Heart to heart

After waiting ten minutes to be certain that Maud Willowby had gone too far to catch him, Henry Cross stalked hurriedly up to the cottage and knocked on the door. The elderly woman at once answered the summons, and asked what was desired.

“I have missed my way in the darkness and the rain,” said Henry Cross. “I would like to obtain shelter and a bite to eat.”

The woman looked at him doubtfully for a moment. Her face was sharp and shrewd, but not altogether unpleasant.

“Well, I don’t know——” she began.

“I will pay you well for any trouble I may give you,” he broke in. “I guess it is a good step to Cherrytown.”

The mention of pay made the woman brighten up instantly. She was a miser, and money was always acceptable.

“You can come in,” she said, and threw the door open to its full extent. “Yes, you are all of two miles from Cherrytown, which, too, is on the other side of the stream. Have you been out hunting?”

And she looked to see if he had a gun.

“No, I have been out with a party of surveyors. Ah, this is comfortable!” he cried, and, throwing off his rubber coat, he advanced to where a bright fire was burning in a small cooking stove. “I am chilled to the bone.”

“No doubt, sir—it’s very cold outside. It’s a wonder it isn’t snow instead of rain.”

“It may turn into snow before morning,” rejoined Cross. “You have it comfortable enough here,” he went on, giving a brief gaze around.

“Yes, sir, me and my man find it comfortable enough, although it will be a bit lonely from now on until spring.”

“Your husband keeps that garden I saw outside, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir, he’s something of a gardener, and cuts wood besides. He’s up the lake just now, on a tow. Will you have coffee, sir—and some fried potatoes, and some broiled rabbit, that was shot only yesterday afternoon?”

“Thank you, they will do very well. Oh, how do you do, my little man.”

The last to the boy, who had advanced shyly from the sitting room beyond.

“Roy has been sick,” lisped the boy, who was scarcely five years old, and very small for his age. He was rather thin, with curly yellow hair and deep blue eyes.

“Been sick, eh? Well, that’s too bad.”

“Roy better now. Roy stayed out of bed all day,” went on the little chap, growing more confidential, and coming close to Cross.

“He had a touch of the croup, but he’s well over it now,” explained the woman. “Don’t climb on the gentleman, Roy. Can’t you see he is all wet? Don’t try to take more cold.”

Thus spoken to, the boy retreated to the opposite side of the stove. There seemed to be something about the lad that caused Cross to observe him keenly. The yellow hair and blue eyes especially attracted his attention.

“Want a penny?” he said, with a smile, and drew from his pocket a shining cent.

The child looked at the coin for a moment, and then shook his hand with a slight touch of sadness.

“Roy can’t use penny,” he murmured. “Roy never sees no stores no more—tandy stores.”

“Well, put it in your bank,” and Cross pressed the coin into the thin hand. “A nice little fellow. Is he your own, madame?”

“Oh, he’s good enough—when he’s out of mischief,” she replied evasively. “Roy, you had better run into the other room now,” she continued.

“Roy wants to talk to man,” lisped the child resolutely.

“The gentleman is going to have his supper, and you must not bother him. Run in and play with the new blocks you got last week.”

The child still hesitated, but a warning shake of the hand from the woman decided the matter, and he backed out of sight. The woman at once shut the door between the two rooms.

A table was soon set, and Henry Cross took the chair the woman placed for him. He drank the coffee eagerly, but his appetite was gone. Yet he lingered long over the various dishes, wondering how he might gain the information he sought. He thought it extremely odd that the woman had not answered his question concerning the parentage of the child.

Presently there was heard a hammering on the closed door.

“Mammy Darrow, Roy want a light; it’s all dark here, and Roy’s afraid!” came in childish tones, full of fear.

The woman started up and hurried into the next room. A blow followed, then a cry of pain and fright combined, and then silence. She came back to the kitchen, frowning darkly.

“He is such a bother—when he can’t have his own way,” she said, by way of an explanation. “Will you have another cup of coffee?”

