Chapter II: Part 2

"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.

"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.

"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning. "Everybody says that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."

The curate was a gentleman--acute and courteous. "A touch of indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black waistcoat. "Oh! There it is again!"

"Stomach ache?"

"Well, you might call it that."

The boy was much concerned. "If you come up-stairs," said he, anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine. Mother keeps it for me."

Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell. And having gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the far-off places, might distract and comfort him. From the boy, sitting upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung, his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter--not the less amiable for being grave--to which the curate, compelled to his best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life. So untaught was this courtesy, spontaneous, native--so did it spring from natural wish and perception--that the curate was soon more mystified than entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear Lord and Saviour."

There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in torture--and was grieved and awed by the agony....

In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered. She stopped dead beyond the threshold--warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her guard. Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion. The curate put the boy from his knee. He rose--embarrassed. There was a space of ominous silence.

"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.

"Trespassing."

She was puzzled--by the word, the smile, the quiet voice. The whole was a new, nonplussing experience. Her suspicion was aggravated.

"What you been telling the boy? Eh? What you been saying about me? Hear me? Ain't you got no tongue?" She turned to the frightened child. "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"

The boy kept a bewildered silence.

"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the curate, her eyes blazing.

"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."

Her anger was halted--but she was not pacified.

"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."

"You been talking about _me_, eh?"

"No; it was of your late husband."

She started.

"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact truth concerning----"

"You been lying!" the woman broke in. "Yes, you have!"

"No--not so," he insisted. "The exact truth concerning the funeral of Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross. Your son has told me of his father's death--of the funeral, And I have told your son that I distinctly remember the occasion. I have told him, moreover," he added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly twinkling, "that his father was--ah--as I recall him--of most distinguished appearance."

She was completely disarmed.

When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door upon the boy. "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away. It was--kind. But I'm sorry you lied--like that. You didn't have to, you know. He's only a child. It's easy to fool him. _You_ wouldn't have to lie. But I _got_ to lie. It makes him happy--and there's things he mustn't know. He _must_ be happy. I can't stand it when he ain't. It hurts me so. But," she added, looking straight into his eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie. And--it was kind." Her eyes fell. "It was--awful kind."

"I may come again?"

She stared at the floor. "Come again?" she muttered. "I don't know."

"I should very much like to come."

"What do you want?" she asked, looking up. "It ain't _me_, is it?"

The curate shook his head.

"Well, what do you want? I thought you was from the Society. I thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to keep him. But it ain't that. And it ain't _me_. What is it you want, anyhow?"

"To come again."

She turned away. He patiently waited. All at once she looked into his eyes, long, deep, intensely--a scrutiny of his very soul.

"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "And you?"

"It don't matter about me."

"And I may come?"

"Yes," she whispered.

_RENUNCIATION_

After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr. Poddle. It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind, blowing in from the sea. Most the curate came at evening, when the breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities, not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the hours with wonder and strange delight. Sometimes, the boy sang--his mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly. And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.

"I want the boy's voice," he said.

She gave no sign of agitation. "His voice?" she asked, quietly. "Ain't the boy's _self_ nothing to your church?"

"Not," he answered, "to the church."

"Not to you?"

"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."

"Well?"

He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension. "I must say, then," he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"

"The boy," she answered.

For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue approaching, and had bravely met it. But it was all now definite and near. She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the trammels of her love for the child.

"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up. "Boy sopranos is scarce. You can't have him cheap."

"Of course!" he hastened to say. "The church will pay."

"Money? It ain't money I want."

To this there was nothing to say. The curate was in the dark--and quietly awaited enlightenment.

"Take him!" she burst out, rising. "My God! just you take him. That's all I want. Understand me? I want to get rid of him."

He watched her in amazement. For a time she wandered about the room, distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her hand over her eyes--a gesture of weariness and despair. Then she faced him.

"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse. "Take him away from me. I ain't fit to have him. Understand? He's got to grow up into a man. And I can't teach him how. Take him. Take him altogether. Make him--like yourself. Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good. No man ever looked in my eyes the way you do. I know them--oh, I know them! And when my boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you look--in mine. Just that! Only that! If only, oh, if only my son will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine! Understand? I _want_ him to. But I can't teach him how. I don't know enough. I ain't good enough."

The curate rose.

"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on. "You got to take his soul. You got to make it--like your own."

"Not like mine!"

"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours. Don't you warn me!" she flashed. "I know the difference between your soul and mine. I know that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more. But I can't help that. I got to do without him. I got to live my life--and let him live his. It's the way with mothers and sons. God help the mothers! It's the way of the world.... And he'll go with you," she added. "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go. It won't be nice to do--but I can do it. Maybe you think I can't. Maybe you think I love him too much. It ain't that I love him too much. It's because I love him _enough_!"

