"Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along! Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?"
The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who still turned a truculent gaze this side and that, taking in the straggling buildings which lined the public square—a quadrangle which had for its center the brick courthouse, surrounded by a plat of scorched and faded greensward. At his side walked a taller though younger man, grinning amiably.
The audience remained indifferent, although the challenger now shifted his position to the next path leading out to a street entrance; and repeated this until he had quite traversed the square. Only, at the farther corner back of him, a woman paused as she entered the courthouse inclosure—paused and turned back as she caught sight of the challenger and heard his raucous summons, although evidently she had been hurrying upon some errand.
Ephraim Adamson walked hither and thither, his muscular arms now bared to the elbows; and at his side stalked his stalwart son, who now and then beat his fists together, and cracked his knuckles with a vehemence like that of pistol shots. But none paid great attention to either of the Adamsons. Indeed, the eyes of most now were following the comely figure of this woman, as usually was the case when she appeared.
"Take her now, right how she is," said one of the sidewalk philosophers, "and you got to admit yonder's the handsomest woman in this town, and has been for twenty years." He nodded to where she stood, hesitating.
That she was a tallish woman, of less than middle age and of good figure, was perceptible even at some distance as she finally advanced. She was well clad enough, and with a certain grace and trimness in her appointings—indeed seemed smart in a quiet and unobtrusive way—very neat as to hands and feet, and trim as to the small turban which served now as her only defense against the heat of the summer sun.
"'Rory Lane," said one languid citizen to another, as they sat on comfortable boxes in front of the leading grocery store. "Wonder where she's goin', this time of day? Anyhow, she runs into Old Man Adamson on his regular weekly spree. He wants to fight, as usual, him and his half-wit boy. It's a shame."
"But they kin do it," responded the other ruminatingly. "It's got so lately, every Saturday afternoon regular, him and his half-wit yonder stands off the whole town. No man wants to fight a eejit—it ain't proper."
"Some has," remarked the first citizen thoughtfully.
"Well, anyways, old Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, had ought to look after such things. There he sets now, over yonder under the awnings in front of the Golden Eagle, and he sees them two plain enough."
His crony only chuckled. "Reckon Old Man Tarbush knows when he's well off," was his sententious reply.
The first speaker again pointed a thumb toward the courthouse grounds, where the woman now was crossing toward the street. She was walking rapidly, apparently anxious to escape the notice of the two men in the yard, and intent on her purpose, as though she feared being late at some appointment. The younger and taller was hastening toward her, but shrinking from him she hurried on across through the turnstile, and out into the street. She advanced with a nod here and there to those whom she met along the street front, but she showed no effusiveness, and did not pause to talk with anyone, although all seemed to know her. Some women smiled at her faintly. Some men smiled at her also—after she had passed. All talked of her, sometimes nodding, head to head.
The woman so frankly discussed presently disappeared around the corner of the street which led down to the railway station, a half-mile distant. And now could be heard the rumble of the town "bus," bringing in its tribute from the train to the solitary hotel.
"Huh!" said one of these twain, "'Rory was too late, like enough, if she was plannin' to meet Number Four, fer any reason. Here comes the bus a'ready."
Aurora Lane had indeed been too late to meet the train, but not too late to attain the purpose of her hurried walk. A moment later the two watchers on the sidewalk, and all the other Saturday loafers, saw her emerge again from the street that led up from the railway station.
She was not alone now. A young man had spied her from his place in the hotel bus, and, whether in answer to a signal from her, or wholly of his own notion—regarding which there was later discussion by the two gossips above mentioned—had sprung out to join her on the street.
He walked by her side now, holding her by the arm, patting her shoulder, talking to her volubly, excitedly, all the time—a tall young man in modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat, pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes.
A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and eagerness at greeting this woman at his side—this woman whose face suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before. Why not? It was his mother—Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring Valley, and the woman with least reputation.
The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man.
"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go. Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?"
Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I wonder—but law!—No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's wife, and never was."
"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as bold as you please," commented his crony.
"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane, she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well—the man nor the woman neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like enough—reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him. Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed. They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued. "Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But why—that's what I want to know—why?"
The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must have felt yet more surprise.
"Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all—and such a splendid one! I can't believe it at all—it must all be a dream. To be an orphan all my life—and then to get word that I'm not—that I've a mother, after all—and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a girl. But you've not changed—you couldn't. And it's you who've been my mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is the town where you have lived—that I've never seen. And here are all your friends?"
"Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking voice was of extraordinary sweetness.
"Well, you have lived here all your life."
"Yes," she smiled.
"And they all know you."
"Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me, Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me—I can't realize you are here, that you are my own boy, Dieudonné! I'm afraid of you—I don't know you—and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so glad—why, I don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere—I did know you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you—and I'm glad—I'm so very glad!"
"Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved you till now—why—you're my mother! My mother! And I've never seen you—I've never known you—till right now. You're a ripper, that's what you are!
"And is that where you live, over yonder?" he added quickly, to conceal the catch in his throat, the quick moisture in his eyes. His mother! And never in all his life had he seen her face—this sweet, strange, wistful, wonderful face. His mother! He had not even known she was alive. And now, so overwhelmed was he, he did not as yet even think of unraveling the veil of ignorance or deceit—call it what one might—which had left him in orphanage all his life till now.
"Yes, over yonder," said Aurora, and pointed across the square. "That little house under the shade trees, just at the corner. That's home and workshop for me, Don."
She spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on him, the color of her cheeks deepening.
"Not so much of a house, is it?" laughed the boy, tears on his face, born of his new emotion, so sudden, so tremendous and so strange.
"Not so very much," she assented, laughing gayly also, and also in tears, which gave him sudden grief—"but it has served."
"Well, never mind. We're going to do better out West, Mom. We're going to have you with us right away, as soon as I can get started."
"What—what do you say—with us! With us?"
She spoke in swift dismay, halting in her walk. "What do you mean, Don—us?"
"I didn't tell you the news," said he, "for I've just got it myself.
"What a week! I heard of you—that you were alive, that you were living here—though why you never told me I can't dream—and now, today, Anne! Two such women—and for me. I can call God kind to me. As if I deserved it!"
He did not see her face as he went on rapidly:
"We didn't know it ourselves much more than an hour or so ago—Anne and I. She came out on the same train with me—we finished school together, don't you see! Anne lives in Columbus, fifty miles west. She's fine! I haven't had time to tell you."
He didn't have time now—did not have time to note even yet the sudden pallor which came upon his mother's face. "Anne?" she began.
"Huh!" said Silas Kneebone again from his place under the awning, "there she goes—'Rory Lane. Wonder who that kin be with her! And I wonder what old Eph Adamson's goin' to say to them! Watch at them now."
The young man and his mother by this time were within the courthouse fence and coming face to face with the two public challengers, who had so fervently notified all mankind of their wish to engage in personal combat.
Those beneath the awnings now saw the tall figure of the half-wit boy, Johnnie Adamson, advance toward Aurora Lane. They saw her and the tall young stranger halt suddenly—saw the young man gently push the woman back of him and stand full front, frowning, questioning, almost directly against the half-wit. He reached out a hand and thrust him back, sternly, fearlessly, half contemptuously.
"Wait, Don! Come back!" called out Aurora Lane. "Don't get into trouble here—come—come away!"
She plucked at the sleeve of his coat to draw him back. It was too late. The half-wit, cracking his knuckles now yet more loudly, and knocking his fists together, had wholly lost his amiable smile. Something primordial was going on, deep down in his rudimentary brain.
As for Eph Adamson, he also stood scowling and silent, a sudden wave of resentment filling his soul at seeing the happiness of these two.
"No, you don't—just you leave him be!" called out Eph Adamson, as the young man pushed the half-wit back from him, his own blue eyes now beginning to glint. "Leave him alone, unless you want to fight. He can lick you anyways, whoever you are. Do you want to fight?"
"No, why should I? I don't know you."
Don Lane turned toward the stranger, still frowning and somewhat wondering, but in no terror whatever.
"I don't know you neither, nor what you're doin' here, but you've got to fight or 'pologize," said Eph Adamson, arriving at this conclusion through certain mental processes of his own not apparent. "You got to have our consent to cross this here courtyard. This is my son John, and you shan't insult him."
"Get on away—step back," said Don Lane. "I guess it's all right, but let my mother and myself alone—we're just going home."
A sudden wave of rage and wonder, mingled, filled the soul of drunken Eph Adamson as his venom rose to the boiling point.
"Mother!" he half screamed, "your mother? Who're you? You're a pretty pair, you two, ain't you? She said her baby died twenty years ago. Did she have some more? Who're you? Mother?—Say, after all, are you the town's boy—coming pushing past my son with her—your mother! What do you mean? If you're her son, you ain't got no mother, nor no father neither."
And now there came a pause, an icy pause—icy it was, out there in the glare of the hot summer sun. These four who stood in view of all the village might have been statues for the time, so motionless, so tense was each.
Not many actually heard the words of old Eph Adamson—words wrung out of the bitterness of his own soul perhaps, but words intolerable none the less. None had heard the words of Aurora Lane and the young man as they had spoken previous to this. None guessed who the stranger was or might be—none but drunken Eph Adamson. But all could see what now happened.
For one instant the young man stood almost like a statue. Then with one sudden thrust of his fist he smote the old man full in the mouth, so swift and hard a blow that Adamson dropped prostrate, and for the time motionless.
