Jack Raymond

He took up the photographs again and looked at them, wearily struggling to under­stand what use or pleasure things so mean­ingless and ugly could be to any one. Then, suddenly, the story that he had been reading upstairs came back upon his memory, and he understood why Lucrece had killed herself. He laid down the photographs and sat still

He understood it all now, the mysterious terror of the last few days; the whole thing was so easy, so hideously easy and simple. You jog along in your ordinary way and live your ordinary life, until your uncle, or Tar­quin, or somebody else — what matter for the person or the ma

As Mrs. Raymond came in with tears run­ning down her face, and clasped him in her arms, he looked up, wondering, in a dull, careless way, for whom she was so sorry.

"My dear, my dear," she sobbed, "why will you not confess?"

Jack drew himself away from her and rose.

He looked at the photographs on the table; then at the weeping woman.

"Aunt Sarah, do you believe I did that sort of thing?"

"Oh, Jack!" she burst out; "if you had ever been a good boy I would believe you, no matter how much appearances might be against you: but you know yourself..."

She broke off to dry her eyes with her handkerchief.

"Yes, I know," he answered slowly; "I've always been wicked, haven't I? I suppose I was born so. Aunt Sarah, if I were to die now, do you think I should go straight to hell?"

She came up to him and took his hand gently.

"Listen, my dear; I'm hot wise and clever, like your uncle, but I mean well by you. I do indeed; and I think... perhaps... It's partly our fault that you have fallen into the snares of the evil one. I mean... we may have been a little harsh... sometimes... and you were afraid to confess the first sin, and went on from bad to worse — and you see — you must see, this is the path that leads to hell. Oh, my dear, I know it's hard to con­fess now... and your uncle is so terribly angry — of course, he's right, for it's a deadly sin. But he'll forgive you in time — I know he will. And Jack, I'll do my best to stand between you and him, — I will indeed, — if you'll only confess."

He listened gravely till the piteous, con­fused appeal was finished; then he drew his hand away, standing very straight and still. He was tall for his age, and his eyes were nearly on a level with hers.

"Aunt Sarah, I think you had better let me alone. It's a deadly sin, of course. Is it true that my mother was a harlot?"

She drew back with a little cry of horror.

"Jack!"

"Uncle says so. It's a word in the Bible. And if she was, I can't help it, can I? And anyhow, what's the use of crying? It won't help me — oh, you'd better go away!"

"Go away," a hard voice echoed behind them. "A Christian woman has nothing to do with these abominations."

The Vicar took up the photographs and put them into his desk.

"Go away," he repeated sternly. "This is no place for you; Jack knows how to tell you of things that are not for my wife to hear."

"Josiah!" she cried out, and caught him by the arm, "Josiah, — for God's sake — re­member, he's a child."

The Vicar turned on her with another burst of rage.

"A child! A child who can teach me, with my grey hair, things that I ------ Go out, go out! it is for men to deal with such children."

She went out, weeping bitterly. Then Jack looked up, and understood. He came for­wards gravely, quite self-possessed now.

"Uncle, I want to tell you. This is all a mistake; I know nothing about these things; I never saw them in my life before; I never heard a word about them."

The Vicar took up the knife. "And this?"

"Yes, I took the knife, that's true; and

sold it; but not for those things, and not to the man that you said ------"

"What did you sell it for?"

" I sold it to a boy — for ------"

" To what boy? And for what? "

Jack stopped short. His heart seemed to give one great bound, and then stand still. He saw once more the cage door opened wide, and the happy bird, with outstretched wings, darting away into a golden sunset, like the dove that returned not again.

"What did you sell it for? "

For an instant Jack paused, considering what explanation he could invent; then he resigned himself. Somehow, he could not find a lie to tell, nor indeed would lies avail him anything; and the truth was worse than useless. Even if he could force himself to drag into speech a thing so secret and so holy, there was no one in all the world who would believe him.

"Oh," he cried; "it's hopeless! I can't tell you; I can't tell you — and if I did you'd never understand."

"I understand enough," the Vicar answered. "May Christ defend me from understanding any more!"

He sat down at his desk, motioning the boy to sit opposite him, took out his watch and laid it between them on the table.

"I have given up what little hope I had of appealing to you by any other means than force. What I have to think of now is how to purify the school from defilement and how to protect the i

His voice faltered for an instant; then he continued steadily: " I must know the whole truth, and I mean to have it from you at any cost. Do you understand? You have ten minutes to decide whether you will confess at once, or whether I must force you."

He leaned back in his chair. Except for the ticking of the watch, there was absolute silence in the room.

As Jack had said, the position was hope­less; the very quality of his i

His thoughts went back to his own boy­hood, to the time when, at sixteen, he himself had stood upon the verge of the pit. Assuredly, in his most unregenerate days, he had never been guilty of anything so mon­strous as the revelations of this morning; nevertheless, he had come near to being expelled from school for corrupting the morality of the younger boys. No irrevo­cable harm had been done; yet, after more than thirty years, the blood went up to his forehead at the recollection. He thought of his sullen obstinacy when found out; his insistence, in the face of absolute proof to the contrary, that he knew nothing of the matter; his panic of terror on hearing that his father had been sent for. He remembered how the iron-faced old Puritan had arrived, silent and grim, and had wrung confession out of him by sheer physical violence. "It cured me," he thought, "once for all; and it will cure even Jack, with all his vices."

As for Jack, he did not think, in any con­scious way, at all; the lamed imagination stumbled helplessly among familiar trifles, falling upon now one, and now another. A red rose-bud was tapping on the shutter; and he thought: "The wind is in the south."