The Sins of the Father Part 30

"They didn't even have to pack that nasty old gauze in it again--were you very much scared waiting out there, Dan?"

"Very much."

She started at the queer note in his voice, caught her hand in his brown locks and pressed his head back in view:

"Why, you're crying--you big foolish boy! You mustn't do that. I'm all right now--I feel much better--there's not a trace of pain or uneasiness.

Don't be silly--it's all right, remember."

He stroked the little hand:

"Yes, I'll remember, dearest."

"It should all be healed in three weeks and then we'll go to New York.

It'll just be fun! I've always been crazy to go. I won't mind the operation--you'll be with me every minute now till I'm well again."

"Yes, dear, every moment now until--you--are--well."

The last words came slowly, but by a supreme effort of will the voice was held even.

He found mammy, told her the solemn truth, and sent her to hire a nurse for the baby.

"Either you or I must be by her side every minute now, mammy--day and night."

"Yessir, I understand," the dear old voice answered.

Every morning early the nurse brought the baby in for a romp as soon as he waked and mammy came to relieve the tired watcher.

Ten days pa.s.sed before the end came. Many long, sweet hours he had with her hand in his as the great shadow deepened, while he talked to her of life and death, and immortality.

A strange peace had slowly stolen into his heart. He had always hated and feared death before. Now his fears had gone. And the face of the dim white messenger seemed to smile at him from the friendly shadows.

The change came quietly one night as they sat in the moonlight of her window.

"Oh, what a beautiful world, Dan!" she said softly, and then the little hand suddenly grasped her throat! She turned a blanched face on him and couldn't speak.

He lifted her tenderly and laid her on the bed, rang for the doctor and sent mammy for the baby.

She motioned for a piece of paper--and slowly wrote in a queer, trembling hand:

"I understand, dearest, I am going--it's all right. I am happy--remember that I love you and have forgiven--rear our boy free from the curse--you know what I mean. I had rather a thousand times that he should die than this--my brooding spirit will watch and guard."

The baby kissed her sweetly and lisped:

"Good night, mamma!"

From the doorway he waved his chubby little arm and cried again:

"Night, night, mamma!"

The sun was slowly climbing the eastern hills when the end came. Its first rays streamed through the window and fell on his haggard face as he bent and pressed a kiss on the silent lips of the dead.

CHAPTER XVIII

QUESTIONS

The thing that crushed the spirit of the man was not the shock of death with its thousand and one unanswerable questions torturing the soul, but the possibility that his acts had been the cause of the tragedy. Dr.

Williams had said to him over and over again:

"Make her will to live and she'll recover!"

He had fought this grim battle and won. She had willed to live and was happy. The world had never seemed so beautiful as the day she died. If the cause of her death lay further back in the curious accident which happened at the birth of the child, his soul was clear of guilt.

He held none of the morbid fancies of the super-sensitive mind that would make a father responsible for a fatal outcome in the birth of a babe. G.o.d made women to bear children. The only woman to be pitied was the one who could not know the pain, the joy and the danger of this divine hour.

But the one persistent question to which his mind forever returned was whether the shock of his sin had weakened her vitality and caused the return of this old trouble.

The moment he left the grave on the day of her burial, he turned to the old doctor with this grim question. He told him the whole story. He told him every word she had spoken since they left home. He recounted every hour of reaction and depression, the good and the bad, just as the recording angel might have written it. He ended his recital with the burning question:

"Tell me now, doctor, honestly before G.o.d, did I kill her?"

"Certainly not!" was the quick response.

"Don't try to shield me. I can stand the truth. I don't belong to a race of cowards. After this no pain can ever come but that my soul shall laugh!"

"I'm honest with you, my boy. I've too much self-respect not to treat you as a man in such an hour. No, if she died as you say, you had nothing to do with it. The seed of death was hiding there behind that slender, graceful throat. I was always afraid of it. And I've always known that if the pain returned she'd die----"

"You knew that before we left home?"

"Yes. I only hinted the truth. I thought the change might prolong her life, that's all."

"You're not saying this to cheer me? This is not one of your lies you give for medicine sometimes?"

"No"--the old doctor smiled gravely. "No, shake off this nightmare and go back to your work. Your people are calling you."

He made a desperate effort to readjust himself to life, but somehow at the moment the task was hopeless. He had preached, with all the eloquence of the enthusiasm of youth, that life in itself is always beautiful and always good. He found it was easier to preach a thing than to live it.

The old house seemed to be empty, and, strange to say, the baby's voice didn't fill it. He had said to himself that the patter of his little feet and the sound of his laughter would fill its halls, make it possible to live, and get used to the change. But it wasn't so. Somehow the child's laughter made him faint. The sound of his voice made the memory of his mother an intolerable pain. His voice in the morning was the first thing he heard and it drove him from the house. At night when he knelt to lisp his prayers her name was a stab, and when he waved his little hands and said: "Good night, Papa!" he could remember nothing save the last picture that had burned itself into his soul.

He tried to feed and care for a canary she had kept in her room, but when he c.o.c.ked his little yellow head and gave the loving plaintive cry with which he used to greet her, the room became a blur and he staggered out unable to return for a day.

The silent sympathy of his dog, as he thrust his nose between his hands and wagged his s.h.a.ggy tail, was the only thing that seemed to count for anything.