"You offer the boy to me?"

"Will you take him--voice and soul?"

"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."

She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her--this skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him. She sighed, wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow, but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was magnified and touched with the horror of mystery. It was not hard--thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune, parting, unalterable love. Nor could the boy withstand it; by this depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity. Dark days, these--hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation. And when they had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.

One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.

"Let us talk, dear," she said.

"I think I'm too sick," he sighed. "I just want to lie here--and not talk."

He had but expressed her own desire--to have him lie there: not to talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.

"We must," she said.

Something in her voice--something distinguishable from the recent days as deep and real--aroused the boy. He touched the lashes of her eyes--and found them wet.

"Why are you crying?" he asked. "Oh, tell me, mother! Tell me _now_!"

She did not answer.

"I'm sick," he muttered. "I--I--think I'm very sick."

"Something has happened, dear," she said. "I'm going to tell you what." She paused--and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a familiar way. For a moment the prospect frightened her. She felt, vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely delicate--which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate. "You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich. But we're not, any more." It was a poor lie--she realized that: and was half ashamed. "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly. "A man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds and lovely dresses. She hasn't anything--any more." She had conceived a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet doubted her. "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly. "She will have to stop having good times, I guess. She will have to go to work."

He straightened in her lap. "No, no!" he cried, gladly. "_I'll_ work!"

Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out with pain. But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly. She had no mercy upon herself.

"I'll work!" he repeated.

"How?" she asked. "You don't know how."

"Teach me."

She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him. "Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"

He sighed.

"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."

"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."

"Yes; but----"

"But what? Tell me quick, mother!"

"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy. Anyhow, dear," she continued, "I would have to work. We are very poor. You see, dear, it takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you. And, then, dear, you see----"

He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice. It was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.

"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."

"I'll not eat much," he promised. "And I'll not want new clothes. And it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."

She would not agree.

"Tell me!" he commanded.

"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."

"Would you come, too?"

"No," she answered.

He did not yet comprehend. "Would I go--alone?"

"Yes."

"All alone?"

"Alone!"

Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement, in the falling night without, where no breeze moved. The child sought to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then stirred no more. The lights were flashing into life on the river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea.... Some one stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.

"There is no other way," the mother said.

There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.

"And I would go to see you--quite often."

She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.

"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."

"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do without me?"

It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution departed. What would she do without him? God knew! But she commanded herself.

"I would not have to work," she said.

He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for the truth. She met his glance without wavering. Then, discerning the effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most poignant, she lied.

"I would be happier," she said, "without you."

A moan escaped him.

"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.

"Yes."

He fell back upon her bosom....

There was no delay. 'Twas all done in haste. The night came. Gently the curate took the child from her arms.

"Good-bye," she said.

"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered. "I am not crying."

"Good-bye, dear."

"Mother, I am not crying."

"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish. "Good-bye. Be a good boy."

He took the curate's hand. They moved to the door--but there turned and lingered. While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his eyes, against his will, some reproach. Perceiving this, she staggered towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying. Then she levelled a finger at the curate.

"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.

_IN THE CURRENT_

Seven o'clock struck. It made no impression upon her. Eight o'clock--nine o'clock. It was now dark. Ten o'clock. She did not hear. Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart. Eleven o'clock. Ghostly moonlight filled the room. The tenement, restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep. Twelve o'clock. She had not moved: nor dared she move. There was a knock at the door--a quick step behind her. She turned in alarm.

"Millie!"

She rose. Voice and figure were well known to her. She started forward--but stopped dead.

"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.

"Yes, Millie. It's me--come back. You don't feel the way you did before, do you, girl?" He suddenly subdued his voice--as though recollecting a caution. "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he asked.

"Go 'way!" she complained. "Leave me alone."

He came nearer.

"Give me a show, Jim," she begged. "Go 'way. It ain't fair to come--now. Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer approach, her voice rising shrilly. "It ain't fair----"

"Hist!" he interrupted. "You'll wake the----"

She laughed harshly. "Wake what?" she mocked. "Eh, Jim? What'll I wake?"

"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed. "You'll wake the boy."

"Boy!" she laughed. "What boy? There ain't no boy. Look here!" she cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet, wildly tossing the pillows to the floor. "What'll I wake? Eh, Jim? Where's the boy I'll wake?" She turned upon him. "What you saying 'Hist!' for? Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh. "Talk as loud as you like, Jim. You don't need to care what you say or how you say it. There ain't nobody here to mind you. For I tell you," she stormed, "there ain't no boy--no more!"

He caught her hand.

"Let go my hand!" she commanded. "Keep off, Jim! I ain't in no temper to stand it--to-night."

