"SHE'S gone to her rest, at last, poor soul, and it's happy she'd be if
it wasn't for the childer."
Constance had been waiting through the long hours of the afternoon
for Margaret's return from Owen David's shanty on the North Side;
waiting for the summons to the death-bed of the mother of Owen David's
children. She had promised to go, wherefore her heart smote her and the
ready tears welled up at Margaret's announcement.
"Oh, Margaret! Why didn't you come for me!"
"'Twas no use at all, Miss Constance; 'twas her last word she said to
you this morning, when she asked you to try once more with Owen for the
childer's sake. When you'd gone she turned her face to the wall, and we
never knew when her soul went out."
"Was Owen there?"
"He was; and it's sober he was for the first time in many a day. He
took it hard; them Welsh are flighty people, anyway."
"He ought to take it hard," said Constance, with as near an approach
to vindictiveness as the heart of compassion would sanction. "Has
everything been done?"
Margaret nodded. "The neighbors were that kind; and it's poor
hard-working people they are, too."
"I know," said Constance. She was making ready to go out, and she found
her purse and counted its keepings. They were as scanty as her will to
help was plenteous. Myra's check had been generous, but the askings
were many, and there was no more than the sweet savor of it left. "I'm
sure I don't know what Owen will do," she went on. "I suppose there
isn't money enough to bury her."
Margaret had taken off her hat and jacket and she was suddenly impelled
to go to work. The lounge-cover was awry, and in the straightening of
it she said:--
"Don't you be worrying about that, now, Miss Constance. It was Owen
himself that was giving me the money for the funeral when I was
leaving."
"Owen? Where did he get it? He hasn't had a day's work for a month."
Margaret was smoothing the cover and shaking the pillows vigorously.
"Sure, that's just what I was thinking" (slap, slap), "but I've his
money in my pocket this blessed minute. So you just go and say a sweet
word to the childer, Miss Constance, and don't you be worrying about
anything."
Connie's hand was on the door-knob, but she turned with a sudden
sinking of the heart, and a swift impulse that sent her across the room
to Margaret's side.
"Margaret, you gave Owen that money before he gave it to you. Where did
you get it?"
Margaret left off beating the pillows and slipped upon her knees to
bury her face in one of them.
"I knew you'd be asking that," she sobbed, and then: "Haven't I been
working honest every day since Christmas? And does it be taking all I
earn to keep me, I'd like to know?"
Constance went down on her knees beside the girl, and what she said
was to One who was merciful even to the Magdalenes. When she rose the
pain of it was a little dulled, and she went back to the charitable
necessities in a word.
"Is there any one to watch with her to-night, Margaret?"
The girl lifted a tear-stained face, and the passionate Irish eyes were
swimming, and Constance turned away because her loving compassion was
greater than her determination to be judicially severe.
"I'm one," Margaret answered; "and Mrs. Mulcahey'll come over when her
man gets home."
"Very well. I'll go over and give the children their suppers and put
them to bed. I'll stay till you come, and you can bring Tommie to take
me home."
Constance went upon her mission heavy-hearted; and in the hovel
across the river found comfort in the giving of comfort. The David
children were all little ones, too young to fully realize their loss;
and when they had been fed and hushed to sleep, and one of David's
fellow workmen had taken the husband away for the night, Constance
sat down in the room with the dead to wait for Margaret. For a heart
less pitiful or a soul less steadfast, the silence of the night and
the solitary watch with the sheeted figure on the bed might have been
unnerving; but in all her life Constance had never had to reckon with
fear. Hence, when the door opened behind her without a preliminary
knock, and a footstep crossed the threshold, she thought it was one of
the neighbors and rose softly with her finger on her lip. But when she
saw who it was, she started back and made as if she would retreat to
the room where the children were.
"You!" she said. "Why are you here?"
"I beg your pardon." Jeffard said it deferentially, almost humbly. "I
didn't expect to find you here; I was looking for--for the man, you
know. What has become of him?"
The hesitant pause in the midst of the explanation opened the door for
a swift suspicion,--a suspicion too horrible to be entertained, and yet
too strong to be driven forth. There was righteous indignation in her
eyes when she went close to him and said:--
"Can you stand here in the presence of that"--pointing to the sheeted
figure on the bed--"and lie to me? You expected to meet Margaret Gannon
here. You have made an appointment with her--an assignation in the
house of the dead. Shame on you!"
It should have crushed him. It did for the moment. And when he rallied
it was apparently in a spirit of the sheerest hardihood.
"You are right," he said; "I did expect to meet Margaret. With your
permission, I'll go outside and wait for her."
She flashed between him and the door and put her back to it.
"Not until you have heard what I have to say, Mr. Jeffard. I've been
wanting to say it ever since Tommie told me, but you have been very
careful not to give me a chance. You know this girl's story, and what
she has had to fight from day to day. Are you so lost to every sense of
justice and mercy as to try to drag her back into sin and shame after
all her pitiful strugglings?"
"It would seem so," Jeffard retorted, and his smile was harder than his
words. "It is quite conceivable that you should believe it of the man
who once took your charity and made a mock of it. May I go now?"
"Oh, no, not yet; not until you have promised me to spare and slay not,
for this once. Think of it a moment; it is the price of a human soul!
