She paused, and as he took a chair, looking as if he expected to hear the whole story, she continued: “We were so poor. He used to give me money to give to my mother. I didn’t know.”
She paused again, totally unable to go on, and he, seeing that it would be impossible for her to explain without prompting, took up his questioning again—eliciting by degrees the whole pitiful story. Brander had intended to marry her. He had written to her, but before he could come to her he died.
The confession was complete. It was followed by a period of five minutes, in which Lester said nothing at all; he put his arm on the mantel and stared at the wall, while Jennie waited, not knowing what would follow—not wishing to make a single plea. The clock ticked audibly. Lester’s face betrayed no sign of either thought or feeling. He was now quite calm, quite sober, wondering what he should do. Jennie was before him as the criminal at the bar. He, the righteous, the moral, the pure of heart, was in the judgment seat. Now to sentence her—to make up his mind what course of action he should pursue.
It was a disagreeable tangle, to be sure, something that a man of his position and wealth really ought not to have anything to do with. This child, the actuality of it, put an almost unbearable face upon the whole matter—and yet he was not quite prepared to speak. He turned after a time, the silvery tinkle of the French clock on the mantel striking three and causing him to become aware of Jennie, pale, uncertain, still standing as she had stood all this while.
“Better go to bed,” he said at last, and fell again to pondering this difficult problem.
But Jennie continued to stand there wide-eyed, expectant, ready to hear at any moment his decision as to her fate. She waited in vain, however. After a long time of musing he turned and went to the clothes-rack near the door.
“Better go to bed,” he said, indifferently. “I’m going out.”
She turned instinctively, feeling that even in this crisis there was some little service that she might render, but he did not see her. He went out, vouchsafing no further speech.
She looked after him, and as his footsteps sounded on the stair she felt as if she were doomed and hearing her own death-knell. What had she done? What would he do now? She stood there a dissonance of despair, and when the lower door clicked moved her hand out of the agony of her suppressed hopelessness.
“Gone!” she thought. “Gone!”