by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XXI
THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
It was all clear now, the mystery of Cleo's assurance, of her happiness, ofher acceptance of his going without protest.
She had known the truth from the first and had reckoned on his strength andmanliness to draw him to her in this hour.
"I'll show her!" he said in fierce rebellion. "I'll give her the money sheneeds--yes--but her shadow shall never again darken my life. I won't permitthis shame to smirch the soul of my boy--I'll die first!"
He moved to the West side of town, permitted no one to learn his newaddress, sent her money from the general postoffice, and directed all hismail to a lock box he had secured.
He destroyed thus every trace by which she might discover his residence ifshe dared to venture into New York.
To his surprise it was more than three weeks before he received a replyfrom her. And the second letter made an appeal well-nigh resistless. Themessage was brief, but she had instinctively chosen the words that foundhim. How well she knew that side of his nature! He resented it with rageand tried to read all sorts of sinister guile into the lines. But as hescanned them a second time reason rejected all save the simplest and mostobvious meaning the words implied.
The letter was evidently written in a cramped position. She had missed thelines many times and some words were so scrawled they were scarcelylegible. But he read them all at last:
"I have been very sick since your letter came with the money. I tried to get up too soon. I have suffered awfully. You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through. Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now. I want to see you just once, and then I won't trouble you any more. I am very weak to-day, but I'll soon be strong again.
"CLEO."
It made him furious, this subtle appeal to his keen sense of fatherhood.She knew how tenderly he loved his boy. She knew that while suchobligations rest lightly on some men, the tie that bound him to his son wasthe biggest thing in his life. She had been near him long enough to learnthe secret things of his inner life. She was using them now to break downthe barriers of character and self-respect. He could see it plainly. Hehated her for it and yet the appeal went straight to his heart.
Two things in this letter he couldn't get away from:
"You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through."
He kept reading this over. And the next line:
"Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now."
The appeal was so human, so simple, so obviously sincere, no man with asoul could ignore it. How could she help it now? She too had been sweptinto the tragic situation by the blind forces of Nature. After all, had itnot been inevitable? Did not such a position of daily intimate physicalcontact--morning, noon and night--mean just this? Could she have helped it?Were they not both the victims, in a sense, of the follies of centuries?Had he the right to be angry with her?
His reason answered, no. And again came the deeper question--can any manever escape the consequences of his deeds? Deeds are of the infinite andeternal and the smallest one disturbs the universe. It slowly began to dawnon him that nothing he could ever do or say could change one elementalfact. She was a mother--a fact bigger than all the forms and ceremonies ofthe ages. It was just this thing in his history that made his sin againstthe wife so poignant, both to her and to his imagination. A child was achild, and he had no right to sneak and play a coward in such an hour.
Step by step the woman's simple cry forced its way into the soul and slowlybut surely the rags were stripped from pride, until he began to see himselfnaked and without sham.
The one thing that finally cut deepest was the single sentence: "You see, Ididn't know how much I had gone through----"
He read it again with a feeling of awe. No matter what the shade of herolive cheek or the length of her curly hair, she was a mother with all thatbig word means in the language of men. Say what he might--of her art inleading him on, of her final offering herself in a hundred subtle ways intheir daily life in his home--he was still responsible. He had accepted thechallenge at last.
And he knew what it meant to any woman under the best conditions, with amother's face hovering near and the man she loved by her side. He sawagain the scene of his boy's birth. And then another picture--a lonely girlin a strange city without a friend--a cot in the whitewashed ward of acity's hospital--a pair of startled eyes looking in vain for a loved,familiar face as her trembling feet stepped falteringly down into thevalley that lies between Life and Death!
A pitiful thing, this hour of suffering and of waiting for the unknown.
His heart went out to her in sympathy, and he answered her letter with apromise to come. But on the day he was to start for Baltimore mammy wasstricken with a cold which developed into pneumonia. Unaccustomed to therigors of a Northern climate, she had been careless and the result from thefirst was doubtful. To leave her was, of course, impossible.
