“I must confess that the child has greatly interested me,” the General said. “From my window I can see him playing in that narrow yard, always dressed neatly, and as strong and straight as an Indian in his bearing. I have never seen him outside the fence. I have stopped to speak to him once or twice in passing, and have been actually charmed by his face and manner. I don't think I ever heard of a case exactly like his. Of course, there have been thousands of children born like that in straitlaced communities, but I never heard of one being brought up in that prison-like way. It surely is wrong, and it will make the truth all the harder to bear when it does come out, as it must sooner or later. She is a wonderful woman—I started to say girl, for she seems almost like a child to me with that sad, young face, and wistful, artistic beauty. I have met her mother on the street a few times, her old face thickly veiled, but I have not seen Dora or the child away from the cottage.”
“As their family doctor,” said Dearing, “I urged Dora to go out herself for exercise and to take the boy with her. At first she flatly refused. I frightened her, however, by saying that the constant confinement would injure Lionel's health. Since then she has taken him with her in fine weather when she goes sketching in the woods and swamp back of the cottage, but she is as shy as a fawn about it. I venture to say that no one has ever met her on those excursions. I've seen mother-love, Uncle Tom, in all its phases. I've met it at the death-beds of scores of children, but the love between that unfortunate mother and child is the prettiest thing on earth. No pair of lovers were ever more constant and affectionate. Lionel is really a sort of psychological oddity in his way. I have a theory that the mother's morbid suffering was in some prenatal way stamped on her offspring.' He is queerly supersensitive for one so young, and seems constantly afraid that he won't be liked. He is rather fond of me—perhaps it is because I'm the only visitor at the house; and when I take him in my lap to hold him, I can see that he enjoys it as if it were an unusual luxury. He closes his eyes sometimes and smiles, and says he wants to go to sleep that way. Then he will ask me over and over again if I love him. After being told that I do, he will detect some slight change in my face or voice and cry out, 'Now, you don't like me—do you?' I am not sentimental, Uncle Tom, but that little chap's condition has worried me a lot. I pity him as I've never pitied a human being before.”
“I have often wondered whether Madge has taken notice of him,” General Sylvester remarked, reflectively. “A woman is hard to read on the surface, and while Madge never mentions Fred Walton's name any more than if he were dead, I've been afraid that the mere sight of his child might keep the old memory alive. Do you know, my son, a woman will condone exactly that failing in a man more quickly than any other? I suppose they lay most of the blame on the woman in the case. A high-strung creature like your sister wouldn't for a moment consider herself a rival of a fallen woman, and it may be that the explanation of her never having shown interest in other men is that—”
“That she still cares for the rascal?” Dearing broke in, his face darkening.
“Yes, and that she still clings to some sort of faith in his constancy,” the General added. “You can't crush love in a woman's heart so long as she believes she is loved by a man who is longing for her and is kept away by adverse circumstances. You see, if our dear girl attributes Walton's predicament to a simple act of low, impulsive passion, and believes that he loved her, and her alone, in a pure way, why—”
“I see, I see, and I am afraid you may be right,” Dearing said, bitterly. “And instead of curing her, the scoundrel's absence is only making the thing worse. Did you tell her about Kenneth's coming?”
“Yes, only an hour ago, and it seemed to me that she was rather pleased. She remarked that she was glad John Dilk had kept up the place so well, and that the flowers would gratify him. I really fancied that she was more pleased by the news than she was willing to show, for she changed the subject by offering to play for me.”
At this juncture a woman came round the house hurriedly, wiping her red, bare arms, and trying to adjust the damp dress she wore. It was Mrs. Chumley, the washerwoman. Her tawny hair was disarranged, and her fat, freckled face flushed with an excitement that was almost pleasurable.
“Oh, here you are, Doctor Wynn!” she panted. “I hain't been told to come; in fact, them highfalutin' neighbors of mine never let a body know anything they can get out of. But Mrs. Barry is having another of her falling spells. She was on the side porch brushing little Lionel's head when I heard her cry out to Dora for help, and then she struck the floor of the kitchen with a thump you could have heard up here if you'd been listening.”
“Well, I'll run down,” Dearing said to his uncle. “It may not be very serious. She is subject to such attacks.”