“Thank you, yes. And, if you do not mind, I will take off my boots and dry them under the stove. That was a very good supper indeed.”

He went back to the chair by the stove. He wished very much that he might interview the little boy, satisfied that to question the woman concerning Maud Willowby’s visit would be useless. He thought for a while, and then waited for a blast of wind to come along and rattle the windows.

It came, driving the rain before it furiously. The woman busied herself with the dishes, and did not mind. But he sprang up.

“Did you hear that?” he cried.

“Hear what?” she queried, with a startled look.

“That noise outside—over there.” He pointed in the direction of the barn. “It sounded like some cattle breaking loose.”

“It must be the cows. They have caused me so much trouble! Maybe the barn door has blown open.”

She paused and looked at him.

“I’ll go out for you,” he said. “Just wait till I put on these boots again.” He began to struggle with the articles in question. “Confound it! they are all wet, and I can’t squeeze in my feet,” he panted.

“Never mind, I’ll go!” returned the woman.

She caught up a big bag lying on a chair, flung it over her head, and rushed out of the cottage.

Henry Cross banged the door shut and locked it. Three steps brought him to the sitting room. He hurried inside, and found the little boy crouching on a lounge, crying softly to himself in the darkness.

“Don’t cry any more,” he said kindly. “Mammy Darrow has gone outside.”

“She—she won’t let me have a—a light, and Roy af—afraid of the dark!” sobbed the little one.

“It’s too bad. But don’t mind—the darkness never hurt any one. Who is Mammy Darrow—your mother?”

“Oh, no, sir! My mamma is a nice lady—only she makes me stay with Mammy Darrow,” and again the child sobbed.

“What is your mamma’s name?” and Henry’s heart arose in his throat as he asked the question.

“Mamma’s a nice lady,” returned the child.

He would say no more—having evidently been drilled into this little speech.

“And where is papa?” asked the young man, trying a new course.

“Papa is dead.” The little boy did not appear to be sorry, but merely stated the fact as a bit of news of no great importance. “Will you make Mammy Darrow give Roy a light?” he went on eagerly.

“Perhaps, if you won’t tell her I came in here to speak to you. She is out at the barn, and I slipped in because I thought you were alone in the dark.”

“You is a good gen’man. Roy won’t say nuffin.”

“Why won’t mamma take you home with her—away from Mammy Darrow?”

“’Cause she can’t—the great black bear will eat her up.” The child’s eyes flashed bravely. “Roy is going to fight big black bear when Roy is growed up, an’ kill him!”

“What is your other name, Roy?”

The boy stared vacantly for a moment.

“Roy is name—only got Roy name. Don’t want no other, ’cause mamma says Roy nice name.”

“So it is—a very nice name. Does mamma come to see you very often?”

“Mamma come—come once a while.” The child hesitated. “Mamma can’t come no more times’n that—the big black bear won’t let her.”

“I wish I could help you to kill the big black bear, so you could go to your mamma. Did she come when you were sick?”

“Yes, an’ afterward, too. She was here to-day——Oh, dear, Roy didn’t mean to tell so much!”

And the child pouted, fearing he had done a great wrong.

“Never mind.” Henry Cross turned away his face, fearful that even this little one might notice the change that was creeping over it. “I shan’t tell anybody, so the big black bear won’t hear of it—or Mammy Darrow. So mamma came to-day—in all the rain? Then she must have gone away just before I came, eh?”

“Yes, just before,” replied the little boy innocently.

The words were like a dagger thrust to Henry Cross. He had feared—yet hoped against hope—and now? He could hardly keep from groaning aloud, the truth was so keen, so bitter. Oh, the endless misery of this hideous discovery!

He looked at the boy again, turning so that the light of the lamp in the kitchen might fall on the childish face. The resemblance was startling. There were Maud’s own blue eyes, and that hair would soon be like her own. Maud Willowby was evidently the mother of this boy.

