life of great success in any line estranges men from the simpler things. Just think of it! The fellow has lived in hotels, clubs, and that private car of his for the last six years. He has not, if I remember correctly, been once inside his old home since the night I sent him whizzing like a shot to New York. I do hope it won't become irksome to him. He needs rest and quiet badly, as you will see when he comes over. His face has a few new lines, and his eyes have a shifting, restless look which they didn't use to show. Where are you going to have him sit?” The old man was looking over the cluster of chairs and cushioned stools.
“Oh, his lordship may take his high and mighty choice!” Margaret laughed, teasingly. “Perhaps he'll unbend and sit on the grass like a school-boy. He is, after all, only flesh and blood, dear uncle, odd as the fact may seem to you.”
“Well, don't hurl that sort of thing athim,” Sylvester retorted, rather testily. “After all, a man not much over forty, who succeeds in an enterprise which belongs to the history of the land, and at the same time puts money into your pocket and mine in big lumps and rolls, does deserve consideration. Why, he has made you rich, Madge! He could have located his terminal shops and round-house at the other end of town just as well, but he put them on our land and asked no questions about the price. By George, whyshouldn'twe pet him a little when he has been away all these years, and has come back broken down this way?”
“Oh, well, I don't think he needs it, that's all,” the young lady said, pacifically. “A man like that is neither sugar nor salt. Onlyweakmen want to be pampered and cajoled. Your railway magnate will take care of himself.” Her eyes were resting on the figure of a child in a big swing which Doctor Dearing had hung from the lower branch of a tall oak a few yards away. It was Dora Barry's son. He was standing on the board seat clasping the stout hemp ropes with his little hands and “pumping” himself into motion by alternately bending and straightening his lithe body. His beautiful golden hair swung loose in the breeze, there was a glow of health in his pink cheeks, and he was neatly dressed in white duck, a flowing necktie, and tan slippers and short stockings which exposed his perfect calves and trim ankles.
“Oh,” Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “I'm afraid he will fall! Wynn is always doing such absurd things; the child is not old enough to take such risks as that with no one to watch him.”
“I agree with you,” the General said, and he went to the swing and persuaded Lionel to sit down. Then he pushed him forward, and left him swinging gently.
“Just think of it!” Sylvester said, as he came back to his niece, who sat now with her glance on the grass. “Time certainly flies. That specimen of humanity has come into existence and grown to that size since Kenneth was here. I don't think he ever knew the poor girl very well before her misfortune, but he is sorry for her. I remember speaking to him of her in New York one day, and I could see that he was quite interested.”
“I think I see him coming now,” Margaret said, biting her lip. It was the way she had always avoided any conversation which touched upon the one sore spot of her life, and her uncle refrained, as he had always done, from carrying the topic further.
“Yes, he is coming,” and Sylvester stood up and waved his handkerchief. “Come and take the place of honor,” he said, picking up a downy pillow and laying it in the big chair next to Margaret's. “I am glad there never was a fence between your place and ours, for we can mix and mingle as we did when your father and I were young bloods. I've made a mistake many a night in having my horse put up in his stable after the dumb brute had brought me home from a dance in the country with more intelligence than I possessed.”
Galt laughed appreciatively as he bent over the fair hand of his hostess and received her simple and yet cordial greeting. He had admired her as a girl, and now in her ripened beauty, added grace, and dignified bearing he found nothing lacking. As he watched her deftly lighting the spirit-lamp under the swinging teakettle he recalled, with a certain sense of delectation, a hint her uncle had given him in a jesting tone and yet with a serious look.
“I may have you in my family one day, young man,” the General had said, in some talk over their common business interests, “and in that case I'll rule you with a rod of iron.”
After all, it would be nice, Galt reflected to-day, and a step of that sort might ultimately quiet the dull aching of heart which had been his for so many years. Few men had ever had to such a marked degree the pronounced yearning toward paternity as had come to the lonely bachelor since the chief mistake of his life. His love for children was more like that of a woman who has tasted and lost the joys of motherhood than that of a man of the world. He never saw a pretty child without looking at its father with a sort of envious curiosity. Was the remainder of his life to be passed without his possessing that for which he yearned more than for any other earthly thing? He had heard, of course, of the birth of Dora's child, but he had so persistently fought off the thought of it and its attendant remorse that, like many another man so situated, his sense of responsibility in the matter had become somewhat dulled.
