Ahead of him on the busy thoroughfare walked an old-time friend, Joe Delapere. But a few years ago they had been boon companions, running the same race, following the same course together. Now one slunk along, shorn of his rapid spurs, while the other sped the gay course in happy unconcern. If Joe had a care it was over his love affairs, and, as he had admitted, they were annoyances more than cares after he had ceased to care. Digby was bitter against the world he had once inhabited, his father more than all the rest of it together. That was the difference between their ways of looking at the world.
Delapere stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and hailed a cab, a sudden and increasing flurry of snow changing his desire to walk into the necessity of riding. Cabby came dashing up and Joe pulled forth his well filled purse.
"Get me to No. -- Morton avenue in five minutes and another dollar is yours. Be brisk, now!" Selecting a bill, he handed it to the driver and sprang into the cab. To his box climbed the well-urged driver, crack went his whip and once more the boon companions went their different ways--in different fashion.
But as Delapere thrust his purse back into his coat pocket something fluttered to the gutter. Digby"s hungry eyes saw at a glance that it was a bank note, and, calling to the cabman, he rushed to curbing and fished the bill from the slush.
A ten dollar bill! And the cabman had not heard his shout! Putting his cold fingers to his lips he gave vent to that shrill whistle which always attracts the attention of Jehu, but the cabby was earning his extra dollar and heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing but the big flakes that struck his tingling face Digby stopped at the corner and saw the cab disappear down the street.
"I"ll take it to him tomorrow," he resolved. As he started to put the bill into his pocket the thought came to him that Kate and the baby were suffering. All the way home he battled with his conscience, striving to convince himself that Delapere had not dropped the note, that it belonged to him by virtue of discovery, and that he deserved it if any one in the world did. At last there came a solution. He would explain it all to Kate and take her advice. He knew she would insist that he take it to the owner at once, and his conscience was temporarily eased. But, he would have to confess that he had failed to find work! Ah, that was the rub!
Another thought! Why should he tell her he had failed! Why not deceive her? He had the amount of a week"s wages in his pocket and he had but to absent himself from the house during the days to carry out the deception. Conscience was gone--everything was gone except the desire to shield the ones at home.
At 5 o"clock he climbed the stairs, feeling like a joint thief and millionaire, possessing the sort of conscience that both ignore. Kate met him at the door of their room and he smiled gaily as he kissed her then s.n.a.t.c.hed the baby from between his feet where she had planted herself precipitously. Kate was looking at him when he took his seat near the stove in which burned the remnants of store boxes that he had found that morning. His eyes could not meet hers when she asked:
"Is it all that you thought it would be, Digby?"
"Yes; I am pleased with the place. I only hope it will be permanent."
"Didn"t they give you any satisfaction about the time that they will need you?"
"Not over a week, they said, but there is chance for a permanent place, of course."
"What--er--what are they to pay you, dear?"
"Ten dollars a week--it will be a great help, won"t it? The rent can be paid and you can have something warm to wear and--and--" then he interrupted himself to stir up the fire, a wave of guilt causing him to withdraw from the ordeal imposed by her trusting blue eyes. "By the way, Kate, we must be quite merry tonight--isn"t that so, Nell? Pop"s got a job!" And with forced gaiety he juggled the laughing child toward the ceiling. "We ought to eat, drink and be merry.
But--" (lugubriously)--"what have we to eat and drink, not counting the merriment, Kate?"
"Bread, liver and water--a feast, isn"t it? But, oh, Digby, how many there are who have not even that. And tomorrow is Christmas, too. What shall we have for our grand dinner?"
"We"ll have to have a change, to be sure--you can warm over the water, liver and bread."
"I have a few cents left, dear--I could have sent with you for a few little extras for tonight, too. I wish I had; it would be so jolly, wouldn"t it?"
"I haven"t had a cent for so long that I--I don"t know how it would feel. Keep your money, Kate; I"ll have some tomorrow. I have made arrangements to draw my pay every day." He felt like a murderer as he sat there with that fortune in his trousers pocket. Then he danced and romped with Helen as only he could romp. In the midst of one of the wildest figures Kate suddenly seized his arm and cried.
"Digby Trotter! Stoop over, this instant! Why, what kind of a wife am I? Good gracious, but you need a patch there--it"s positively disgraceful. How long have you been going around with that hole there?"
"I don"t know--in fact, I had not observed it," he answered, like a shame-faced boy.
"And your coat is so short, too. Take them off at once and I"ll put a patch there before I do another thing."
"I"ll have to go to bed, my dear. Can"t you patch "em with "em on me?"
"Of course not! I"d certainly sew them fast to your person. Go to bed, if you please, then. I"ll promise not to be long."
And so the head of the house had to go to bed while its mistress repaired the garment.
"Say, Kate," called out Digby from the bed, where he was playing with the baby, "that"s a positive proof that I"ve been compelled to sit around a good deal this year, isn"t it?"
"The evidence is certainly damaging," she replied, laughingly, her fingers busy with the repairs.
"Do the knees require patching, deary?"
"Not in the least; they are the soundest part of the pants," said his wife.
Just then something slipped from one of the pockets and fell noiselessly to the floor, Kate"s eyes catching sight of it as it fluttered before them.
A ten dollar bill!
And he had told her that he had no money! Poor bewildered Kate picked up the bill and sat staring at it with wide-spread eyes, her thoughts chaos. Had he been lying to her all along? Was there money in his pockets all these months through which she had slaved to help him keep their little home together? Deep into her unwilling heart sank a shaft of distrust, the first it had ever felt. Then for shame she tried to withdraw the shaft, to ease the pain it had caused, but with all her tugging the thought went deeper, beyond control, becoming rooted, settled in that long unblemished home of fidelity, love and trustfulness.