A sudden, instantaneous, electric buzz, a murmur, ran all around the square. A sound of shuffling feet and falling boxes might have been heard as men here and there rose eagerly, their necks craned out toward this swiftly made arena.
They saw the half-wit boy now advance upon Don Lane with a roar or bawl of rage, his arms swinging flail-like. All expected to see the newcomer turn and run. Not so. He simply stood for a half instant, sidestepped, and again swung in close upon his foe. Old Silas Kneebone described the affair many a time afterwards, at a time when Spring Valley knew more about Don Lane.
"You see, the eejit, he gets up again, hollering, and he goes in again at Dewdonny, bound for to knock his head off. But Dewdonny, he ducks down like a regular prize-fighter—I hear tell, at colleges, them athaletes they have to learn all them sort of things—and he put up a fight like a regular old hand. But all the time he keeps hollering to the crowd, 'Take him away! Take him away! Keep him off, I say! I don't want to hit him!'
"Well, folks begun to laugh at Dewdonny then—before they knowed who he was—thinking he was afraid of that eejit; yet it didn't seem like he was, neither, for he didn't run away. At last he hits the eejit fair a second time, and he knocks him down flat. Folks then begun to allow he could hit him whenever he wanted to, and knock him down whenever he pleased.
"Now, the eejit, he gets up and begins to beller like a calf. He puts his hand on his face where Dewdonny Lane had done hit him the last time or two and he hollers out, 'Pa, he hit me!'
"But his pa could only set up on the grass and shake his head. I reckon old Eph was soberer then than he had been five minutes sooner. Say, that boy had a punch like the kick of a full growed mule!
"Of course, you all know what happened then. It was then that old Man Tarbush come in, seeing the boy had both of them two licked. He got up his own nerve after that. So now he goes over there to the courthouse ground, through the gate where they all was, and he lays his hand on Dewdonny Lane and then on the eejit.
"'I arrest you both for disturbing of the peace,' says he then. 'Come on now, in the name of the law.'
"'The law be damned!' says Dewdonny Lane then. 'Go take this man to jail. Are you crazy—what do you mean by arresting me when I'm just walking home with my mother? This wasn't my fault. I didn't want to hit him.
"'Come on, Mom!' says he, and before Tarbush could help hisself he'd took 'Rory Lane by the arm again and off they went, and right soon they was in their house—them two, the milliner and her boy.
"And Joel Tarbush he heard him call her 'Mom' right there—that's how it all begun to git out.
"That's right—this was the town milliner and the boy she sent away, that never died none at all nohow.—'Rory Lane, and her boy we all thought was dead. And we'd never knowed it nor dreamed it till he spoke, right there in the public square! 'My mother!' says he. Can you beat that?
"Then 'Rory Lane turns around and fronts the whole lot of them. Says she: 'Yes, it's true! This is my son, Dewdonny Lane,' says she. She said it cold.
"That was before we knowed all about how she had put him through college, and that this was his first visit home, and the first time he'd ever seen her—his own mother! I heard as how he'd thought all his life he was a orphan, and someone on the inside that very week—just when he'd finished in college—had wrote him that he wasn't no orphan, but had a mother living right here! So here he comes, hot foot—and didn't he spill the beans!
"She'd tried her durnedest to keep it all covered up—and you must say she'd made one big fight of it, fer it's hard fer a woman to keep her eyes and her hands off of her own flesh and blood, even if it ain't legal. But, somehow, it's hard to keep that sort of thing covered up, for a woman. It all comes out, time'n again—ain't it the truth? How she done it for twenty years is a miracle. But law! What's twenty years, come to forgettin' things like what she done?"
While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son, continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older.
They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the green-shuttered house itself.
It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant. Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street. In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all her other bills.
Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well—the only milliner in Spring Valley—and had held that honor for many years. A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the front window of the place—the sort of hat which proved bread-winning among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate income—likewise announced that here one might find millinery.
When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not quite so dusty.
It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy wedlock, might after all have some chance in life.
It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy, studiously giving out to all—without doubt even to the unknown father of the boy—the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these years—had not dared to see him—had in all the dulled but not dead agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost. Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a mother.
This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father, long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had heard this charge for the first time—heard it made publicly, openly, before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in all his life.
But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom.
As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants, bought bonnets of her. Ministers—while yet new in their pulpits—had been known to call upon her sometimes—one had even offered to kneel and pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the church—the church which had not ratified her nuptial night!
She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word against her character. She had sinned—once—no more. If she had known opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human nature were here as it is elsewhere—women as keen; men as lewd. But the triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had "lived it down."
This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true and normal had it originally been. She still could smile—smile in two fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!
But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose—to bring up her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never known—not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that he might never know.
And now he knew—he must know.
They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which had been the arena for Aurora Lane—in which she had fought for her own life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the scheme of life itself. Here lay the penetralia of this domicile, this weak fortification against the world.
