"After a little while, no one will remember," Donelle went on slowly. "Point of Pines is like that. Mamsey knew, they all knew. But if I can keep them from thinking that I know, I do not mind."
"They shall!" Tom promised.
What Tom Gavot did not tell Donelle, but what burned and blistered his soul, was this: Pierre, sober and keenly vicious, had welcomed Tom with eagerness and cunning. Tom meant money and perhaps care. Tom was redeemed and successful, he would have to look after his poor father in order to keep the respect he had wrung from better folk.
After a maudlin display of sentiment and devotion Pierre had said:
"That girl of Mam'selle Morey's, Tom, she's yours for the getting!"
"What do you mean?" Tom had asked, turning his young and awful eyes upon his father, "I thought Mam'selle—I thought Donelle was with the Lindsays and going to the States. Father Mantelle wrote——"
"Ah! but that was before I played my game, Tom." And Pierre had given an ugly laugh. "They took the girl and put her out of our reach, they thought; even the good Father frowned at that. He tried to speak the truth up at the Walled House, but they would not hear. The girl was kept from knowing, and the pride of her was enough to make an honest soul sick. She looked down on us—us! But I waited my chance and when I got it, I flung the truth in her white face, and it sort of did for her! I saw that the pride they had put in her couldn't stand mud!
"And so she's here, Mam'selle's girl, and when one is not over particular and knows the worst, he can take and make—— What's the matter? Leave off shaking me, Tom. I'm your old father! Mother of Heaven, let me go!"
But Tom, holding the brute by the shoulders, was shaking him like a bag of rags. The flaming young eyes were looking into the bleary, old ones, looking with hate and loathing. The tie that held the two together added horror to the situation.
"You—did this thing, you! You killed my mother; you have tried to damn everything you ever touched; you pushed this young girl into hell—you! And you tell me I can pull her out, in order to shove her back? You!