“And what'll you do?”
“Leave here.”
They had reached the door together. To Mrs. Martin's terror, as the stranger passed out, Twing, instead of following him as she expected, said “Good-night,” and gloomily re-entered the schoolroom. Here he paused a moment, and then throwing himself on one of the benches, dropped his head upon a desk with his face buried in his hands—like a very schoolboy.
What passed through Mrs. Martin's mind I know not. For a moment she sat erect and rigid at her desk. Then she slipped quietly down, and, softly as one of the last shadows cast by the dying sun, glided across the floor to where he sat.
“Mrs. Martin,” he said, starting to his feet.
“I have heard all,” she said faintly. “I couldn't help it. I was here when you came in. But I want to tell you that I am content to know you only as you seem to be,—as I have always found you here,—strong and loyal to a duty laid upon you by those who had a full knowledge of all you had been.”
“Did you? Do you know what I have been?”
Mrs. Martin looked frightened, trembled a moment, and, recovering herself with an effort, said gently, “I know nothing of your past.”
“Nothing?” he repeated, with a mirthless attempt at laughter, and a quick breath. “Not that I've been a—a—mountebank, a variety actor—a clown, you know, for the amusement of the lowest, at twenty-five cents a ticket. That I'm 'Johnny Walker,' the song and dance man—the all-round man—selected by Mr. Barstow to teach these boors a lesson as to what they wanted!”
She looked at him a moment—timidly, yet thoughtfully. “Then you are an actor—a person who simulates what he does not feel?”