Part 19 (1/2)

With violent effort, the figure on the bed attempted to sit up, and the twitching hands were flung one on either side, then again they clutched mine. ”Why don't G.o.d--let me--take her--with me? Promise me--you won't forget--my little Nora! Won't let them--put her--in an orphan home. Promise me--you'll watch--”

Gaspingly she lay back on the pillows, but her eyes held mine.

”Promise--”

”I promise I will not--forget.” Before G.o.d and a dying woman I was pledging protection for a homeless child. My voice broke and then steadied. ”I promise--and I will watch.”

As if that which held had snapped, the tossing head lay quiet, and out of the face fear faded, and into it, as softly as widens dawn at break of day, came peace. The sobbing in the corner of the room had ceased, and through the thin walls I could hear Selwyn's low tones as he told stumblingly to the child a story that was keeping her quiet, and I knew he, too, was on new thresholds; he, too, was entering unknown worlds.

”Tell her--” Flame-spent, the eyes again opened and this time looked at Miss White. ”Tell her--why I--don't want-- They mean--to be good--but--people like that--don't know how--people like us--”

Martha White thrust her handkerchief up her sleeve, cleared her throat, and straightened her wide and rustling ap.r.o.n. ”She's been trying to tell me all day that she didn't want Nora to be put in an orphan asylum, and yet there's n.o.body to take her. All her people are too poor to add another child to their families.” She came closer and lowered her voice that it might reach no one but me, and with her shoulders made movement toward the bed, with her hands to the man and woman still close together in tearless silence in the corner. ”You know how people like that are. They judge everything by the few cases that come within their knowledge, and--”

”Most of us do. What does she know about asylums that prejudices her so?”

”Little, except she's come across some girls who came out of them who have gone wrong, and she thinks it's because they were kept too shut off from outside life, and told too little of temptations and real truths and--and things like that. What she means is that she thinks those who manage asylums and homes try to keep the girls innocent through ignorance, and when they're turned out to go to work they don't understand the dangers that are ahead. Some grown-ups forget that young people crave young ways and pretty things and good times, and that they've got to be taught about what they don't understand.”

”Little Etta--Etta Blake was an orphan. She was like a bird--in a cage. When she--got out-- If only--they had--told her--” The voice from the bed was strangely stronger, and the fingers, still twisted into mine, made feeble pressure.

I leaned closer. ”Where is she? Where is Etta Blake? Where can I find her?”

”You can't find her. It's--too late. We worked--at the same place--once. And I tried--to make-- But she said--it was--too late.”

The gasping voice trailed wearily and the face, turning from me, lay still upon the pillow. Presently I saw Miss White start and come closer. The short, quick breath had stopped.

At Mrs. Mundy's front door Selwyn, holding the sleeping child in his arms, looked at me. ”What are you going to do with her?” His voice was uncertain, but in it there was not the disapproval I had expected from the telling of my promise to Mrs. Cotter. ”You can't keep her, can you?”

I shook my head. ”She mustn't stay in town. The doctor says her case is too advanced to be arrested, and the only thing that can be done is to make her as comfortable and happy as possible until she--can go--to her mother. I don't know what is best to be done. I must be near enough to see her every now and then. Mr. Guard will tell me what to do. Whenever I don't know I ask him. He always helps me.”

”Are you never to ask me to--help you?” Selwyn's voice was low, but from his eyes was no escape, and as the light from the door which I had opened with my latch-key fell upon his face I saw it flush--saw in it what I had never seen before.

”You!” I was very tired, and something long held back struggled for utterance. ”You!” The word was half a sob. ”If only you--”

Mrs. Mundy was coming down the hall, and at the door her hands went out to take the child from Selwyn. ”Bettina told me, and I thought perhaps you'd bring the little creature here. I've got a place all fixed. You are tired out.” She turned to me, and then to Selwyn.

”Thank you, sir, for taking care of her--for going with her and bringing her back. I'm sorry I wasn't here to do it myself. She's needing of some one to look after her.” Turning, she went down the hall with the child in her arms, and Selwyn, also turning, walked down the steps and got into the cab.

CHAPTER XXII

The one day in the year I heartily hate is the first day of January.

Yesterday was January first. Its usual effect is to make me feel as the grate in my sitting-room looks when the fire is dead. Knowing the day would get ahead of me if I did not get ahead of it, I decided to give a party. Last night I gave it.

All through the busy rush of Christmas with its compelling demands I have been trying not to think; trying to put from me memories that come and go of Mrs. Cotter, of my disappointment in not hearing from her where Etta Blake could be found, and my anxiety about little Nora, now in the care of a woman I know well who lives just out of town. The child will not be here next Christmas. Kitty is paying for all her needs. She asked that I would let her the day before I received Selwyn's note concerning Nora. I promised her first.

Mr. Crimm cannot find Etta Blake. She must have gone away.

In the past few weeks I have seen little of Selwyn. I have been a bit more than busy with Christmas preparations, and his mortification over Harrie's behavior since the latter's return from El Paso has kept him away even from me. Madeleine Swink I have seen several times, also Tom Cressy, but Mrs. Swink I have been spared, owing to absence from home when she returned my call.

I have told Madeleine that she must not meet Tom here again until she breaks her engagement with Harrie and tells her mother she will not marry him. I cannot help her marry Tom unless she is open and square with her mother. She thinks I am hard, but I will agree to nothing else.

It isn't easy to be patient with halting, hesitating, helpless people, and Madeleine, having long been dominated, is a rather spiritless person. Still, she is the sort one always feels sorry for. I wish I wasn't mixed up in her affairs, however. They aren't my business and fingers put in other people's pies are likely to get pinched. Then, too, my fingers have many other things to do.