CHAPTER III

ONE warm, fair afternoon in May, Kenneth Galt, at the earnest solicitation of General Sylvester, came home. Under big captions the Stafford papers had proudly given the particulars to the public. The great man was slightly run down from the enormous duties which had pressed upon him since the very beginning of his giant enterprise, and was to take a long and much-needed rest in the town of his birth and in the quiet old house where he had spent his boyhood. The mayor and aldermen and a brass-band had met him as he stepped from his private car at the station, and he was welcomed with spirited music and a short but ponderous speech on the part of the mayor. Then John Dilk, in a new suit of clothes and a much-worn silk top-hat, haughtily drove his master and the doting General through the streets, across the square, and on to the old Galt mansion.

The crowd which had followed the carriage from the station to the square gradually dispersed, and the two friends were alone when they alighted at the gate.

“Do you see those chairs and that table under the oaks on our lawn?” Sylvester asked, with the bubbling pride of a boy in a victorious ball game, as they were strolling up the wide moss-grown brick walk.

Galt nodded, and smiled tentatively.

“Madge is going to give us a cup of tea outdoors,” Sylvester explained. “It was her own idea. It is warm inside, and that is the shadiest, coolest spot in Stafford. The tea will refresh us. Shall we go now, or do you want to nose over the old house first?”

“I see Mrs. Wilson looking out from a window,” Galt answered. “I think I’d better go in for a moment, anyway. The good old soul is in her best bib and tucker, and might feel hurt.”

“Right you are!” the General said, approvingly. “You haven’t risen too high, my boy, to think of those dependent on you. Run in and take possession, and I’ll stir Madge up. A cup of tea of my particular blend will do you good after your dusty ride.”

His niece was coming across the grass as the old gentleman reached the tea-table. Her arms were full of fresh-cut roses, which she proceeded to arrange in an old-fashioned silver punch-bowl in the centre of the table.

“I suppose you heard the band and cheering?” the old man said, as he stood watching her and rubbing his thin hands together in suppressed delight.

“Oh yes,” Margaret laughed; “and from my window I saw you and your conquering hero drive up in state. Well, did he accept our invitation or shirk it, as they say he usually does with everything of the sort?”

“On the contrary, he seemed glad to be asked,” returned the General. “In fact, it looks to me like he’s happy to be home again, though one can never tell. The active life of great success in any line estranges men from the simpler things. Just think of it! The fellow has lived in hotels, clubs, and that private car of his for the last six years. He has not, if I remember correctly, been once inside his old home since the night I sent him whizzing like a shot to New York. I do hope it won’t become irksome to him. He needs rest and quiet badly, as you will see when he comes over. His face has a few new lines, and his eyes have a shifting, restless look which they didn’t use to show. Where are you going to have him sit?” The old man was looking over the cluster of chairs and cushioned stools.

“Oh, his lordship may take his high and mighty choice!” Margaret laughed, teasingly. “Perhaps he’ll unbend and sit on the grass like a school-boy. He is, after all, only flesh and blood, dear uncle, odd as the fact may seem to you.”

“Well, don’t hurl that sort of thing at him,” Sylvester retorted, rather testily. “After all, a man not much over forty, who succeeds in an enterprise which belongs to the history of the land, and at the same time puts money into your pocket and mine in big lumps and rolls, does deserve consideration. Why, he has made you rich, Madge! He could have located his terminal shops and round-house at the other end of town just as well, but he put them on our land and asked no questions about the price. By George, why shouldn’t we pet him a little when he has been away all these years, and has come back broken down this way?”

“Oh, well, I don’t think he needs it, that’s all,” the young lady said, pacifically. “A man like that is neither sugar nor salt. Only weak men want to be pampered and cajoled. Your railway magnate will take care of himself.” Her eyes were resting on the figure of a child in a big swing which Doctor Dearing had hung from the lower branch of a tall oak a few yards away. It was Dora Barry’s son. He was standing on the board seat clasping the stout hemp ropes with his little hands and “pumping” himself into motion by alternately bending and straightening his lithe body. His beautiful golden hair swung loose in the breeze, there was a glow of health in his pink cheeks, and he was neatly dressed in white duck, a flowing necktie, and tan slippers and short stockings which exposed his perfect calves and trim ankles.

