ALONE

She laid a tender motherly hand on his arm as she said:—

"Something has been troubling me, Erskine, something that I cannot explain, because there is a sense in which it is not my trouble at all, but has to do with others. For a time I was very much perplexed, but I have settled it now, what my share in it should be, so that it need not perplex me any more."

She knew that the truth was deceiving him, but it satisfied him. He believed that Mamie Parker's troubles, whatever they were, had been brought for his mother to share. His face cleared a little, but he felt it his duty to administer a loving admonition.

"Remember your one weakness, mamma; there was always in your nature a temptation to 'bear one another's burdens' too literally. If there is any way in which I can help without infringing on confidences, you will let me, of course?"

She was able to smile as she assured him that she would. Despite her night of vigil she felt strong. Her part had been revealed to her. She was to keep Irene's secret, to suffer and to act in her stead; and to shield her son's name and home as much as lay in her power. A miserable travesty of a home it looked to her; still, it was all he had, and for a time at least it could be kept sacred in Erskine's eyes. She had no faith in a perpetual concealment; such skeletons, she believed, were always unearthed sooner or later—often in unexpected and mysterious ways. How remarkable, for instance, it was that, of all the young women in the world who might have discovered and befriended the deserted child it should have been their old acquaintance Mamie Parker! Still, this morning, she could thank God that she need not be the one to unearth this secret.

Of course the child must be planned for—there was no danger that Ruth would forget her—but it had become very clear to her that nothing but disaster could result from an enforced acknowledgement of her by the mother at this late day. If Irene wanted her—if her heart had turned toward her child in the slightest, or, failing in heart, if her conscience had impelled her to make the least small effort to repair some of the mischief, then, indeed, Ruth would have braved public opinion, gossip, Erskine's pain and shame, everything to help her. And she could do it understandingly. Had not Ruth Erskine, away back in her girlhood, helped her father in his tardy right-doing?

It is true that, even at this late day, her face flushed with pain and shame over the thought of the manner in which she had done this, at first; still, she had done it. And later, had she not herself taken the initiative and opened the way for her husband to do his belated duty? Who could know better than she the cost of such effort? But there was one infinite difference between past experiences and present problems. Both her father and her husband, when the crucial test came, had a foundation of moral strength to build upon; while Irene—

Ruth Burnham knew that she had tried very hard to find some lighting up of the story. She had thoroughly probed Mamie Parker to discover whether or not through the years the mother had made some sign which proved that she at least knew of the continued existence of her daughter; but there had been absolutely no proof that she had ever thought of her six months' old baby again! Ruth had to turn quickly away from that subject as one that would not bear dwelling on. The idea that a mother had actually and deliberately abandoned her baby, roused such a sense of revolt in this woman's heart that there were times when she told herself that she could not breathe in the same house with such a creature.

Miss Parker herself had seemed able to appreciate this feeling. At least she had given no hint that she expected or hoped anything whatever from the mother, and frankly owned that she had avoided meeting her on occasions when there would have been opportunity. She had not felt, she said simply, that anything could be gained by coming in contact with her. And all her plea had been that Erskine's mother should in some way interest herself in the welfare of the lonely girl.

She was very lonely, now, more so by far than she used to be, Miss Parker had said in a voice that trembled. Then she had waited a few minutes to regain self-control before she explained that her mother had to a very great extent taken the place of mother to the little one.

"She used to spend her vacations with us," she said, "and mother fell into the habit of looking after her clothes and her comfort in every way, just as though she were a daughter; and the child loved mother with a devotion that is uncommon in one so young. Of course she cannot but miss her sadly."

"Have you lately lost your mother?" Ruth had inquired, and her tone had been so full of tender sympathy that Miss Parker had explained in detail how it was that she had only her brother left. That was why she was going out to him, so that they might be together, at least for a time, since they were all that was left of home.

Jim had not married; his sister sometimes feared that he never would. Didn't Mrs. Burnham think that was a calamity for a man?

"I used to think so," Ruth had replied, as one who did not realize that she was speaking aloud, and then she had started and flushed over the thought of what she might thus be revealing; and the flush had deepened as she remembered what this woman already knew of her son's wife. But Miss Parker had not once glanced in her direction, and made no sign that she had heard. She went on, quietly, talking about her brother. Men, she thought, were different in that respect from women. A woman need never marry in order to be comfortable, or to be cared for; but there were ways in which the average man was helpless and almost homeless without the one woman to care for him, selected from all the world. This was so different from the usual putting of the subject that Mrs. Burnham had felt impelled to smile. Yet as she looked at the beautiful woman opposite her she admitted that her brother's home would certainly be brightened by her presence. Still, it was a long way to go to make a home for a brother.

"Do you have any thought of remaining there," she had asked. "I mean, of making it a permanent home?"

