“Hold on, Elsa! Forgive me if you can. I’m ashamed of myself. I don’t know what makes me such a cad, I don’t! You know. Except I’ve been brought up to think I was a rich boy and that a rich boy can do no harm. I could kick myself from here to Halifax. Please don’t mind. Why, you’re the cleverest girl of the lot, you are, you know. Nobody else dared tackle—”
He caught himself up sharply. Not for his life would he again utter that hateful word “monkey” to her. But he added with real sincerity, “I’m so sorry I’ll do anything in the world to prove it, that you ask me to do. I will, upon honor.”
Elsa couldn’t hold malice against anybody and in her heart had already forgiven him his hurt of her, with her habitual thought: “He didn’t mean it.” So she smiled again and accepted his statement as truth.
“Well I don’t know as I shall ever want you to do anything to ‘prove it’, but if I do I’ll tell you. Sure.”
Little did Gerald dream how rash a promise he had made. The cabin in the fields was the one in which he had lain so helpless. As he recognized it he exclaimed:
“Good! I’ll try that childish ‘charm’ every time! ‘My—mother—told—me—right’. That’s home to this little shaver and I’m mighty glad we’re there.”
But it seemed a very different home from that which had sheltered him so well. The children were grouped about the door, only Wesley and Saint Anne daring to enter the room where poor Lucetta lay prone on the floor, looking so white and motionless that, for a moment, the newcomers believed that she was dead.
Saint Anne lifted a quivering face toward them but could not speak, Wesley hid his face in his arm and blubbered audibly.
Then did all the little woman in Elsa’s nature respond to this sudden need.
“Lay Saint Augustine on that bench, where somebody must have slept. Help me to lift the lady to the bed. Don’t cry, little girl. She’ll soon be all right. It’s just a faint, I’m sure. I’ve fainted myself, often and often. I guess she’s overdone. Isn’t there a man here?”