Caleb laughed silently; he felt the doctor’s towering wrath. “After all, wouldn’t it be a purgatory for a small boy to live with the Colfaxes?� he asked.
“Yep,� said the doctor, “it would. Miss Maria pins papers over the cracks in the parlor blinds to keep the carpet from fading, and Miss Lucinda dusts my office twice a day, for which she ought to be hung! I reckon they’d make divided skirts for Sammy and a frilled nightgown.�
“There are the Children’s Guardians in the city,� suggested Caleb thoughtfully.
“There’s the Reform School,� retorted the doctor bitingly.
Meanwhile old Henk traveled on, gaining in speed, for part of the road was on his way home and he coveted the flesh-pots of Egypt. The splashing of his feet in the mire kept time with the sob of the gale. Nearer and nearer drew the light in Jean Bartlett’s window.
“I told the Royalls she was dying,� Dr. Cheyney said, “and to-day Diana was there. She sat with her an hour and tried to quiet her. Jean was raving and, at last, I ordered the girl away; she’d no business worrying in such a scene as that; then she told me she would take Sammy! She—Diana!� the old man flung out his free hand and beat the air, “that girl! I wanted to shake her. Yet, it’s like her; she’s got heart.�
Caleb Trench, sitting back in his corner, summoned up a picture of the old man and Diana, and could not quite reconcile it with the Diana he knew. “You did not shake her,� he said; “what did you do?�
“Sent her home,� said the doctor bluntly, “drat it! Do you think a girl of her age ought to start a foundling asylum for charity’s sake? I told her her father would have her ears boxed, and she laughed in my face. David Royall worships her, but, Lordy, not even David would tolerate that!�
A low bough scraped the top of the carriage and they jogged on. Presently, old Henk stopped unwillingly and they got down, a little wet and stiff, and went silently into the house. It was stricken silent, too, except for the ticking of a clock in the kitchen, and that sounded to Caleb like a minute gun; it seemed to tick all through the house,—the three small rooms below, the rickety stairs and the attic above. There was a light in the kitchen, and there, on top of some old quilts in a packing box, lay Sammy asleep.
In the room beyond the kitchen, in the middle of the great, old-fashioned four-poster, that was worn and scratched and without a valance, lay Jean Bartlett. Her fair hair streamed across the pillow, her thin arms lay extended on either side, her chin was up, she lay as if on a cross, and she was dead.