But William King interrupted him gently. "I wish to speak to Mrs.
Richie." And Dr. Lavendar held his tongue.
"I am sorry to bother you," William said, as he held the gate open for her; "but I felt I must speak to you."
Helena made no reply. All the way down the street, almost to the foot of the hill, Old Chester"s evening stillness was unbroken, except for the rustle of fallen leaves under their feet. Suddenly the great disk of the hunter"s moon lifted slowly up behind the hills, and the night splintered like a dark crystal; sheets of light spread sharply in the open road, gulfs of shadow deepened under trees and beside walls. It was as abrupt as sound. William King broke into hurried words as though he had been challenged: "I knew you didn"t want me to walk home with you, but indeed you ought not to go up the hill alone. Please take my arm; the flagging is so uneven here."
"No, thank you."
"Mrs. Richie, please don"t feel that I am not your friend, just because--Indeed, I think I am more your friend than I ever was. You will believe that, won"t you?"
"Oh, I suppose so; that is the way saints always talk to sinners."
"I am far enough from being a saint," William King said with an awkward effort to laugh; "but--"
"But I am a sinner?" she interrupted.
"Oh, Mrs. Richie, don"t let us talk this way! I have nothing but pity, and--and friendship. The last thing I mean to do, is to set myself as a judge of your actions; G.o.d knows I have no right to judge anybody!
But this matter of David, that"s what I wanted to speak to you about.
My responsibility," he stopped, and drew in his breath. "Don"t you see, my responsibility--"
Helena did not speak; she was marshalling all her forces to fight for her child. How should she begin? But he did not wait for her to begin.
"I would rather lose my right hand than pain you. I"ve gone all over it, a hundred times. I"ve tried to see some way out. But I can"t. The only way is for you to give him up. It isn"t right for you to have him! Mrs. Richie, I say this, and it is hard and cruel, and yet I never felt more"--William King stopped short--"friendly," he ended brokenly.
He was walking at a pace she found hard to follow. "I can"t go quite so fast," she said faintly, and instantly he came to a dead stop.
"Dr. King, I want to explain to you--"
She lifted her face, all white and quivering in the moonlight, but instead of explanations, she broke out: "Oh, if you take him away from me, I shall die! I don"t care very much about living anyhow. But I can"t live without David. Please, Dr. King; oh, please; I will be good! I will be good," she repeated like a child, and stood there crying, and clinging to his arm. All her reasons and excuses and pleadings had dropped out of her mind. "Don"t take him away from me; I will be good!" she said.
William King, with those trembling hands on his arm, looked down at her and trembled too. Then roughly, he pushed her hands away. "Come on. We mustn"t stand here. Don"t you suppose I feel this as much as you do? I love children, and I know what it means to you to let David go. But more than that, I--have a regard for you, and it pains me inexpressibly to do anything that pains you. You can"t understand how terrible this is to me, and I can"t tell you. I mustn"t tell you. But never mind, it"s true. It isn"t right, no, it isn"t right! that a woman who--you know what I mean. And even if, after all, you should marry him, what sort of a man is he to have charge of a little boy like David? He has deceived us, and lied to us; he is a loose liver, a--"
"Wait," she panted; "I am not going to marry him. I thought you understood that."
He drew away from her with a horrified gesture. "And you would keep an innocent child--"
"No! No! I"ve broken with him--on account of David!"
"Broken with him!" said William King; he caught her by the wrist, and stared at her. Then with a breathless word that she could not hear, he dropped her hand and turned his face away.
Again, in their preoccupation, they stood still; this time in a great bank of shadow by the wall of the graveyard half-way up the hill.
"So you won"t take him from me?" she said; "I will leave Old Chester.
You need never see me again."
"Good G.o.d!" said William King, "do you think that is what I want?"
She tried to see his face, but he had turned his back on her so that she stood behind him. Her hands were clasping and unclasping and her voice fluttering in her throat. "You won"t take him?"
"Mrs. Richie," he said harshly, "do you love that man still?"
But before she could answer, he put the question aside. "No! Don"t tell me. I"ve no right to ask. I--don"t want to know. I"ve no right to know. It"s--it"s nothing to me, of course." He moved as he spoke out into the moonlight, and began to climb the pebbly road; she was a step or two behind him. When he spoke again his voice was indifferent to the point of contempt. "This side is smoother; come over here. I am glad you are not going to marry Mr. Pryor. He is not fit for you to marry."