He now ventured, during the General's jovial chatter, to glance across the lawn toward the cottage below. It was there in the starlight that he had seen the brave young girl for the last time. It was there. And he shuddered under the scourging lash of the words with which she had prophesied that he would fail to stand by her—fail to rescue her from the abyss into which he had plunged her. He shuddered again. Hero as he was in the sight of many, in Dora's eyes, at least, he could never be aught but despicable. She had gauged his weakness better than he could have done it himself. He had made a choice between honor and ambition, and he had abided by it. Other men had cast such memories to the winds of oblivion. Why had his clung to him with such damning tenacity? There was never any satisfactory answer to the question, and now and then a thought as from infinite space was hurled upon him with the force of a catapult—it was the conviction that, girl though she had been, Dora Barry's equal, in the intellectual and womanly things he admired, was not to be found among all the women he had known. What was she like now? What havoc had the tragedy and succeeding time wrought in the fair being whom he had left stranded and storm-swept on that eventful night? Under the low roof and in the tiny yard of the cottage just across the way she and his child, according to Wynn Dearing's report, had been imprisoned all those years. What a rebuke to his boundless egotism! He might remain there for years, and neither of the two would intrude themselves upon him. Oh yes, he told himself, he was safe enough on that score. She had kept her vow of secrecy so far, and would do so to the end.
At this juncture there was a rippling scream of childish delight behind him, and, turning, he saw Lionel, his face flushed, his great eyes full of excitement, as he eagerly chased a black kitten round and round a bed of rose-bushes.
“What a beautiful boy!” Galt exclaimed, beside himself in admiration. “What a perfect figure! Whose child is it?”
The question was addressed to Margaret; but she hesitated, tightened her lips, and looked down.
“Oh, it is one of our neighbor's,” the General skilfully interjected, as he leaned forward and tried ineffectually to give his guest a warning glance. “Wynn is a great hand at amusing the little ones. He thought this child needed more exercise and fresh air, and he asked his mother to let it play here.”
Galt was now watching the boy, and so intently that he only half heard what the General said and quite failed to notice that his question had embarrassed his hostess. “Catch it! Run round the other way, little man!” he cried out, leaning forward with his cup in his hand. “There! there it goes!” The child paused just an instant, and raised his appealing, long-lashed eyes to the speaker; as he did so the kitten bounded like a rabbit across the grass and up a tree a few yards away.
“Now, see whatyoudid!” Lionel cried, disappointedly, as he stood panting, his silken tresses tossed about his face. “You let him get away. I'd have had him if you hadn't spoken. But I don't care, I can get him!” And he was off like the wind toward the tree, on a lower bough of which the kitten was perched, blandly eying his pursuer.
“You are as fond of children as ever,” the General remarked, “and it proves that your heart is in the right spot. Show me a man who has no use for little tots, and I'll show you a man who will cheat you in a transaction.”
“It certainly is a good quality,” Margaret said, as she proffered sugar for his tea. “We naturally expect it of women, but it always seems exceptional in men, especially men who have their time fully occupied.”
Sylvester laughed reminiscently.
“I've seen Kenneth stop on the street to chat with a dirty-faced newsboy when the general superintendent of his road was waving an important telegram at him; and I've seen the boy walk off with a quarter for a penny paper, too.”
“I seem to be getting my share of compliments, at any rate,” Galt laughed. “I'd call it flattery if I could accuse your hospitality of anything not wholly genuine.”
“Uncle Tom certainly means what he says,” Margaret affirmed. Her glance drifted in the direction the sporting child had taken, and she uttered a sharp, startled scream.
“Oh, he'll fall!” she cried.
Following her eyes, the others saw that Lionel, still chasing the kitten, had climbed the tree to its lower boughs ten or twelve feet from the ground, and, with the prize still above him, sat in a decidedly perilous position on a bending branch so intent on reaching the animal that he was oblivious of his danger.
“Don't be frightened, I'll get him down,” Galt assured her, with an easy laugh, and he sprang up and ran across the grass, saying, under his breath: “Plucky little scamp! He'll break his neck!”
“Come down from there!” he called out, a queer recurrence of his own childhood on him as he viewed the muscular boy and the plump, bare calves above his short stockings. He was breathing freely now, for he felt that in case of a fall he could catch the youngster in his arms.
“Oh, do let me get him!” Lionel cried, looking down appealingly, and speaking with the accent which had always impressed hearers as so quaint and odd in a child.
“No, you mustn't go a bit higher!” Galt said, assuming a youthful tone of comradery that his words might not have any semblance of command. “You are a dandy climber—almost as good as the cat, but he is lighter than you are. You'll break that limb in a minute, and down you will tumble!”
The boy looked at the bending bough and shrugged his square shoulders. “I don't know but what you are right,” he said, with a wry face. “I declare, I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm almost afraid to move now.” Then he burst into a merry laugh as he glanced first at his would-be rescuer and then up at the cat.
“Why, what is so amusing about it?” Galt questioned, fairly transported by the boy's beauty, fearlessness, and vivacity.
“Oh, I don't know, but it seems funny—you down there, me up here, and the cat above us both.”
Galt laughed till tears came into his eyes.
“You are certainly a marvel,” he said. “But you must come down. Slide carefully toward the trunk of the tree and catch hold of it firmly. You'll tear your clothes, but it is better that than—”
“I know an easier way!” the child cried. “I'll jump, and you catch me.”
