The Witness Part 36

Tennelly was pacing up and down the room. His face was white, his eyes were wild. He had the haggard look of one who has come through a long series of harrowing experiences up to the supreme torture where there is nothing worse that can happen.

Courtland's knock brought him at once to the door. With both hands they gave the fellows.h.i.+p grip that had meant so much to each in college.

A moment they stood so, looking into each other's eyes, Courtland, wondering, startled, questioning. It was Gila, of course! Nothing else could reach the man's soul and make him look like that! But what had happened? Not death! No, not even death could bring that look of shame and degradation to his high-minded friend's eyes.

As if Tennelly had read his question he spoke in a voice so husky with emotion that his words were scarcely audible: "Didn't Pat tell you?"

Courtland shook his head.

Tennelly's head went down, as if he were waiting for courage to speak.

Then, huskily: "She's gone, Court!"

"Gone?"

"Left me, Court! She sailed at daybreak for Italy with another man."

Tennelly fumbled in his pocket and brought out a crumpled note, blistered with tears. "Read it!" he muttered, and turned away to the window.

Courtland read:

DEAR LEW,--I'm sure when you come to your senses and get over some of your narrow ideas you'll be as much relieved as I am over what I've decided to do. You and I never were fitted for each other, and I can't stand this life another day. I'm simply peris.h.i.+ng! It's up to me to do something, for I know, with your strait-laced notions, you never will! So when you read this I shall be out of reach, on my way to Italy with Count von Bremen. They say there's going to be war in this country, anyway, and I hate such things, so I had to get out of it. You won't have any trouble in getting a divorce, and you'll soon be glad I did it.

As for the kid, if she lives she's much better off with you than with me, for you know I never could stand children; they get on my nerves. And, anyhow, I never could be all the things you tried to make me, and it's better in the end this way. So good-by, and don't try to come after me. I won't come back, no matter what you do, for I'm bored to death with the last two years and I've got to see some life!

GILA

Courtland read the flippant little note twice before he trusted himself to speak, and then he walked over to the window, slowly smoothing and folding the crumpled paper. A baby's cry in the next room pierced the air, and the father gripped the window-seat and quivered as if a bullet had struck him.

Courtland put his hand lovingly within his friend's arm: "Nelly, old fellow," he said, "you know that I feel with you--"

"I know, Court!" with a weary sigh. "That's why I sent for you. I had to have you, somehow!"

"Nelly! There aren't any words made delicate enough to handle this thing without hurting. It's raw flesh and full of nerves. There's just One can do anything here! I wish you believed in G.o.d!"

"I do!" said Tennelly, in a dreary tone.

"He can come near you and give you strength to bear it. I know, for He did it for me once!"

Courtland felt as if his words were falling on deaf ears, but Tennelly, after a pause, asked, bitterly:

"Why did He do this to me, if He's what you say He is?"

"I'm not sure that He did, old man! I think perhaps you and I had a hand in it!"

Tennelly looked at him keenly for an instant and turned away, silent. "I know what you mean," he said. "You told me I'd go through h.e.l.l, and I have. I knew it in a way myself, but I'm afraid I'd do it again! I loved her! G.o.d! I'm afraid--I _love her yet_! Man! You don't know what an ache such love is."

"Yes, I do," said Courtland, with a sudden light in his face, but Tennelly was not heeding him.

"It isn't entirely that I've lost her; that I've got to give up hoping that she'll some time care and settle down to knowing she is gone forever! It's the way she went! The--the--the _disgrace_! The humiliation! The awfulness of the way she went! We've never had anything like that in our family. And to think my baby has got to grow up to know that shame! To know that her mother was a disgraceful woman! That I gave her a mother like that!"

"Now, look here, Tennelly! You didn't know! You thought she would be all right when you were married!"

"But I _did know_!" wailed Tennelly. "I knew in my soul! I think I knew when I first saw her, and that was why I worried about you when you used to go and see her. I knew she wasn't the woman for you. But, blamed fool that I was! I thought I was more of a man of the world, and would be able to hold her! No, I didn't, either, for I knew it was like trying to enjoy a sound sleep in a powder-magazine with a pocketful of matches, to trust my love to her! But I did it, anyway! I dared trouble! And my little child has got to suffer for it!"

"Your little child will perhaps be better for it!"

"I can't see it that way!"

"You don't have to. If G.o.d does, isn't that enough?"

"I don't know! I can't see G.o.d now; it's too dark!" Tennelly put his forehead against the window-pane and groaned.

"But you have your little child," said Courtland, hesitating. "Isn't that something to help?"

"She breaks my heart," said the father. "To think of her worse than motherless! That little bit of a helpless thing! And it's my fault that she's here with a future of shame!"

"Nothing of the sort! It'll be your fault if she has a future of shame, but it's up to you. Her mother's shame can't hurt her if you bring her up right. It's your job, and you can get a lot of comfort out of it if you try!"

"I don't see how," dully.

"Listen, Tennelly. Does she look like her mother?"

Tennelly's sensitive face quivered with pain. "Yes," he said, huskily.

"I'll send for her and you can see." He rang a bell. "I brought her and the nurse up to town with me this morning."

An elderly, kind-faced woman brought the baby in, laid it in a big chair where they could see it, and then withdrew.

Courtland drew near, half shyly, and looked in startled wonder. The baby was strikingly like Gila, with all her grace, delicate features, wide innocent eyes. The sweep of the long lashes on the little white cheeks, that were all too white for baby flesh, seemed old and weird in the tiny face. Yet when the baby looked up and recognized its father it crowed and smiled, and the smile was wide and frank and lovable, like Tennelly's. There was nothing artificial about it. Courtland drew a long sigh of relief. For the moment he had been looking at the baby as if it were Gila grown small again; now he suddenly realized it was a new little soul with a life and a spirit of its own.

"She will be a blessing to you, Nelly," he said, looking up hopefully.

"I don't see it that way!" said the hopeless father, shaking his head.

"Would you rather have her--taken away--as her mother suggested?" he hazarded, suddenly.

Tennelly gave him one quick, startled look. "G.o.d! No!" he said, and staggered back into a chair. "Do you think she looks so sick as that? I know she's not well. I know she's lost fles.h.!.+ But she's been neglected.

Gila never cared for her and wouldn't be bothered looking after things.

She was angry because the baby came at all. She resented motherhood because it put a limitation on her pleasures. My poor little girl!"

Tennelly dropped upon his knees beside the baby and buried his face in its soft little neck.

The baby swept its dark lashes down with the old Gila trick, and looked with a puzzled frown at the dark head so close to her face. Then she put up her little hand and moved it over her father's hair with an awkward attempt at comfort. The great big being with his head in her neck was in trouble, and she was vaguely sympathetic.

A wave of pity swept over Courtland. He dropped upon his knees beside his friend and spoke aloud:

"O Lord G.o.d, come near and let my friend feel Thy Presence now in his terrible distress. Somehow speak peace to his soul and help him to know Thee, for Thou art the only One that can help him. Help him to tell Thee all his heart's bitterness now, alone with Thee and his little child, and find relief."