Miss Parker did not know. She had not allowed herself to look ahead very far. There were so many changes in life that it did not seem wise to try to plan. She should like to remain there, like it very much, she believed; that is, if she could help in the work. She was sure that she could help Jim; at least, she could take care of him, and give him more time to do his work; and Jim was a success. Still, there were times when she was sorry that she had planned in this way, on Maybelle's account. Even now, if she could make a change, could delay a little, without incommoding her brother, she would do so; but Jim had made plans in view of her coming that would seriously inconvenience him if she did not go.

Yes, there had been changes, sad changes since her plans were made. Mr. Somerville, who was a frail man and hopelessly careless of himself, had contracted a cold, a few months ago, that had settled on his lungs; and it was now evident to all but that poor little girl that she would, before long, be fatherless.

Oh, she would be cared for, no doubt, so far as her body was concerned. She was at school, and it was a good school, as good, perhaps, as any of them. At least she, and her mother, had been at infinite pains to discover it; still, it was school, and not home, and poor Maybelle had never been quite happy there. The teachers were kind, but cold and unsympathetic. They did not understand the child, and they almost openly disapproved of her father. He went every day to see her, but the time was coming when he would no longer be able to do so, and she dreaded to think what Maybelle would do when this truth dawned upon her.

In these and many other ways had Miss Parker made it apparent to Mrs. Burnham that her hope lay in winning the woman who had been so much to her, to become this deserted and lonely child's friend and guardian.

This was the problem therefore which occupied Ruth Burnham's chief thought for a number of days following Miss Parker's visit. Only one decision with regard to it had been reached: that she would do what she could; but what that would be, she was unable to determine. Her way seemed hedged in with difficulties which had not occurred to her during those first awful hours. How, for instance, was she, a stranger, with no claim to other than a stranger's interest that she could press, to present herself before a young woman who was under the care of her own father, and beg to be taken as a friend and adviser?

Then, too, she shrank exceedingly from meeting the father; meeting and talking with a man who had been Irene's husband! his very presence on the earth seemed an insult to her son! What explanation could she possibly make to him as to her interest in his daughter? Would her name tell him anything? What did he know of the after history of the mother of his child? If he was acquainted with her present name, might he not look upon the coming of her husband's mother as an added insult? For, after all, he was a decent man, decent enough for a woman like Mamie Parker to acknowledge his acquaintance; and he had done what he could for his deserted child. She could not even find that he had been seriously to blame for the child's desertion; therefore he might well resent this tardy coming to his aid.

Going back step by step over her interview with Miss Parker, Ruth found that there were many questions which she had failed to ask; and among them was this important one as to the father's knowledge of Irene's present name and home. It seemed almost necessary to wait and write to Miss Parker before attempting anything. Yet she shrank morbidly from this; it seemed like opening the whole horror afresh.

If there were actual need on the part of the girl, such as could be met by money, her way would have been clearer. But of this she had thought at once, and Miss Parker had almost dignifiedly declined her help.

"Dear Mrs. Burnham, I consider it my privilege to look after Maybelle in all such ways; we have done it for years, mother and I together, and now it seems almost like her trust to me. It has been a real comfort to see that the child was provided with such little luxuries of the toilet, for instance, as I longed for and could not have. We were much straitened in my girlhood, and I have been living my life over again in this young girl; though she is much less silly than I was. I must not be deprived of this privilege, Mrs. Burnham; indeed I have her father's permission to do for her whatever I think wise; he trusts me fully; and I have no one else, now, to think about."

So that avenue seemed closed. Ruth, thinking about it almost irritably as the complications grew upon her, told herself that it would have been wiser for Mamie Parker to plan to stay away from China and attend to all the rest of it; she could do it better than any one else.

She wrote to Miss Parker at last, a careful letter, re-written several times lest it tell too much between lines.

That young woman had evidently taken it for granted that the Burnham family were supplied with the main facts in this tragedy, and had found it hard to rally from her astonishment at finding the mother in ignorance. Ruth knew that she believed that Erskine was not. She longed to tell her that this was false, yet held her pen. Did not this infringe upon her solemn covenant with God to shield her daughter-in-law as much as right would permit? Yet, was it right to let her son's good name be smirched unnecessarily in the eyes of this woman who had known him in his spotless youth?

At last she wrote this:—

"Since our interview I have been through a bitter experience trying to decide as to my duty in certain directions. I believe now that I have reached a decision, and feel that I am not called upon to tear down with my own hands the fair home which my son believes he has begun to build. He is God's own servant, and God will see to it that he understands all that he must understand. I believe that I may leave it with Him."

She waited eagerly for a reply to this letter; it came in the form of a telegram.

"I am to sail on Saturday. My poor little girl is alone. Father buried yesterday. Have written.

"M. M. Parker."