"I know. It's town talk, a delicious tidbit for women and loafers," John sneered. "Well, well, it is done, Sam. It has happened, and that is all there is to it."
"I hurried over to see you and talk with you," Cavanaugh went on. "I don't know what step you want to take."
"I'll take none," John answered, grimly. "You don't think I want to kill anybody, do you? She is his daughter, and he had her before I got her. I tell you there is no fight in me, Sam. I can fight, as you know, when it has to be done, but there is no call for it in this case. Knowing Tilly as I know her, and now knowing my own plight as it has been made plain to me since I brought her here, I would think any man a damned idiot that would allow his daughter to marry me. God! God! No, never! Sam, Sam, I never found fault with you before, but you ought to have told me. By God! you ought to have opened my damned sightless eyes!"
"Don't! don't! my boy!" Cavanaugh cried, huskily. "You are breaking my heart. I wanted you with me. I saw how you two loved one another, and I thought I was acting right. I—I couldn't pull the bad conduct of others between you and that sweet little girl. I am not satisfied to let it rest as it is, either. You may not want to take any steps, but it is my duty to try to do something."
"Something? What the hell could you or any one do?"
"Well, I'll tell you what struck me, my dear boy. I'm going up to Cranston to-night and see how the land lies. I don't intend to rest idle and know no more than I've picked up in the wild talk of men on the streets up-town and a stupid negro cab-driver. This is a serious matter, and I have a big duty to perform."
"It won't do any good," John groaned, softly, and he shook his head. "I've been thinking it all over. I began to get my eyes open as soon as we got here. I've been a fool—a boy, a blind boy, at that, and what has happened to-day is not such a great surprise. You needn't go up there and beg for me, Sam. Say what you will, I am not worthy of her—that's the whole damned truth in a nutshell."
"Not worthy of her?" Cavanaugh protested. "How ridiculous, my boy!"
"No, I'm not. I don't know a man that is, but I'm sure that I never can be. Do you know that in meeting me and marrying me as she did that sweet child never had a fair deal? Other girls not as good as she is have married men with plenty of means, not a—a stain on them, with respectable friends and honorable blood-kin. But what have I done—my God! what have I done? Sam, I've committed a crime. No matter how I felt—how much I wanted her—I had no sort of right to her. No man has a right to lay a filthy load like mine on unsuspecting, frail shoulders. It is done, but if I could undo it and make her as free as she was when—when I first saw her up there, I'd do it if it plunged me into the eternal hell of flames her daddy believes in."
Cavanaugh's sympathies were wrung dry. He sat blinking as if every word from his protégé were a blow well aimed at him. Once he started to speak, but his voice broke and he desisted, sitting with his arms grimly folded, his legs awkwardly crossed, a broad, dust-coated shoe poised in mid-air.