The next day was the first of the long vacation, and with it came an
addition to the Leighton household. Mammy was given a temporary helper,
a shrewd little maid, with a head thirty years old on shoulders of
twelve. Lalia was her name. The Reverend Orme had chosen her from among
his charity pupils. He himself gave her his instructions--never to leave
Shenton except to run and report the moment he escaped from her charge.
Lalia was accepted without suspicion by the children not as a nurse, but
as a playmate. Weeks passed. The four played together with a greater
harmony than the three had ever attained. Day after day the Reverend
Orme sat waiting in his study and brooding. The dreaded call never came.
He began to distrust his messenger.
Then one stifling afternoon as he sat dozing in his chair a sharp rap on
the study door awakened him with a start.
"Master! Master!" called Lalia's voice.
"Yes, yes," cried Leighton; "come in."
As he rose from his chair Lalia entered. She was breathless with
running.
"Master," she said, "Shenton did quarrel with us. He has gone to
Manoel--to his house."
"Manoel!" cried Leighton, "Manoel!" and strode hatless out into the
glaring sun, across the lawn, and down the loquat avenue.
Lewis, standing with Natalie in the orange-orchard, stared, wondering,
at that hurrying figure. Never had he seen the Reverend Orme walk like
that, hatless, head hanging and swinging from side to side, fists
clenched. Where could he he going? Suddenly he knew. The Reverend Orme
was going to Manoel's house. Shenton was there. Lalia came running to
them. "Hold Natalie!" Lewis cried to her, and sped away to warn Shenton
of danger. He ran with all the speed of his eight years, but from the
first he felt he was too late. The low-hanging branches of the
orange-trees hindered him.
When he burst through the last of them, he saw the Reverend Orme's tall
figure, motionless now, standing at the soiled, small-paned window of
Manoel's house. As he stared, the tall figure crouched and stole out of
sight, around the corner toward the door. Lewis rushed to the window and
looked in. It seemed to him only a day since he had had to drag a log to
stand on to see through this same window.
Shenton was sitting on the bench beside the table, his black, curly head
hanging to one side. Beyond him sat Manoel, leering and jabbering.
Between them was a bottle. Lewis's lips were opening for a cry of
warning when the door was flung wide, and the Reverend Orme stepped into
the room. Lewis could not see Shenton's face, but he saw his slight form
suddenly straighten.
Then he realized with a great relief that the Reverend Orme was not
looking at Shenton; his gaze was fastened on Manoel. Lewis, too, turned
his eyes on Manoel. Cold sweat came out over him as he saw the terror in
Manoel's face. The leer was still there, frozen. Over it and through it,
like a double exposure on a single negative, hung the film of terror.
The Reverend Orme, his hands half outstretched, walked slowly toward
Manoel.
Suddenly the Portuguese crouched as though to spring. As quick as the
gleam of a viper's tongue, Leighton's long arms shot out. Straight for
the man's throat went his hands. They closed, the long, white fingers
around a swarthy neck, thumbs doubled in, their knuckles sinking into
the throat. Lewis felt as though it were his own eyes that started from
their sockets. With a scream, he turned and ran.
He cast himself beneath the shelter of the first low-hanging
orange-tree. He saw the Reverend Orme stalk by, bearing Shenton in his
arms. For the first time in his life Lewis heard the sobs of a grown
man, and instinctively knew himself the possessor of a secret thing--a
thing that must never be told.
At the house, alarmed by Natalie's incoherent, excited chatter and
Lalia's stubborn silence, Mrs. Leighton waited in suspense. Leighton
entered with his burden and laid it down. Then he turned. She saw his
face.
"Orme!" she cried, "_Orme!_" and started toward him, groping as though
she had been blinded.
"Touch me not, Ann," spoke Leighton, with a strange calmness. "Thank
God! the mark of Cain is on my brow."