RENUNCIATION

When she stopped speaking because there was nothing more to be told, they sat for a little in utter silence.

When at last Erskine spoke in a low, carefully controlled voice, he asked the very last question that his mother expected.

"How soon do you think she could come to us?"

"Who?" Ruth's astonishment blurred for the moment her penetration.

"Mother! whom could I mean? The child. She must be sent for; she must come at once; or, at least as soon as a suitable escort can be secured. Would she come? And would she stay, do you think? I mean would she stay willingly? Oh, mamma, surely you will help me!"

"Erskine, dear boy, what do you want to do?"

"My duty." He withdrew his shielding hand and his pallid lips made an effort to smile; then grew grave again, taking almost stern lines.

"She is my wife's daughter; and as such I stand now in the place of father to her. As fully as it is possible for me to do so, now, I want to fill that place. To provide for her, to take care of her in any and every way that she may need care; to have my home hers as fully as it is our little son's." His voice broke there, and for a moment he was still. Then he went on.

"You said you loved her; it would not be unpleasant to you to have her here, would it?"

Then his mother found her voice.

"Erskine, Maybelle has a place in my heart second only to Baby's, and I would like so much to have her with me, that at one time I tried to plan a little home where we could be together. But—do you realize the situation, do you think? We cannot live entirely to ourselves, you know, we have friends; and we have neighbors who ask questions. If Maybelle comes to us, to remain, what is to be said to them?"

"The truth, mamma; never anything but truth. She is my wife's daughter by a former marriage, the half-sister of my boy."

"Erskine, dear son, I must hurt you, I am afraid; but do you realize what the truth will be to the child? She loves her dead father with such love as I believe few girls give, and she cherishes in her inmost heart an ideal mother who has been invested with more than human qualities; if you could hear her talk about that dear, dead mother, you would understand."

He had shielded his face again, and was quiet so long, that it seemed to her she could not bear it. At last he spoke, huskily but with firmness.

"I understand, mamma, more than you think; at least I believe I realize something of her feeling; but—I cannot help it. Truth must be spoken; the real must take the place of the ideal. Isn't it so in all our lives? I promised her dead mother that it should be so. It was perhaps a morbid feeling,—some might think so,—but in any case, she felt it; she said that she could not die without my promise that the truth should be made plain to the girl, and that she should be told the very words that her mother said, at the last. And I believe she was right," he added firmly after another moment of silence, "I will speak only truth about it all, so help me God."

Never was summons more joyfully received on the part of a young girl than the one that called Maybelle to the distant home of her newest and, as she phrased it, "almost" her best friend.

The night preceding her departure she spent with the Roberts family, where together they went over the situation as they understood it, for Erskine Roberts's benefit.

That young man had just arrived for a few days' vacation and could not be said to approve of the new plans.

"Why is Aunt Ruth in such terrific haste?" he grumbled. "She has never mentioned a visit to you before this, has she?"

"No," said Maybelle, her bright face shading for a moment. "She never said a word about it; but you know it is all very different now. She is alone; I mean there is no other woman, and there is a dear baby to be thought about; I don't positively know, but I cannot help hoping that she needs me."

Maybelle's tones had become so jubilant that they made Erskine gloomy and sarcastic.

"For nurse girl you mean, I suppose," he said savagely. "And if that delightful arrangement should be found convenient for them, I suppose you would stay on indefinitely?"

"Erskine," said his mother, smiling, "don't be a bear! she hasn't promised to stay forever."

Then Maybelle, her color much heightened, tried to explain further. "The reason for such haste is so I can have one of Mr. Burnham's partners for an escort. It was found that he had to come East on a hurried business trip, and of course it was an unusual opportunity."

"I should hope so!" grumbled the discontented youth. "And who is there to escort you back? I'll venture they haven't planned for that!" Then suddenly he bent toward the girl, ostensibly for the purpose of returning to her the letter that had dropped to the floor, and spoke for her ear alone.

"I'll tell you how we will manage that, Maybelle. I will come for you myself, if you will let me. Will you let me?"

A vivid crimson mounted to the very forehead of the fair-faced girl, and she seemed at a loss how to reply; but she certainly had not been troubled by his appeal whatever it was, so the indulgent mother slipped away and left the young people to themselves.

"Am I to tell her, Erskine?" Ruth had asked her son, on the day that she was to go to the station to meet Maybelle. He shook his head.

"No, mamma, no, I will not make it harder for you than is necessary. Yes, I know only too well how surely you would do everything for me if you could; but—I have assumed an obligation, and I do not mean to shirk it in the slightest particular. Do not tell her anything save that you wanted her—that is true, is it not?" he broke off to ask anxiously. "Then, in the evening, when she has had time to become somewhat rested from her journey, send her to me in my library and I will manage the rest."

How he managed it, or what took place during that interview which must have been strangely tragic some of the time, Ruth never fully knew. She asked no questions, and what her son and the girl revealed to her in scraps and detached expressions afterward, suggested a confidence so sacred that even she must not invade it.

