And yet a life built on a lie was set on shifting sand. It would not endure. It was best to build it squarely on the truth, and the sooner the true foundation was laid the better. There could be no place in our civilization for a woman of culture and refinement with negro blood in her veins. More and more the life of such people must become impossible. That she should remain in the South was unthinkable. That the conditions in the North were at bottom no better he knew from the experience of his stay in New York.
He would tell her the simple, hideous truth, depend on her terror to keep the secret, and send her abroad. It was the only thing to do.
He rose with a start at the sound of Tom"s voice calling her from the stairway.
The answer came in low tones so charged with the quality of emotion that belongs to a sincere nature that his heart sank at the thought of his task.
She had only said the most commonplace thing--"All right, I"ll be down in a moment." Yet the tones of her voice were so vibrant with feeling that its force reached him instantly, and he knew that his interview was going to be one of the most painful hours of his life.
And still he was not prepared for the shock her appearance in the shadows of the tall doorway gave. He had formed no conception of the gracious and appealing personality. In spite of the anguish her presence had brought, in spite of preconceived ideas of the inheritance of the vicious nature of her mother, in spite of his ingrained repugnance to the negroid type, in spite of his horror of the ghost of his young manhood suddenly risen from the dead to call him to judgment, in spite of his determination to be cruel as the surgeon to the last--in spite of all, his heart suddenly went out to her in a wave of sympathy and tenderness!
She was evidently so pitifully embarra.s.sed and the suffering in her large, expressive eyes so keen and genuine, his first impulse was to rush to her side with words of comfort and a.s.surance.
The simple white dress, with tiny pink ribbons drawn through its edges, which she wore accentuated the impression of timidity and suffering.
He was surprised to find not the slightest trace of negroid blood apparent, though he knew that a mixture of the sixteenth degree often left no trace until its sudden reversion to a black child.
Her hair was the deep brown of his own in young manhood, the eyes large and tender in their rich blue depths--the eyes of innocence, intelligence, sincerity. The lips were full and fluted, and the chin marked with an exquisite dimple that gave a childlike wistfulness to a face that without it might have suggested too much strength.
Her neck was slightly curved and set on full, strong shoulders with an unconscious grace. The bust was slight and girlish, the arms and figure rounded and beautiful in their graceful fullness.
Her walk, when she took the first few steps into the room and paused, he saw was the incarnation of rhythmic strength and perfect health.
But her voice was the climax of her appeal--low, vibrant, quivering with feeling and full of a subtle quality that convinced the hearer from the first moment of the truth and purity of its owner.
She smiled with evident embarra.s.sment at his silence. He was stunned for the moment and simply couldn"t speak.
"So, I see you at last, Major Norton!" she said as the color slowly stole over her face.
He recovered himself, walked quickly to meet her and extended his hand:
"I must apologize for not seeing you earlier this morning," he said gravely. "I was up all night travelling through the country and slept very late."
As her hand rested in his the girl forgot her restraint and wounded pride at the cold and doubtful reception he had given earlier. Her heart suddenly beat with a desire to win this grave, strong man"s love and respect.
With a look of girlish tenderness she hastened to say:
"I want to thank you with the deepest grat.i.tude, major, for your kindness in inviting me here this summer----"
"Don"t mention it, child," he interrupted frowning.
"Oh, if you only knew," she went on hurriedly, "how I love the South, how my soul glows under its skies, how I love its people, their old-fashioned ways, their kindness, their hospitality, their high ideals----"
He lifted his hand and the gesture stopped her in the midst of a sentence.
He was evidently struggling with an embarra.s.sment that was painful and had determined to end it.
"The time has come, Helen," he began firmly--"you"re of age--that I should tell you the important facts about your birth."
"Yes--yes----" the girl answered in an excited whisper as she sank into a chair and gazed at him fascinated with the terror of his possible revelation.
"I wish I could tell you all," he said, pausing painfully.
"You know--all?"
"Yes, I know."
"My father--my mother--they are living?"
In spite of his effort at self-control Norton was pale and his voice strained. His answers to her pointed questions were given with his face turned from her searching gaze.
"Your mother is living," was the slow reply.
"And my father?"
His eyes were set in a fixed stare waiting for this question, as a prisoner in the dock for the sentence of a judge. His lips gave no answer for the moment and the girl went on eagerly:
"Through all the years that I"ve been alone, the one desperate yearning of my heart has been to know my father"--the lines of the full lips quivered--"I"ve always felt somehow that a mother who could give up her babe was hardly worth knowing. And so I"ve brooded over the idea of a father. I"ve hoped and dreamed and prayed that he might be living--that I might see and know him, win his love, and in its warmth and joy, its shelter and strength--never be lonely or afraid again----"
Her voice sank to a sob, and Norton, struggling to master his feelings, said:
"You have been lonely and afraid?"
"Utterly lonely! When other girls at school shouted for joy at the approach of vacation, the thought of home and loved ones, it brought to me only tears and heartache. Many a night I"ve laid awake for hours and sobbed because a girl had asked me about my father and mother. Lonely!--oh, dear Lord! And always I"ve dried my eyes with the thought that some day I might know my father and sob out on his breast all I"ve felt and suffered"--she paused, and looked at Norton through a mist of tears--"my father is not dead?"
The stillness was painful. The man could hear the tick of the little French clock on the mantel. How tired his soul was of lies! He couldn"t lie to her in answer to this question. And so without lifting his head he said very softly:
"He is also alive."
"Thank G.o.d!" the girl breathed reverently. "Oh, if I could only touch his hand and look into his face! I don"t care who he is, how poor and humble his home, if it"s a log cabin on a mountain side, or a poor white man"s hovel in town, I"ll love him and cling to him and make him love me!"
The man winced. There was one depth her mind had not fathomed!
How could he push this timid, lonely, haunted creature over such a precipice! He glanced at her furtively and saw that she was dreaming as in a trance.
"But suppose," he said quietly, "you should hate this man when you had met?"
"It"s unthinkable," was the quick response. "My father is my father. I"d love him if he were a murderer!"
Again her mind had failed to sound the black depths into which he was about to hurl her. She might love a murderer, but there was one thing beyond all question, this beautiful, sensitive, cultured girl could not love the man who had thrust her into the h.e.l.l of a negroid life in America! She might conceive of the love of a father who could take human life, but her mind could not conceive the possibility of facing the truth with which he must now crush the soul out of her body. Why had he lied and deceived her at all? The instinctive desire to shield his own blood from a life of ignominy--yes. But was it worth the risk? No--he knew it when it was too late. The steel jaws with their cold teeth were tearing the flesh now at every turn and there was no way of escape.
When he failed to respond, she rose, pressed close and pleaded eagerly:
"Tell me his name! Oh, it"s wonderful that you have seen him, heard his voice and held his hand! He may not be far away--tell me----"
Norton shook his head:
"The one thing, child, I can never do."
"You are a father--a father who loves his own--I"ve seen and know that. A nameless waif starving for a word of love begs it--just one word of deep, real love--think of it! My heart has never known it in all the years I"ve lived!"