Part 62

"If he ever is! Oh, Tave, Tave--if I could only know something--where he is--if living; I can't sleep thinking--" She wrung her clasped hands and began to walk nervously back and forth in the room.

"Aurora, I feel sure he's living, but when he's found--then's the time to help."

"How?" She turned upon him almost savagely; it looked as if her primitive mother-passion were at bay for her young. "Where's help to come from? I've nothing left."

"But I have." He spoke with confidence and took out the package from his breast pocket. He held it out to her. "See here, Aurora, here's the value of twenty thousand dollars--take it--use it as your own."

She drew away from it.--"Money!" She spoke almost with horror.

"Yes, Aurora, honest money. Take it and see how far 't will go towards saving prosecution for him."

"You mean--," she hesitated; her dry eyes bored into his that dropped before her unwavering gaze, "--you mean you're giving your hard-earned wages to me to help save my boy?"

"Yes, and glad to give them--if you knew how glad, Aurora--"

She covered her face with her hands. Octavius took her by the arm and drew her to a chair.

"Sit down," he said gently; "you're all worn out."

She obeyed him passively, still keeping her hands before her face. But no sooner was she seated than she began to rock uneasily back and forth, moaning to herself, till suddenly the long-dried fount was opened up; the merciful blessing of tears found vent. She shook with uncontrollable sobbing; she wept for the first time since Champney's flight, and the tears eased her brain for the time of its living nightmare.

Octavius waited for her weeping to spend itself. His heart was wrung with pity, but he was thankful for every tear she shed; his gratefulness, however, found a curious inner expression.

"Damn her--damn her--damn her--" he kept saying over and over to himself, and the mere repetition seemed to ease him of his over-powering surcharge of pity. But it was Almeda Champney he had in mind, and, after all, his unuttered inner curses were only a prayer for help, read backwards.

At last, Aurora Googe lifted her face from her hands and looked at Octavius Buzzby. He reddened and rose to go.

"Tave, wait a little while; don't go yet."

He sat down.

"I thought--I felt all was lost--no one cared--I was alone--there was no help. You have shown me that I have been wrong--all wrong--such friends--such a friend as you--" Her lips quivered; the tears welled from the red and swollen lids. "I can't take the money, Tave, I can't--don't look so--only on one condition. I've been coming to a decision the last two days. I'm going straight to Almeda, Tave, and ask her, beg her, if I have to, on my bended knees to save my boy--she has more than enough--you know, Tave, what Champney should have had--"

Octavius nodded emphatically and found his voice.

"Don't I know? You may bet your life I know more'n I've ever told, Aurora. Don't I know how Louis Champney said to me: 'Tave, I shall see the boy through; forty thousand of mine is to be his'; and that was six weeks before he died; and don't I know, too, how I didn't get a glimpse of Louis Champney again till two weeks before his death, and then he was unconscious and didn't know me or any one else?"

Octavius paused for breath. Aurora Googe rose and went to the closet.

"I must go now, Tave; take me with you." She took out a cloak and burnous.

"I hate to say it, Aurora, but I'm afraid it won't do no good; she's a tough cuss when it comes to money--"

"But she must; he's her own flesh and blood and she's cheated him out of what is rightfully his. It's been my awful pride that kept me from going sooner--and--oh, Tave, Tave,--I tried to make my boy promise never to ask her for money! I've been hoping all along she would offer--"

"Offer! Almeda Champney offer to help any one with her money that was Louis Champney's!"

"But she has enough of her own, Tave; the money that was my boy's grandfather's."

"You don't know her, Aurora, not yet, after all you've suffered from her. If you'd seen her and lived with her as I have, year out and year in, you'd know her love of money has eat into her soul and gangrened it. 'T ain't no use to go, I tell you, Aurora." He put out his hand to detain her, for she had thrown on her cloak and was winding the burnous about her head.

"Tave, I'm going; don't say another word against it; and you must take me down. She isn't the only one who has loved money till it blinded them to duty--I can't throw stones--and after all she's a woman; I am going to ask her to help with the money that is rightfully my boy's--and if she gives it, I will take your twenty thousand to make up the amount." She pressed the package into his hand.

"But what if she doesn't?"