"It's a long time," she said, "since I 've seen any one from there."
"Or I. You left—"
"When I was married. Jim came here because his cousin got him a job as motorman. He done well,—but he was killed by his car just after the baby was born."
"Killed? That's tough. And it left you all alone with the children?"
"Yes. The road paid us a little, but I was sick and the children were sick, so it did n't last long."
She was not complaining. It was a bare recital of facts. But it raised a series of keen incisive thoughts in Donaldson's brain.
Wentworth had been killed. Chance had deprived this woman of her man; Chance had grabbed at her boy; Chance had sent Donaldson to save the latter; Chance—Donaldson caught his breath at the possibility the sequence suggested—Chance may have sent him to offset as far as possible the husband's death. It was too late, although he felt the obligation in a new light, for him to give his life for the life of that other, but there was one other thing he could do. He could play the father with what he had left of himself. So that when he came to face Wentworth—he smiled gently at the approaching possibility—he could hold his head high as he went to meet him.
He had argued to Barstow that he was shirking no responsibilities,—but what of such unseen responsibilities as this? What of the thousand others that he should die too soon to realize? It was possible that countless other such opportunities as this must be wasted because he should not be there to play his part. But there was still time to do something; he need not see, as with the girl and with love, the fine possibilities go utterly to waste.
The mother had noticed a warm light steal over his face, not realizing how closely his thoughts concerned her own future; she had seen the sabre cut of pain which had followed his thought of the girl and what she might have meant, knowing nothing of that grim tragedy. Now she saw his eyes clear as with their inspired light they were lifted to her. Yet the talk went on uninterruptedly on the same commonplace level.
"How old was Jim?"