“It’s my son. Please go!”
With the resignation acquired in their profession, they went off, and the door closed behind them. Lester brought forward a chair, but Mrs. Tracy would not sit down. She had recovered something of her poise, and looked at him steadily.
“What does this mean?” she asked.
He did not find it easy to answer without reproaching her too cruelly.
“I’m glad it has happened,” he said aloud. “I needed something like this to show me where I was drifting. If I hadn’t known—if I hadn’t come here—this—this crime would have been done, and very likely I’d have taken it all for granted. I’ve let this thing go on, I’ve let little Maisie be tormented and persecuted, and I’ve never lifted a finger to help her. It has been no one’s fault but mine, because she’s my responsibility. It’s no use saying I didn’t realize; it was my business to realize. But it’s ended now. She’s going to keep her baby!”
“Lester! My son! You don’t know what you’re saying! Simply because you’ve seen this girl again, and perhaps felt a little of your old, tragic infatuation—”
“I don’t know whether it’s that,” he said slowly; “but whatever it was I felt for Maisie, there’s never been anything else half so fine in all my life. I always knew that, but I hadn’t the sense—or the manliness—to understand what it meant. I thought I’d get over it. I should have, in the course of time, and I should have been getting over the only thing in me that’s good!”
He turned to Maisie.
“You’re free, you know, Maisie,” he said. “You can do exactly as you please. I give you my word you won’t be disturbed again. You’re to have the baby, and I’ll see that there’s a proper provision made.”
“Lester!” cried his mother. “You cannot put me aside entirely—”