He sent for a doctor and two nurses and no care or expense was spared, butin spite of every effort she died. It was four weeks before he returnedfrom the funeral in the South.
He reached Baltimore in a blinding snowstorm the week preceding Christmas.Cleo had left the hospital three weeks previous to his arrival, and forsome unexplained reason had spent a week or ten days in Norfolk andreturned in time to meet him.
He failed to find her at the address she had given him, but was directed toan obscure hotel in another quarter of the city.
He was surprised and puzzled at the attitude assumed at this meeting. Shewas nervous, irritable, insolent and apparently anxious for a fight.
"Well, why do you stare at me like that?" she asked angrily.
"Was I staring?" he said with an effort at self-control.
"After all I've been through the past weeks," she said bitterly, "I didn'tcare whether I lived or died."
"I meant to have come at once as I wrote you. But mammy's illness and deathmade it impossible to get here sooner."
"One excuse is as good as another," she retorted with a contemptuous tossof her head.
Norton looked at her in blank amazement. It was inconceivable that this wasthe same woman who wrote him the simple, sincere appeal a few weeks ago. Itwas possible, of course, that suffering had embittered her mind and reducedher temporarily to the nervous condition in which she appeared.
"Why do you keep staring at me?" she asked again, with insolent ill-temper.
He was so enraged at her evident attempt to bully him into an attitude ofabject sympathy, he shot her a look of rage, seized his hat and without aword started for the door.
With a cry of despair she was by his side and grasped his arm:
"Please--please don't!"
"Change your tactics, then, if you have anything to say to me."
She flushed, stammered, looked at him queerly and then smiled:
"Yes, I will, major--please don't be mad at me! You see, I'm just a littlecrazy. I've been through so much since I came here I didn't know what I wassaying to you. I'm awfully sorry--let me take your hat----"
She took his hat, laid it on the table and led him to a seat.
"Please sit down. I'm so glad you've come, and I thank you for coming. I'mjust as humble and grateful as I can be. You must forget how foolish I'veacted. I've been so miserable and scared and lonely, it's a wonder Ihaven't jumped into the bay. And I just thought at last that you were nevercoming."
Norton looked at her with new astonishment. Not because there was anythingstrange in what she said--he had expected some such words on his arrival,but because they didn't ring true. She seemed to be lying. There was anexpression of furtive cunning in her greenish eyes that was uncanny. Hecouldn't make her out. In spite of the effort to be friendly she wasrepulsive.
"Well, I'm here," he said calmly. "You have something to say--what is it?"
"Of course," she answered smilingly. "I have a lot to say. I want
you totell me what to do."
"Anything you like," he answered bluntly.
"It's nothing to you?"
"I'll give you an allowance."
"Is that all?"
"What else do you expect?"
"You don't want to see her?"
"No."
"I thought you were coming for that?"
"I've changed my mind. And the less we see of each other the better. I'llgo with you to-morrow and verify the records----"
Cleo laughed:
"You don't think I'm joking about her birth?"
"No. But I'm not going to take your word for it."
"All right, I'll go with you to-morrow."
He started again to the door. He felt that he must leave--that he wassmothering. Something about the girl's manner got on his nerves. Not onlywas there no sort of sympathy or attraction between them but the longer hestayed in her presence the more he felt the desire to choke her. He beganto look into her eyes with growing suspicion and hate, and behind theirsmiling plausibility he felt the power of a secret deadly hostility.
"You don't want me to go back home with the child, do you?" Cleo asked witha furtive glance.
"No, I do not," he replied, emphatically.
"I'm going back--but I'll give her up and let you educate her in a conventon one condition----"
"What?" he asked sharply.
"That you let me nurse the boy again and give me the protection and shelterof your home----"
"Never!" he cried.
"Please be reasonable. It will be best for you and best for me and best forher that her life shall never be blackened by the stain of my blood. I'vethought it all out. It's the only way----"
"No," he replied sternly. "I'll educate her in my own way, if placed in myhands without condition. But you shall never enter my house again----"
"Is it fair," she pleaded, "to take everything from me and turn me out inthe world alone? I'll give your boy all the love of a hungry heart. Heloves me."