He withdrew. "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"

"Dead?" she laughed. "No. I give him away. He was different from us. I didn't have no right to keep him. I give him to a parson. Because," she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up. And he ain't here no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room. "I'm all alone--now."

"Poor girl!" he muttered.

She was tempted by this sympathy. "Go home, Jim," she said. "It ain't fair to stay. I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."

"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."

She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.

"No, you ain't," he continued. "You've give him up. You're all alone. You can't go on--alone. Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want you. Come to me!"

She wavered.

"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended. "You're all alone. You've lost him. Come to me!"

"Lost him?" she mused. "No--not that. If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take you. If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you. I've give him up; but I ain't lost him. Maybe," she proceeded, eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up. He loves me, Jim; he'll not forget. I know he's different from us. You can't tell a mother nothing about such things as that. God!" she muttered, clasping her hands, "how strangely different he is. And every day he'll change. Every day he'll be--more different. That's what I want. That's why I give him up. To make him--more different! But maybe," she continued, her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up, and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember! Maybe, he'll take me in. Lost him?" she asked. "How do you know that? Go to you, Jim? Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait? I can't! Don't you understand? When the time comes, he might ask me--where you was."

"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested. "You're just plain crazy."

"Crazy? Maybe, I am. To love and hope! Crazy? Maybe, I am. But, Jim, mothers is all that way."

"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.

"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."

"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."

"Keep back!" she cried.

"No, I won't."

"You'll make a cat of me. I warn you, Jim!"

"You can't keep me off. You said you loved me. You do love me. You can't help yourself. You got to marry me."

She retreated. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I can't. Don't you see how it is? Quit that, now, Jim! You ain't fair. Take your arms away. God help me! I love you, you great big brute! You know I do. You ain't fair.... Stop! You hurt me." She was now in his arms--but still resisting. "Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You hurt me. You ain't fair. You know I love you--and you ain't fair.... Oh, God forgive me! Don't do that again, Jim. Stop! Let me go. For God's sake, stop kissing me! I like you, Jim. I ain't denying that. But let me go.... Please, Jim! Don't hold me so tight. It ain't fair.... Oh, it ain't fair...."

She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly sobbing.

"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.

Still she sobbed.

"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly. "It's all right. I won't hurt you. You love me, and I love you. That's all right, Millie. What's the matter with you, girl? Lift your face, won't you?"

"No, no!"

"Why not, Millie?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I think I'm--ashamed."

There was no longer need to hold her fast. His arms relaxed. She did not move from them. And while they stood thus, in the moonlight, falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring, the while, all the reassuring words at his command.

"The boy's gone," he said, at last. "You'd be all alone without me. He ain't here. But he's well looked after, Millie. Don't you fret about him. By this time he's sound asleep."

She slipped from his embrace. He made no effort to detain her: conceiving her secure in his possession. A moment she stood staring at the floor, lost to her surroundings: then quickly turned to look upon him--her face aglow with some high tenderness.

"Asleep?" she asked, her voice low, tremulous.

"Sound asleep."

"How do you know that he's asleep?" she pursued. "Asleep? No; he ain't asleep." She paused--now woebegone. "He's wide awake--waiting," she went on. "He's waiting--just like he used to do--for me to come in.... He's awake. Oh, sore little heart! He's lying alone in the dark--waiting. And his mother will not come.... Last night, Jim, when I come in, he was there in the bed, awake and waiting. 'Oh, mother,' says he, 'I'm glad you're come at last. I been waiting so long. It's lonesome here in the dark without you. And to-morrow I'll wake, and wait, and wait; but you will not come!' He's awake, Jim. Don't you tell me no different. The pillow's wet with his tears.... Lonely child--waiting for me! Oh, little heart of my baby! Oh, sore little heart!"

"Millie!"

"It ain't no use no more, Jim. You better go home. I'm all alone. My child's not here. But--he's somewhere. And it's him I love."

The man sighed and went away....

Left alone, she put the little room in order and made the bed, blinded by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child, whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs. When there was no more work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which she had there kept, poor soul! against the time when her arms would be empty, her bosom aching for a familiar weight upon it. And for a time she sat rocking the cold counterfeit, crooning, faintly singing, caressing it; but she had known the warmth, the sweet restlessness, the soft, yielding form of the living child, and could not be content. Presently, in a surge of disgust, she flung the substitute violently from her.

"It ain't no baby," she moaned, putting her hands to her face. "It's only a doll!"

She sank limp to the floor. There she lay prone--the moonlight falling softly upon her, but healing her not at all.