She had known by the start and the swift look of pain which swept over Erskine's face when he first met Maybelle at the dinner table, that the girl in her radiant beauty suggested his dead wife. To Ruth there was a strange unlikeness to the face that she had not loved; but her heart was able to understand how Irene had been to one whom she had loved, nay worshipped, as she had her husband, a very different being, living a life solely for him, and leaving a memory that the fair girl could awaken.

Maybelle was all but overwhelmed with astonishment and a sweet timidity when Ruth told her that Erskine wanted to see her for a little while in his library.

"Not alone!" she said. "Without you, I mean? Oh! Am I not almost afraid? I mean, I shall not know what to say to him. It is all so recent, you see. I can see his beautiful character shining through his sorrow; dear Mrs. Burnham, I admire him almost as much as even his mother could wish, but I can see that a great crushing sorrow is heavy upon him, and a girl like me does not know how to touch such wounds without hurting. Does he mean to talk to me about her, do you think? Does he know that I loved her and prayed for her all the time? Oh, dear friend, don't you think he wants you too?"

Ruth kissed her tenderly, solemnly, and put her away from her. "No, dear," she said gently. "He wants to see you quite alone. He has something to tell you. You will know what to say after you have heard him; God will show you."

She closed the door after the slowly moving, half-reluctant, serious girl, and sat alone. It came to her vaguely, as one used to sacrifice, that here was another. She must sit alone with folded hands while another, and she a young girl upon whom he had never before set eyes, went down with her son into the depths of human pain. Was it always so? Was that forever the lot of motherhood, to stand aside and have some one else touch the deepest life of her children, whether in joy or pain?

The interview was long, very long. Sometimes it seemed to the waiting mother that she could not endure the strain; that she must go to that closed room and discover for herself what those two were saying to torture each other. But at last, the door across the hall opened and Maybelle came with swift feet and knelt in front of her, hid her face in the older woman's lap, and broke into a passion of weeping.

At first Ruth let the storm of pain roll on unchecked, only touching the bowed head with soothing hand and murmuring:—

"Poor child! dear little girl!"

But the girl cried on, and on, as though she would never stop, her whole slight frame shaken with the force of her sorrow.

Across the hall Ruth could hear the steady tread of her son's footsteps as he paced back and forth, fighting his battle alone. Should his mother go and try to comfort him? But this motherless one was clinging to her.

"Maybelle," she said at last, "is it a hopeless grief? Is there no One who can help?"

Then the girl made a desperate effort to control herself. She reached for Ruth's hand and gripped it in her young, strong one. Then, after another moment, she spoke:—

"Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you; I did not mean to cry at all; I said that I would not; but it was all so new, so—O mamma, mamma!"

The head, which had been raised a little, went down again; and the exceeding bitterness of that last wailing cry of renunciation Ruth never forgot. She had grace to be thankful that the mother was not there to hear it.

But the violence of the storm was over, at least so far as its outward exhibition was concerned. In a few minutes more the girl spoke quietly enough.

"He is very, very good. I did not know that any—just human being could be so good. And he spoke tenderly all the time of—of my mother. I could feel in his voice the sound of his great love for her. My poor, poor mother!"

Later, after much had been said and there had been silence between them for a few minutes, she spoke suddenly:—

"He asked me to call him 'father,' he said he wanted it." Ruth could not suppress a little start of surprise and—was it pain? In all her hours of thinking over this whole tragedy, trying to plan how all things would be, she had not thought of this. Yet it was like Erskine; the utmost atonement that he could make, in word as well as deed, would be made.

"What did you say in reply?" she asked the waiting girl.

"I said that I would try to do in all things just as he advised. I could not do less, Mrs. Burnham; he is very good. I told him about my own dear papa, and that I should always, always love and honor him as I had reason to; and he was good about that, too; he said that the way I felt about him was not only natural but it was right, and that he honored me for it. Then he spoke of Baby Erskine and called him my little brother; and that broke my heart. I have so longed to have some one of my very own. Mrs. Burnham, do you think perhaps that—that papa understands about it all, and would want me to—"

She seemed unable to express her thought in words, but Ruth understood it, and the yearning wistfulness in the child's voice was not to be resisted. The older woman put aside her own pain to comfort and counsel this girl who had certainly in strange ways been thrust upon her care.

A thought of comfort came to her, that, after a little hesitation, she gave to the girl.

"Maybelle dear, if you call my son 'father,' what name does that give to me as my rightful possession?"

She had her reward. There was a moment's wondering thought, then a flush of surprise and a wave of radiance swept over the expressive face. She spoke the word in a whisper, almost a reverent one, yet the syllables were like a caress, and thrilled with joy:—

"'Grandmother'! Oh! do you mean it? that I may?" And then the caresses that Ruth received were almost as sweet as any that she was waiting for Baby Erskine to voluntarily bestow upon her.