She got up without a word and walked with him to the door and down the slag-paved path to the gate. But at the moment of parting, when he was again seeking vainly for some word of heartening, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him twice, thrice.
“That’s why I can’t marry another man!” she panted; and before he could reply she had darted up the path and into the cottage and had slammed the door.
It was an older and soberer David who tramped slowly back through the factory district and across the railroad tracks to the better lighted main street of the town. Conscience is definable only in terms, not of the common, but of the individual human factor. For the David Vallorys there are no compromises. He either was, or was not, Judith Fallon’s keeper. Had he been responsible for her development up to a certain point, the danger point, and had then been blind enough or thoughtless enough to cast her adrift? One responsibility he could not shirk: from a time reaching deeply into their childish years his influence over her had been stronger than that of any one else, her parents not excepted. How was he to know that her yielding to him had been chiefly sexual, and that unconsciously he had walked in her path instead of leading her to walk in his? But even so, was he wholly blameless?
These soul-searching questions kept even step with him on the way to the hill suburb, and they made the home leave-taking, a little later, thoughtfully abstracted. It was his promise to his sister to come home for Christmas, if he could leave his work, that reminded him of another responsibility; and all the way down to the railroad station he was hoping that Herbert Oswald would not forget his agreement to be at the train.
Oswald had not forgotten. He was waiting at the station entrance, and together they walked out upon the platform. The Chicago express was bulletined fifteen minutes late, and David was thankful for the brief extension of time. There was a thing to be said to Oswald, and, finding no way in which to lead up to it, he plunged bluntly.
“Bert, there is something that I want to say—that I’ve got to say—before I leave. You’ve been a mighty good friend to us in this shake-up, and we shall always owe you a lot more than we can pay. But I’m obliged to be a sort of dog in the manger, right here at the last. I have a sister, and she is blind.”
“Well?” said Oswald, and his voice was a bit thick.
“You know what I ought to say; what I want to say, and can’t. Lucille isn’t like other girls; she can’t be. And yet she is just as human as other girls. You mustn’t go to the house so often, Bert. If you do, there’ll be an explosion some day, and you’ll never get over being sorry.”
“I don’t know exactly what you mean,” was the low-spoken reply.
“Then I shall have to tell you in so many words, brutal as it may sound. With her affliction, Lucille can’t marry, and she—oh, dammit all—you know what I mean!”