At the foot of the stairs, Corinna ran against Gideon Vetch. "She died soon after you went out," she said, "but Patty is still there."
"I'll go up to her," he answered; and then as he placed his foot on the bottom step, he looked back at her, and added, "I tried to spare her this."
She assented almost mechanically. Fatigue had swept over her from head to foot like some sinister drug and she felt incapable of giving out anything, even sympathy, even the appearance of compassion. "Then it is all true?" she asked. "Patty is not your child?"
A shadow crossed his face, but he did not hesitate in his reply. "I never had a child. I was never married."
"You took her like that—because the mother was going to prison?"
He nodded. "She was a child. What difference did it make whether she was mine or not? She was the nicest little thing you ever saw. She is still."
"Yes, she is still. But you never knew what became of the mother?"
"I didn't know her real name. I didn't want to. The circus people called her Queenie, that was all I knew. She'd stuck a knife into a man in a jealous rage, and he happened to die. They said the trial would be obliged to go against her. I was leaving California that night, and I brought the child with me. I have never been back—" He spread out his broad hand with a gesture that was strangely human. "You would have done it in my place?"
She shook her head. "No, I should have wanted to, but I couldn't. I am not big enough for that."
He was already ascending the stairs, but at her words, he turned and smiled down on her. "It was nothing to make a fuss about," he said. "Anybody would have done it."