And it is such a little thing for you to concede."
The hard smile came and went again.
"Another man might say that Margaret has come to be very beautiful,
Miss Elliott."
The indignation was gone out of her eyes, and her lips were trembling.
"Oh, how can you be so hard!" she faltered. "Will nothing move you?"
He met the beseeching with a steady gaze that might have been the
outlooking of a spirit of calm superiority or the cold stare of a
demon of ruthlessness. The mere suggestion of the alternative made her
hot and cold by turns.
"I wonder that you have the courage to appeal to me," he said, at
length. "Are you not afraid?"
"For Margaret's sake I am not afraid."
"You are very brave--and very loyal. Do you wonder that I was once
moved to tell you that I loved you?"
"How can you speak of that here--and now!" she burst out. "Is there no
measure of the hardness of your heart? Is it not enough that you should
make me beg for that which I have a right to demand?"
He went apart from her at that to walk softly up and down in the
narrow space between the bed and the wall,--to walk for leaden-winged
minutes that seemed hours to Constance, waiting for his answer. At the
final turn he lifted the sheet from the face of the dead woman and
looked long and earnestly, as one who would let death speak where life
was dumb and inarticulate. Constance watched him with her heart in a
turmoil of doubt and fear. The doubt was of her own making, as the fear
was of his. She had thought that this man was known to her, in his
potentialities for good or evil, in his stumblings upon the brink of
the abyss, and in his later plunge into the depths of wrongdoing; but
now that she was brought face to face with him, her prefigurings took
new shapes and she feared to look upon them. For the potentialities
had suddenly become superhuman, and love itself stood aghast at the
possibilities. In the midst of it he stood before her again.
"What is it that you would have me do?" he asked.
The tone of it assured her that her battle was fought and won; but at
the moment of victory she had not the strength to make terms with him.
"You know what you ought to do," she said, with eyes downcast.
"The 'oughts' are sometimes terribly hard, Miss Elliott. Haven't you
found them so?"
"Sometimes." She was finding one of them sufficiently hard at that
moment to compel the admission.
"But they are never impossible, you would say, and that is true also.
You asked me a few moments ago if there was nothing that would move me,
and I was tempted. But that is past. Will you suffer me to go now?"
She stood aside, but her hand was still on the latch of the door.
"You have not promised," she said.
"Pardon me; I was hoping you would spare me. The cup is of my own
mixing, but the lees are bitter. Must I drain them?"
"I--I don't understand," she rejoined.
"Don't you? Consider it a moment. You have taken it for granted that I
had it in my heart to do this thing, and, knowing what you do of me,
the inference is just. But I have not admitted it, and I had hoped you
would spare me the admission which a promise would imply. Won't you
leave me this poor shadow of refutation?"
She opened the door for him.
"Thank you; it is much more than I deserve. Since you do not ask
it, you shall have the assurance,--the best I can give. I shall
leave Denver in a day or two, and you may take your own measures for
safeguarding Margaret in the interval. Perhaps it won't be as difficult
as you may imagine. If I have read her aright you may ask large things
of her loyalty and devotion to you."
The battle was over, and she had but to hold her peace to be quit of
him. But having won her cause it was not in the loving heart of her to
let him go unrecompensed.
"You are going away? Then we may not meet again. I gave you bitter
words a few minutes ago, Mr. Jeffard, but I believed they were true.
Won't you deny them--if you can?"
His foot was across the threshold, but he turned to smile down upon her.
"You are a true woman. You said I lied to you, and now you ask me to
deny it, knowing well enough that the denial will afterward stand for
another falsehood. I know what you think of me,--what you are bound to
think of me; but isn't it conceivable that I would rather quench that
fire than add fuel to it?"
"But you are going away," she insisted.
"And since we may never meet again, you crave the poor comfort of a
denial. You shall have it for what it is worth. When you are inclined
to think charitably of me, go back to first principles and remember
that the worst of men have sometimes had promptings which were not
altogether unworthy. Let the major accusation stand, if you choose; I
did have an appointment here with Margaret Gannon. But when your faith
in humankind needs heartening, conceive that for this once the tryst
was one which any woman might have kept with me. Believe, if you care
to, that my business here this evening was really with this poor fellow
whose sins have found him out. Would you like to be able to believe
that?"
For the first time since doubt and fear had gotten the better of
indignation she was able to lift her eyes to his.
"I will believe it," she said gratefully.
He smiled again, and she was no longer afraid. Now that she came to
think of it, she wondered if she had ever been really afraid of him.
"Your faith is very beautiful, Miss Elliott. I am glad to be able to
give it something better than a bare suggestion to build on. Will you
give this to Margaret when she comes?"
It was a folded paper, with a printed title and indorsement blanks on
the back. She took it and glanced at the filing. It was the deed to a
burial lot in the name of Owen David.
"Oh!" she said; and there was a world of contrition and self-reproach
in the single word. "Can you ever forgive me, Mr. Jeffard?"
As once before, when Lansdale had proffered it, Jeffard pushed aside
the cup of reinstatement.
"Don't take too much for granted. Remember, the indictment still
stands. Margaret Gannon's tempter might have done this and still merit
your detestation."
And at the word she was once more alone with the still figure on the
bed.