“Oh,” Margaret suddenly exclaimed, “I’m afraid he will fall! Wynn is always doing such absurd things; the child is not old enough to take such risks as that with no one to watch him.”

“I agree with you,” the General said, and he went to the swing and persuaded Lionel to sit down. Then he pushed him forward, and left him swinging gently.

“Just think of it!” Sylvester said, as he came back to his niece, who sat now with her glance on the grass. “Time certainly flies. That specimen of humanity has come into existence and grown to that size since Kenneth was here. I don’t think he ever knew the poor girl very well before her misfortune, but he is sorry for her. I remember speaking to him of her in New York one day, and I could see that he was quite interested.”

“I think I see him coming now,” Margaret said, biting her lip. It was the way she had always avoided any conversation which touched upon the one sore spot of her life, and her uncle refrained, as he had always done, from carrying the topic further.

“Yes, he is coming,” and Sylvester stood up and waved his handkerchief. “Come and take the place of honor,” he said, picking up a downy pillow and laying it in the big chair next to Margaret’s. “I am glad there never was a fence between your place and ours, for we can mix and mingle as we did when your father and I were young bloods. I’ve made a mistake many a night in having my horse put up in his stable after the dumb brute had brought me home from a dance in the country with more intelligence than I possessed.”

Galt laughed appreciatively as he bent over the fair hand of his hostess and received her simple and yet cordial greeting. He had admired her as a girl, and now in her ripened beauty, added grace, and dignified bearing he found nothing lacking. As he watched her deftly lighting the spirit-lamp under the swinging teakettle he recalled, with a certain sense of delectation, a hint her uncle had given him in a jesting tone and yet with a serious look.

“I may have you in my family one day, young man,” the General had said, in some talk over their common business interests, “and in that case I’ll rule you with a rod of iron.”

After all, it would be nice, Galt reflected to-day, and a step of that sort might ultimately quiet the dull aching of heart which had been his for so many years. Few men had ever had to such a marked degree the pronounced yearning toward paternity as had come to the lonely bachelor since the chief mistake of his life. His love for children was more like that of a woman who has tasted and lost the joys of motherhood than that of a man of the world. He never saw a pretty child without looking at its father with a sort of envious curiosity. Was the remainder of his life to be passed without his possessing that for which he yearned more than for any other earthly thing? He had heard, of course, of the birth of Dora’s child, but he had so persistently fought off the thought of it and its attendant remorse that, like many another man so situated, his sense of responsibility in the matter had become somewhat dulled.

He now ventured, during the General’s jovial chatter, to glance across the lawn toward the cottage below. It was there in the starlight that he had seen the brave young girl for the last time. It was there. And he shuddered under the scourging lash of the words with which she had prophesied that he would fail to stand by her—fail to rescue her from the abyss into which he had plunged her. He shuddered again. Hero as he was in the sight of many, in Dora’s eyes, at least, he could never be aught but despicable. She had gauged his weakness better than he could have done it himself. He had made a choice between honor and ambition, and he had abided by it. Other men had cast such memories to the winds of oblivion. Why had his clung to him with such damning tenacity? There was never any satisfactory answer to the question, and now and then a thought as from infinite space was hurled upon him with the force of a catapult—it was the conviction that, girl though she had been, Dora Barry’s equal, in the intellectual and womanly things he admired, was not to be found among all the women he had known. What was she like now? What havoc had the tragedy and succeeding time wrought in the fair being whom he had left stranded and storm-swept on that eventful night? Under the low roof and in the tiny yard of the cottage just across the way she and his child, according to Wynn Dearing’s report, had been imprisoned all those years. What a rebuke to his boundless egotism! He might remain there for years, and neither of the two would intrude themselves upon him. Oh yes, he told himself, he was safe enough on that score. She had kept her vow of secrecy so far, and would do so to the end.

At this juncture there was a rippling scream of childish delight behind him, and, turning, he saw Lionel, his face flushed, his great eyes full of excitement, as he eagerly chased a black kitten round and round a bed of rose-bushes.

“What a beautiful boy!” Galt exclaimed, beside himself in admiration. “What a perfect figure! Whose child is it?”

The question was addressed to Margaret; but she hesitated, tightened her lips, and looked down.

“Oh, it is one of our neighbor’s,” the General skilfully interjected, as he leaned forward and tried ineffectually to give his guest a warning glance. “Wynn is a great hand at amusing the little ones. He thought this child needed more exercise and fresh air, and he asked his mother to let it play here.”