_THE CHORISTER_

The Rev. John Fithian lived alone with a man-servant in a wide-windowed, sombre, red old house, elbowed by tenements, near the Church of the Lifted Cross--once a fashionable quarter: now mean, dejected, incongruously thronged, and fast losing the last appearances of respectability. Sombre without--half-lit, silent, vast within: the whole intolerant of frivolity, inharmony, garishness, ugliness, but yet quite free of gloom and ghostly suggestion. The boy tiptoed over the thick carpets, spoke in whispers, eyed the shadowy corners--sensitive to impressions, forever alert: nevertheless possessing a fine feeling of security and hopefulness; still wistful, often weeping in the night, but not melancholy. Responsive to environment, by nature harmonious with his new surroundings, he presently moved through the lofty old rooms with a manner reflecting their own--the same gravity, serenity, old-fashioned grace: expressing even their stateliness in a quaint and childish way. Thus was the soil of his heart prepared for the seed of a great change.

By and by the curate enlightened the child concerning sin and the Vicarious Sacrifice. This was when the leaves were falling from the trees in the park--a drear, dark night: the wind sweeping the streets in violent gusts, the rain lashing the windowpanes. Night had come unnoticed--swiftly, intensely: in the curate's study a change from gray twilight to firelit shadows. The boy was squatted on the hearth-rug, disquieted by the malicious beating at the window, glad to be in the glow of the fire: his visions all of ragged men and women cowering from the weather.

"It is time, now," the curate sighed, "that I told you the story."

"What story?"

"The story of the Man who died for us."

The boy turned--in wonderment. "I did not know," he said, quickly, "that a man had died for us. What was his name? Why did he do it? My mother never told me that story."

"I think she does not know it."

"Then I'll tell her when I learn."

"Perhaps," said the curate, "she will like to hear it--from you."

Very gently, then, in his deep, mellifluous voice--while the rain beat upon the windows, crying out the sorrows of the poor--the curate unfolded the poignant story: the terms simple, the recital clear, vivid, complete.... And to the heart of this child the appeal was immediate and irresistible.

"And they who sin," the curate concluded, "crucify Him again."

"I love that Jesus!" the boy sobbed. "I love Him--almost as much as mother."

"Almost?"

The boy misunderstood. He felt reproved. He flushed--ashamed that the new love had menaced the old. "No," he answered; "but I love Him very much."

"Not as much?"

"Oh, I could not!"

The boy was never afterwards the same. All that was inharmonious in life--the pain and poverty and unloveliness--became as sin: a continuous crucifixion, hateful, wringing the heart....

Late in the night, when he lay sleepless, sick for his mother's presence, her voice, her kisses, her soothing touch, the boy would rise to sit at the window--there to watch shadowy figures flit through the street-lamp's circle of light. Once he fancied that his mother came thus out of the night, that for a moment she paused with upturned glance, then disappeared in woe and haste: returning, halted again; but came no more....

At rare intervals the boy's mother came to the curate's door. She would not enter: but timidly waited for her son, and then went with him to the park, relieved to be away from the wide, still house, her spirits and self-confidence reviving with every step. One mellow evening, while they sat together in the dusk, an ill-clad man, gray and unkempt, shuffled near.

"Mother," the boy whispered, gripping her hand, "he is looking at us."

She laughed. "Let him look!" said she. "It don't matter."

The man staggered to the bench--heavily sat down: limp and shameless, his head hanging.

"Let us go away!" the boy pleaded.

"Why, darling?" his mother asked, puzzled. "What's the matter with you, anyhow?" She looked at him--realizing some subtle change in him, bewildered by it: searching eagerly for the nature and cause. "You didn't used to be like that," she said.

"I don't like him. He's wicked. He frightens me."

The man slipped suddenly from the bench--sprawling upon the walk. The woman laughed.

"Don't laugh!" the boy exclaimed--a cry of reproach, not free of indignation. "Oh, mother," he complained, putting her hand to his cheek, "how could you!"

She did not answer. The derelict picked himself up, whining in a maudlin way.

"How could you!" the boy repeated.

"Oh," said she, lightly, "he's all right. He won't hurt us."

"He's wicked!"

"He's drunk. It don't matter. What's come over you, dear?"

"I'm afraid," said the boy. "He's sinful."

"He's only drunk, poor man!"

High over the houses beyond, the steeple of the Church of the Lifted Cross pierced the blue-black sky. It was tipped with a blazing cross--a great cross, flaming in the night: a symbol of sacrifice, a hope, a protest, raised above the feverish world. To this the boy looked. It transported him far from the woman whose hand he clutched.

"They who sin," he muttered, his eyes still turned to the lifted cross, "crucify the dear Lord again!"

His mother was both mystified and appalled. She followed his glance--but saw only the familiar landmark: an illuminated cross, topping a steeple.

"For God's sake, Richard!" she demanded, "what you talking about?"

He did not hear.

"You ain't sick, are you?" she continued.

He shook his head.

"What's the matter with you?" she implored. "Oh, tell your mother!"

