in a roomy old house on beacon hill dr. frank gleason made his home with his sister, mrs. ellery thayer. the family were at their north shore cottage, however, and only the doctor was at home on the night that hawkins, the thayers' old family butler, appeared at the library door with the somewhat disconcerting information that a young person with a baby and a bag was at the door and wished to speak to dr. gleason.
the doctor looked up in surprise.
"me?" he questioned. "a woman? she must mean mrs. thayer."
"she said you, sir. and she isn't a patient. i asked her, thinking she might have made a mistake and took you for a real doctor what practices. she said she didn't want doctoring. she wanted you. she's a young person i never saw before, sir."
"but, good heavens, man, it's after eleven o'clock!"
"yes, sir." on the manservant's face was an expression of lively curiosity and disapproval, mingled with a subdued but unholy mirth which was not lost on the doctor, and which particularly exasperated him.
"what in thunder can a woman with a baby want[pg 173] of me at this time of— what's her name?" demanded the doctor.
"she didn't say, sir."
"well, go ask her."
the butler coughed slightly, but made no move to leave the room.
"i did ask her, sir. she declined to give it."
"declined to— well, i like her impertinence."
"yes, sir. she said you'd"—the servant's voice faltered and swerved ever so slightly from its well-trained impassiveness—"er—understand, sir."
"she said i'd—the deuce she did!" exploded the doctor under his breath, flushing an angry red and leaping to his feet. "didn't you tell her mrs. thayer was gone?" he demanded at last, wheeling savagely.
"i did, sir, and—"
"well?"
"she said she was glad; that she wanted only you, anyway."
"wanted only—! comes here at this time of night with a bag and a baby, refuses to give her name, and says i'll understand!" snarled the doctor. "oh, come, hawkins, this is some colossal mistake, or a fool hoax, or— what kind of looking specimen is she?"
hawkins, who had known the doctor from his knickerbocker days, was guilty of a slow grin.
"she's a—a very good looker, sir."
"oh, she is! well—er, tell her i can't possibly see her; that i've gone to bed—away—sick—something![pg 174] anything! tell her she'll have to see mrs. thayer."
"yes, sir." still the man made no move to go. "she—er—beg pardon, sir—but she'll be that cut up, i fear, sir. you see, she's been cryin'. and she's young—very young."
"crying!"
"yes, sir. and she was that powerful anxious to see you, sir. i had hard work to keep her from coming with me. i did, sir. she's in the hall. and—it's raining outside, sir."
"oh, good heavens! well, bring her in," capitulated the doctor in obvious desperation.
"yes, sir." this time the words were scarcely out of his mouth before the old man was gone. in an incredibly short time he was back with a flushed-faced, agitated young woman carrying a sleeping child in her arms.
at sight of her, the doctor, who had plainly braced himself behind a most forbidding aspect, leaped forward with a low cry and a complete change of manner.
"mrs. denby!" he gasped. but instantly he fell back; for the young woman, for all the world like a tenpenny-dreadful stage heroine, hissed out a tragic "sh-h! i don't want anybody to know my name!" with a cautious glance toward the none-too-rapidly disappearing hawkins.
"but what does this mean?" demanded frank gleason, when he could find words. "where's burke?"
"he's left me."[pg 175]
"left you! impossible!"
"yes." she drew in her breath convulsively. "he says it's only to alaska with his father; but that's just to let me down easy."
"oh, but, mrs. denby—"
"you needn't try to make me think any different," she interposed wearily, sinking into the chair the doctor placed for her; "'cause you can't. i've been over everything you could say. all the way down here i didn't have anything to do only just to think and think. and i see now—such lots of things that i never saw before."
"but, why—how do you know—what made you think he has—left you?" stammered the doctor.
"because he's ashamed of me; and—"
"oh, mrs. denby!"
"you don't have to say anything about that, either," said mrs. denby very quietly. and before the dumb agony in the eyes turned full upon him, he fell silent.
"there ain't any question as to what has been done; it's just what i'm going to do," she went on wearily again. "he sent me ten thousand dollars—burke's father did; and—"
"john denby sent you ten thousand dollars!" exploded the doctor, sitting erect.
"yes; a check. i've got it here. he sent it for a playday, you know," nodded mrs. denby, shifting the weight of the heavy baby in her arms. "and—and that's why i came to you."[pg 176]
"to—to me," stammered the doctor, growing suddenly alertly miserable and nervous again. "a—a playday! but i—i—that is—how—"
"oh, i'm not going to take the playday. i couldn't even think play—now," she choked. "it's—" then in a breathless burst it came. "doctor, you can—you will help me, won't you?—to learn to stand and walk and talk and eat soup and wear the right clothes and finger nails and hair, you know, and not say the wrong things, and everything the way burke's friends do—you and all the rest of them—you know, so i can be swell and grand, too, and he won't be ashamed of me! and is ten thousand dollars enough to pay—for learning all that?"
from sheer inability to speak, the man could only fall back in his chair and stare dumbly.
