Betty burst into tears when the little woman told her, and said she dared not go, and couldn’t, until a second quick, not-to-be-questioned order resounded up the staircase:—
“Here, now, that church bell’s purty nigh done ringin’. We got ter git aboard ’fore the gangplank’s drawed in.”
“Come along, child,” said Aunty Bell. “’T ain’t no use; he’s got one o’ his spells on. Which church be ye goin’ to, anyway?” she called to him, as they came downstairs. “Methodist or Dutch?”
“Don’t make no difference,—fust one we come to; an’ Betty’s goin’ to set plumb in the middle ’tween you an’ me, jes’ so’s folks kin see. I ain’t goin’ to have no funny business, nor hand-whispers, nor head-shakin’s about the little gal from nobody along this shore, from the preacher down, or somebody’ll git hurted.”
All through the service—he had marched down the middle aisle and taken the front seat nearest the pulpit—he sat bolt upright, like a corporal on guard, his eyes on the minister, his ears alert. Now and then he would sweep his glance around, meeting the wondering looks of the congregation, who had lost interest in everything about them but the three figures in the front pew. Then, with a satisfied air, now that neither the speaker nor his hearers showed anything but respectful curiosity, and no spoken word from the pulpit bore the remotest connection with the subject uppermost in his mind,—no Magdalens nor Prodigal Sons, nor anything of like significance (there is no telling what would have happened had there been),—he settled himself again, and looked straight at the minister.
When the benediction had been pronounced he waited until the crowd got thickest around the door,—he knew why the congregation lagged behind; then he made his way into its midst, holding Betty by the arm as if she had been under arrest. Singling out old Captain Potts, a retired sea-captain, a great churchgoer and something of a censor over the morals of the community, he tapped him on the shoulder, and said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everybody:—
“This is our little gal, Betty West, Cap’n Potts. Caleb’s gin her up, and she’s come to live with us. When ye’re passin’ our way with yer folks, it won’t do ye no harm to stop in to see her.”
CHAPTER XIII—A SHANTY DOOR
Sanford had expected, when he led Betty from his door, that Mrs. Leroy would give her kindly shelter, but he had not been prepared for all that he heard the next day. Kate had not only received the girl into her house, but had placed her for the night in a bedroom adjoining her own; arranging the next morning a small table in her dressing-room where Betty could breakfast alone, free from the pryings of inquisitive servants. Mrs. Leroy told all these things to Sanford: describing the heartbroken weariness of the girl when she arrived; the little joyful cry she gave when big, burly Captain Joe, his eyes blinded by the hot midday glare outside, came groping his way into the darkened boudoir; and Betty’s glad spring into his arms, where she lay while the captain held her with one hand, trying to talk to both Betty and herself at once, the tears rolling down his cheeks, his other great hand with the thole-pin fingers patting the girl’s tired face. Mrs. Leroy told Sanford all these things and more, but she did not say how she herself had sat beside Betty on the divan that same morning, before Captain Joe arrived, winning little by little the girl’s confidence, until the whole story came out. Neither did she tell him with what tact and gentleness she, the woman of the world, whose hours of loneliness had been more bitter and intense than any that Betty ever knew, had shown this inexperienced girl how much more noble it would have been to suffer and stand firm, doing and being the right, than to succumb as she had done. Nor yet did she tell Sanford how Betty’s mind had cleared, as she talked on, and of the way in which the girl’s brown hand had crept toward her own till it nestled among her jeweled fingers, while with tender words of worldly wisdom she had prepared her foster sister for what she still must face in penance for her sin; instructing her in the use of those weapons of self-control, purity of purpose, and patience, with which she must arm herself if she would win the struggle. Nor how, before the morning hours were gone, she had received the girl’s promise to go back to her home, and, if her husband would not receive her, to fight on until she again won for herself the respect she had lost, and among those, too, who had once loved her. Least of all did she tell Sanford that when the talk was over and Betty was gone, she had thrown herself on her own bed in an agony of tears, wondering after all which one of the two had done the better for herself in the battle of life,—she or the girl.
Sanford knew nothing of this. As he sat in the train, on his way back to Keyport, his heart had gone out to the girl, for he had been greatly wrought up by the story Kate told him and by the pictures she had given of the interview. Yet, strange to say, he found himself bewildered by the fact that, even more than the story, he remembered the tones of Kate’s voice and the very color of her eyes as she talked. He was constantly seeing, too, as he lingered over its details, a vision of Kate herself as she stood in the hall and bade him good-by,—her full white throat above the ruffles of her morning-gown. As he rode on, he found it difficult to turn his mind to other things, or to quiet his inner enthusiasm for her gentleness and charity.