Jack looked at me in a puzzled way.
"Wants you to tell me his story?" he repeated.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"He has a reason. I think you had better hear it, Jack."
Jack was no fool. He had wits enough to tell him by this time that in
all this mysterious blundering talk of mine there was after all
something more serious than commonplace tittle-tattle. My face and tone
must have proved it, if nothing else did.
He remained leaning out of the window by my side as I told him that
story in words as near those of Mr Smith himself as I could recall.
He interrupted me by no starts or exclamations, but remained silent,
with his head on his hands, till the very end.
Indeed, he was so still after it was all told that for a moment I felt
uneasy, lest he was taken ill.
But presently he looked up, with his face very pale, and said, "I can
scarcely believe it, Fred."
There was nothing in his tone or look to say whether the disclosure came
to him as good news or bad. I longed to know, but I dared not ask. A
long silence followed. He sat down on a chair with his face turned from
me. I felt that to say another word would be a rude disturbance.
After a while he rose and said, in a voice very low and trembling, "I'll
go up stairs, Fred."
"No," said I, taking his arm and gently leading him back to his chair.
"I'll go up, old boy, and look after Billy to-night."
He did not resist, and I hastened up.
Mr Smith met me at the door with anxious face.
"Well?" he inquired, in a voice which trembled as much as Jack's had
done.
"He knows all," I said.
"Yes? and--"
"And he is downstairs, expecting you," I said.
With a sigh very like a sob, Mr Smith left me and went down the stairs.
All that long night, as I sat beside Billy and watched his fitful
sleep, I could hear the sound of voices in the room below.
What they said to one another I never knew, and never inquired.
But next morning, when Jack came and summoned me to breakfast, his happy
face and Mr Smith's quiet smile answered far more eloquently than words
every question I could possibly have asked about that strange and sacred
meeting between a lost father and a lost son.