He loosened his hand from her clasp, withdrew it: but instantly caught her hand again, and kissed it passionately. So much concerned was she for his physical health that the momentary shrinking escaped her.

"You're sick," she said. "I know you are. You're singing too much in the church."

"No."

"Then you're eating too much lemon pie," she declared, anxiously. "You're too fond of that. It upsets your stomach. Oh, Richard! Shame, dear! I told you not to."

"You told me not to eat _much_," he said. "So I don't eat any--to make sure."

She was aware of the significance of this sacrifice--and kissed him quickly in fond approval. Then she turned up his coat-sleeve. "The fool!" she cried. "You got cold. That's what's the matter with you. Here it is November! And he ain't put your flannels on. That there curate," she concluded, in disgust, "don't know nothing about raising a boy."

"I'm quite well, mother."

"Then what's the matter with you?"

"I'm sad!" he whispered.

She caught him to her breast--blindly misconceiving the meaning of this: in her ignorance concluding that he longed for her, and was sick because of that.... And while she held him close, the clock of the Church of the Lifted Cross chimed seven. In haste she put him down, kissed him, set him on his homeward way; and she watched him until he was lost in the dusk and distance of the park. Then, concerned, bewildered, she made haste to that quarter of the city--that swarming, flaring, blatant place--where lay her occupation for the night.

Near Christmas, in a burst of snowy weather, the boy sang his first solo at the Church of the Lifted Cross: this at evening. His mother, conspicuously gowned, somewhat overcome by the fashion of the place, which she had striven to imitate--momentarily chagrined by her inexplicable failure to be in harmony--seated herself obscurely, where she had but an infrequent glimpse of his white robe, wistful face, dark, curling hair. She had never loved him more proudly--never before realized that his value extended beyond the region of her arms: never before known that the babe, the child, the growing boy, mothered by her, nursed at her breast, her possession, was a gift to the world, sweet and inspiring. "Angels, ever bright and fair!" She felt the thrill of his tender voice; perceived the impression: the buzz, the subsiding confusion, the spell-bound stillness. "Take, oh, take me to your care!" It was in her heart to strike her breasts--to cry out that this was her son, born of her; her bosom his place....

When the departing throng had thinned in the aisle, she stepped from the pew, and stood waiting. There passed, then, a lady in rich attire--sweet-faced, of exquisite manner. A bluff, ruddy young man attended her.

"Did you like the music?" he asked--a conventional question: everywhere repeated.

"Perfectly lovely!" she replied. "A wonderful voice! And such a pretty child!"

"I wonder," said he, "who the boy can be?"

Acting upon ingenuous impulse, the boy's mother overtook the man, timidly touched his elbow, looked into his eyes, her own bright with proud love.

"He is my son," she said.

The lady turned in amazement. In a brief, appraising glance, she comprehended the whole woman; the outré gown, the pencilled eyebrows, the rouged cheeks, the bleached hair. She took the man's arm.

"Come!" she said.

The man yielded. He bowed--smiled in an embarrassed way, flushing to his sandy hair: turned his back.

"How strange!" the lady whispered.

The woman was left alone in the aisle--not chagrined by the rebuff, being used to this attitude, sensitive no longer: but now knowing, for the first time, that the world into which her child had gone would not accept her.... The church was empty. The organ had ceased. One by one the twinkling lights were going out. The boy came bounding down the aisle. With a glad little cry he leaped into her waiting arms....

_ALIENATION_

This night, after a week of impatient expectation, they were by the curate's permission to spend together in the Box Street tenement. It was the boy's first return to the little room overlooking the river. Thither they hurried through the driving snow, leaning to the blasts, unconscious of the bitterness of the night: the twain in high spirits--the boy chattering, merrily, incoherently, as he trotted at his silent mother's side. Very happy, now, indeed, they raced up the stair, rioting up flight after flight, to top floor rear, where there was a cheery fire, a kettle bubbling on the stove, a lamp turned low--a feeling of warmth and repose and welcome, which the broad window, noisily shaken by a hearty winter wind from the sea, pleasantly accentuated.

The gladness of this return, the sudden, overwhelming realization of a longing that had been agonizing in its intensity, excited the boy beyond bounds. He gave an indubitable whoop of joy, which so startled and amazed the woman that she stared open-mouthed; tossed his cap in the air, flung his overcoat and gloves on the floor, peeped through the black window-panes, pried into the cupboard, hugged his mother so rapturously, so embarrassingly, that he tumbled her over and was himself involved in the hilarious collapse: whereupon, as a measure of protection while she laid the table, she despatched him across the hall to greet Mr. Poddle, who was ill abed, anxiously awaiting him.

