THE NIP OF GUILT
Little David was not well; little David was hot and red.
After he had been gently laid in the crib he turned restlessly,
and from time to time a gasping sob shook his whole body, for he
had cried himself to sleep. He had fallen into a fitful slumber
while in the Doctor's buggy, and had not awakened when carried
into the house.
"A little feverish," said Mother, as she pressed her cool hand
upon his forehead.
The Doctor said nothing, but in his eyes, as he bent over the
little boy, there was something sinister. It was his fighting
face, and it was saying to David:
"You shall not be sick, little boy. I won't have it."
All the weariness of the man was gone; all his dreary
discouragement was gone. He stood erect, a soldier ready to do
battle against disease which for these past weeks had been
choking out the life of little children.
As the Doctor hurried away he was upbraiding himself for having
been absent from his patients not less than three whole hours.
Gross negligence, this! He had no right to play so long with
David, and now he would not take the time to tell Miss Eastman of
all the great things they had been doing.
But indeed no words of explanation were required to tell her of
one thing that had been done. Without any assistance she soon
discovered a substantial reason why her little boy was so
restless, and this reason proved to be a miniature. She found
the two pieces of it hid away in his blouse at the very place
where they would be most uncomfortable to lie upon. But even
after she had relieved David of this source of trouble, he still
turned and tossed and talked in his sleep.
She could not understand what he was saying, but the face painted
on porcelain seemed easily understood. How, Miss Eastman asked
herself, had he come by that picture? Who had given it to her
little boy, and what had he been told about the beautiful face?
An impulse had suddenly come upon the woman to hide it away, or
better yet, to destroy it utterly. But there was no time for
that. As if from an electric shock, David had flounced over on
his side, and now he sprung bolt upright. Confused emotions
struggled in his face; his hands searched his blouse, and as they
failed to find what they were searching for, there came such a
look of terror into his eyes that Mother instantly produced the
miniature.
"Who is it, dear?" she asked.
With the same sort of agility which had come to him when he had
heard the Doctor's footstep on the stair, David seized the pieces
of porcelain, and with fumbling eagerness he slipped them back
into his blouse.
"It's mine!" he called out. He scowled fiercely, as though
expecting some one to dispute his claim.
"Where did you get it?"
"Up there," he said.
"Up where?"
Again the little boy was silent, but Mother insisted on more
definite information. Three times she asked how he had come into
possession of the picture before he would speak again. When he
did so he scowled more heavily than at first, and exclaimed:
"I won't not tell you!"
"But why, David; why not tell Mother about it?"
The child evaded a direct reply.
"Doctor will be mad at me," he said.
"Did he give it to you?"
The little boy nodded.
"Did he say you were not to tell me?"
Again the little boy nodded.
"Did he tell you who it was?"
Now that the wrong story was so well started, David was inspired
to make it a good one. To do that he would use part of the truth,
but unfortunately he could not recall much of what Dr. Redfield
had said about the picture. There was but one word that had stood
out prominently in the talk, and that was the word "Mother." It
was a relief to David to remember that, and he blurted out his
information with cruel finality.
"This," he said, holding the pieces of the miniature together,
"is mother."
"But how can you have two mothers?" Miss Eastman inquired, with a
smile that was not a good smile. "Tell me, David, tell me whose
mother am I?"
"You?" he asked with puzzled anxiety. Then he stopped short. It
is not easy to steal pictures and tell wrong stories about them.
He did not know what to do. Everything was against him, and he
began to cry again.
It was now that Miss Eastman passionately seized the little boy
in her arms.
"Don't you believe that!" she exclaimed, her words throbbing with
the hurt he had given her. "I am your mother, David--I!"