Poor Mr. Barry! He sank back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. How could he take from a perfect—well, a comparative stranger—so great a boon? All the old instincts, the pride of a good race, fought with him; but with the old instincts and the pride love fought, and gained the victory.
The child—had he the right to refuse life to the child because of his senseless shrinking from obligations to another? He asked himself this question over and over again, whilst Crosby, who sincerely pitied him because he understood him, waited. And then all at once the father saw the child bathed in sweat and moaning with awful pain, and human nature prevailed. He gave in.
‘I can never repay you, Mr. Crosby,’ he said, in a shortened tone, standing tall and grim and crushed behind his table, his sharp aristocratic features intensified by the shabbiness of the furniture around him.
‘There is nothing to repay,’ says Crosby lightly. ‘This is a whim of mine. I believe in this specialist of whom I tell you; many do not. But I have sufficient cause for my belief to ask you to entrust your little son to my care. I tell you honestly it is a whim. If you will gratify it, it will give me pleasure.’
Mr. Barry rises and walks to the window. His gaunt figure stands out clear before it and the room.
‘No, no,’ says he. ‘You cannot put it like that. Do not imagine all your kind words can destroy the real meaning of your kind action. This is the best action, sir, that I have ever known’—his voice shakes—‘and, as I tell you, I can never repay it.... But the child——’
He turns more sharply, as if going to the window merely to adjust the blind, but a slight glance at him has told Crosby that the tears are running down his cheeks. Poor man! Poor father!
‘The child will be safe with me,’ says Crosby earnestly.
‘I know that.’ The Rector turns all at once; his face is now composed, but he looks older, thinner, if that could be. He comes straight up to Crosby. ‘I am a dull old man,’ says he hurriedly. ‘I can’t explain myself. But I know what you are doing—I know—I——’ He hesitates. ‘I would pray for you, but you have no need of prayers.’