The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER XXXII

  CONFESSION

  When Dr. Williams entered the room Helen was still holding Tom's head inher lap.

  He had stirred once with a low groan.

  "The major is dead, but Tom's alive, doctor!" she cried through her tears."He's going to live, too--I feel it--I know it--tell me that it's so!"

  The lips trembled pitifully with the last words.

  The doctor felt the pulse and was silent.

  "It's all right? He's going to live--isn't he?" she asked pathetically.

  "I can't tell yet, my child," was the calm answer.

  He examined the wound and ran his hand over the blonde hair. His fingersstopped suddenly and he felt the head carefully. He bent low, parted thehair and found a damp blood mark three inches above the line of theforehead.

  "See!" he cried, "the ball came out here. His head was thrown far back, thebullet struck the inner skull bone at an angle and glanced."

  "What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.

  The doctor smiled:

  "That the brain is untouched. He is only stunned and in a swoon. He'll bewell in two weeks."

  Helen lifted her eyes and sobbed:

  "O God!"

  She tried to bend and kiss Tom's lips, her body swayed and she fellbackward in a dead faint.

  Andy and Minerva carried her to her room, left Cleo to minister to her andreturned to help the doctor.

  He examined Norton's body to make sure that life was extinct and placed thebody on an improvised bed on the floor until he should regain his senses.

  In half an hour Tom looked into the doctor's face:

  "Why, it's Doctor Williams?"

  "Yes."

  "What--what's happened?"

  "It's only a scratch for you, my boy. You'll be well in a few days----"

  "Well in a few days"--he repeated blankly. "I can't get well! I've got todie"--his head dropped and he caught his breath.

  The doctor waited for him to recover himself to ask the question that wason his lips. He had gotten as yet no explanation of the tragedy save Cleo'sstatement that the major had shot Tom and killed himself. He had guessedthat the ugly secret in Norton's life was in some way responsible.

  "Why must you die, my boy?" he asked kindly.

  Tom opened his eyes in a wild stare:

  "Helen's my wife--we married secretly without my father knowing it. He hasjust told me that Cleo is her mother and I have married my own----"

  His voice broke and his head sank.

  The doctor seized the boy's hand and spoke eagerly:

  "It's a lie, boy! It's a lie! Take my word for it----"

  Tom shook his head.

  "I'll stake my life on it that it's a lie"--the old man repeated--"and I'llprove it--I'll prove it from Cleo's lips!"

  "You--you--can do it!" the boy said hopelessly, though his eyes flashedwith a new light.

  "Keep still until I return!" the doctor cried, "and I'll bring Cleo withme."

  He placed the revolver in his pocket and hastily left the room, the boy'seyes following him with feverish excitement.

  He called Cleo into the hall and closed Helen's door.

  The old man seized her hand with a cruel grip:

  "Do you dare tell me that this girl is your daughter?"

  She trembled and faltered:

  "Yes!"

  "You're a liar!" he hissed. "You may have fooled Norton for twenty years,but you can't fool me. I've seen too much of this sort of thing. I'll stakemy immortal soul on it that no girl with Helen's pure white skin andscarlet cheeks, clean-cut features and deep blue eyes can have in her bodya drop of negro blood!"

  "She's mine all the same, and you know when she was born," the womanpersisted.

  He could feel her body trembling, looked at her curiously and said:

  "Come down stairs with me a minute."

  Cleo drew back:

  "I don't want to go in that room again!"

  "You've got to come!"

  He seized her roughly and drew her down the stairs into the library.

  She gripped the door, panting in terror. He loosed her hands and pushedher inside before the lounge on which the body of Norton lay, the coldwide-open eyes staring straight into her face.

  She looked a moment in abject horror, shivered and covered her eyes:

  "Oh, my God, let me go!"

  The doctor tore her hands from her face and confronted her. His snow-whitebeard and hair, his tense figure and flaming anger seemed to the tremblingwoman the image of an avenging fate as he solemnly cried:

  "Here, in the presence of Death, with the all-seeing eye of God as yourwitness, and the life of the boy you once held in your arms hanging on yourwords, I ask if that girl is your daughter?"

  The greenish eyes wavered, but the answer came clear at last:

  "No----"

  "I knew it!" the doctor cried. "Now the whole truth!"

  The color mounted Tom's cheeks as he listened.

  "My own baby died," she began falteringly, "I was wild with grief andhunted for another. I found Helen in Norfolk at the house of an old womanwhom I knew, and she gave her to me----"

  "Or you stole her--no matter"--the doctor interrupted--"Go on."

  Helen had slipped down stairs, crept into the room unobserved and stoodlistening.

  "Who was the child's mother?" the doctor demanded.

  Cleo was gasping for breath:

  "The daughter of an old fool who had disowned her because she ran away andmarried a poor white boy--the husband died--the father never forgave her.When the baby was born the mother died, too, and I got the child from theold nurse--she's pure white--there's not a stain of any kind on her birth!"

  With a cry of joy Helen knelt and drew Tom into her arms:

  "Oh, darling, did you hear it--oh, my sweetheart, did you hear it?"

  The boy's head sank on her breast and he breathed softly:

  "Thank God!"