She still sat, white, dumb. Only, now, her head began to move, slowly, from side to side. He caught the evidence of negative, and a new resolution came to him at last.
"Let it all go!" he said at length--and now indeed he was on his knees at her side. "What I have lost is nothing. I"ll never ask for office until I have lived here twenty years, openly, as you have. I must have loved you! I did--I do! I do! I wish I were fit to love you now.
Because, in twenty years more.... The years pa.s.s, Aurie. Won"t they pa.s.s? My sentence----"
His gray head was bent down low in her lap now, as her son"s had been at this very place but a day before. Her hands--hands stained with needle work, rough on the finger ends, the taper gone there into a little square--were the same long shapely hands that had touched his hair at another time. The eyes that looked down at him now under long, soft, dark lashes were the same. But they were more brooding--tender, yes, but more sad, more wise. There was no pa.s.sion in her gaze, in her touch.
What was hatred or revenge to her?
His face was hid deep in his hands as he knelt. It lay there in that haven, the lap of woman, the place of forgiveness--and of hope, as some vague memory seemed to say to him. Indeed, all the wisdom and all the mercy and all the hope of a world or of a universe of worlds were in the low voice of Aurora Lane as she stroked back his hair--the gray hair of an old man, who knelt beside her. It was the ancient pitying instinct of woman that was in her touch. Hardly she knew she touched him, so impersonal was it all to her.
"Will, you poor boy, you poor boy! Oh, poor boy!" He heard her voice once more. Suddenly he raised his head, he sprang up, he stood before her.
"You do forgive me!" A sort of triumph was in the eager note of his voice. "You say "poor boy!" You do forgive me!" He advanced toward her.
But Aurora also had risen quickly. Now, suddenly, some shock came to her, vivifying, clarifying. The needle of her heart swung on the dial of Today.
"Forgive you!" she exclaimed, her color suddenly gone high. "Forgive you--what do you mean?--what do you _mean_?"
"You said you pitied me----"
"Pity you, yes, I do. I"m sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. I"d be sorry to see any man go through what you"ve got to face. Yes, _pity_ you--but--love you? What do you mean? Is that what you mean? _Respect_ you--is that what you mean? Oh, no! Oh, no! Use for you, in any way in the world?--Oh, no! Oh, no! Don"t mistake. _Pity_--that"s all! Don"t I know what it means to descend into h.e.l.l? And that"s what you must do."
"But, Aurie--Aurie--you just said----"
"I said I was sorry for you, and so I am, in all my heart. But he"s our boy. I"ve paid my share in anguish. So must you."
"Haven"t I? Haven"t I?"
"Not yet! You"re only beginning. It takes twenty years.--Oh, not of hidden and secret repentance--but _open_ repentance, before all the world! And square living. And your prayer to G.o.d each night for twenty years for understanding and forgiveness!
"Go out and earn it," she said, walking to the door and opening it.
"Pity?--yes. Love? No--no--_no_! I"ve no use for you. I don"t need you now. My boy doesn"t need you--we"re able to stand alone. We"ve _succeeded_! You? You"re a failure--you"re a broken-down, used-up, hopeless failure--so much, I"m sorry for you, sorry.
"You didn"t really think I"d ever take you back, did you, Will?" she went on, eager to be fair even now. "I was only _sorry_ for you, that"s all. G.o.d knows, I"m sorry for any human being, woman or man, that has to go through h.e.l.l as I have. Twenty years? That"ll leave you old, Will.
But--go serve it, in this town, as I have! And G.o.d have mercy on your soul!"
She flung the door yet wider, and stumbling, he began to grope toward it. The black wall of the night lay beyond.
Slowly the color faded from the cheeks of the woman now left alone yet again. She sank down, crumpling, white, her face marble clear, her eyes staring straight ahead at what picture none may ask. Then, as the white column of her throat fluttered again, she beat one hand slightly against the other, ere she crushed them both together in her lap, ere she flung them wide above her.
"G.o.d! G.o.d!" cried Aurora Lane. "If it wasn"t right, why did He say, "Suffer little children"? It was in the Book ... little ... little children ... the Kingdom of Heaven!"
It was more than an hour before she, too, rose and, stepping toward the door, looked out again into the night. A red light showed here or there.
Homes--the homes of our town.
By Emerson Hough
The Broken Gate The Man Next Door The Magnificent Adventure Let Us Go Afield Out of Doors The Story of the Cowboy The Girl at the Halfway House