“But I can't!” Galt answered. “You'd crush me to the ground, small as you are!”
“No, I wouldn't!” Lionel laughed, with thorough confidence. “Doctor Wynn caught me the other day when I jumped from the roof of the wagon-shed, and you are stronger than he is. You are taller, anyway. Look, I am coming!”
Fascinated by the child's voice and manner, and unable to protest quickly enough, Galt braced himself, fearing that the swaying child would fall. “One, two,three!Lionel counted, and the little white-clothed figure left the bough, shot through the sunlight, and alighted in Galt's outstretched arms. There was a scream from Margaret, the General stood up, a startled look on his gashed and seamed face. The child's arms went round Galt's neck; his soft, warm cheek was pressed against his, and, scarcely knowing why he did it, Galt embraced him in a veritable qualm of relief. He put the boy down, but took his hands in his and held them. He admired and loved children, but he had never been so drawn to one before.
“He's all right!” he called out, reassuringly, to the others. “He didn't get a scratch, but it's a wonder he wasn't lamed for life. He jumped before I could stop him.”
Looking into the child's sensitive face, Galt noted, with surprise and concern, that it was clouded over. “What's the matter?” he asked, anxiously. “Did you hurt yourself? Did it jar you too much?”
“No, but I'm afraid you are angry with me,” the boy answered. “Are you?”
“Well, not exactly, but, you see, my boy—” Galt checked himself, for the corners of the little fellow's mouth were drawn down and his eyes were filling.
“Youareangry, and you don't like me a bit.” A sob rose in the breast of the child and struggled outward. He drew his little hands from Galt's detaining clasp and looked down. “I am very sorry; I'll never, never do it again. I was bad. You told me not to jump, but I did. I am always disobeying somebody. When Doctor Wynn told me a great, smart, rich man was coming who had built a railroad, miles and miles through the woods and under mountains and over rivers, I told him I'd be good and make you think I was a nice boy, so that you'd like me; but now, you see, I went and made you angry at the very start.”
“Well, what if I tell you this, you dear little chap,” and Galt paused and took him into his arms again; “what if I tell you that it was because I liked you very, very much that I tried to stop you? You see, I was afraid you'd get hurt, and I liked you so much that I wanted to prevent it. Will that satisfy you?”
“Oh!” Galt felt the little, warm arm steal round his neck confidently. “Then you reallydolike me, after all.” Galt laughed; he could hardly understand the emotion that welled up in him—he laughed that he might hide it even from himself. “I'll tell youthismuch,” he said: “I likenearly alllittle boys, but on my honor I never liked a boy, on a short acquaintance, in my life, so much as I do you. There, now, come on and get a cup of tea!”
With Lionel in his arms, he went back to the table and sat down, keeping him in his lap. There was a sensitive shadow on Margaret's features and a certain awkward look of sympathy for her on her uncle's strong face, but Galt failed to remark them.
“Does your mamma let you drink tea?” Margaret asked, gently. .
“No, I thank you,” the child answered. “She says it's too strong a stim—stim—”
“Stimulant.” Galt supplied the word with a hearty laugh of amusement. “I declare, for a child, you have the largest vocabulary—if you know what that is—that I ever ran across. By-the-way”—and he drew the boy's head down against his breast and ran his hand through the soft, scented tresses—“you haven't told me your name yet. What is it?”
“Lionel,” replied the boy.
“Well, that is pretty enough so far as it goes, but what else?”
“What do you mean by 'what else'?” The child had hold of Galt's disengaged hand, and was toying with it as if admiring its strength and size, and he paused to look up into the dark face bending over him.
“Why, I mean, what is yourfullname?” Galt said, smiling into the rather grave faces about him.
“Lionel—just Lionel, that's all,” the child said, and he raised Galt's hand in both of his own and pressed it. “Most people have two names, but I've never had but one. I don't know why. Do you? I asked my mother about it one day when Mrs. Chumley was talking mean to her about me, and mamma went off to her room and cried. Grandmother told me never to speak of it to her again. My mother has two names—Dora Barry.”
Kenneth Galt felt as though his soul had suddenly died within him. The bonny head of his own child lay on his breast, its throbbing warmth striking through to his pulseless heart. Margaret sat rigid and speechless, and General Sylvester, in his desire to shield her, began chattering irrelevantly.
The long shadows of the descending sun crawled across the grass toward the hill in the east. The golden head remained where it lay, the tiny and yet vigorous fingers twined themselves about the larger inanimate ones. The eyelids over the boy's big, dreamy orbs wavered and drooped. He was tired and sleepy. He heaved a long, fragrant sigh and nestled more snugly into the arms that held him. A great, voiceless yearning born of the long-buried paternal instinct fired the dry tinder—the driftwood of years of misguided loneliness—in the man's being. A great light seemed to burst and blaze above him. He sat with his gaze on the old man's face, but in fancy he felt himself kissing the parted lips of that marvel of creation—Dora's child and his.