"I came to see you— I had to see you, Mr. Trott," Eperson muttered, jerkingly. "I heard you were going away to-night and I couldn't—well, I had to see you."
"I understand, Eperson," John said, wondering over his own stilted tone to a man whom he so profoundly pitied. "Will you come in—or shall we—?"
"Yes, we can walk, if you don't mind," Eperson answered, quickly. "I really think it would be better. Curious people pass along and look in windows sometimes, but back here in the wood there is no light and it is quiet."
"Yes, that is better," John agreed. And side by side the two men walked along Cavanaugh's lot fence till they were in the thicket of stunted trees behind the property. Presently Eperson paused, raised his head, and spoke again:
"This will do, Mr. Trott. I really don't know what to say in beginning, for it seems to me that a million things come up, but your mother told me about the property you gave her—the farm and all the rest."
"Yes, yes, I know— I hoped that she would mention it to you," John said, out of a sympathy he didn't dream he possessed. "That was really part of the—the understanding. She needs a comfortable home and she could not look after it herself. She knows, and I know, that you can manage it well, and so—"
"But—but don't you see—can't you understand?" Eperson pushed his hat back and his great, all but bloodshot eyes gleamed piteously in the starlight. "Don't you see that I can't be put on a rack like that and live under it? Do you think I have no pride or manhood left? I am a failure—worse than a beggar. I aspired for that of which I was unworthy—your wife—and I've come to tell you something to-night which no proud man ever in the history of the world told another. I've come to tell you that—"
"Stop, Joel, you mustn't," John broke in, and he gently laid his hand on the shoulder of the other. "That is a thing neither of us must ever hold in mind for a moment. Listen to me. You and I are in the swirl of great laws we can't understand. Of one thing we can be certain, and that is that we love the same woman. Don't come to me to-night with the idea that you are about to get in my debt. I'm in yours. I was a coward. I deserted my post of duty under the first great blight that fell upon me. I was only a poor, bewildered, stung boy, but I fled while you remained, advised, protected, and cared for both my wife and my mother. By so doing, and through your children, you tied the hearts of those two beings to you forever. My mother is a transformed woman through you—my former wife through you is a glorified mother. Don't think I am fooling myself with romantic ideals. I know where I stand. If I were to dare to-day to lay claim to your place, Tilly would turn upon me in disgust and hatred. And why? Because the price to be paid would be the happiness of the father of her children. That is a holy thing in her eyes, and I, myself, profoundly respect it."
"My God! My God!" moaned Eperson, "you can say this—you can be all this to a man like me?" Eperson's great eyes were filling; his rough breast was heaving; the shoulder under John's gentle hand was quivering.
"Yes, because I admire you from the depths of my soul," was the reply. "Your wife is not for me. My mother is not for me. Your children are theirs and yours. My mother is making a gift to you— I am not doing it. I shouldn't say gift. She is trying to pay a debt that she owes you."