The Sherrods

by George Barr McCutcheon

"I walked," he answered, wearily.

"Walked?" she cried. "Why, Jud, what is wrong? Why are you here? Has anything happened to you?" Her voice was sharp with dread.

"I am the most wretched man in the world, Justine."

"Tell me all about it, Jud; let me help you. Don't look like that! It must be all right, dear, now that we are together. All three, Jud," she went on, cheerily. "I would not even name him before you came, but I want you to call him Dudley." He felt the loving arms tighten about his neck, and there came the eager desire to confess everything and to beg her to hide from the world with him in some place where he could never be found out. The love for Celeste was deep, but it was not like this love for Justine. He must keep it. The other might go; he and Justine and the baby would go away together. But not yet. Justine must not know, after all—at least not yet.

"Everything has gone wrong, dear, and I had nothing to live for," he began, wearily; and then with a skill that surprised him he rushed through with a story that drew the deepest pity from his listener and gave him a breathing spell in which to develop a plan for the future.

"You will loathe and despise me, Justine, but I couldn't bear the thought of going into the hereafter without you," he said, after he had confessed his object in coming. "I had failed in everything and life wasn't worth living. My position is gone, I have no money and I don't seem to be able to find work. You were everything in the world to me and you were so proud of me. I just couldn't come back here and tell you that I had failed after all the chances I have had. When I opened your door to-night I had that knife in my hand. Do not be afraid, dearest; it is all over and we'll live to be happy yet. God help me, I was going to kill you while you slept, kiss you to prove to your departing soul that I loved you and that it was not hate that inspired the deed, and then, the blade, wet with your dear blood, was to find its way to my heart. Thank God, you awoke. Had it not been for that we would be lying here dead, and our boy, hidden in the bed, would have escaped my hand only to be thrown upon the world, a helpless orphan. But God has helped me to-night and He will not again forget me. With His help and your love, I will go forth again with new courage and I'll win my way."

She shuddered and thanked God alternately during his story, and when he paused after the firm declaration to win his way, she cried:

"You have been brave so long and I have been brave, too, Jud. Why should we give up the fight? I have hardly enough to eat in the house, and I have endured more than seemed just from our loving God, but I did not forget that I have you and you are everything. It has been hard, terribly hard, but I did not give up."

Then she confessed her secret, timorously at first, then eagerly, pleadingly. She told him of 'Gene Crawley's reformation, his kindness, his real nobility, expecting at the outset that Jud would be angry and displeased. But he was thinking of the future, not of the past or the present. After a moment or two of surprise and chagrin, he accepted her course in regard to Crawley as a natural condition, and, trusting her implicitly, found no fault with her action. He went so far as to credit Crawley with more manhood than he had suspected. A flood of joy enveloped her when she saw that he was reconciled; the weight of her only deception was lifted from her troubled heart.

Already he was thinking of the ordeal ahead of him: the return to Celeste, the confession of his duplicity, his plea for forgiveness and leniency, and then the life of peace and solitude with Justine and the boy. He knew that Celeste's heart would be crushed, but it was the only way back to the path of honor. Justine should never know of his marriage to Celeste; that was the one thing the honest, virtuous country girl would not forgive. He even found himself, as he always was in emergencies, impatient to have the ordeal over, to know his fate, to give torture to one that he might be happy with the other. With the arms of the real wife about his neck, he trembled with the desire to be off to the side of the deceived one, there to unmask himself, to grovel at her feet and then to fly from the world. How he could face Celeste he knew not, but he must do it. There seemed no way to lighten the blow he must deal and there seemed no escape from it. He was a bigamist, a criminal.