Galt was now watching the boy, and so intently that he only half heard what the General said and quite failed to notice that his question had embarrassed his hostess. “Catch it! Run round the other way, little man!” he cried out, leaning forward with his cup in his hand. “There! there it goes!” The child paused just an instant, and raised his appealing, long-lashed eyes to the speaker; as he did so the kitten bounded like a rabbit across the grass and up a tree a few yards away.

“Now, see what you did!” Lionel cried, disappointedly, as he stood panting, his silken tresses tossed about his face. “You let him get away. I’d have had him if you hadn’t spoken. But I don’t care, I can get him!” And he was off like the wind toward the tree, on a lower bough of which the kitten was perched, blandly eying his pursuer.

“You are as fond of children as ever,” the General remarked, “and it proves that your heart is in the right spot. Show me a man who has no use for little tots, and I’ll show you a man who will cheat you in a transaction.”

“It certainly is a good quality,” Margaret said, as she proffered sugar for his tea. “We naturally expect it of women, but it always seems exceptional in men, especially men who have their time fully occupied.”

Sylvester laughed reminiscently.

“I’ve seen Kenneth stop on the street to chat with a dirty-faced newsboy when the general superintendent of his road was waving an important telegram at him; and I’ve seen the boy walk off with a quarter for a penny paper, too.”

“I seem to be getting my share of compliments, at any rate,” Galt laughed. “I’d call it flattery if I could accuse your hospitality of anything not wholly genuine.”

“Uncle Tom certainly means what he says,” Margaret affirmed. Her glance drifted in the direction the sporting child had taken, and she uttered a sharp, startled scream.

“Oh, he’ll fall!” she cried.

Following her eyes, the others saw that Lionel, still chasing the kitten, had climbed the tree to its lower boughs ten or twelve feet from the ground, and, with the prize still above him, sat in a decidedly perilous position on a bending branch so intent on reaching the animal that he was oblivious of his danger.

“Don’t be frightened, I’ll get him down,” Galt assured her, with an easy laugh, and he sprang up and ran across the grass, saying, under his breath: “Plucky little scamp! He’ll break his neck!”

“Come down from there!” he called out, a queer recurrence of his own childhood on him as he viewed the muscular boy and the plump, bare calves above his short stockings. He was breathing freely now, for he felt that in case of a fall he could catch the youngster in his arms.

“Oh, do let me get him!” Lionel cried, looking down appealingly, and speaking with the accent which had always impressed hearers as so quaint and odd in a child.

“No, you mustn’t go a bit higher!” Galt said, assuming a youthful tone of comradery that his words might not have any semblance of command. “You are a dandy climber—almost as good as the cat, but he is lighter than you are. You’ll break that limb in a minute, and down you will tumble!”

The boy looked at the bending bough and shrugged his square shoulders. “I don’t know but what you are right,” he said, with a wry face. “I declare, I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m almost afraid to move now.” Then he burst into a merry laugh as he glanced first at his would-be rescuer and then up at the cat.

“Why, what is so amusing about it?” Galt questioned, fairly transported by the boy’s beauty, fearlessness, and vivacity.

“Oh, I don’t know, but it seems funny—you down there, me up here, and the cat above us both.”

Galt laughed till tears came into his eyes.

“You are certainly a marvel,” he said. “But you must come down. Slide carefully toward the trunk of the tree and catch hold of it firmly. You’ll tear your clothes, but it is better that than—”

“I know an easier way!” the child cried. “I’ll jump, and you catch me.”

“But I can’t!” Galt answered. “You’d crush me to the ground, small as you are!”

“No, I wouldn’t!” Lionel laughed, with thorough confidence. “Doctor Wynn caught me the other day when I jumped from the roof of the wagon-shed, and you are stronger than he is. You are taller, anyway. Look, I am coming!”

Fascinated by the child’s voice and manner, and unable to protest quickly enough, Galt braced himself, fearing that the swaying child would fall. “One, two, three! Lionel counted, and the little white-clothed figure left the bough, shot through the sunlight, and alighted in Galt’s outstretched arms. There was a scream from Margaret, the General stood up, a startled look on his gashed and seamed face. The child’s arms went round Galt’s neck; his soft, warm cheek was pressed against his, and, scarcely knowing why he did it, Galt embraced him in a veritable qualm of relief. He put the boy down, but took his hands in his and held them. He admired and loved children, but he had never been so drawn to one before.

