The Blue Wall Part 25

"I went for a walk," the Judge was saying. "I had a headache. I couldn't sleep. I moved the lamp onto the card table. The curtain must have blown into it. We must thank G.o.d. We were lucky, very lucky!"

He was pacing up and down there like a caged animal.

"I'm thankful Eleanor, my wife, wasn't at home," he went on, talking very fast. "She has always been so delicate--had so much sorrow--so much trouble. A shock would kill her--a shock like that. My G.o.d, we were lucky!"

I got up and pushed the tangled hair back from my face.

"It's all right," he went on with a thick tongue. "Julianna is all right--the little rascal is smoky, but all right. Blow the candle out.

It is getting light outside. It's dawn."

The child on the bed kicked its pink feet out from under its long dresses and gave one of those gurgles to show it was awake. The sound made me scream. I had just awakened from my stupidity.

"The other child!" I cried.

"The other!" he said. "What other?"

"The one he left," I whispered. "I had forgotten her."

"My G.o.d! so had I. I had only one thought," he cried out. "Only one thought! And now Chalmers's wish has been granted. His--has--gone."

He sat down in a wicker rocking-chair and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I never thought," he said again. "I didn't see it anywhere. I didn't look for it. I found Julianna in the middle of the bed."

"Bed!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT MUST BE JULIANNA]

That was the only word I had. The light of sunrise had come. The shouts in the street were far away.

"Why, yes," the Judge said. "I--did--I found--"

He stopped, he walked over to the infant and swept it into his arms. He took it to the window and held it up to the light as a person looks at a piece of dressgoods.

"Why, it must be Julianna," he whispered.

Then I heard noises in the back of his throat; he could not catch his breath at first, and when he did, he gave a low groan that seemed to have no end. The baby stared up at him and laughed. It was Monty Cranch's child.

CHAPTER IV

A SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH

It was I who took it out of his arms and I who watched him go to the bed and fall across it face downwards, and hide his eyes like a man who cannot stand to see the light of day. If Fate ever played a fiendish trick and punished a square and upright man, it had done it then! I did not dare to speak to him. I did not dare to move. I laid the happy, gurgling baby in my lap and sat there till I felt that every joint in my body had grown tight in its socket.

Once they rapped on the door. The Judge did not move, so I opened it a crack and motioned them away, and sat down again, watching the light turn from pink to the glare of full day, and then a path of warm summer sunlight stretch out across the rug and climb down the wall till it fell onto a basin of water sitting on the floor, and the reflection jumped up to dance its jigs on the ceiling.

I heard the Judge move often enough, but I did not know he was on his feet until I looked up at last, and there he was standing in front of me, with his wild eyes staring down at the child.

He pointed at the little thing with his long forefinger.

"Julianna," said he.

"You are mad, sir," I cried.

"No," said he. "My wife! It must be done to save her happiness. Yes! To save her life."

"To save her?" I repeated after him.

"Yes, a lie," he whispered bitterly. "She has not seen the baby for weeks and weeks."

"She could never know," I cried, understanding what he meant. "That is true, sir. No one could ever tell. The two of them were not different anyway. But you--! You could never forget."

"I know," said he. "Yet it is my happiness against hers, and I have made up my mind. No living soul can ever learn of this. I am safe there.

Chalmers will never come back. Nor could he ever know if he did. And so--"

"But the blood," I said, trembling with the thought. "What of that?"

"G.o.d help us!" he answered, beating his knuckles on his jaws. "How can I say? But, come what may, I have decided! That child is now Julianna!

Give her to me!"

He took the infant in his arms again, pressing it close to him, as if it were a nettle which must be grasped with full courage to avoid the p.r.i.c.ks of its thousand barbs.

"What are you?" he whispered to the new Julianna. "What will you be?

What is your birthright?"

Well I remember his words, spoken in that half-broken voice; they asked questions which have not been answered yet, I tell you! And yet little attention I paid to them at the moment, for the mischief Welstoke had taught me crept around me again. I could not look at the Judge with his youth dropped off him, his voice and face ten years older and his eyes grown more tender by the grief and love and sacrifice of an hour, without turning away from him. Why? Because a voice from the grave was whispering to me as cool as wet lettuce, to prove that the good or bad of a soul does not end with death.

"Didn't I tell you that skeletons hang in all closets?" it said. "Now, after this night, the Judge, to use a good old phrase, is quite in your power. Bide your time, my dear. We women will come into our own again."

"Excuse me, sir," I said, aloud. "There was a locket on the child's neck. Wouldn't it be well to remove it? It is marked with a name that must be forgotten."

He looked at me gratefully as he fumbled at the trinket with his long, smoke-blackened fingers, while I trembled with my desire to have it safe in my own hands. It was the one thing left to prove the truth. I believe my arms were stretched out for it, when there came a knock on the door.

"You want some breakfast," said a voice. "You poor tired people!"

The Judge, jumping up, placed the little chain and locket on the window sill. I saw it slide down the incline; the screen was up far enough to let it through. It was gone! He gave an exclamation, but the next moment the door had opened and the Danforth family were crowding in.

"Well, Colfax," said the old lawyer, "you're a lucky man. Everybody safe and sound and a very ugly old colonial house burned flat to the ground, with plenty of insurance. Now that you have the new appointment and are going to leave town, it makes a very convenient sale for you."

"Hush!" said his daughter. "The hot coffee is more important. You had better bring the baby down with you. We have sent for milk and nursing-bottles. There, John, that is the baby. You've never seen it.

Wasn't I right? Isn't it pretty?"

"My G.o.d!" cried the Judge.

"What!" said they.