Andy rose and smiled:

"Ya.s.sam, but dat ain't all, m'am!"

"No?"

"n.o.b.u.m. I ain't 'sputin dat de little gal wuz born des lak you say, or des lak, mebbe, de major believes ter dis day"--he paused and leaned over until he could whisper in her ear--"but sposen she die?"

The woman never moved a muscle for an instant. She spoke at last in a half-laughing, incredulous way:

"Suppose she died? Why, what do you mean?"

"Now, mind ye," Andy said, lifting his hands in a persuasive gesture, "I ain't sayin' dat she raly did die--I des say--sposen she die----"

Cleo lost her temper and turned on her tormentor in sudden fury:

"But she didn't! Who dares to tell such a lie? She's living to-day a beautiful, accomplished girl."

Andy solemnly raised his hand again:

"Mind ye, I don't say dat she ain't, I des say sposen--sposen she die, an'

you git a little orphan baby ter put in her place, twenty years ergo, jis'

ter keep yer grip on de major----"

Cleo peered steadily into his face:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Ya.s.sam, but dat ain't all, m'am.'"]

"Did you guess that lie?"

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side and grinned:

"I don't say dat I did, an' I don't say dat I didn't. I des say dat I mought, an' den ergin I moughn't!"

"Well, it's a lie!" she cried fiercely--"I tell you it's an infamous lie!"

"Ya.s.sam, dat may be so, but hit's a putty dangous lie fer you, m'am, ef----"

He looked around the room in a friendly, cautious way and continued in a whisper:

"Especially ef de major wuz ter ever git pizened wid it!"

Cleo's voice dropped suddenly to pleading tones:

"You're not going to suggest such an idea to him?"

Andy looked away coyly and glanced back at her with a smile:

"Not ef yer ax me----"

"Well, I do ask you," she said in tender tones. "A more infamous lie couldn't be told. But if such a suspicion were once roused it would be hard to protect myself against it."

"Oh, I des wants ter help ye, m'am," Andy protested earnestly.

"Then I'm sure you'll never suggest such a thing to the major?--I'm sorry I've treated you so rudely, and spoke to you as I did just now."

Andy waved the apology aside with a generous gesture and spoke with large good nature:

"Oh, dat's all right, m'am! Dat's all right! I'm gwine ter show you now dat I'se yer best friend----"

"I may need one soon," she answered slowly. "Things can't go on in this house much longer as they are."

"Ya.s.sam!" Andy said rea.s.suringly as he laid his hand on Cleo's arm and bent low. "You kin 'pend on me. I'se always called Hones' Andy."

She shuddered unconsciously at his touch, looked suddenly toward the house and said:

"Go--quick! Mr. Tom has come. I don't want him to see us together."

Andy bowed grandly, took up his hat and tipped down the stairs chuckling over his conquest, and Cleo watched him cross the yard to the kitchen.

"I'll manage him!" she murmured with a smile of contempt.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FOLLY OF PITY

Norton sat in the library for more than an hour trying to nerve himself for the interview while waiting for Helen. He had lighted and smoked two cigars in rapid succession and grown restless at her delay. He rose, strolled through the house and seeing nothing of either Tom or Helen, returned to the library and began pacing the floor with measured tread.

He had made up his mind to do a cruel thing and told himself over and over again that cruel things are often best. The cruelty of surgery is the highest form of pity, pity expressed in terms of the highest intelligence.

He was sure the boy had not made love to the girl. Helen was no doubt equally innocent in her att.i.tude toward him.

It would only be necessary to tell her a part of the bitter truth and her desire to leave would be a resistless one.

And yet, the longer he delayed and the longer he faced such an act, the more pitiless it seemed and the harder its execution became. At heart a deep tenderness was the big trait of his character.

Above all, he dreaded the first interview with Helen. The idea of the responsibility of fatherhood had always been a solemn one. His love for Tom was of the very beat of his heart. The day he first looked into his face was the most wonderful in all the calendar of life.

He had simply refused to let this girl come into his heart. He had closed the door with a firm will. He had only seen her once when a little tot of two and he was laboring under such deep excitement and such abject fear lest a suspicion of the truth, or any part of the truth, reach the sisters to whom he was intrusting the child, that her personality had made no impression on him.

He vaguely hoped that she might not be attractive. The idea of a girl of his own had always appealed to him with peculiar tenderness, and, unlike most fathers, he had desired that his first-born should be a girl. If Helen were commonplace and unattractive his task would be comparatively easy. It was a mental impossibility for him as yet to accept the fact that she was his--he had seen so little of her, her birth was so unwelcome, her coming into his life fraught with such tragic consequences.

The vague hope that she might prove weak and uninteresting had not been strengthened by the momentary sight of her face. The flash of joy that lighted her sensitive features, though it came across the lawn, had reached him with a very distinct impression of charm. He dreaded the effect at close range.

However, there was no other way. He had to see her and he had to make her stay impossible. It would be a staggering blow for a girl to be told in the dawn of young womanhood that her birth was shadowed by disgrace. It would be a doubly cruel one to tell her that her blood was mixed with a race of black slaves.