Part 47 (2/2)

She tried to see his face, but he had turned his back on her so that she stood behind him. Her hands were clasping and unclasping and her voice fluttering in her throat. ”You won't take him?”

”Mrs. Richie,” he said harshly, ”do you love that man still?”

But before she could answer, he put the question aside. ”No! Don't tell me. I've no right to ask. I--don't want to know. I've no right to know. It's--it's nothing to me, of course.” He moved as he spoke out into the moonlight, and began to climb the pebbly road; she was a step or two behind him. When he spoke again his voice was indifferent to the point of contempt. ”This side is smoother; come over here. I am glad you are not going to marry Mr. Pryor. He is not fit for you to marry.”

”Not fit for--_me!_” she breathed.

”And I am glad you have broken with him. But that has no bearing upon your keeping David. A child is the most precious thing in the world; he must be trained, and--and all that. Whether you marry this man or not makes no difference about David. If you have lived--as you have lived--you ought not to have him. But I started the whole thing. I made Dr. Lavendar give him to you. He didn't want to, somehow; I don't know why. So don't you see? I _can't_ leave him in your care. Surely you see that? I am responsible. Responsible not only to David, but to Dr. Lavendar.”

”If Dr. Lavendar is willing to let me have him, I don't see why you need to feel so about it. What harm could I do him? Oh, how cruel you are--how cruel you are!”

”Would Dr. Lavendar let you have him, if--he knew?”

”But that's over; that's finished,” she insisted. ”oh, I tell you, it's over!”

The doctor's silence was like a whip.

”Oh, I know; you think that he was here last week. But there has to be a beginning of everything--that was the beginning. I told him I would not give David up to marry him; and we quarrelled. And--it's over.”

”I can't go into that,” the doctor said. ”That's not my business.

David is my business. Mrs. Richie, I want you quietly, without any explanation, to give the boy back to Dr, Lavendar. If you don't, I shall have no choice. I shall have to tell him.”

”But you said you wouldn't tell him! Oh, you break your word--”

”I won't tell him your affairs,” said William King. ”I will never do that. But I'll tell him my own--some of them. I'll say I made a mistake when I advised him to let you have David, and that I don't think you ought to be trusted to bring up a little boy. But I won't say why.”

”Dr. King, if I tell him just what you've said; that you think you made a mistake, and you think I am not to be trusted;--if I tell him myself, and he consents to let me keep him, will you interfere?”

William reflected heavily. ”He won't consent,” he said; ”he'll know I wouldn't say a thing like that without reason. But if he does, I shall be silent.”

There was a despairing finality in his words. They were at her own gate now; she leaned her head down on it, and he heard a pitiful sound. William King's lips were dry, and when he spoke the effort made his throat ache. What he said was only the repet.i.tion of his duty as he saw it. ”I'd rather lose my right hand than make you suffer. But I've no choice. I've no choice!” And when she did not answer, he added his ultimatum. ”I'll have to tell Dr. Lavendar on Sunday, unless you will just let me settle it all for you by saying that you don't want David any long--”

_”Not want David!”_

”I mean, that you've decided you won't keep him any longer. I'll find a good home for him, Mrs. Richie,” he ended in a shaking voice.

She gave him one look of terror; then opened the gate and shut it quickly in his face, drawing the bolt with trembling fingers. As she flew up the path, he saw her for an instant as she crossed a patch of moonlight; then the darkness hid her.

CHAPTER x.x.x

It was incredible to David as he thought it over afterwards, but he actually slept away that wonderful night on the railroad! When he climbed on to the shutting-up shelf behind red and green striped curtains, nothing had been further from his mind than sleep. It was his intention to sit bolt upright and watch the lamps swinging in the aisle, to crane his neck over the top of the curtains and look out of the small hinged window at the smoke all thick with sparks from the locomotive engine, and at the mountains with the stars hanging over them, and--at the Horseshoe Curve! But instead of seeing all these wonders that he and Dr. Lavendar had talked about for the last few weeks, no sooner had he been lifted into his berth than, in a flash, the darkness changed to bright daylight. Yes; the dull, common, every- night affair of sleep, had interfered with all his plans. He did not speak of his disappointment the next morning, as he dressed--somehow-- in the jostling, swaying little enclosure where the washstands were; but he thought about it, resentfully. Sleep! ”When I'm a man, I'll never sleep,” he a.s.sured himself; then cheered up as he realized that absence from Sarah had brought at least one opportunity of manhood--he would not have to wash behind his ears! But he brooded over his helplessness to make up for that other loss. He was so silent at breakfast in the station that Dr. Lavendar thought he did not like his food.

”You can have something else, David. What do you want?”

”Ice-cream,” David said, instantly alert.

”At breakfast!” David nodded, and the ice-cream appeared. He ate it in silence, and when he had sc.r.a.ped the saucer, he said,

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