Part 34 (1/2)

he murmured----

Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.

”You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks--a burden upon you?”

”You've been ill all those weeks--yes!” she answered ”But you haven't been a burden. Don't you think it! You've--you've been a pleasure!” And her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; ”You have, really!”

He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.

”A pleasure!” he muttered--”I!” And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those who knew him in business had learned to dread. ”Mary Deane, do not tell me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man--an old man--can be no 'pleasure' to anyone;--he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and the sooner he dies the better!”

The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.

”Ah well!”--she said--”You talk like that because you're not strong yet, and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another few days----”

”Another few days!” he interrupted her--”No--no--that cannot be--I must be up and tramping it again--I must not stay on here--I have already stayed too long.”

A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her narrowly.

”I've been off my head, haven't I?” he queried, affecting a certain brusqueness in his tone--”Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?”

”Yes--sometimes,”--she replied--”But only when you were _very_ bad.”

”And what did I say?”

She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.

”Come, come!” he demanded, irritably--”What did I say?”

She looked at him candidly.

”You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'”--she answered--”That was a poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left to him in the world--its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it--and Tom----”

”Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run over his child and killed _him_!” said Helmsley, with grim satisfaction--”I saw it done!”

Mary shuddered.

”I saw it done!” repeated Helmsley--”And I think it was rightly done!

But--I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness--with his dead child in his arms--and _that!_--that broke something in my heart and brain and made me think G.o.d was cruel!”

She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.

”I knew Tom,”--she said, presently, in a soft voice--”He was a wild creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him take to the gypsy life--but that's only a story. Anyway his little child--'kiddie'--as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow in the world--so playful and affectionate!--I don't wonder Tom went mad when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?”

”Yes, I saw it all!” And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his eyes as he spoke--”I was tramping from Watchett,--and the motor pa.s.sed me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a lodging at Blue Anchor--and while I was having my supper at the public house Tom came in,--and--and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes! A horrible sight--a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!--I shall never forget it!”

”Enough to make you ill, poor dear!” said Mary, gently--”Don't think of it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is dead and buried now, and his little child with him--G.o.d rest them both!

It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in the world.”

”That's true!” And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at her--”That's the worst fate of all--to live in the world without anyone to love you! Tell me--when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the Gleam?”