II

The elevator-boy hesitated. "Oh, yes-sum, I got a pass-key, all right,

but I can't hahdly let nobody in Mista Coburn's 'pahtment 'thout his

awdas."

"But we're his mother and father."

"Of co'se I take yo' wud for that, ma'am, but, you see, I can't hahdly

let nobody--er--um'm--thank you, sir--well, I reckon Mista Coburn might

be mo' put out ef I didn't let you-all in than ef I did."

The elevator soared silently to the eighth floor, and there all three

debarked. The boy was so much impressed with the tip the old man had

slipped him that he unlocked the door, put the hand-baggage into the

room, snapped the switch that threw on all the lights, and said, "Thank

you, sir," again as he closed the door.

Paw opened it to give the boy another coin and say: "Don't you let on

that we're here. It's a surprise."

The boy, grinning, promised and descended, like an imp through a trap.

The old couple stood stock-still, hesitating to advance. So many

feelings, such varied timidities, urged them forward, yet held them

back. It was the home of the son they had begotten, conceived, tended,

loved, praised, punished, feared, prayed for, counseled, provisioned,

and surrendered. Years of separation had made him almost a stranger, and

they dreaded the intrusion into the home he had built for himself,

remote from their influence. Poor, weak, silly old things, with a

boy-and-girlish gawkishness about them, the helpless feeling of

uninvited guests!

"You go first, Paw."

And Paw went first. On the sill of the drawing-room he paused and swept

a glance around. He would have given an arm to be inspired with some

scheme for whisking his wife away or changing what she must see. But she

was already crowding on his heels, pushing him forward. There was no

retreat. He tried to laugh it off.

"Well, here we are at last, as the fellow doesn't say in the circus."

There was nothing to do but sit down and wait. The very chairs were of

an architecture and upholstery incongruous to them. They knew something

of luxury, but not of this school. There was nowhere for them to look

that something alien did not meet their eyes. So they looked at the

floor.

"It gets awful hot in town, don't it?" said Paw, mopping his beaded

forehead.

"Awful," said Maw, dabbing at hers.

Eventually they heard the elevator door gride on its grooves. All the

way in on the train they had planned to hide and spring out on the boy.

They had giggled like children over the plot. It was rather their

prearrangement than their wills that moved them to action. Automatically

they hid themselves, without laughter, rather with a sort of guilty

terror. They found a deep wardrobe closet and stepped inside, drawing

the door almost shut.

They heard a key in the lock, the click of a knob, the sound of a door

closed. Then a pause. They had forgotten to turn off the lights.

Hurrying footsteps, loud on the bare floor, muffled on the rugs. How

well they knew that step! But there was excitement in its rhythm. They

could hear the familiar voice muttering unfamiliarly as the footsteps

hurried here and there. He came into the room where they were. They

could hear him breathe now, for he breathed heavily, as if he had been

running. From place to place he moved with a sense of restless stealth.

At length, just as they were about to sally forth, he hurried forward

and flung open their door.

Standing among the hanging clothes, the light strong on their faces,

they seemed to strike him at first as ghosts. He stared at them aghast,

and recoiled. Then the old ghosts smiled and stepped forward with open

arms. But he recoiled again, and his welcome to his far-come,

heart-hungry parents was a groan.

They saw that he had a revolver in his hand. His eyes recurred to it,

and he turned here and there for a place to lay it, but seemed unable to

let it go. His mother flung forward and threw her arms about him, her

lips pursed to kiss him, but he turned away with lowered eyes. His

father took him by the shoulders and said:

"Why, what's the matter, boy? Ain't you glad to see your Maw--and me?"

For answer he only breathed hard and chokingly. His eyes went to the

revolver again, then roved here and there, always as if searching for a

place to hide it.

"Give that thing to me, Steve," the old man said. And he took it in his

hands, forcing from the cold steel the colder fingers that clung as if

frozen about the handle.

Once he was free of the weapon, the boy toppled into a chair, his mother

still clasping him desperately.

The old man knew something about firearms. He found the spring, broke

the revolver, and looked into the cylinder. In every chamber was the

round eye of a cartridge. Three of them bore the little scar of the

firing-pin.

Old Coburn leaned hard against the wall. He looked about for a place to

hide the horrible machine, but he, too, could not let go of it. His

mouth was full of the ashes of life. He would have been glad to drop

dead. But beyond the sick, clammy face of his son he saw the face of his

wife, an old face, a mother's face, witless with bewilderment. The old

man swallowed hard.

"What's happened, Steve? What's been goin' on?"

