"Why, it"s Doctor Williams?"
"Yes."
"What--what"s happened?"
"It"s only a scratch for you, my boy. You"ll be well in a few days----"
"Well in a few days"--he repeated blankly. "I can"t get well! I"ve got to die"--his head dropped and he caught his breath.
The doctor waited for him to recover himself to ask the question that was on his lips. He had gotten as yet no explanation of the tragedy save Cleo"s statement that the major had shot Tom and killed himself. He had guessed that the ugly secret in Norton"s life was in some way responsible.
"Why must you die, my boy?" he asked kindly.
Tom opened his eyes in a wild stare:
"Helen"s my wife--we married secretly without my father knowing it. He has just told me that Cleo is her mother and I have married my own----"
His voice broke and his head sank.
The doctor seized the boy"s hand and spoke eagerly:
"It"s a lie, boy! It"s a lie! Take my word for it----"
Tom shook his head.
"I"ll stake my life on it that it"s a lie"--the old man repeated--"and I"ll prove it--I"ll prove it from Cleo"s lips!"
"You--you--can do it!" the boy said hopelessly, though his eyes flashed with a new light.
"Keep still until I return!" the doctor cried, "and I"ll bring Cleo with me."
He placed the revolver in his pocket and hastily left the room, the boy"s eyes following him with feverish excitement.
He called Cleo into the hall and closed Helen"s door.
The old man seized her hand with a cruel grip:
"Do you dare tell me that this girl is your daughter?"
She trembled and faltered:
"Yes!"
"You"re a liar!" he hissed. "You may have fooled Norton for twenty years, but you can"t fool me. I"ve seen too much of this sort of thing. I"ll stake my immortal soul on it that no girl with Helen"s pure white skin and scarlet cheeks, clean-cut features and deep blue eyes can have in her body a drop of negro blood!"
"She"s mine all the same, and you know when she was born," the woman persisted.
He could feel her body trembling, looked at her curiously and said:
"Come down stairs with me a minute."
Cleo drew back:
"I don"t want to go in that room again!"
"You"ve got to come!"
He seized her roughly and drew her down the stairs into the library.
She gripped the door, panting in terror. He loosed her hands and pushed her inside before the lounge on which the body of Norton lay, the cold wide-open eyes staring straight into her face.
She looked a moment in abject horror, shivered and covered her eyes:
"Oh, my G.o.d, let me go!"
The doctor tore her hands from her face and confronted her. His snow-white beard and hair, his tense figure and flaming anger seemed to the trembling woman the image of an avenging fate as he solemnly cried:
"Here, in the presence of Death, with the all-seeing eye of G.o.d as your witness, and the life of the boy you once held in your arms hanging on your words, I ask if that girl is your daughter?"
The greenish eyes wavered, but the answer came clear at last:
"No----"
"I knew it!" the doctor cried. "Now the whole truth!"
The color mounted Tom"s cheeks as he listened.
"My own baby died," she began falteringly, "I was wild with grief and hunted for another. I found Helen in Norfolk at the house of an old woman whom I knew, and she gave her to me----"
"Or you stole her--no matter"--the doctor interrupted--"Go on."
Helen had slipped down stairs, crept into the room un.o.bserved and stood listening.
"Who was the child"s mother?" the doctor demanded.
Cleo was gasping for breath:
"The daughter of an old fool who had disowned her because she ran away and married a poor white boy--the husband died--the father never forgave her.
When the baby was born the mother died, too, and I got the child from the old nurse--she"s pure white--there"s not a stain of any kind on her birth!"
With a cry of joy Helen knelt and drew Tom into her arms:
"Oh, darling, did you hear it--oh, my sweetheart, did you hear it?"
The boy"s head sank on her breast and he breathed softly:
"Thank G.o.d!"