Part 25 (1/2)

The Doctor had no time to reply. There was a stir in the house, and a child's steps came running through the hall. Lila stopped on the porch, hesitating between the two men. The Doctor put out his arms for her. Van Dorn casually reached out his hand. She ran to her father and cried, ”Up--Daddy--up,” and jumped to his shoulder as he took her. The Doctor walked down the steps as his daughter came out of the door.

The man and the woman looked at one another, but did not speak. The father put the child down and said:

”Now, Lila, run with grandpa and get a cooky from granny while your mother and I talk.”

She looked up at him with her blue eyes and her sadly puckered little face, swallowed her disappointed tears and trudged down the steps after the white-clad grandfather who was untying his horse.

When the child and the grandfather were gone the wife said in a dead, emotionless voice, looking at the parcel on the floor, ”Well, Tom?”

”Well, Laura,” he repeated, ”that's about the size of it--there it is--and you know all about it. I shall not lie--this time. It's not worth while--now.”

The woman sat in a porch chair. The man hesitated, and she said: ”Sit down, Tom. I don't know what to do or what to say,” she began. ”If there were just you and me to consider, I suppose I'd say we'd have to quit.

But there's Lila. She is here and she does love you--and she has her right--the greatest right in the world to--well, to us--to a home, and a home means a father and a mother.” The man rose. He put his hands in his coat pockets and stood by the porch column, making no reply.

The wife continued, ”I can't even speak of what you have done to me, Tom. But it will hurt when I'm an old woman--I want to hide my face from every one--even from G.o.d--when I think of what you have used me for.”

He dropped into the chair beside her, looking at the floor. Her voice had stirred some chord in his thousand-stringed heart. He reached out a hand to her.

”No, Tom,” said the wife, ”I don't want your pity.”

”No, Laura,” the husband returned quickly, ”no, you don't need my pity; it's not pity that I am trying to give you. I only wished you to listen to what I have to say.” The wife looked at her husband for a second in fear as she apprehended what he was about to utter. He turned his eyes from her and went on: ”It was a mistake, a very nightmare of a mistake--my mistake--all my mistake--but still just an awful mistake.

We couldn't make life go. All this was foredoomed, Laura, and now--now--” his eyes were upon the parcel on the floor, ”here I am sure I have found the thing my life needs. And it is my life--my life.” He saw his wife go pale, then flush; but he went on. ”After all, it is one's own life that commands him, and nothing else in the world. And now I must follow my destiny.”

”But, Tom,” asked the wife, ”you aren't going to this woman? You aren't going to leave us? You surely won't break up this home--not this home, Tom?”

The man hesitated before answering, then spoke directly: ”I must follow my destiny--work it out as I see it. You have no right, no one has any right--even I have no right to compromise with my destiny. I live in this world just once!”

”But what is your destiny, Tom?” answered the wife. ”Leave me out of it: but aren't the roots you have put down in this home, this career you are building; our child's normal girlhood with a father's care--aren't these the big things in your destiny? Lila's life--growing up under the shame that follows a child of parents divorced for such base reasons as these?

Lila's life is surely a part of your destiny. Surely, surely you have no rights apart from her and hers!”

His quick mind was ready. ”I have my own life to live, my own destiny to follow; my individual equation to solve, and for me nothing exists in the universe. As for my career--I'll take care of that. That's mine also!”

The wife threw out an appealing hand. ”Tom, I can't help wanting to pick you up and s.h.i.+eld you. It will be awful--awful--that thing you are trying to go into. You've always chosen the material thing--the practical thing--and she--she's a practical woman. Oh, Tom--I'm not jealous--not a bit. If I thought she would enrich your soul--if I thought she would give you what I've wanted to give you--what I've prayed G.o.d night after night to let me give you--I'd take even Lila and go away and give you your chance for a love such as I've had. Can you see, Tom, I'm not jealous? I'm not even angry.”

He turned upon her suddenly and said: ”You don't know what you're talking about. Anyway--she suits me--she'll enrich me as you call it all right. I'm sure of that.”

”No, Tom,” said the wife quietly, ”she'll not enrich you--not spiritually. No one can do that--for any one. It must come from within.

I've poured my very heart over you, Tom, and you didn't want it--you only wanted--oh, G.o.d--hide my shame--my shame--my shame.” Her voice rose for a moment and she m.u.f.fled it with her face in her arms.

”Tom--” she faltered, ”Tom--I am going to make one last plea--for Lila's sake won't you put it all away--won't you?” she shuddered. ”It is killing all my self-respect, Tom--but I must. Won't you--won't you please for Lila's sake come back, break this off--and see if we can't patch up life?”

”No,” he answered.

Their eyes met; his s.h.i.+fting, beady eyes were held forcibly with many a twitching, by her gray eyes. For two awful seconds they stood taking farewell of each other.

”No,” he repeated, dropping his glance.