Jack Raymond

"I won't sit down till you understand. How do I know you'll take me in?.. I tell you, he has turned me out because..."

"Good God, child, what do I care why! Take this cloak off; one could wring a gallon of water out of it."

He was unbuttoning the cloak. She flung it off suddenly and stepped into the light.

"Look," she said.

He stood still, looking at her figure; a moment passed before the truth flashed on him. She turned away with a slow, grave gesture, and stooped to pick up the wet heap lying on the floor; but he snatched it out of her hand with a cry.

"Oh, my poor little girl... and at uncle's mercy!"

He caught her up in a sudden passion of tenderness, and, laying her on the sofa, cov­ered her hands with kisses. His vehement emotion roused no responding thrill in her; she only shivered faintly, passive in his arms. He came to his senses after a moment.

"How cold you are! You must get off all these things at once. Wait, I'll lock the door and go into the bedroom while you change by the fire. I'll fetch you some clean things; you'll have to manage with underclothes of mine and the blankets. Let me get your boots off first; I must cut them, I think."

When he had drawn the sofa to the fire and laid her on it, rolled up in the rug from his bed, he ran downstairs for hot-water bot­tles, boiling milk, and brandy. Coming back he found her in a kind of stupor, neither fainting nor asleep, but too much dazed with cold and fatigue to understand when spoken to. After some time a faint tinge of natural colour came back into her blue lips. She opened her eyes and looked at him gravely.

"Jack," she said, "did you understand?"

He was sitting on the edge of the sofa, chafing her hands. He bent down and kissed first one and then the other.

"Yes, my darling."

"And you... will take me in?"

He pushed the damp hair back from her forehead.

"Why, you little goose! Drink some hot milk and don't talk nonsense."

"No — no!" She drew herself away from him and sat up, her eyes glittering. "You want to be merciful, like Aunt Sarah. She tried to interfere yesterday — talked to uncle about the woman taken in adultery and the one si

"You shall tell me all that afterwards, dear. Theories will keep, and your supper won't. Take this while it's hot."

She took the cup eagerly and tried to drink. Then, for the first time, she broke down. He knelt beside the sofa, holding her close against him; and it seemed to him that hours passed while she sobbed on his neck. When she had grown quiet at last, he forced a little food on her with gentle persistence.

"When did you last have anything to eat?"

"I... forget. Some time yesterday. They found out in the afternoon... I think; or was it evening?.. Ah, yes; it was dark. I tried to find some water in the night;...it was so cold on the moor, and my throat burned... I suppose it was the gale... I found a rain-pool... but the water smelt of graves. Everything smelt of graves... and the sleet made me giddy... I fell so many times... That's why my hands are cut about this way..."

"Were you out on the moor all night?" He spoke in a suppressed voice, harsh and low.

"Yes... I... I got to Penrhyn in the morning and caught the early train... you know, the cheap one. I was lucky, wasn't I? I shouldn't have had money enough for the express."

"Do you mean that he turned you out on to the moor alone, at night, in the storm, with no money?"

"It was because I wouldn't answer his questions. Aunt Sarah gave me a few shil­lings that she had over from something. She cried so bitterly, poor thing. And I had half a sovereign. I was threepence short for the railway ticket, but I had some postage-stamps..."

"Where did you get that bruise on your forehead?" he interrupted. Her left temple was cut and swollen; the blow, an inch lower, might have killed her.

She hesitated a moment, then silently bared her right arm. It was stamped below the elbow with blue finger-marks.

"I... don't think he meant it," she said softly; and drew the sleeve down again.

"He struck you?" Jack asked in the same dead voice.

"He was trying to make me speak. I had refused to tell him... who the father is. He seemed to lose his senses bit by bit. He kept on repeating: 'Who?' and wrenching my arm harder and harder... Then Aunt Sarah tried to stop him... and he knocked me down..."

"There, that's enough."

She turned at the strange sound of her brother's voice; and looked at him. She had never seen before how he looked when he was angry; and the sight chilled her into silence.

"You'd better not tell me any more about uncle," he said presently, with his habitual quiet ma

"But where will you sleep if I take your room? "

"Here, on the sofa, of course. We'll fit in this way for a week or two, and then get other lodgings. As soon as you are well enough, you must see about some clothes."

"But, Jack, I can't stay here, on your hands. It's all very well for one night, but I must find some work to-morrow."

"Dearest, work is not so easy to find all at once; and you're not in a state to do it, if it were. Rest a few days and then well see."

"Oh, you don't understand! There are more than two months still... and when the time comes... Do you think they'll take me in at any hospital, Jack?"

He turned round, shaken with mortal fear.

"Molly, you're not going to leave me?"

"You wouldn't have me stay here and be a burden on you till the child is born? No, no; not for the world."

"Why not? Have they made you hate me so that you can't come to me when you want help?"

"You see, I came; I don't know why. I... thought, somehow, you wouldn't turn me away. If you had, I should have..."

"Do you think I have so many joys in life that I can afford to turn away the sunlight when it comes in at my door? Molly, Molly! I've had to live without you all these years. Now you're here, and your first thought is to go away again. I can't give you up. Stay till it's over, anyhow; if you must go then, at least I shall have had you for a little while."

"You want me, really? For yourself? Not just out of pity? I don't want anybody's pity."

He laughed, and clasped her in his arms.

"Then you'll stay?"

"Wait a minute!" She pushed him back, and her face grew suddenly hard. "If I am to stay with you, you must promise me never to ask who the man is, never to ask any ques­tions at all."

"Molly, I shan't look a gift-horse in the mouth! If ever he takes you from me, I shall know him then; and if not..."

"That will never happen. He has forgot­ten me."

His eyes darkened again.

"Forgotten? And left you to bear it alone..."

"Stop!" she cried with gleaming eyes. "I love him."

He bent his head, silenced, but raging in­wardly.

"You shall not say a word against him; it was my own choice. He wanted me, and I gave myself; I never haggled or bargained or asked that he should marry me. He has had his joy, and I pay the cost of it. Why not, if I'm content? It was a free gift."

She stopped and put her hand up to the bruised temple.

"Oh, this pain in my head! I'm half blind... Listen, Jack; if I am a coward at the end, and turn against him when I'm not my real self, you're to remember always that any thing I say will be a lie, I have nothing to complain of — nothing."

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She threw her arms round his neck.