“He’s all right!” he called out, reassuringly, to the others. “He didn’t get a scratch, but it’s a wonder he wasn’t lamed for life. He jumped before I could stop him.”

Looking into the child’s sensitive face, Galt noted, with surprise and concern, that it was clouded over. “What’s the matter?” he asked, anxiously. “Did you hurt yourself? Did it jar you too much?”

“No, but I’m afraid you are angry with me,” the boy answered. “Are you?”

“Well, not exactly, but, you see, my boy—” Galt checked himself, for the corners of the little fellow’s mouth were drawn down and his eyes were filling.

“You are angry, and you don’t like me a bit.” A sob rose in the breast of the child and struggled outward. He drew his little hands from Galt’s detaining clasp and looked down. “I am very sorry; I’ll never, never do it again. I was bad. You told me not to jump, but I did. I am always disobeying somebody. When Doctor Wynn told me a great, smart, rich man was coming who had built a railroad, miles and miles through the woods and under mountains and over rivers, I told him I’d be good and make you think I was a nice boy, so that you’d like me; but now, you see, I went and made you angry at the very start.”

“Well, what if I tell you this, you dear little chap,” and Galt paused and took him into his arms again; “what if I tell you that it was because I liked you very, very much that I tried to stop you? You see, I was afraid you’d get hurt, and I liked you so much that I wanted to prevent it. Will that satisfy you?”

“Oh!” Galt felt the little, warm arm steal round his neck confidently. “Then you really do like me, after all.” Galt laughed; he could hardly understand the emotion that welled up in him—he laughed that he might hide it even from himself. “I’ll tell you this much,” he said: “I like nearly all little boys, but on my honor I never liked a boy, on a short acquaintance, in my life, so much as I do you. There, now, come on and get a cup of tea!”

With Lionel in his arms, he went back to the table and sat down, keeping him in his lap. There was a sensitive shadow on Margaret’s features and a certain awkward look of sympathy for her on her uncle’s strong face, but Galt failed to remark them.

“Does your mamma let you drink tea?” Margaret asked, gently. .

“No, I thank you,” the child answered. “She says it’s too strong a stim—stim—”

“Stimulant.” Galt supplied the word with a hearty laugh of amusement. “I declare, for a child, you have the largest vocabulary—if you know what that is—that I ever ran across. By-the-way”—and he drew the boy’s head down against his breast and ran his hand through the soft, scented tresses—“you haven’t told me your name yet. What is it?”

“Lionel,” replied the boy.

“Well, that is pretty enough so far as it goes, but what else?”

“What do you mean by ‘what else’?” The child had hold of Galt’s disengaged hand, and was toying with it as if admiring its strength and size, and he paused to look up into the dark face bending over him.

“Why, I mean, what is your full name?” Galt said, smiling into the rather grave faces about him.

“Lionel—just Lionel, that’s all,” the child said, and he raised Galt’s hand in both of his own and pressed it. “Most people have two names, but I’ve never had but one. I don’t know why. Do you? I asked my mother about it one day when Mrs. Chumley was talking mean to her about me, and mamma went off to her room and cried. Grandmother told me never to speak of it to her again. My mother has two names—Dora Barry.”

Kenneth Galt felt as though his soul had suddenly died within him. The bonny head of his own child lay on his breast, its throbbing warmth striking through to his pulseless heart. Margaret sat rigid and speechless, and General Sylvester, in his desire to shield her, began chattering irrelevantly.

The long shadows of the descending sun crawled across the grass toward the hill in the east. The golden head remained where it lay, the tiny and yet vigorous fingers twined themselves about the larger inanimate ones. The eyelids over the boy’s big, dreamy orbs wavered and drooped. He was tired and sleepy. He heaved a long, fragrant sigh and nestled more snugly into the arms that held him. A great, voiceless yearning born of the long-buried paternal instinct fired the dry tinder—the driftwood of years of misguided loneliness—in the man’s being. A great light seemed to burst and blaze above him. He sat with his gaze on the old man’s face, but in fancy he felt himself kissing the parted lips of that marvel of creation—Dora’s child and his.