The Road to Understanding Part 55

"Yes, she's been talking to me, and-- Oh, mother, mother, _why_ did you come here--_now_?" cried Betty, springing to her feet in sudden frenzy again. "How could you let me go there? And only to-day--this morning, he told me he wanted to adopt me! And you--he was going to have us both there--to live. He said he was so lonely, and that I--I made the sun s.h.i.+ne for the first time for years. And afterwards, when I found out _who_ he was, I thought he meant it as a salve to heal all the unhappiness he'd caused you. I thought he was trying to _pay_; and I told him--"

"You _told_ him! You mean you've seen him since--Mrs. Cobb?"

"Yes. I went back. I told him--"

"Oh, Betty, Betty, what are you saying?" moaned her mother. "What have you done? You didn't tell him _that_ way!"

"Indeed I did! I told him I knew--everything now; and that he needn't think he could wipe it out. And he wanted to see you, and I said he couldn't. I--"

An electric bell pealed sharply through the tiny apartment.

"Mother, that's he! I know it's he! Mother, don't let him in," implored Betty. But her mother already was in the hall.

Betty, frightened, despairing, and angry, turned her back and walked to the window. She heard the man's quick cry and the woman's sobbing answer. She heard the broken, incoherent sentences with which the man and the woman attempted to crowd into one brief delirious minute all the long years of heartache and absence. She heard the pleading, the heart-hunger, the final rapturous bliss that vibrated through every tone and word. But she did not turn. She did not turn even when some minutes later her father's voice, low, unsteady, but infinitely tender, reached her ears.

"Betty, your mother has forgiven me. Can't--you?"

There was no answer.

"Betty, dear, he means--we've forgiven each other, and--if _I_ am happy, can't you be?" begged Betty's mother, tremulously.

Still no answer.

"Betty," began the woman again pleadingly.

But the man interposed, a little sadly:--

"Don't urge her, Helen. After all, I deserve everything she can say, or do."

"But she doesn't understand," faltered Helen.

The man shook his head. A wistful smile was on his lips.

"No, she doesn't--understand," he said. "It's a long road to--understanding, dear. You and I have found it so."

"Yes, I know." Helen's voice was very low.

"And there are sticks and stones and numberless twigs to trip one's feet," went on the man softly. "And there are valleys of despair and mountains of doubt to be encountered--and Betty has come only a little bit of the way. Betty is young."

"But"--it was Helen's tremulous voice--"it's on the mountain-tops that--that we ought to be able to see the end of the journey, you know."

"Yes; but there are all those guideboards, remember," said the man, "and Betty hasn't come to the guideboards yet--regret--remorse--forgiveness-- patience, and--atonement."

There was a sudden movement at the window. Then Betty, misty-eyed, stood before them.

"I know I am--on the mountain of doubt now, but"--she paused, her gaze going from one to the other of the wondrously glorified faces before her--"I'll try so hard to see--the end of the journey," she faltered.

"Betty!" sobbed two adoring voices, as loving arms enfolded her.