The Return of Peter Grimm Part 46

"That last was a rotten thing for me to say," he muttered grudgingly.

"I'm sorry."

But Frederik showed no signs of resentment. He was looking moodily at the ground once more, apparently engrossed in the fruitless efforts of a red ant on the walk's edge to lug away a dead caterpillar forty times its size. The doctor peered at him almost apologetically from under his grey thatch of eyebrow. The younger man's face still wore that same blank, dazed mask, as though horror had wiped it clean of expression.

Again it was Frederik who broke the silence.

"I remember once," said he, in a dreary monotone, "when he was four years old. He saw a woolly lamb in a shop window and wanted it. I'd lost ninety dollars that day at the races and I was sore. He begged me to buy him the lamb. It cost only a quarter. I wouldn't. I told him he ought to be content to sponge on me for food and clothes without wanting presents, too. I remember he cried when I pulled him away from the shop window. And I hit him. I wish--I wish I'd----"

"If there's anything worse than a hardened criminal," snorted McPherson, "it's a silly, sentimental one. You say you want to go in and see him?

Go ahead then. You don't have to ask _my_ leave. It's your own house, isn't it?"

"No," answered Frederik, "it isn't."

"Huh? Oh, I remember now. You said last night you were going to give it to Kathrien. Don't worry. A promise like that isn't binding in law. And you'll repent of it almost as soon as you'll stop repenting for Willem."

"Perhaps so," agreed Frederik. "But it will be too late then. Here," he went on, pulling a long envelope from his pocket, "take charge of this, will you, and give it to Kathrien for her signature in case I don't see her?"

"What is it?" asked McPherson, mechanically taking the envelope as Frederik thrust it into his hand.

"Before I went to the hotel for a room last night," answered the other, "I called on Colonel Lawton and got him to draw it up. All it lacks is her signature."

"What----?"

"It is a deed for the house and the twelve-acre 'home plot' it stands on. That includes the two cottages over on McIntyre Street. They're both rented and in good condition. They'll bring her in nearly eight hundred a year. It's less than my uncle would have left her if he'd known----"

"He knew," interrupted McPherson decisively. "And that's why you did it.

As you said last night, 'somebody has been doing your thinking for you.'"

"I'm glad for your own peace of mind that you aren't forced to give _me_ credit for it," said Frederik in lifeless irony. "I'll go in now, if I may. I shall not stay long. And then for New York. It's the best place I know of for hastening one's journey through and out of the 'man-built h.e.l.l' you spoke about. Oh, and I gave Lawton directions about Anne Marie, too. She can come home now if she wants to without being dependent upon any one for her support. You're quite right, Doctor.

Somebody _has_ been doing my thinking. I'm glad it stopped before I went broke."

With something of his old jaunty air he mounted the steps and went into the house. McPherson stared after him with a glower that somehow would not remain ferocious. Then he got up, stretched his great s.h.a.ggy bulk, yawned, and started homeward for breakfast.

On the way he met Mr. Batholommey, hastily awakened and hurrying to the house of mourning.

"Doctor!" exclaimed the clergyman in agitation. "This is very distressing. _Very._"

"As usual," drawled McPherson, "I find I can't agree with you. To me it seems a blessed release."

"And on Kathrien's wedding day, too!" went on Mr. Batholommey, to whom McPherson's eternal disagreement had become so chronic he scarce noticed it. "At least, on the day that _was_ to have been her wedding day! Young Hartmann waked me out of a sound sleep last night to tell me she had promised to marry him to-day. And he asked me to be at the house promptly at eleven. But, of course, now----"

"Of course, now," put in the doctor, "the wedding is going to take place just the same."

"But----!"

"I argued with Kathrien a whole half-hour this morning before she would agree to it," went on the doctor. "But at last I persuaded her it was the only thing to do. If ever she needs a husband's help and advice, now is the time. And at last I made her understand that. So, she and James will be married to-day. Just as they planned to. The only difference will be that they'll come to the rectory for the ceremony."

"It seems almost--shall I say indecorous?" protested Mr. Batholommey.

"The _real_ things of life generally do," replied the doctor.

"Good-morning. I'm going to be so indecorous as to hurry home for a bath and a breakfast instead of catching cold standing out here on a wet street discussing other people's business."

He strode on. Mr. Batholommey, murmuring dazedly to himself, took up his own journey.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE GOOD-BYE

Frederik Grimm turned away from looking down at the pathetically small figure in the darkened room. His face was expressionless. He had stood there but a few minutes. And his eyes, riveted on the still, white little form, had not softened nor blurred with tears.

Wearily he descended the gallery stairs into the living-room, where the morning sunlight was already turning the desk bowl of roses into a riot of burning colour.

He was halfway across the room, toward the door, when he was aware that Kathrien had risen from the desk chair and was looking at him. Her look was cold and devoid of pity as she surveyed him. But as he halted, hesitant, the sunlight fell full on his face. And in the visage that had seemed so vapidly blank to McPherson, she read much.

The cold glint died from her eyes and she stepped forward with hand outstretched.

"Frederik," she said gently.

He came haltingly toward her. He held out his hand to meet hers. But he could not touch the fingers that were waiting to press his own. His hand fell limply to his side.

She understood. And the warm pity in her face deepened.

"I am sorry," she said simply.

"He is happier," muttered the man.

"I don't mean for Willem. For _you_. You understand what it all means at last."

"And, too late," he a.s.sented. "It is always too late--when one understands."

"It is never too late," she denied eagerly. "Frederik, you have everything ahead of you. You can----"

"I have nothing ahead of me," he contradicted dully.

"You have wealth, youth, the power to undo what wrong you did,--to start afresh----"

"As the broken-winged bird has the power to start a new flight. Don't waste your divine sympathy on me, Kitty. It would be thrown away. In a very little time, as Dr. McPherson has kindly pointed out to me, I shall be convalescent from my attack of remorse. And then all life will lie before me, as you say. All life except the one thing that makes life worth living."

He stopped. For he saw she understood.

"You always understood," he went on, voicing his thought. "That was one of the wonderful things about you, Kitty. Even now, you saw the pain I am in. And it made you forget what you believe I am. It was sweet of you. It will be good to remember."

"I wish I could help you," she said.

"You _have_ helped me," he answered. "For you've given me a Memory to carry till I can shake off the load--till I can get clear of McPherson's 'man-built h.e.l.l.' It won't be long. So don't worry. Even now, my common sense tells me I've made a fool of myself. And I'm human enough to be more ashamed of being a fool than of being a knave. I had everything in my own hands. And I threw away the game because an attack of fright kept me from playing my winning cards. Last night I was afraid of a ghost.