The Dog-faced Man was all prinked for the occasion--his hirsute adornment neatly brushed and braided, smoothly parted from crown over brow and nose to chin: so that, though, to be sure, his appearance instantly suggested a porcupine, his sensitive lips and mild gray eyes were for once allowed to impress the beholder. The air of Hockley's Musee had at last laid him by the heels. No longer, by any license of metaphor, could his lungs be said to be merely restless. He was flat on his back--white, wan, gasping: sweat dampening the hair on his brow. But he bravely chirked up when the child entered, subdued and pitiful; and though, in response to a glance of pain and concern, his eyes overran with the weak tears of the sick, he smiled like a man to whom Nature had not been cruel, while he pressed the small hand so swiftly extended.

"I'm sick, Richard," he whispered. "'Death No Respecter of Persons.' Git me? 'High and Low Took By the Grim Reaper.' I'm awful sick."

The boy, now seated on the bed, still holding the ghastly hand, hoped that Mr. Poddle would soon be well.

"No," said the Dog-faced Man. "I won't. 'Climax of a Notable Career.' Git me? It wouldn't--be proper."

Not proper?

"No, Richard. It really wouldn't be proper. 'Dignified in Death.' Understand? Distinguished men has their limits. 'Outlived His Fame.' I really couldn't stand it. Git me?"

"Not--quite."

"Guess I'll have to tell you. Look!" The Dog-faced Man held up his hand--but swiftly replaced it between the child's warm, sympathetic palms. "No rings. Understand? 'Pawned the Family Jewells.' Git me? 'Reduced to Poverty.' Where's my frock coat? Where's my silk hat? 'Wardrobe of a Celebrity Sold For A Song.' Where's them two pair of trousers? 'A Tragic Disappearance.' All up the spout. Everything gone. 'Not a Stitch to His Name.' Really, Richard, it wouldn't be proper to get well. A natural phenomenon of my standing couldn't--simply _couldn't_, Richard--go back to the profession with a wardrobe consistin' of two pink night-shirts, both the worse for wear. It wouldn't _do_! On the Stage In Scant Attire.' I couldn't stand it. 'Fell From His High Estate.' It would break my heart."

No word of comfort occurred to the boy.

"So," sighed the Dog-faced Man, "I guess I better die. And the quicker the better."

To change the distressful drift of the conversation, the boy inquired concerning the Mexican Sword Swallower.

"Hush!" implored Mr. Poddle, in a way so poignant that the boy wished he had been more discreet. "Them massive proportions! Them socks! 'Her Fate a Tattooed Man,'" he pursued, in gentle melancholy. "Don't ask me! 'Nearing the Fateful Hour.' Poor child!' Wedded To A Artificial Freak.'"

"Is she married?"

"No--not yet," Mr. Poddle explained. "But when the dragon's tail is finished, accordin' to undenigeable report, the deed will be did. 'Shackled For Life.' Oh, my God! He's borrowed the money to pay the last installment; and I'm informed that only the scales has to be picked out with red. But why should I mourn?" he asked. "'Adored From Afar.' Understand? That's what I got to do. 'His Love a Tragedy.' Oh, Richard," Mr. Poddle concluded, in genuine distress, "that's me! It couldn't be nothing else. Natural phenomens is natural phenomens. 'Paid the Penalty of Genius.' That's me!"

The boy's mother called to him.

"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, abruptly, "I'm awful sick. I can't last much longer. Git me? I'm dyin'. And I'm poor. I ain't got a cent. I'm forgot by the public. I'm all alone in the world. Nobody owes me no kindness." He clutched the boy's hand. "Know who pays my rent? Know who feeds me? Know who brings the doctor when I vomit blood? Know who sits with me in the night--when I can't sleep? Know who watches over me? Who comforts me? Who holds my hand when I git afraid to die? Know who that is, Richard?"

"Yes," the boy whispered.

"Who is it?"

"My mother!"

"Yes--your mother," said the Dog-faced Man. He lifted himself on the pillow. "Richard," he continued, "listen to me! I'll be dead, soon, and then I can't talk to you no more. I can't say no word to you from the grave--when the time she dreads has come. Listen to me!" His voice rose. He was breathing in gasps. There was a light in his eyes. "It is your mother. There ain't a better woman in all the world. Listen to me! Don't you forget her. She loves you. You're all she's got. Her poor heart is hungry for you. Don't you forget her. There ain't a better woman nowhere. There ain't a woman more fit for heaven. Don't you go back on her! Don't you let no black-and-white curick teach you no different!"

"I'll not forget!" said the boy.

Mr. Poddle laid a hand on his head. "God bless you, Richard!" said he.

The boy kissed him, unafraid of his monstrous countenance--and then fled to his mother....

