Part 2 (1/2)

She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word against her character. She had sinned--once--no more. If she had known opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human nature were here as it is elsewhere--women as keen; men as lewd. But the triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had ”lived it down.”

This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true and normal had it originally been. She still could smile--smile in two fas.h.i.+ons. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!

But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose--to bring up her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never known--not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that he might never know.

And now he knew--he must know.

They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which had been the arena for Aurora Lane--in which she had fought for her own life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the scheme of life itself. Here lay the _penetralia_ of this domicile, this weak fortification against the world.

In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not ill-chosen--pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites.

Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of sc.r.a.ps of work sometimes brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional life being a very vague matter.

Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fas.h.i.+on, been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send money to her son--her son whom she had not seen in twenty years--her son for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the window had faded somewhat--and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must not.

So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew about it, must know. It took all her courage--the last drop of her splendid, unflinching woman-courage.

”Come in, Don,” she said. ”Welcome home!”

He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.

”Home?” said he.

”Don!” she said softly.

”Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I know you did wait. I know you meant that some day----”

He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit--though all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was about to end.

”Tough sometimes, yes,” she said, smiling up at him. ”But don't you like it?”

”If my dad had lived,” said Don, ”or if he had had very much to give either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, wasn't it, Mom?”

He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, neither dared ask why.

She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.

”Don!” she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, ”you are hurt!”

He laughed at this. ”Surely you don't know much of boxing or football,”

said he.

”You ought not to fight,” she reproved him. ”On your first day--and all the town saw it, Don! You and I--we ought not to fight. What--on the first day I've seen you in all these years--the first day you're out of college--the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very own? I believe I _would_ have claimed you--yes, I do! But you came--when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight.”

”Why?” He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes narrowing under drawn brows. ”Why shouldn't I fight?”

He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, scornful of hurt--one who had fought for her! For the first time in her life a man had fought for her, and not against her.

But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the issue coming now.