Page:O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories for 1919.pdf/60

38 hunted and he searched and he found me here. He was with me, he stood by me through that awful year—and—that was how it happened. I tell you, Christopher, darling, we were meant for each other, John Sanderson and I. He loved me more than poor Daniel ever did or could, loved me enough to throw away a life of promise, just to hang on here after every one else was gone, alone with his ’cello and his one little memory. And I loved him enough to—to—Christopher, don’t look at me so!”

His eyes did not waver. You must remember his age, the immaculate, ruthless, mid-Victorian ’teens; and you must remember his bringing-up.

“And so this was my father,” he said. And then he went on without waiting, his voice breaking into falsetto with the fierceness of his charge. “And you would have kept on lying to me! If I hadn’t happened, just happened, to find you here, now, you would have gone on keeping me in the dark! You would have stood by and seen me—well—go crazy! Yes, go crazy, thinking I was—well, thinking I was meant for it! And all to save your precious”

She was down on the floor again, what was left of the gentlewoman, wailing.

“But you don’t know what it means to a woman, Chris! You don’t know what it means to a woman!”

A wave of rebellion brought her up and she strained toward him across the coffin.

“Isn’t it something, then, that I gave you a father with a mind? And if you think you’ve been sinned against, think of me! Sin! You call it sin! Well, isn’t it anything at all that by my ‘sin’ my son’s blood came down to him clean? Tell me that!”

He shook himself, and his flame turned to sullenness.

“It’s not so,” he glowered.

All the girl in him, the poet, the hero-worshipping boy, rebelled. His harassed eyes went to the wall beyond and the faces there, the ghosts of the doomed, glorious, youth-ridden line, priceless possessions of his dreams. He would not lose them: he refused to be robbed of a tragic birthright. He wanted some gesture