Young Denny’s face burned.
“I––I tried to,” he explained simply. “I––I started toward her, meaning to explain, but I tripped, there on the threshold, and went down on my knees. I must have been a little sick––a little giddy. And when I got up again she––she was gone.”
Old Jerry nodded his head judicially. He sucked in his lips from sheer delight in the thrill of it all, and nodded his head in profound solemnity.
“Jest like a woman––jest like a woman, a-condemnin’ of a man without a bit of mercy! Jest like ’em! I ain’t never been enticed yet into givin’ up my freedom; but many’s the time I’ve said––says I–––”
The boy’s set face checked him; made him remember. This was no mimic thing. It was real; too real to need play-acting. And with that thought came recollection. All in a flash it dawned on him 137 that this was no man-created situation; it must have something greater than that behind it.
That morning had seen his passing from the circle to which he had belonged as long as the circle had existed. All through that dreary day he had known that he could never go back to it. Just why he could not say, but he felt that that decision was irrevocable. And for that whole day he had been alone––more utterly, absolutely alone than he had ever been in his whole life––yet here was a place awaiting him, needing him. For some reason it was not quite so hard to look straight back into the eyes of that soul which he had discovered that day; it wasn’t so hard, even though he knew it now for the pitiful old fraud it really was.
His thin, leathery face was working spasmodically. And it was alight––aglow with a light that came entirely from within.
“Could you maybe explain,” he quavered hungrily; “could you kinda tell me––just why it is––you’re a-askin’ me? It––it ain’t jest because you hev to, entirely; now, is it? It ain’t because there ain’t nothin’ else left you to do?”
Denny Bolton sensed immediately more than half of what was behind the question. He shook his head.
“No,” he answered steadily. “No, because I’m going to try to tell her again, myself, tonight. It’s 138 only partly because maybe I––I won’t be able to see her before I go––and part because she––she’d believe you, somehow, I think, when she wouldn’t believe any of the rest.”