FullReads

A white arm in a black sleeve pointed upward in silence.

“And you would rob him of his reward?” said the mother, in a choked voice.

“Mrs. Thorne! Do you not understand me? I am not talking for effect. But this is what happens if one begins to explain. I did not come here to talk to you for the rest of my life! It was your sweetness that undid me. I will never again say what I think of parents in general.”

* * * * *

“Maggie, do you know what time it is?” a suppressed voice issued an hour later from that part of the house supposed to be dedicated to sleep. “Are you going to sit up till morning?”

“I am looking for my letter,” came the answer, in a tragic whisper.

“What letter?”

“My letter to Willy, that you wouldn’t let me read to you last night.”

“You don’t want to read it to me now, do you?”

There was no reply. A careful step kept moving about the inner rooms, newspapers rustled, and small objects were lifted and set down.

“Maggie, do come to bed! You can’t mail your letter to-night.”

“I don’t want to mail it. I want to burn it. I will not have it on my conscience a moment longer”–

“I wish you’d have me on your conscience! It’s after one o’clock.” The voices were close together now, only an open door between the speakers.

“Won’t you put something on and come out here, Henry? There is a light in Ito’s house. I suppose you wouldn’t let me go out and ask him?”

“I suppose not!”

“Then won’t you go and ask if he saw a letter on my desk, sealed and addressed?”

Mr. Thorne sat up in bed disgustedly. “What is Ito doing with a light this time of night?”

“Hush, dear; don’t speak so loud. He’s studying. He’s preparing himself to go into the Japanese navy.”

“He is, is he! And that’s why he can’t get us our breakfast before half-past eight. I’ll see about that light!”

“The letter, the letter!” Mrs. Thorne prompted in a ghostly–whisper. “Ask him if he saw it on my desk–a square blue envelope, thin paper.”

The studious little cook was seated by a hot kerosene-lamp, at a table covered with picture-papers, soft Japanese books, and writing-materials. He was in his stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves, and his mental efforts appeared to have had a confusing effect on his usually sleek black hair, which stood all ways distractedly, while his sleepy eyes blinked under Mr. Thorne’s brusque examination.

“I care fo’ everything,” he repeated, eliminating the consonants as he slid along. “Missa Tho’ne letta–all a-ready fo’ mail–I putta pos’age-stamp, gifa to shif’-boss. I think Sa’ F’a’cisco in a mo’ning. I care fo’ everything!”

“Ito cares for everything,” Mr. Thorne quoted, in answer to his wife’s haggard inquiries. “He stamped your letter and sent it to town yesterday by one of the day-shift men.”

“Now what shall be done!” Mrs. Thorne exclaimed tragically.

“I know what I shall do!” Mr. Thorne wrapped his toga around him with an air of duty done. But a husband cannot escape so easily as that. His ministering angel sat beside his bed for half an hour longer, brooding aloud over the day’s disaster, with a rigid eye upon the question of personal accountability.

“If you had not stopped me, Henry, when I tried to confess about my letter! There’s no time for the truth like the present.”

“My dear, when a person is telling a story you don’t want to interrupt with quibbles of conscience; if it made it any easier for her to think us a little better than we are, why rob her of the delusion?”

“I shall have to rob her of it to-morrow. To think of my sitting there, a whited sepulchre, and being called generous and forbearing and merciful, with that letter lying on my desk all the time!”