"Ah!" he urged, "what harm could it do you?"
"Look here, Tedham!" I said. "I don't know why you feel authorized to
come to me at all. It is useless your saying that there is no one else.
You know very well that the authorities, some of them--the
chaplain--would go and see Mrs. Hasketh for you. He could have a great
deal more influence with her than any one else could, if he felt like
saying a good word for you. As far as I am concerned, you have expiated
your offence fully; but I should think you yourself would see that you
ought not to come to me with this request; or you ought to come to me
last of all men."
"It is just because of that part of my offence which concerned you that
I come to you. I knew how generous you were, and after you told me that
you had no resentment--I acknowledge that it is indelicate, if you
choose to look at it in that light, but a man like me can't afford to
let delicacy stand in his way. I don't want to flatter you, or get you
to do this thing for me on false pretences. But I thought that if you
went to Mrs. Hasketh for me, she would remember that you had overlooked
something, and she would be more disposed to--to--be considerate."
"I can't do it, Tedham," I returned. "It would be of no use. Besides, I
don't like the errand. I'm not sure that I have any business to
interfere. I am not sure that you have any right to disturb the shape
that their lives have settled into. I'm sorry for you, I pity you with
all my heart. But there are others to be considered as well as you.
And--simply, I can't."
"How do you know," he entreated, "that my daughter wouldn't be as glad
to see me as I to see her?"
"I don't know it. I don't know anything about it. That's the reason I
can't have anything to do with it. I can't justify myself in meddling
with what doesn't concern me, and in what I'm not sure but I should do
more harm than good. I must say good-night. It's getting late, and they
will be anxious about me at home." My heart smote me as I spoke the last
word, which seemed a cruel recognition of Tedham's homelessness. But I
held out my hand to him for parting, and braced myself against my inward
weakness.
He might well have failed to see my hand. At any rate he did not take
it. He turned and started to walk out of the woods by my side. We came
presently to some open fields. Beyond them was the road, and after we
had climbed the first wall, and found ourselves in a somewhat lighter
place, he began to speak again.
"I thought," he said, "that if you had forgiven me, I could take it as a
sign that I had suffered enough to satisfy everybody."
"We needn't dwell upon my share in the matter, Tedham," I answered, as
kindly as I could. "That was entirely my own affair."
"You can't think," he pursued, "how much your letter was to me. It came
when I was in perfect despair--in those awful first days when it seemed
as if I could _not_ bear it, and yet death itself would be no relief.
Oh, they don't _know_ how much we suffer! If they did, they would
forgive us anything, everything! Your letter was the first gleam of hope
I had. I don't know how you came to write it!"
"Why, of course, Tedham, I felt sorry for you--"
"Oh, did you, did you?" He began to cry, and as we hurried along over
the fields, he sobbed with the wrenching, rending sobs of a man. "I
_knew_ you did, and I believe it was God himself that put it into your
heart to write me that letter and take off that much of the blame from
me. I said to myself that if I ever lived through it, I would try to
tell you how much you had done for me. I don't blame you for refusing to
do what I've asked you now. I can see how you may think it isn't best,
and I thank you all the same for that letter. I've got it here." He took
a letter out of his breast-pocket, and showed it to me. "It isn't the
first time I've cried over it."
I did not say anything, for my heart was in my throat, and we stumbled
along in silence till we climbed the last wall, and stood on the
sidewalk that skirted the suburban highway. There, under the
street-lamp, we stopped a moment, and it was he who now offered me his
hand for parting. I took it, and we said, together, "Well, good-by," and
moved in different directions. I knew very well that I should turn back,
and I had not gone a hundred feet away when I faced about. He was
shambling off into the dusk, a most hapless figure. "Tedham!" I called
after him.
"Well?" he answered, and he halted instantly; he had evidently known
what I would do as well as I had.
We reapproached each other, and when we were again under the lamp I
asked, a little awkwardly, "Are you in need of money, Tedham?"
"I've got my ten years' wages with me," he said, with a lightness that
must have come from his reviving hope in me. He drew his hand out of his
pocket, and showed me the few dollars with which the State inhumanly
turns society's outcasts back into the world again.
"Oh, that won't do." I said. "You must let me lend you something."
"Thank you," he said, with perfect simplicity. "But you know I can't
tell when I shall be able to pay you."
"Oh, that's all right." I gave him a ten-dollar note which I had loose
in my pocket; it was one that my wife had told me to get changed at the
grocery near the station, and I had walked off to the old temple, or the
old cockpit, and forgotten about it.
Tedham took the note, but he said, holding it in his hand, "I would a
million times rather you would let me go home with you and see Mrs.
March a moment."
"I can't do that, Tedham," I answered, not unkindly, I hope. "I know
what you mean, and I assure you that it wouldn't be the least use. It's
because I feel so sure that my wife wouldn't like my going to see Mrs.
Hasketh, that I--"
"Yes, I know that," said Tedham. "That is the reason why I should like
to see Mrs. March. I believe that if I could see her, I could convince
her."
"She wouldn't see you, my dear fellow," said I, strangely finding myself
on these caressing terms with him. "She entirely approved of what I did,
the letter I wrote you, but I don't believe she will ever feel just as I
do about it. Women are different, you know."
"Yes," he said, drawing a long, quivering breath.
We stood there, helpless to part. He did not offer to leave me, and I
could not find it in my heart to abandon him. After a most painful time,
he drew another long breath, and asked, "Would you be willing to let me
take the chances?"
"Why, Tedham," I began, weakly; and upon that he began walking with me
again.