Cress for one moment had a look of shame, and then his wrath seemed to flame up afresh, and he said contemptuously, “Well, I didn’t think you were such a chicken-heart!”
“Do you really think I am, Cress?” asked Jack calmly.
“Cress, it is you who are the coward!” cried Maimie, looking up at him with tearful eyes, and shrinking closer to Jack, as if for protection, though she continued to hold his hands.
Either the words or the gesture excited Cress anew beyond control. He made a step forward and struck at Jack again. Jack made no effort at all to release his hands or to defend himself; but Maimie threw up her own arm between, and received the blow,—no light one.
Just at that moment I came in. Cherry had called for me at the door, and then rushed forward to pull Cress back. As I entered, I heard the sound of his fist striking our darling’s poor thin arm.
Cress’ passion seemed suddenly at an end. He stepped back, and fell into sudden silence.
Cherry said only, “Cress! for shame!” and Jack uttered one groan of distress. Maimie gave a little half-sob, and then looked up at Jack with a smile. But the next instant her head drooped with a return of faintness. Jack caught her up like an infant, and carried her to the sofa. She lay there, white and still, while Cherry and I sought remedies, and Jack knelt by her side, kissing passionately the reddened arm.
“Mother, look!” he said. “Look,—the poor darling! Mother!—Cress deserves—he deserves—”
Maimie opened her eyes. “No, don’t, Jack,” she whispered. “Don’t talk of Cress yet.”
“I could bear anything else,—anything but his laying a finger on you,” Jack said in a choked voice.