The young man only shook his head, ran his dry tongue along his lips,

tore a piece of loose skin from the lower one with his teeth, and

breathed noisily through nostrils that worked like a dog's. He pushed

his mother's hands away as if they irked him. The old man could have

struck him to the ground for that roughness, but the prayers in the

mother's eyes restrained him.

"Better tell us, Steve. Maybe we might help you."

The young man's head worked as if he were gulping at a hard lump; his

lips moved without sound, his gaze leaped from place to place, lighting

everywhere but on his father's waiting, watching eyes, and always coming

back to the revolver with a loathing fascination. At last he spoke, in a

whisper like the rasp of chafed husks:

"I had to do it. He deserved it."

The mother had not seen the nicks on the cartridges, but she needed no

such evidence. She wailed:

"You don't mean that you--no--no--you didn't k-kill-ill-ill--"

The word rattled in her throat, and she went to the floor like a

toppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug,

ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered in

his chair and kept saying:

"I had to do it. He was making her life a--"

"Her life?" the old man groaned, looking up where he knelt. "Then

there's a woman in it?"

"Yes, it was for her. She's had a hard time. She's been horribly

misunderstood. She may have been indiscreet--still she's a noble woman

at heart. Her husband was a vile dog. He deserved it."

But the old man's head had dropped as if his neck were cracked. He saw

what it all meant and would mean. He would have sprawled to the floor,

but he caught sight of the pitiful face of his old love still white with

the half-death of her swoon. He clenched his will with ferocity,

resolving that he must not break, could not, would not break. He laid a

hand on his son's knee and said, appealingly, in a low tone, as if he

were the suppliant for mercy:

"Better not mention anything about--about her--the woman you know,

Steve--before your mother, not just now. Your mother's kind of poorly

the last few days. Understand, Steve?"

The answer was a nod like the silly nodding of a toy mandarin.

It was a questionable mercy, restoring the mother just then from the

bliss of oblivion, but she came gradually back through a fog of daze to

the full glare of fact. Her thoughts did not run forward upon the

scandal, the horror of the public, the outcry of all the press; she had

but one thought, her son's welfare.

"Did anybody see you, Steve?"

"No. I went to his room. I don't think anybody s-saw me--yes, maybe the

man across the hall did. Yes, I guess he saw me. He was at his door when

I came out. He looked as if he sus-suspected-ed me. I suppose he heard

the shots. And probably he s-saw the revol-ver. I couldn't seem to let

it drop--to le-let it drop."

The mother turned frantic. "They'll come here for you, Stevie. They'll

find it out. You must get away--somewhere--for just now, till we can

think up something to do. Father will find some way of making everything

all right, won't you, Paw? He always does, you know. Don't be scared, my

boy. We must keep very calm." Her hands were wavering over him in a

palsy. "Where can he go, Paw? Where's the best place for him to go? I'll

tell you, Steve. Is your--your car anywhere near?"

"It's outside at the door. I came back in it."

She got to her feet, and her urgency was ferocious. "Then you get right

in this minute and go up to the old place--the little old house opposite

the pond. Go as fast as you can. You know the place--where we lived

before you were born. There's two big oak-trees st-standing there, and a

pond just across the road. You go there and tell Susan--what shall he

tell Susan, father? What shall he tell Susan? We'll stay here, and--and

we'll bribe the elevator-boy to say you haven't come home at all, and if

the po-po-lice come here we'll say we're expecting you, but we haven't

seen you for ever so long. Won't we, Paw? That's what we'll say, won't

we, Paw?"

The old man stood up to the lightning like an old oak. Trees do not run.

They stand fast and take what the sky sends them. Old Coburn shook his

white hair as a tree its leaves in a blast of wind before he spoke.

"Steve, my boy, I don't know what call you had to do this, but it's no

use trying to run away and hide. They'll get you wherever you go. The

telegraph and the cable and the detectives--no, it's not a bit of use.

It only makes things look worse. Put on your hat and come with me. We'll

go to the police before they come for you. I'll go with you, and I'll

see you through."

But flight, not fight, was the woman's one hope. She was wild with

resistance to the idea of surrender. Her panic confirmed the young man

in his one impulse--to get away. He dashed out into the hall, and when

the father would have pursued, the mother thrust him aside, hurried

past, and braced herself against the door. He put off her clinging,

clutching hands as gently as he might, but she resisted like a tigress

at bay, and before he could drag her aside they heard the iron-barred

door of the elevator glide open and clang shut. And there they stood in

the strange place, the old man staggered with the realization of the

future, the old woman imbecile with fear.

What harm is it the honest oaks do, that Heaven hates them so and its

lightnings search them out with such peculiar frenzy?