A hundred excuses came to his defence, but her bewildered brain could not complete them; they became chaotic conflicts between devotion and suspicion. No sooner did she see her way clear than it was blocked again. There was the bill! It had fallen from his pocket--more money than she had known him to possess in months. And with that bill in his pocket he had wilfully told her that he had no money, not even a cent.
Distrust grew stronger, faith faded away, resentment flooded the heart of the loving little woman, and the years of happy misery she had spent with him became the memory of deception and neglect. Tears welled up in the glittering eyes; then her teeth came firmly together as if to suppress the emotion with which she found herself struggling. The bitterness of reproach came to her as she turned toward the bed on which frolicked the husband and the child. The child! He played, toyed with the little one, whose every want he had forgotten, with money in his selfish pockets. His wife found herself beginning to hate, to despise him.
But words refused to come, the reproach was unuttered, for a sudden thought intervened. The thought was mother to a resolution and Digby Trotter was spared.
"I guess I"ll go down town," said Digby when he stood clothed as he had been before Kate discovered the necessity for a patch. "Perhaps I can get a chance to help some one of the store-keepers this evening and earn enough to get up a little dinner for tomorrow." He was b.u.t.toning his little coat tightly around his neck as he made this declaration, and he noticed that Kate did not respond. "Come, kiss popper good-bye,"
he cried to the child and the response was ready, eager. Then he looked at Kate"s quiet figure bending over the sewing near the candle flame. A cold chill shot over him, piercing deeper than the chills of the night without. Something like fear, suspense, grew in his heart as he bent his eyes upon the form of one who had never allowed him to leave her presence without a kiss, a cheery word. For an instant the thought came to him that she had at last ceased to love the useless beggar, the robber of her joys, the man who had dragged her from comfort to this life of squalor. With inconsiderate swiftness came the memory of the days when he and the same Joe Delapere had been rivals for her love, both rich and influential. She had chosen the one who bore her down; perhaps now she was regretting the choice in a heart that longed for the other. She had spoken of Joe frequently during the past two weeks and had told him of numerous accidental meetings with his old-time rival. But, in an instant more, his heart had revolted against this gross suspicion, hardly formed, and he almost cursed himself for the moment of doubt. Dear, dear little Kate!
"Kate," he said, "aren"t you going to kiss me?" He was astonished by the flushed face she turned toward him and at the wavering eyes which met his in a fashion so strange that he felt a second chill go through his being.
"Certainly, dear," she said, coming to his side. "Baby shall not undo me in politeness."
"Affection would sound better," he said, taking her cold, almost lifeless hands in his. He stooped to kiss the lips upturned to his, but drew back, a dismal uncertainty taking possession of him. "What is the matter, Kate? Tell me, dear. Don"t you want to kiss me?" He could not prevent the moisture from dimming his eyes, drawn by the pride which felt itself put to shame.
"I"ll kiss you whether I want to or not," she said, smiling vaguely, and their lips met--both cold, fearful.
As Digby hurried down the long, narrow stairways and out in the biting air his fear and apprehension grew. Wonder, even dismay, charged upon him, and his excited imagination recalled the many little short-comings he had observed in Kate"s behaviour of late, all of which began to a.s.sume startling proportions, convincing him beyond all doubt that something was wrong, woefully wrong. Could it be possible that he had lost her love, her respect? Had she at last ceased to love the unfortunate being who had battled so feebly in her behalf? Ah, his heart waxed sore; he felt not the frost without, but the chill within.
What was he to do? What was left to do? He had started from home intending to purchase a turkey, some toys for Helen, some sweet little remembrance for the wife he had thought so loving, but his happy designs had been frustrated. The chilling heart refused to return to the warmth of expected joy, to recognise the feelings of antic.i.p.ation.
"Ah, well," he sighed, almost aloud, to the hurrying wind, "what else can I expect? I have done all I could; no man could do more and no woman could have borne more than she. Truly she has borne too much--I cannot blame her--but, oh, how can she--how can she turn against me now. After all--after all!"
For blocks he rambled on in this manner, seeing no one as he pa.s.sed, observing nothing. At last his face grew brighter and a momentary shadow of joy overspread it.
"I"ll take home the turkey, the toys and the shawl to them. They shall have them if Delapere never sees his money again--if Kate never kisses me again in her life. I"ll tell her the truth about the money!"
Nevertheless it was with a guilty feeling that he ran his hand into his trousers pocket to fondle the bill. The fingers wriggled around in the depths, poking into every corner, searching most anxiously. Then the other dived into the opposite pocket and the fingers found no bill.
With a startled exclamation he came to a standstill on the sidewalk and a vigorous investigation was begun, his expression growing more bewildered and alarmed as the search grew more hopeless. The bill was gone! Lost!
Pa.s.sers-by noticed the abstracted man fumbling in his pockets, muttering to himself, and one man asked, cheerfully:
"Lost something, pardner?"
Digby Trotter did not answer. He walked slowly down the street, his cold hands reposing listlessly in his empty pockets, his heart in his boots, his eyes looking vacantly toward his heart.
"It wasn"t mine; I had no right to it," he murmured, time and again.
Aimlessly about the streets he wandered, turning homeward at last, depressed, despising himself, ready to give up in spirit. He was going home to Kate, expecting no love to greet him, feeling in his heart that he deserved none.