For a long time the Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned. The door was ajar. Joyous sounds drifted in--chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of dishes.... Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the rocking-chair, and by low singing.... By and by, voices, speaking gravely--in intimate converse: this for a long, long time, while the muttering of the tenement ceased, and quiet fell.... A plea and an imploring protest. She was wanting him to go to bed. There followed the familiar indications that the child was being disrobed: shoes striking the floor, yawns, sleepy talk, crooning encouragement.... Then a strange silence--puzzling to the listener: not accountable by his recollection of similar occasions.

There was a quick step in the hall.

"Poddle!"

The Dog-faced Man started. There was alarm in the voice--despair, resentment. On the threshold stood the woman--distraught: one hand against the door-post, the other on her heart.

"Poddle, he's----"

Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to his elbow, but fell back, gasping.

"What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper.

"Prayin'!" she answered, hoarsely.

Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed. The situation was unprecedented: not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience.

"'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded. "'Repent At Leisure.'"

"Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe. "He's down on his knees--_prayin'_!" She began to pace the floor--wringing her hands: a tragic figure. "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to bite at her fingernails. "He's changed. He never seen me pray. _I_ never told him how. Oh, he's--different. And he'll change more. I got to face it. He'll soon be like the people that--that--don't understand us. I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes. It'll kill me, Poddle! I knew it would come," she continued, uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her assistance for lack of breath. "But I didn't think it would be so--awful soon. And I didn't know how much it would hurt. I didn't _think_ about it. I didn't dare. Oh, my baby!" she sobbed. "You'll not love your mother any more--when you find her out. You'll be just like--all them people!" She came to a full stop. "Poddle," she declared, trembling, her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something. I got to do it--_quick_! What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"

Mr. Poddle drew a long breath. "Likewise!" he gasped.

She did not understand.

"Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated. "'Fought the Devil With Fire.' Quick!" He weakly beckoned her to be off. "Don't--let him know--you're different. Go and--pray yourself. Don't--let on you--never done it--before."

She gave him a glad glance of comprehension--and disappeared...

The boy had risen.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly. "You got through, didn't you, dear?"

He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling--still reluctant to crawl within. And he was very gravely regarding her, a cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.

"Who taught you to," she hesitated, "do it--that way?" she pursued, making believe to be but lightly interested. "The curate? Oh, my!" she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought. "Your mother's awful sleepy." She counterfeited a yawn. "I never kneel to--do it," she continued. In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was emboldened to proceed. "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't. The curate, I suppose, kneels. That's his way. Now, _I_ don't. I was brought up--the other way. I wait till I get in bed to--say mine. When you was a baby," she rattled, "I used to--keep it up--for hours at a time. I just _love_ to--do it. In bed, you know. I guess you never seen me kneel, did you? But I think I will, after this, because you--do it--that way."

His serenity was quite restored. Glad to learn that his mother knew the solace of prayer, he rolled back on the pillows. She tucked him in.

"Now, watch me," she said.

"And I," said he, "will pray all over again. In bed," he added; "because that's the way _you_ do it."

She knelt. "In God's name!" she thought, as she inclined her bead, "what can I do? I've lost him. Oh, I've lost him.... What'll I do when he finds out? He'll not love me then. Love me!" she thought, bitterly. "He'll look at me like them people in the church. I can't stand it! I got to _do_ something.... It won't be long. They'll tell him--some one. And I can't do nothing to help it! But I _got_ to do something.... My God! I got to do something. I'll dress better than this. This foulard's a botch." New fashions in dress, in coiffures, multiplied in her mind. She was groping, according to her poor enlightenment. "The pompadour!" she mused, inspired, according to the inspiration of her kind. "It might suit my style. I'll try it.... But, oh, it won't do no good," she thought, despairing. "_It_ won't do no good.... I've lost him! Good God! I've lost my own child...."

She rose.

"It took you an awful long time," said the boy.

"Yes," she answered, absently. "I'm the real thing. When I pray, I pray good and hard."

_A CHILD'S PRAYER_

The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's chamber--which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this day. It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house, overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high, wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the dark. But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child, companionably lingered to hearten him. The beam fell over the window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall.

There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path of the moonlight. It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing: the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in patient agony. Sometimes it made the boy cry.

"They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!"

It would be very hard, then, to fall asleep....

So did the crucifix on the wall work within the child's heart--so did the shadows of the wide, still house impress him, so did the curate's voice and gentle teaching, so did the gloom, the stained windows, the lofty arches, the lights and low, sweet music of the Church of the Lifted Cross favour the subtle change--that he was now moved to pain and sickening disgust by rags and pinched faces and discord and dirt and feverish haste and all manner of harshness and unloveliness, conceiving them poignant as sin....

Mother and son were in the park. It was evening--dusk: a grateful balm abroad in the air. Men and women, returning from church, idled through the spring night.

"But, dear," said his mother, while she patted his hand, "you mustn't _hate_ the wicked!"

He looked up in wonder.