The mother! He felt like rushing out into the storm, into the darkness and the rain. The worse the raging of the elements, the better—if it would help to drown out that something which was strangling him. He tried to suppress his agitation, to speak calmly to the child, but it was impossible.

“How old are you?” he gasped, at last.

The boy did not answer. He was frightened, and once more he burst out crying. The childish wailing had a calming effect upon Cross.

“There, there, don’t cry; I didn’t mean to be rude. Hark! Mammy Darrow is coming back. I will ask her for the light for you; but, remember, don’t tell her I came in to speak to you. One word more—has mamma blue eyes and golden hair, like your own?”

“Ye-es, only mamma’s eyes is bluer,” faltered the little one.

Henry Cross groaned.

“That’s all, Roy; good night. Remember not to say I came in and talked to you.”

Mrs. Darrow was already knocking loudly on the kitchen door. With a boot in one hand, Cross walked across the floor and opened it.

“I locked it so the wind couldn’t blow it open. My boots are terribly shrunken,” he went on, eying that in his hand critically. “Anything seriously wrong at the barn?”

“Nothing that I could see,” was the woman’s reply. She gazed sharply at her visitor, and threw the wet bag over a box behind the stove. “I found a tree branch blown down. It must have been that. The rain is letting up a bit.”

“Is it? Then I must be off.”

Henry Cross began at the boots again, and finally slipped them on his feet.

“How much do I owe you, my good woman?” “Anything you wish to pay, sir,” she replied. She had sized him up as being rich, and well able to compensate her liberally.

He handed over a dollar, which seemed to please her, for she received it with numerous thanks. Then she held his rubber coat so that he might get into it with ease.

“The little boy in the next room has been crying,” he said, when at the door. “Let him have a little light, just to please me, won’t you? I dislike to see children crying on account of the dark.”

“He can come out in the kitchen now,” she returned; and then, with a brief good night, Henry Cross left the cottage, and plunged down the narrow pathway into the darkness.

He stumbled on like a blind man, falling more than once, and picking himself up without scarcely knowing it. His mind was in a whirl, so like an electrical shock had this revelation come upon him. Maud Willowby, the woman he loved, was the mother of that child! He could think of nothing else.

But by the time the bridge at the foot of the hill had been reached and crossed, and he was once more beside his shivering horse, he had calmed down somewhat. Then he remembered other things.

“I see it all. Now I comprehend the meaning of those songs at the piano—that talk of homeless orphans,” he murmured. “She wanted to test me. She had some scheme for marrying me, and then bringing in that child as one to be adopted. And she was so fearful of her secret being discovered that she tried to make people think she did not like the surroundings at Oakdale, and would never travel in that direction.”

He sprang on his horse, and once more the head of the animal was turned toward Oakdale. He drew his rubber coat close about him, and communed with his own sad thoughts.

“Yes, she was determined to marry me, in spite of her guilty secret, she loved me so!” He drew a long breath: there was consolation in that. “Once my wife, she would trust to luck and woman’s ingenuity for the rest. Who is the father of that child? Not Chesterbrook; she could not have known him so long back. But she might have—Chesterbrook used to travel about a great deal, so I have heard. Ah!”

The interjection came so suddenly that the horse stopped short, thinking it a command to halt. The mind of Henry Cross had gone back to that morning in Chesterbrook’s room—to the slip of paper he had picked up by the desk. He remembered the words—every one of them was burned upon his brain—and he repeated them to himself now.

“Chesterbrook had a cause—he had a cause!” he whispered hoarsely. “He had discovered her secret, had learned that she was not what he had thought her. And to think that I risked so much to gain her!”

He broke off and shuddered like one who is going insane. He plunged his spurs deep into the animal, and it started off on a mad gallop. The young man felt as if he had played for a fortune—for life itself—and lost.

He had always pictured her as a sweet, innocent girl, with a past that was beyond suspicion, and to have this picture torn to shreds caused him the keenest anguish.