One day we came in a little later than usual. We had carried our luncheon down to the beach, and had eaten it there: we had never been quite so happy together before, for everything had conspired to make our enjoyment perfect. We had made up stories about the people on board the ships that went up and down in the offing; strange and beautiful things had looked at us from out the sea; a fisherman had offered us some oysters as he coasted about the bar in his boat, and I had bought some and opened them for Helen with my knife, every blade of which I broke in the effort. Altogether, we had had a blissful experience.
But as, upon returning, we neared the house, Mills met us on the terrace with[page 204] a grave face. "You'd better go to your grandfather, Miss Floyd," said he—"you had, indeed, or it will be all over with him. You must not blame me, miss—it was none of my fault—but some gentlemen came here for lunch, and he's been a-drinking and a-drinking ever since they went away, and will not let either decanter go out of his hand."
Helen's little face had been warm with color, but it froze into pallor while I looked at her. We entered the door, and she took off her things slowly and gave them to Mills, smoothing her hair mechanically with her little trembling hands.
"What shall I do?" I whispered, quaking as much as she. "Let me help you somehow, Helen."
"You can't," she returned quietly: "nobody can help me."
She bade Mills go about his work: then went into the dining-room and shut the door.
The man had tears in his eyes as he turned to me as soon as we were alone. "I declare, Mr. Randolph," said he, "it's enough to break anybody's heart to see that child a-bowed down at her age with the care of an old man who can't be kept from drunkenness unless her eye is on him every minute."
"Is he violent when he's—" I tried to ask the question, but could not form the horrible word upon my tongue.
Mills did not flinch from facts. "When he's drunk?" he said. "He is ready to break my head, but he's never anything but tender with her. She's naught but a baby, but I have seen him, in a regular fury, just fall a-whimpering when she came in and said, 'Oh, grandpa! oh, grandpa! I'm so sorry!' Oh, it is a burning shame! And to think that that splendid gentleman, her father, does not know it!"
"He ought to know it," I cried.