He stopped, with a catch in his voice, and I wanted more than I can tell to say something to help him, but no words came. I could not think; I wanted to comfort him as I comfort Kathie when she is desperate. The evident difficulty he had in keeping his self-control moved me more than anything he could have said.

"I'll marry the girl," he burst out in a moment. "You are right about the baby. It's no matter about Jule. She isn't of any account anyway, and she never expected me to marry her. I'll never see her after she's--after I've done it. It makes me sick to think of her, but I'll do what I can for the baby." He stopped, and caught his breath. I could feel in the dusk, rather than see, that he looked up, as if he were trying to read my face in the darkness. "I will marry her," he went on, "on one condition."

"What is that?" I asked, with my throat so dry that it ached.

"That you will take the child."

I think now that we must both have spoken like puppets talking by machinery. I hardly seemed to myself to be alive and real, but this proposition awoke me like a blow. I could at first only gasp, too much overcome to bring out a word.

"But its mother?" I managed to stammer at last.

"If I'm to marry her for the sake of the child," he answered in a voice I hardly recognized, "it would be perfect tomfoolery to leave it to grow up with the Brownrigs. If that's to be the plan, I'll save myself. Jule doesn't mind not being married. You don't know what a tribe the Brownrigs are. It's an insult for me to be talking to you about them, only it can't be helped. Is it a boy or a girl?"

I told him.

"And you think a girl ought to be left to follow the n.o.ble example of the mother!"

"Oh no, no!" I cried out. "Anything is better than that."

"That is what must happen unless you take the poor thing," he said in a voice which, though it was hard, seemed somehow to have a quiver in it.

"But would she give the baby up?" I asked. "She's its mother."

"Jule? She'll be only too glad to get rid of it. Anyway she'd do what I told her to."

I tried to think clearly and quickly. To have the baby left to follow in the steps of its mother was a thing too terrible to be endured, and yet I shrank selfishly from taking upon my shoulders the responsibility of training the child. Whatever Tom decided about the marriage, however, I felt that he should not have to resolve under pressure. If he were doing it for the sake of the baby's future, I could clear his way of that complication. I could not bear the thought of having Tom marry Julia.

This would be a bond on his whole life; and yet I could not feel that he had a right to shirk it now. If I agreed to take the child, that would leave him free to decide without being pushed on by fear about the baby.

My mind seemed to me wonderfully clear. I see now it was all in a whirl, and that the only thing I was sure of was that if it would help him for me to take the baby there was nothing else for me to do.

"Tom," I said, "I do not, and I will not, decide for you; and I will not have anything to do with conditions. If she will give me the baby, I will take it, and you may decide the rest without any reference to that at all."

He took a step forward so quickly and so fiercely that he startled me, and put out his hand as if he meant to take me by the arm. Then he dropped it.

"Do you think," he said, "that I would have an illegitimate brat near you? It is bad enough as it is, but you shall not have the reproach of that."

My cheeks grew hot, but the whole talk was so strange and so painful that I let this pa.s.s with the rest. I cannot tell how I felt, but I know the remembrance of it makes my eyes swim so that I cannot write without stopping continually; and I am writing here half the night because I cannot sleep. I could not answer Tom; I only stood dully silent until he spoke again.

"I know I can't have you, Ruth," he said, "and I know you were right.

I'm not good enough for you."

"I never said that," I interrupted. "I never thought that."

"Never mind. It's true; but I'd have been a man if you'd have given me a chance."

"Oh, Tom," I broke in, "don't! It is not fair to make me responsible!"

"No," he acknowledged, with the shake of his shoulders I have known ever since we were children; "you are not to blame. It's only my infernal, sneaking self!"

I could not bear this, either. Everything that was said hurt me; and it seemed to me that I had borne all that I could endure.

"Will you go away now, Tom," I begged him. "I--I can't talk any more to-night. Shall I tell Julia you have come?"

He gave a start at the name, and swore under his breath.

"It is d.a.m.nable for you to be here with that girl," he burst out bitterly; "and I brought it on you! It isn't your place, though. Where are all the Christians and church members? I suppose all the pious are too good to come. They might get their righteousness smudged. Oh, how I hate hypocrisy!"

"Don't, Tom," I interrupted. "Go away, please."

My voice was shaky; and indeed I was fast getting to the place where I should have broken down in hysterical weeping.

"I'll go," he responded quickly. "I'll come in the morning with a minister. Will eight o'clock do? I'd like to get it over with."

The bitterness of his tone was too much for me. I caught one of his hands in both of mine.

"Oh, Tom," I said, "are you quite sure this is what you ought to do?"

"Do you tell me not to marry her?" he demanded fiercely.

I was completely unnerved; I could only drop his hand and press my own on my bosom, as if this would help me to breathe easier.

"Oh no, no," I cried, half sobbing. "I can't, I can't. I haven't the right to say anything; but I do think it is the thing you ought to do.

Only you are so n.o.ble to do it!"

He made a sound as if he would answer, and then he turned away suddenly, and dashed off with great strides. I could not go back into the house, but came home without saying good-night, or letting Miss Dyer know. I must be ready to go back as soon as it is light.

April 12. It seems so far back to this morning that I might have had time to change into a different person; and yet most of the day I have simply been longing to get home and think quietly. I wanted to adjust myself to the new condition of things. Last night the idea that Tom should marry the girl was so strange and unreal that it could make very little impression on me. Now it is done it is more appallingly real than anything else in the world.

I went down to the red house almost before light, but even as early as I came I found Tom already there. The nurse had objected to letting him in, and even when I came she was evidently uncertain whether she had done right in admitting him; but Tom has generally a way of getting what he is determined on, and before I reached the house everything had been arranged with Julia.

"I wanted to come before folks were about to see me," Tom said to me.

"There'll be talk enough later, and I'd rather be out of the way. I've arranged it with her."

"Does she understand"--I began; but he interrupted.

"She understands all there is to understand; all that she could understand, anyway. She knows I'm marrying her for the sake of the child, and that you're to have it."

The Munson boy that I have hired to sleep in the house now Mrs. Bagley is gone, in order that Miss Dyer may have somebody within call, appeared at this minute with a pail of water, and we were interrupted. The boy stared with all his eyes, and I was half tempted to ask him not to speak of Tom's being here; but I reflected with a sick feeling that it was of no use to try to hide what was to be done. If Tom's act was to have any significance it must be known. I turned away with tears in my eyes, and went to Julia.

Julia I found with her eyes shining with excitement, and I could see that despite Tom's idea that she did not care about the marriage, she was greatly moved by it.

"Oh, Miss Privet," she cried out at once, "ain't he good! He's truly goin' to marry me after all! I never 'sposed he'd do that."

"You must have thought"--I began; and then, with a sinking consciousness of the difference between her world and mine, I stopped.

"And he says you want the baby," she went on, not noticing; "though I dunno what you want of it. It'll be a pesky bother for yer."

"Mr. Webbe wanted me to take it and bring it up."