"please, please don't look at me like that," besought the young woman frenziedly. "it's just as if you said you couldn't help me. but you can! i know you can. and i can do it. i know that, too. i read it in a book, once, about a girl who—who was like me. and she went away and got perfectly grand clothes, and learning, and all; and then she came back; and he—he didn't know her at first—her husband, and he fell in love with her all over again. and she didn't have near so much money as i've got. doctor, you will help me?"
the doctor, with his shocked, amazed eyes on the piteously pleading face opposite, threw up his hands in despair.[pg 177]
"but i—you—burke— oh, heavens, my dear lady! how utterly, utterly impossible this all is! come, come, what am i thinking of?—and you with not even your hat off yet! and that child! i'll call hawkins at once. he and his wife are all there are left here, just now,—my sister's at the beach. but they'll make you and little miss dorothy elizabeth here comfortable for the night. then, to-morrow, after a good sleep, we'll—we'll fix it all up. i'll get burke on the long distance, and—"
"dr. gleason," interrupted helen denby, with a calmness that would have deceived him had he not seen her eyes, "my husband isn't worrying about me. he thinks i'm at home now. when he finds i'm not, he'll think i've gone to my old home town where he told me to go for a visit. he won't worry then. so that's all right. don't you see? he's sent me away—sent me. if you tell him now that i am here, i will walk right straight out of that door, and neither you nor him nor anybody else i know shall ever see me again."
"oh, come, come," protested the doctor, again helplessly.
once more helen interrupted.
"doctor, why can't you be straight with me?" she pleaded. "i had to come to you. there wasn't anybody else i could go to. and there isn't any other way out of it—but this. i tell you i've been doing some thinking. all the way down here it's been just think, think, think."[pg 178]
the doctor wet his lips.
"but, if—if burke knew—"
"look a-here," cut in helen resolutely, "you've been to our house quite a lot since burke and me was married. you think i made burke real happy, don't you?"
there was no answer.
"you might just as well say the words with your lips, doctor. your face has said them," observed helen, a little dryly.
"well—no, then;—but i feel like a brute to say it."
"you needn't. i made you. besides, i'm glad to have you say it. we're right out in the open, now, and maybe we can get somewhere. look a-here, do you know?—for the first time in my life to-day i was sorry for john denby. i was! i got to thinking, with dorothy elizabeth all safe and snug in my arms, how, by and by, she'd be a little girl, and then a young lady. and she was so sweet and pretty, and—and i loved her so! and i got to thinking how i'd feel if somebody took her away from me the way i took burke away from his father, and married her when i didn't want her to, any more 'n burke's father wanted him to; and i—i could see then how he must have felt, worshiping burke as he did. i know—i used to see them together, when i was nurse there with mrs. allen's children. i never saw a father and son so much like—chums. he doted on burke. i know now how he felt. and—and[pg 179] it's turned out the way he said. i hain't been the one for burke at all. i've—i've dragged him down."
"mrs. denby, please—" begged the doctor.
but she paused only long enough to shake her head.
"yes, i have. i know. i've been thinking it all over—the life we've led together, and what he might have had, if he hadn't had—if it hadn't been for me. and that's why, now, i want to see if—if i can't learn how to—to make him not ashamed of me. and it ain't for me, only, it's for dorothy elizabeth. i want to teach her. it's bad enough to have him ashamed of me; but i—i just couldn't stand it if he should ever be—be ashamed of—her. and now—won't you help me, please? remember, burke don't want me at home, now, so i'm not displeasing him. won't you help me? it's my only—chance!"
the doctor sprang to his feet. his eyes were moist and his voice shook when he spoke.
"help you! i'll help you to—to bring down the moon and all the stars, if you say the word! mrs. denby, you're a—a little brick, and there's no end to the way i respect and admire you. of course i'll help you—somehow. though how i haven't the faintest idea. meanwhile you must get some rest. as i told you, my sister is at the beach, and there are only hawkins and his wife here to keep the house open. but they'll make you comfortable for the[pg 180] night, and we'll see to-morrow what can be done. we'll have some kind of a plan," he finished, as he crossed the room to ring the bell.
"oh, thank you, thank you!" breathed helen. "but, remember, please, i'm not mrs. denby. i'm mrs. darling—my mother's maiden name," she begged in a panic, as the doctor touched the bell.
true to his promise, frank gleason had a plan, of a sort, ready by morning. he told it at the breakfast table.
"i'm going to take you to my sister, provided, of course, that you agree," he announced. "five minutes' talk with her on this matter will be worth five years' with me. i shouldn't wonder if she kept you herself,—for a time, with her. and you couldn't be in a better place. perhaps you'll be willing to help her with the children—and she'll be glad of that, i know."
"but—my money—can't i pay—money?" faltered helen.
he shook his head.
"not if we can help it. your money you'll need later for miss dorothy—unless you are willing to make yourself known to your husband sooner than you seem now to be willing to. we'll invest it in something safe and solid, and it'll bring you in a few hundred a year. you'll have that to spend; and that will go quite a way—under some circumstances."[pg 181]
"but i—i want to—to learn things, you know," stammered helen; "how to be—be—"
"you'll learn—lots of things, if you live with my sister," remarked the doctor significantly.
"oh!" smiled helen, with a sigh of relief and content.
the doctor sighed, too,—though not at all with either relief or content. to the doctor, the task before him loomed as absurd and unreal as if it were, indeed, the pulling-down of the stars and the moon—the carrying-out of his extravagant promise of the night before.
