Then she turned and there sat Mary Jane, listening, horror-struck and broken-hearted!
Regret was useless. The secret, guarded so jealously for years, was now disclosed. Till then the hunchback had believed her affliction was hers from birth, and had never dreamed that it was the result of a terrible fall, due to her own father’s carelessness. He had always seemed to love her so, with a sort of remorseful tenderness quite different from the attention he gave to his other, healthier children. But if it had all been by his fault!
Poor Mary Jane! Alas, alas! Far worse for her was the anger and hatred that at that moment sprang to life in her tortured heart. As in a picture she saw other little maids, her playmates, even this recent vision of Bonny-Gay, straight-limbed, strong, active, enjoying everything without aid of those hindering crutches or the heavy dragging limbs.
“Oh! father! you did it? you! And I ought to have been like them—I ought—I ought!”
Nobody spoke after that. Mary Jane’s head sank down upon the high table where stood her little flatiron, fast cooling. Mrs. Bump felt a new and deadly faintness seize her own vigorous body and sat weakly down. How could she undo the mischief she had wrought? Until now there had been between the father and the child such a wonderful affection that it had been a matter of constant comment among all the neighbors, and the mother had been proud that this was so. Now—what had she done, what had she done!
Presently, William Bump rose, put on his hat, whistled to Max, and walked out. At the door he paused, cast one miserable glance over the little room and his face was very white beneath its stains of toil and weather. His eyes seemed mutely to seek for one ray of pity, of forgiveness; but Mary Jane’s head was still upon the table and her mother’s face was hidden in her own labor-hardened palms.
Only the baby began to coo and gurgle in a way which, under ordinary circumstances, would have elicited admiring exclamations, but which now secured no response. So, then he rolled over and closed his eyes; and not even he saw when the man and the dog passed clear out of sight, across the open lots, and toward the marshy places which led to the water and the unknown country beyond.
By-and-by, the other children came home from the “Playgrounds,” full of chatter about the day’s delights and eager with questions concerning the wonderful happening of Mary Jane’s ride. Then the mother roused and kept them from troubling their sister, and dispatched them to examine the wrecked carriage, away down the street.
By the time they returned Mary Jane’s eyes were no longer red and there was nothing out of common in her manner. Mrs. Bump was ironing away as if her life depended on it, and even humming the first strains of a hymn, “Lord, in the morning, Thou shalt, Thou shalt—Lord, in the morning Thou shalt hear.” This always denoted an extra cheerfulness on the singer’s part, and the children became boisterously happy in proportion.
When supper time came they “set a place for father,” just as always; and though even by the end of the meal he had not appeared his unused plate was still left, as if he might come in at any moment.