"He has forgotten your existence----"
"You know that he hasn't!"
"I know that he has," Norton persisted with rising wrath. "It's a waste ofbreath for you to talk to me about this thing"--he turned on her fiercely:
"Why do you wish to go back there? To grin and hint the truth to yourfriends?"
"You know that I'd cut my tongue out sooner than betray you. I'd like toscream it from every housetop--yes. But I won't. I won't, because you smileor frown means too much to me. I'm asking this that I may live and work foryou and be your slave without money and without price----"
"I understand," he broke in bitterly, "because you think that thus you canagain drag me down--well, you can't do it! The power you once had isgone--gone forever--never to return----"
"Then why be afraid? No one there knows except my mother. You hate me. Allright. I can do you no harm. I'll never hate you. I'll just be happy toserve you, to love your boy and help you rear him to be a fine man. Let mego back with you and open the old house again----"
He lifted his hand with a gesture of angry impatience:
"Enough of this now--you go your way in life and I go mine."
"I'll not give her up except on my conditions----"
"Then you can keep her and go where you please. If you return home you'llnot find me. I'll put the ocean between us if necessary----"
He stepped quickly to the door and she knew it was needless to arguefurther.
"Come to my hotel to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and I'll make you asettlement through a lawyer."
"I'll be there," she answered in a low tone, "but please, major, before yougo let me ask you not to remember the foolish things I said and the way Iacted when you came. I'm so sorry--forgive me. I made you terribly mad. Idon't know what was the matter with me. Remember I'm just a foolish girlhere without a friend----"
She stopped, her voice failing:
"Oh, my God, I'm so lonely, I don't want to live! You don't know what itmeans for me just to be near you--please let me go home with you!"
There was something genuine in this last cry. It reached his heart in spiteof anger. He hesitated and spoke in kindly tones:
"Good night--I'll see you in the morning."
This plea of loneliness and homesickness found the weak spot in his armor.It was so clearly the echo of his own feelings. The old home, with itsbeautiful and sad memories, his people and his work had begun to pullresistlessly. Her suggestion was a subtle and dangerous one, doublyseductive because it was so safe a solution of difficulties. There was notthe shadow of a doubt that her deeper purpose was to ultimately dominatehis personal life. He was sure of his strength, yet he knew that the wisething to do was to refuse to listen.
At ten o'clock next morning she came. He had called a lawyer and drawn up asettlement that only waited her signature.
She had not said she would sign--she had not positively refused. She waslooking at him with dumb pleading eyes.
"He had heard the call of his people."]
Without a moment's warning the boy pushed his way into the room. Nortonsprang before Cleo and shouted angrily to the nurse:
"I told you not to let him come into this room----"
"But you see I des tum!" the boy answered with a laugh as he darted to thecorner.
The thing he dreaded had happened. In a moment the child saw Cleo. Therewas just an instant's hesitation and the father smiled that he hadforgotten her. But the hesitation was only the moment of dazed surprise.With a scream of joy he crossed the room and sprang into her arms:
"Oh, Cleo--Cleo--my Cleo! You've tum--you've tum! Look, Daddy! She'stum--my Cleo!"
He hugged her, he kissed her, he patted her flushed cheeks, he ran hislittle fingers through her tangled hair, drew himself up and kissed heragain.
She snatched him to her heart and burst into uncontrollable sobs, raisedher eyes streaming with tears to Norton and said softly:
"Let me go home with you!"
He looked at her, hesitated and then slowly tore the legal document topieces, threw it in the fire and nodded his consent.
But this time his act was not surrender. He had heard the call of hispeople and his country. It was the first step toward the execution of a newlife purpose that had suddenly flamed in the depths of his darkened soul ashe watched the picture of the olive cheek of the woman against the clearwhite of his child's.
Book Two--Atonement