The Road to Understanding Part 23

Never--never! I can't welcome him at all. He isn't coming back. He doesn't _want_ to come back. He's ashamed of us, Baby,--_ashamed of us_!"

Dorothy Elizabeth, roused from her nap and convulsively clutched in a pair of nervous hands, began to whimper restlessly.

"No, no, Baby, not of you," sobbed Helen, rocking the child back and forth in her arms. "It was me--just me he was ashamed of. What shall I do, what _shall_ I do?"

"And I thought it was just as he said," she went on chokingly, after a moment's pause. "I thought it was a vacation he wanted us to take, 'cause we--we got on each other's nerves. But it wasn't, Baby,--it wasn't; and I see it now. He's ashamed of me. He's always been ashamed of me, 'way back when Dr. Gleason first came--he was ashamed of me then, Baby. He was. I know he was. And now he wants to get away--quite away, and never come back. And he calls it a _vacation_! And he says _I'm_ to have one, too, and I must tell him all about it when he comes down next week. Maybe he thinks I will. _Maybe he thinks I will!_

"We won't be here, Baby,--we won't! We'll go somewhere--somewhere--anywhere!--before he gets here," she raved, burying her face in the baby's neck and sobbing hysterically.

Once again Helen pa.s.sed a sleepless night. Never questioning now Mrs.

Cobb's interpretation of her husband's conduct, there remained only a decision as to her own course of action. That she could not be there when her husband came to make ready for his journey, she was convinced.

She told herself fiercely that she would take herself and the baby away--quite away out of his sight. He should not be shamed again by the sight of her. But she knew in her heart that she was fleeing because she dared not go through that last meeting with her husband, lest she should break down. And she did not want to break down. If Burke did not want _her_, was it likely she was going to cry and whine, and let him know that she _did_ want him? Certainly not!

Helen's lips came together in a thin, straight line, in spite of her trembling chin. Between her hurt love and her wounded pride, Helen was in just that state of hysterics and heroics to do almost anything--except something sane and sober.

First, to get away. On that she was determined. But where to go--that was the question. As for going back to the old home town--as Burke had suggested--_that_ she would not do--now. Did they think, then, that she was going back there among her old friends to be laughed at, and gibed at? What if she did have ten thousand dollars to spend on frills and finery to dazzle their eyes? How long would it be before the whole town found out, as had Mrs. Cobb, that that ten thousand dollars was the price Burke Denby had paid for his freedom from the wife he was ashamed of? Never! She would not go there. But where could she go?

It was then that a plan came to her--a plan so wild and dazzling that even her frenzied aspiration scouted it at first as impossible. But it came again and again; and before long her fancy was playing with it, and turning it about with a wistful "Of course, if I could!" which in time became a hesitating "And maybe, after all, I _could_ do it," only to settle at last into a breathlessly triumphant "I will!"

After that things moved very swiftly in the little Denby flat. It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and there was no time to lose.

First, Helen gathered all the cash she had in the house, not forgetting the baby's bank (which yielded the biggest sum of all), and counted it.

She had nineteen dollars and seventeen cents. Then she rummaged among her husband's letters and papers until she found a letter from Dr.

Gleason bearing his Boston address. Next, with Bridget to help her, she flung into her trunk everything belonging to herself and the baby that it was possible to crowd in, save the garments laid out to wear. By three o'clock Bridget was paid and dismissed, and Helen, with Dorothy Elizabeth, was waiting for the carriage to take them to the railroad station.

With the same tearless exaltation that had carried her through the prodigious tasks of the morning, Helen picked up her bag and Dorothy Elizabeth, and followed her trunk down the stairs and out to the street.

She gave not one backward glance to the little home, and she carefully avoided anything but an airy "Good-bye" to the watching Mrs. Cobb in the window on the other side. Not until the wheels began to turn, and the journey was really begun, did Helen's tearless exaltation become the frightened anxiety of one who finds herself adrift on an uncharted sea.

Then Helen began to cry.

CHAPTER XI

IN QUEST OF THE STARS

In a roomy old house on Beacon Hill Dr. Frank Gleason made his home with his sister, Mrs. Ellery Thayer. The family were at their North Sh.o.r.e cottage, however, and only the doctor was at home on the night that Hawkins, the Thayers' old family butler, appeared at the library door with the somewhat disconcerting information that a young person with a baby and a bag was at the door and wished to speak to Dr. Gleason.

The doctor looked up in surprise.

"Me?" he questioned. "A woman? She must mean Mrs. Thayer."

"She said you, sir. And she isn't a patient. I asked her, thinking she might have made a mistake and took you for a real doctor what practices.

She said she didn't want doctoring. She wanted you. She's a young person I never saw before, sir."

"But, good Heavens, man, it's after eleven o'clock!"

"Yes, sir." On the manservant's face was an expression of lively curiosity and disapproval, mingled with a subdued but unholy mirth which was not lost on the doctor, and which particularly exasperated him.

"What in thunder can a woman with a baby want of me at this time of-- What's her name?" demanded the doctor.

"She didn't say, sir."

"Well, go ask her."

The butler coughed slightly, but made no move to leave the room.

"I did ask her, sir. She declined to give it."

"Declined to-- Well, I like her impertinence."

"Yes, sir. She said you'd"--the servant's voice faltered and swerved ever so slightly from its well-trained impa.s.siveness--"er--understand, sir."

"She said I'd--the deuce she did!" exploded the doctor under his breath, flushing an angry red and leaping to his feet. "Didn't you tell her Mrs.

Thayer was gone?" he demanded at last, wheeling savagely.

"I did, sir, and--"

"Well?"

"She said she was glad; that she wanted only you, anyway."

"_Wanted only--!_ Comes here at this time of night with a bag and a baby, refuses to give her name, and says I'll understand!" snarled the doctor. "Oh, come, Hawkins, this is some colossal mistake, or a fool hoax, or-- What kind of looking specimen is she?"

Hawkins, who had known the doctor from his Knickerbocker days, was guilty of a slow grin.

"She's a--a very good looker, sir."

"Oh, she is! Well--er, tell her I can't possibly see her; that I've gone to bed--away--sick--something! Anything! Tell her she'll have to see Mrs. Thayer."

"Yes, sir." Still the man made no move to go. "She--er--beg pardon, sir--but she'll be that cut up, I fear, sir. You see, she's been cryin'.

And she's young--very young."

"Crying!"

"Yes, sir. And she was that powerful anxious to see you, sir. I had hard work to keep her from coming _with_ me. I did, sir. She's in the hall.

And--it's raining outside, sir."

"Oh, good Heavens! Well, bring her in," capitulated the doctor in obvious desperation.

"Yes, sir." This time the words were scarcely out of his mouth before the old man was gone. In an incredibly short time he was back with a flushed-faced, agitated young woman carrying a sleeping child in her arms.

At sight of her, the doctor, who had plainly braced himself behind a most forbidding aspect, leaped forward with a low cry and a complete change of manner.

"_Mrs. Denby!_" he gasped. But instantly he fell back; for the young woman, for all the world like a tenpenny-dreadful stage heroine, hissed out a tragic "Sh-h! I don't want anybody to know my name!" with a cautious glance toward the none-too-rapidly disappearing Hawkins.

"But what does this mean?" demanded Frank Gleason, when he could find words. "Where's Burke?"