LITMIR.BIZ

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Creeks partly to avoid being visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But the thing was too confoundedly awkward—too embarrassing altogether."

      "But she writes—she writes continually. Tells me what he weighs, and when he's got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the carpet and into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and drinks I don't know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort of thing. I believe the rascal has the appetite of a young tiger—and yet I can't pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed with, so that I've not even her board to send a cheque for, that they might by chance make a trifle of profit out of. It seems too late now to simply take the child away, and there leave it. I haven't the shabby courage to do such a thing; and besides, he might come to any sort of grief, poor little chap, in that case. There's no doubt in the world that her taking of him and doing for him have been the salvation of his health, and perhaps his life. And I know, by what she tells me, that he regularly dotes on her—as so he ought—and would howl his very head off if I took him from her. What could I do with him if I did take him? I've no home, and nobody to look after it if I had; and hired servants are the deuce with a lone man at their mercy. It would be worse now than it was at first. And so'—with another heavy sigh—'you see the situation. I'm just swallowed up, body and bones, drowned fathoms deep in a sea of debt and obligation that I can never by any possibility struggle out of, except—"

      "Except," continued Alice, with the candid air of a kind and sensible sister—"except by marrying her, you mean? Yes, I see the situation. I appreciate your point of view. I should understand it if it were not that she unquestionably laid the trap for you deliberately—just as that spider laid his for moths and flies. And marriage by capture has gone out."

      "Oh, don't say that!" the man protested, in haste. "I would not for a moment accuse her of that. She was Lily's friend; it was for her—it was out of pure womanly compassion for the motherless child; at any rate, in the beginning. And even now I have no right whatever to suppose—"

      "But you know it, all the same. Every word you have said to me tells me that you know it. You may as well be frank."

      He squirmed a little in his chair, but confessed as required.

      "Well—but it's a caddish thing to say—I think she does expect it. And hasn't she the right to expect it? However, that's neither here nor there. The point is that, in common honesty and manliness, I should repay her if I can; and there's no other way—at least, I can't see any other way. It is my fault, and not hers, that I don't take to the notion; for a better woman never walked, nor one that would make a better mother to the boy. But, somehow, you DO like to have your free choice, don't you?" He had come as far as this—that he could entertain the idea of choice, which meant a second choice.

      "It would be utterly wrong, absolutely immoral, downright wicked, to forego it," Alice declaimed, with energy. "It would be nothing short of criminal, Mr. Carey."

      She argued the point with eloquence, even excitedly; and when she had brought him to reason—very willing to be brought—leaned back in her chair with a joyous air.

      "Oh, we will arrange it!" she reassured him. "There are plenty of ways. I'll tell you"—bending forward again and gazing earnestly into eyes from which something that had been looking out of them seemed to have drawn back hastily—"you shall introduce me to her, and I will bring him away up here for a visit. He ought to be in the country in summer, and he will come with me, I know, and won't miss her after a couple of days. I can get you a nurse cheap from some of the selectors, and one more or less makes not the slightest difference in a house like this; and I will take care of him for you until you come back next voyage, or for just as long as you will trust him to me. So the difficulty will solve itself without any fuss. Do you see?"

      Guthrie Carey felt unable to reply. He could only murmur again and again: "You are awfully good, Miss Urquhart. 'Pon my word, you are too good altogether." Later, he declared more firmly that he could not think of troubling her.

      "Nonsense!" she returned lightly. "It is all settled."

      CHAPTER III.

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      Decidedly he was a coward, with all his brawn and inches; for he dared not protest straight-forwardly that all was not settled. He certainly told himself that he did not know what to do, but he also told himself that he would be a fool to do practically the same thing that he had done before. He passed a sleepless night, poor fellow, cogitating the matter; and in the morning, when the moon was gone, saw clearly himself where the path of prudence lay. Still he lacked courage to make it clear to Miss Urquhart, even while he saw her laying out, with enthusiasm, that road of her own which his terrified imagination pictured her marching along presently, bearing the baby aloft in her arms, and dragging him on a dog-chain behind her. It was not until mid-day that he suddenly became a brave man—about five minutes after the arrival of Deborah Pennycuick.

      She rode over from Redford, all by herself, as her frequent custom was, to see how Five Creeks was getting on, and to talk over plans for Christmas. She wore a brown holland habit over the most beautifully moulded form, and, entering the house, tossed aside a shady hat from the most beautiful face that ever delighted eyes of man and virile heart of three-and-twenty. It is in such plain terms that one must describe this noble creature; words in half-tones are unworthy of the theme. Being introduced by Alice Urquhart, Guthrie Carey, in a sense, expanded on the spot into a fresh stage, a larger scope of being, with his unleaping recognition of her inspiring greatness. It seemed to him that he had never looked upon a woman before. Lily, of course, had been an angel. "I thought I should just strike lunch," she said, as she came like a sunbeam into the dim, low-ceiled, threadbare, comfortable room where the meal was ready. "I'm as hungry as a hunter, Mrs. Urquhart."

      The homely old woman uttered a cry of joy, and spread her arms. The visitor, incarnate dignity, bent to the maternal caress with willing affection, yet with the tolerant air of good-nature that does not run to gush. The children gathered round her, and hung upon her, undeterred by the fact that she had no kisses or fondlings for them. Jim stood motionless, glowing at the back of his fixed eyes.

      When the family had done greeting her, Guthrie was brought forward.

      "This is Mr. Carey, Deb, who—"

      "Oh, yes, I know"—and the frank hand, large, strong and beautiful, like every bit of her, went out to him as if she had really known him—"it is on Mr. Carey's account that I have come, to tell you that you must bring him over to Redford at once."

      "We were going to," said Alice; for it was the natural thing to take every Five Creeks visitor to Redford as soon as possible. "I was writing to you only this morning."

      "Well, we just wanted to make sure. My father—you will excuse him for not calling on you; he is not able to get about as he used, poor old man—hears that you belong to a family at home which was very intimate with his family when he was young. Do you come from Norfolk?"

      "No," replied the sailor, still in his dream.

      "Oh, dear, what a pity! He will be so disappointed. We have been hearing about the Careys of Wellwood all our lives—never were such people, apparently—and when he heard your name, and got the idea that you were of the clan, nothing would do but that you must be fetched at once, to talk to him about them. Aren't you even a second cousin, or something?"

      "My grandfather was born at Wellwood—"

      "Ah, that's right! That's all we want. That makes you a Carey of Wellwood, of course. I hope you know the place?" "I have seen it. But my grandfather was a younger son and a ne'er-do-weel; he was kicked out—he quite broke off—"

      "Never mind. You needn't go into inconvenient particulars. Try and remember all you know that's nice about the Hall and the family. Did you ever hear of a Mary Carey? But no—she would be before your time, of course."

      "There was an old Mary Carey; she married a Spencer. She was pointed out to me last time I was at home—the nut-cracker

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