Rhodes dropped upon his knees beside the two, who still clung to one another in that close embrace. Over the child’s drooped head the man and the woman exchanged a quick, scared look. Then both looked at the child.
The gaze that answered their excited ones was so calm, so strong, so full of knowledge and assured content, that outwardly, at least, they were quieted. One thin, little arm lay still around the dancer’s neck, and with evident effort she lifted the other and laid it around the neck of her frightened, childish old father.
Almost instantly it fell back heavily. There was a little twitch of the thin body, a stifled breath, one more sweet glance of love, and the child lay dead between them.
In a moment all was excitement and confusion. The alarm was given. People thronged the room. Doctors were summoned, but one look assured them that all was over with the child.
The Tarara, with trembling limbs and chattering teeth, threw on some clothes and drove home in the carriage with Rhodes, holding the dead child all the way close pressed against her heart.
Only once did the woman speak to him. It was when, between them, they had got the little body up to the tiny room, which had been its home in life, and had laid it upon one of the folding-beds, which had been so neatly made a few hours back. Then the Tarara, glancing around the poor place, so purely clean and orderly, taking in the details here and there—the child’s slate and lesson books, and her little work-basket, with its half-used spools of thread and small brass thimble—and contrasting it with her own sumptuous rooms and luxurious living, turned her gaze upon the man who stood helpless and miserable in the midst of this poverty-stricken home, and said:
“I would have married you for this child. You should have let me know.”
Once More
Once More
In the days when the great West was still the wild West, many a strange scene took place before the eye of the gazer, who had the advantage of two points of view, and who could get the whole zest of these primitive conditions, by the process of contrasting them with a foregone civilization.