In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not ill-chosen—pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites. Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional life being a very vague matter.
Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send money to her son—her son whom she had not seen in twenty years—her son for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the window had faded somewhat—and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must not.
So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew about it, must know. It took all her courage—the last drop of her splendid, unflinching woman-courage.
"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!"
He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.
"Home?" said he.
"Don!" she said softly.
"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I know you did wait. I know you meant that some day——"
He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit—though all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was about to end.
"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like it?"
"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, wasn't it, Mom?"
He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, neither dared ask why.
She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.
"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!"
He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football," said he.
"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day—and all the town saw it, Don! You and I—we ought not to fight. What—on the first day I've seen you in all these years—the first day you're out of college—the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very own? I believe I would have claimed you—yes, I do! But you came—when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight."
"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?"
He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, scornful of hurt—one who had fought for her! For the first time in her life a man had fought for her, and not against her.
But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the issue coming now.
"Mother——" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward her quickly.
"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonné—"God-given." Those who did not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence "Don.")
"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now."
"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad—it was terrible that it had to be today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you so long, and I wanted——"
"Well, I tell you what I want—I want you just to come away with me. I want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am ashamed I have cost you so much—in spite of what Dad left, you had to live close—I can see that now—although I never knew a thing about it until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?"
She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she suddenly. "It all came from—here. You father sent you—nothing! I've not let you know all the truth—you've known almost nothing of the truth."
Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't you—you believe it was honest?"
"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me—made a loafer of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education—and enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell me, now!"
His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it over again. You can't forget what you have learned—you can't get away from your college education now, can you? You've got it—your diploma, your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don—Don——"
She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now—the first hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor boys had come up and come through—had they not? And even a poor boy might grow up to be a gentleman—was not that true—oh, might it not after all be true?
He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not yet dried.
"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?"
He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another.
"Mom——" said he, with effort now.
"Yes, my boy."
"Where's my dad?"
A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now?
"The truth now!" he said after a time.
"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that enough? He's dead—yes—call him dead—for he's gone."
He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight.
"Did he really leave any money for my education?"
She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have been trying so long to live on the square—I don't believe, Don, I know how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that—so that——"
"So what, mother?"
"So I could be worthy of you, Don! That's been about all my life."
"I have no father?"
She could not reply.
"Then was what—what that man said—was that the truth?"
After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up.
She nodded mutely.
Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she had denied herself all these years—the boy who was more than life itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own.
"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked."
"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over—it's done—we have put you through."
"You told me my father was dead. Where is he—who is he?"
"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never will."
"Then how do they know—then why should that man say what he did?"
"They know—about you—that—that you happened—that's all. They thought you died as a child, a baby—we sent you away. They don't know who it was—your father—I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known—that was my secret—my one secret—and I will keep it all my life. But here are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry—I will never say that again! I am glad—I'm glad for anything that's given me you! And you fought for me—the first time anyone ever did, Don."
He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, agonized.
"It wasn't your fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always. Haven't I taken it up with God—there on my knees?" She pointed to the little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!"
She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do you mean, and what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could undo it—if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, didn't he help at all—did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never seeing me, educating me, keeping me—taking care of me—didn't he, my father, do anything at all—for you?"
"No, I did it—or at least half of it."
"And who the other half?"
"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to have been my very happiest day—I have been living and working for this all these long, long years—for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance."
Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?"
"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard.
"You will never do that, Don."
"Oh, yes. And when I do——"
"What then?"
"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm filius nullius! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been supported by a woman—my own mother, who had so little, who was left alone—oh, God! God!"
"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from you. Oh, my son—my son!"
The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had pronounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech.
The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She met someone at the door.
"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here—he's come—he's right here now!"
There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely, one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a nature of much charm.
Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic, the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by those about her, was wide and winning beyond words—the smile which had given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years "Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and loved of all as well.
She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him, holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush brightly. She did so now.
"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you too—I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So—you're my fairy godmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these years—till I was a man grown—how could you?—but I'd know you anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time—that wonderful letter—and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I was coming! See now——"
"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You are—you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much suffused.
Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and could not quite tell what lay in the look.
As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Saturday afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than for books.
"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us before you went on West—even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?"
"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I ought to come and see you two good partners first—I could not go away without that. Oh, mother has told me about you—or at least I'm sure she was just going to when you came in. Strange—I've got to get acquainted with my mother—and you. But I know you—you're two good partners, that's what you are—two good scouts together—isn't it true?"
Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone passing close to the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very millinery shop—and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don Lane was yet to learn.
This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this homecoming of the boy—this boy—time and again planned, and then agreed he must not come—their son. For—yes—they both called him son! If Don Lane, Dieudonné Lane, was filius nullius, at least he might boast two mothers.