"Oh, my! no," she pursued. "Poor things! They're not so bad--when you know them. Some is real kind."

"I could not _love_ them!"

"Why not?"

"I _could_ not!"

So positive, this--the suggestion so scouted--that she took thought for her own fate.

"Would you love me?" she asked.

"Oh, mother!" he laughed.

"What would you do," she gravely continued, "if I was--a wicked woman?"

He laughed again.

"What would you do," she insisted, "if somebody told you I was bad?"

"Mother," he answered, not yet affected by her earnestness, "you could not be!"

She put her hands on his shoulders. "What would you do?" she repeated.

"Don't!" he pleaded, disquieted.

Again the question--low, intense, demanding answer. He trembled. She was not in play. A sinful woman? For a moment he conceived the possibility--vaguely: in a mere flash of feeling.

"What would you do?"

"I don't know!"

She sighed.

"I think," he whispered, "that I'd--die!"

That night, when the moonlight had climbed to the crucifix on the wall, the boy got out of bed. For a long time he stood in the beam of soft light--staring at the tortured Figure.

"I think I'd better do it!" he determined.

He knelt--lifted his clasped hands--began his childish appeal.

"Dear Jesus," he prayed, "my mother says that I must not hate the wicked. You heard her, didn't you, dear Jesus? It was in the park, to-night, after church--at the bench near the lilac bush. You _must_ have heard her.... Mother says the wicked are kind, and not so bad. I would like very much to love them. She says they're nice--when you know them. I know she's right, of course. But it seems queer. And she says I _ought_ to love them. So I want to do it, if you don't mind.... Maybe, if you would let me be a little wicked for a little while, I could do it. Don't you think, Jesus, dear, that it is a good idea? A little wicked--for just a little while. I wouldn't care very much, if you didn't mind. But if it hurts you very much, I don't want to, if you please.... But I would like to be a little wicked. If I do, please don't forget me. I would not like to be wicked long. Just a little while. Then I would be good again--and love the wicked, as my mother wants me to do. Good-bye. I mean--Amen!"

The child knew nothing about sin.

_MR. PODDLE'S FINALE_

Of a yellow, balmy morning, with a languid breeze stirring the curtains in the open windows of the street, a hansom cab, drawn by a lean gray beast, appeared near the curate's door. What with his wild career, the nature of his errand, the extraordinary character of his fare, the driver was all elbows and eyes--a perspiring, gesticulating figure, swaying widely on the high perch.

Within was a lady so monstrously stout that she completely filled the vehicle. Rolls of fat were tucked into every nook, jammed into every corner, calked into every crevice; and, at last, demanding place, they scandalously overflowed the apron. So tight was the fit--so crushed and confined the lady's immensity--that, being quite unable to articulate or stir, but desiring most heartily to do both, she could do little but wheeze, and faintly wave a gigantic hand.

Proceeding thus--while the passenger gasped, and the driver gesticulated, and the hansom creaked and tottered, and the outraged horse bent to the fearful labour--the equipage presently arrived at the curate's door, and was there drawn up with a jerk.

The Fat Lady was released, assisted to alight, helped across the pavement; and having waddled up three steps of the flight, and being unable without a respite to lift her massive foot for the fourth time, she loudly demanded of the impassive door the instant appearance of Dickie Slade: whereupon, the door flew open, and the boy bounded out.

"Madame Lacara!" he cried.

"Quick, child!" the Fat Lady wheezed. "Git your hat. Your mother can't stay no longer--and I can't get up the stairs--and Poddle's dyin'--and _git your hat_!"

In a moment the boy returned. The Fat Lady was standing beside the cab--the exhausted horse contemplating her with no friendly eye.

"Git in!" said she.

"Don't you do it," the driver warned.

"Git in!" the Fat Lady repeated.

"Not if he knows what's good for him," said the driver. "Not first."

The boy hesitated.

"Git in, child!" screamed the Fat Lady.

"Don't you do it," said the driver.

"Child," the Fat Lady gasped, exasperated, "git in!"

"Not first," the driver repeated. "There ain't room for both; and once she lets her weight down----"

"Maybe," the Fat Lady admitted, after giving the matter most careful consideration, "it would be better for you to set on me."

"Maybe," the boy agreed, much relieved, "it would."

So Madame Lacara entered, and took the boy in her arms; and off, at last, they went towards the Box Street tenement, swaying, creaking, wheezing, with a troop of joyous urchins in the wake....

It was early afternoon--with the sunlight lying thick and warm on the window-ledge of Mr. Poddle's room, about to enter, to distribute cheer, to speak its unfailing promises. The sash was lifted high; a gentle wind, clean and blue, blowing from the sea, over the roofs and the river, came sportively in, with a joyous little rush and swirl--but of a sudden failed: hushed, as though by unexpected encounter with the solemnity within.