Part 45 (1/2)

There was a look of almost boyish pleasure on his face as she spoke, and in imitation of the heroes of the interminable old-time romances that once had formed the larger part of his reading, he was about to raise her hand to his lips when she s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, and as if mastered by an impulse not to be controlled, put her arms around his neck and kissed him, then burst into tears with her head upon his shoulder.

He trembled a moment, and said, in low tones, ”G.o.d bless you, Millie.” Then he gently placed her in her chair. ”You mustn't do that again,” he said gravely. ”With you it was but a grateful sisterly impulse, but if I were Samson I'd not be strong enough--well, you understand me. I don't want to give the lie to all I've said.”

”Oh, Roger, Roger,” sobbed the girl, ”I can do nothing for you and yet you have saved me from shame and are giving us all hope and life.”

”You are responsible for all there is good in me,” he tried to say lightly, ”and I'll show you in coming years if you have done nothing for me. Good-by now. It's all right and settled between us. Tell Mrs. Jocelyn that one hundred dollars are ready as soon as she can induce her husband to take the step we spoke of.” And he hastened away, feeling that it was time he retreated if he would make good the generous words he had spoken.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

”HOME, SWEET HOME!”

”Oh, Millie,” cried Mrs. Jocelyn, entering with the children and throwing herself into a chair, fatigued and panting from her walk and climb of the stairs, ”I've so much to tell you. Oh, I'm so distressed and sorry. It seems that evil has become our lot, and that we bring nothing but evil to others. You, too, look as if you had been crying as if your heart would break.”

”No, mamma, I feel much better--more at rest than I have been for a long time. My tears have done me good.”

”Well, I'm sorry I must tell you something that will grieve you dreadfully, but there's no help for it. It does seem when things are going wrong in one's life, there's no telling where they'll stop. You know Mrs. Wheaton works for Roger's aunt, Mrs. Atwood.

Well, she was there this morning, and Mrs. Atwood talked dreadfully about us, and how we had inveigled her nephew into the worst of folly. She told Mrs. Wheaton that Mr. Atwood had intended to give Roger a splendid education, and might have made him his heir, but that he demanded, as his condition, that he should have nothing more to do with such people as we were, and how Roger refused, and how after a bitter quarrel the latter left the house at midnight.

She also said that his uncle would have nothing more to do with him, and that his family at home would be almost equally angry.

Oh, I feel as if I could sink into the earth with shame and worry.

What shall we do?”

”Surely, mamma, there is some mistake. Roger was here much of the afternoon, and he never said one word about it,” Mildred answered, with a troubled face.

”It's just like him. He didn't want to pain you with the news.

What did he say?” she asked, with kindling interest, and Mildred told her substantially all that had occurred.

”Well, Millie,” said her mother emphatically, ”you will be the queerest girl on the face of the earth if you can't love him now, for he has given up everything for you. He might have been richer than Vinton Arnold.”

”He must not give up anything,” said Mildred resolutely. ”There is reason in all things. He is little more than a boy in years, and he has a boy's simplicity and unworldliness. I won't let him sacrifice himself for me. He doesn't know what he is doing. His aunt's estimate of such people as we have become is correct, and I'll perish a thousand times before I'll be the means of dragging down such a man as Roger Atwood. If I knew where to find him I'd go and tell him so this moment.”

That was a dreary hour in the poor little home, but worse things were in store for them, for, as Mrs. Jocelyn said, when things are going wrong there is a terrible logic about them, and malign events follow each other with almost inevitable sequence. All was wrong with the head of the family, and terrible were the consequences to his helpless wife and children. Mr. Jocelyn heard a rumor of Mildred's experience in the police court, and he went to the place that day and obtained some account of the affair. More clearly and awfully than ever before he comprehended the depths into which he had fallen. He had not been appealed to--he had not even been told.

He did not stop to consider how good the reasons were for the course his family had taken, but, blind with anger and despair, he sought his only refuge from the h.e.l.l within his breast, and began drinking recklessly. By the time he reached the tenement where he dwelt he was in a state of wild intoxication. A man at the door called him a drunken beast, at which Mr. Jocelyn grasped him by the throat and a fierce scuffle ensued. Soon the whole populous dwelling was in an uproar, while the man retreated, fighting, up the stairways, and his infuriated a.s.sailant followed with oaths and curses. Women and children were screaming, and men and boys pouring out of their rooms, some jeering and laughing, and others making timid and futile efforts to appease and restrain the liquor-crazed man.

Suddenly a door opened, and a pale face looked out; then a slight girlish figure darted through the crowd and clasped Mr. Jocelyn.

He looked down and recognized his daughter Mildred. For a moment he seemed a little sobered, and then the demon within him rea.s.serted itself. ”Get out of my way!” he shouted. ”I'll teach that infernal Yankee to insult a Southern officer and gentleman. Let me go,” he said furiously, ”or I'll throw you down the stairway,” but Mildred clung to him with her whole weight, and the men now from very shame rushed in and overpowered him.

He was speedily thrust within his own doorway, and Mildred turned the key after him and concealed it. Little recked the neighbors, as they gradually subsided into quiet, that there came a crash of crockery and a despairing cry from the Jocelyns' room. They had witnessed such scenes before, and were all too busy to run any risk of being summoned as witnesses at a police court on the morrow.

The man whom Mr. Jocelyn had attacked said that he would see the agent of the house in the morning and have the Jocelyn family sent away at once, because a nuisance, and all were content with this arrangement.

Within that locked door a terrible scene would have been enacted had it not been for Mildred's almost supernatural courage, for her father was little better than a wild beast. In his mad rush forward he overturned the supper-table, and the evening meal lay in a heap upon the floor. The poor wife, with a cry in which hope and her soul itself seemed to depart fell swooning on the children's bed, and the little ones fled to the darkest corner of Mildred's room and cowered in speechless fear. There was none to face him save the slight girl, at whom he glared as if he would annihilate her.

”Let me out!” he said savagely.

”No,” said the girl, meeting his frenzied gaze unwaveringly, ”not until you are sober.”

He rushed to the door, but could not open it. Then turning upon Mildred he said, ”Give me the key--no words--or I'll teach you who is master.”

There were no words, but only such a look as is rarely seen on.