The Redemption of Kenneth Galt

by Will N. Harben

CHAPTER VII

WHEN Dearing had gone blithely down the street, Galt strode up and down the veranda, hot and cold, by turns, with fury and remorse.

“To think that any man could lecture me like that, while I have had to stand and take it like a sneaking coward!” he fumed. “I am not a jot worse than thousands of others who were led astray by passion. I had to do as I did. I couldn't give up what I had sought so long, and fought for so fiercely. She knew it; she admitted there was nothing else to do. All these years she has not once reproached me, and she has kept her word—the secret is ours. Wynn says she has advanced, that her solitary life has only ripened her beauty of mind and body, and she is the mother of my child—the little fellow I held in my arms the other day, the outcome of a marriage as sacred under high heaven as any ever solemnized at an altar.” He groaned as he remembered how he and Dora used to boast that their superior mental attitude, and the height and glory of their troth, as compared to the dull code of the vulgar herd, had made them a law unto themselves. He had sown the seeds of such logic in the rich soil of her trusting, girlish inexperience. He had led her, as a candle leads a moth, on to the yawning brink of the abyss; he had closed her gentle mouth, even as it uttered words of love and fidelity, and then, by sheer brute force, he had flung her down to darkness and despair. That was the truth he had not fully allowed himself to face in those years of gratified ambition which had followed, and it was the truth that Wynn Dearing, with his maddening manliness, had hurled into his face to-day. And Dearing had argued that the end was not yet—that the earthly struggle wasn't all there was to man—that to eat, procreate, and live a certain span of years was not the solution of the problem of existence. How utterly absurd! And yet what was his present ailment? It was not of the body, as he had well known when Dearing was speaking of his condition; and since it was not so, what was it? What force known to science had kindled the raging fires within him, made him desire to shim his own kind, and hate the success which, like a hellish will-o'-the-wisp, had once blazed over him. There was nothing to do, of course, but to continue the fight on his own lines, by the light of the reason born in him. Of course, a man could be sad and gloomy over an old love affair if he continued to brood over it—if he continued to allow it to dominate him. Dora had accepted the inevitable, as any sensible woman would have done, and it was left for him to go on his way unmolested—free! General Sylvester wanted him to marry his niece; she was his social equal, and in time would be as well off in point of fortune. She was a beautiful, imposing, gracious woman, and would make a wife any man would be proud of. Yes, his duty to himself was clear, and dreams like young Dearing indulged in would have to be banished for ever and ever. Yes, he would marry Margaret Dearing, and he and she would travel the world over. He was ready to resign the active management of the big enterprise he had created, and he would be free in every sense. Yes, he would be free—just as other men were free.

He had stepped down on the grass of the lawn and strolled round the house. Shouts and peals of childish laughter came from the yard adjoining his on the left, and on the grass, engaged in a joyous game of hide-and-seek, twoscore boys and girls ran merrily about. Galt walked farther down toward the lower boundary of his premises, seeking with his eyes an object he would not have confessed to himself that he desired to see—the child Dearing had mentioned. Now he saw the boy, but he was not within the Dearing grounds; Lionel had crossed over to Galt's land, and stood shielded from the view of the merrymakers by a hedge of boxwood. Galt saw him peering cautiously over the hedge, now stealthily lowering his head, now eagerly raising it. He was neatly dressed in white, as when his father had first seen him; there was a jaunty grace about the flowing necktie and low, broad collar which could have been accounted for only by the taste of an artistic mother. He held his broad-brimmed straw hat in his hand, and the breeze swept his tresses back from his fine brow.

Why he did it Galt could not have explained, especially on top of the resolutions just formed, but he went down to him. Lionel's face was averted, and he was not aware of his father's approach till his attention was attracted by Galt's step on the grass. Then he started, flushed, and with alarm written in his face he made a movement as if to run away.

“Surely you are not afraid of me?” Galt said, reassuringly, and in a tone which, for its unwonted gentleness, was a surprise to himself.

“I have no right to be on your land,” the boy faltered, his great, startled eyes downcast. “Doctor Wynn said I must never leave his place. But there wasn't any fence, and I—I saw the children playing over there, and I wanted to get a little closer.”

“Well, you needn't be afraid; you have done no wrong,” Galt heard himself saying, as undefined pangs and twinges shot through him. “You may come here whenever you wish.”

“Oh, may I? Thank you. You are very good, and I thought you'd be angry.”