"Not fit for--_me!_" she breathed.
"And I am glad you have broken with him. But that has no bearing upon your keeping David. A child is the most precious thing in the world; he must be trained, and--and all that. Whether you marry this man or not makes no difference about David. If you have lived--as you have lived--you ought not to have him. But I started the whole thing. I made Dr. Lavendar give him to you. He didn"t want to, somehow; I don"t know why. So don"t you see? I _can"t_ leave him in your care. Surely you see that? I am responsible. Responsible not only to David, but to Dr. Lavendar."
"If Dr. Lavendar is willing to let me have him, I don"t see why you need to feel so about it. What harm could I do him? Oh, how cruel you are--how cruel you are!"
"Would Dr. Lavendar let you have him, if--he knew?"
"But that"s over; that"s finished," she insisted. "oh, I tell you, it"s over!"
The doctor"s silence was like a whip.
"Oh, I know; you think that he was here last week. But there has to be a beginning of everything--that was the beginning. I told him I would not give David up to marry him; and we quarrelled. And--it"s over."
"I can"t go into that," the doctor said. "That"s not my business.
David is my business. Mrs. Richie, I want you quietly, without any explanation, to give the boy back to Dr, Lavendar. If you don"t, I shall have no choice. I shall have to tell him."
"But you said you wouldn"t tell him! Oh, you break your word--"
"I won"t tell him your affairs," said William King. "I will never do that. But I"ll tell him my own--some of them. I"ll say I made a mistake when I advised him to let you have David, and that I don"t think you ought to be trusted to bring up a little boy. But I won"t say why."
"Dr. King, if I tell him just what you"ve said; that you think you made a mistake, and you think I am not to be trusted;--if I tell him myself, and he consents to let me keep him, will you interfere?"
William reflected heavily. "He won"t consent," he said; "he"ll know I wouldn"t say a thing like that without reason. But if he does, I shall be silent."
There was a despairing finality in his words. They were at her own gate now; she leaned her head down on it, and he heard a pitiful sound. William King"s lips were dry, and when he spoke the effort made his throat ache. What he said was only the repet.i.tion of his duty as he saw it. "I"d rather lose my right hand than make you suffer. But I"ve no choice. I"ve no choice!" And when she did not answer, he added his ultimatum. "I"ll have to tell Dr. Lavendar on Sunday, unless you will just let me settle it all for you by saying that you don"t want David any long--"
_"Not want David!"_
"I mean, that you"ve decided you won"t keep him any longer. I"ll find a good home for him, Mrs. Richie," he ended in a shaking voice.
She gave him one look of terror; then opened the gate and shut it quickly in his face, drawing the bolt with trembling fingers. As she flew up the path, he saw her for an instant as she crossed a patch of moonlight; then the darkness hid her.
CHAPTER x.x.x
It was incredible to David as he thought it over afterwards, but he actually slept away that wonderful night on the railroad! When he climbed on to the shutting-up shelf behind red and green striped curtains, nothing had been further from his mind than sleep. It was his intention to sit bolt upright and watch the lamps swinging in the aisle, to crane his neck over the top of the curtains and look out of the small hinged window at the smoke all thick with sparks from the locomotive engine, and at the mountains with the stars hanging over them, and--at the Horseshoe Curve! But instead of seeing all these wonders that he and Dr. Lavendar had talked about for the last few weeks, no sooner had he been lifted into his berth than, in a flash, the darkness changed to bright daylight. Yes; the dull, common, every- night affair of sleep, had interfered with all his plans. He did not speak of his disappointment the next morning, as he dressed--somehow-- in the jostling, swaying little enclosure where the washstands were; but he thought about it, resentfully. Sleep! "When I"m a man, I"ll never sleep," he a.s.sured himself; then cheered up as he realized that absence from Sarah had brought at least one opportunity of manhood--he would not have to wash behind his ears! But he brooded over his helplessness to make up for that other loss. He was so silent at breakfast in the station that Dr. Lavendar thought he did not like his food.
"You can have something else, David. What do you want?"
"Ice-cream," David said, instantly alert.
"At breakfast!" David nodded, and the ice-cream appeared. He ate it in silence, and when he had sc.r.a.ped the saucer, he said,