Part 83

"Aileen, my daughter, what is it? Is there any new trouble preparing for you at The Bow?"

She shook her head. The tears trickled through her fingers.

"Does Mrs. Champney know that you are going to leave her?"

"No."

"Has it become unbearable?"

Another shake of the head. She searched blindly for her handkerchief, drew it forth and wiped her eyes and face.

"No; she's kinder than she's been for a long time--ever since that last stroke. She wants me with her most of the time."

"Has she ever spoken to you about remaining with her?"

"Yes, a good many times. She tried to make me promise I would stay till--till she doesn't need me. But, I couldn't, you know."

"Then why--but of course I know you are worn out by her long invalidism and tired of the fourteen years in that one house. Still, she has been lenient since you were twenty-one. She has permitted you--although of course you had the undisputed right--to earn for yourself in teaching the singing classes in the afternoon and evening school, and she pays you something beside--fairly well, doesn't she? I think you told me you were satisfied."

"Oh yes, in a way--so far as it goes. She doesn't begin to pay me as she would have to pay another girl in my position--if I have any there. I haven't said anything about it to her, because I wanted to work off my indebtedness to her on account of what she spent on me in bringing me up--she never let me forget that in those first seven years! I want to give more than I've had," she said proudly, "and sometime I shall tell her of it."

"But you have never given her any love?"

"No, I couldn't give her that.--Do you blame me?"

"No; you have done your whole duty by her. May I suggest that when you leave her you still make your home with us here in Flamsted? You have no other home, my child."

"No, I have no other home," she repeated mechanically.

"I know, at least, two that are open to you at any time you choose to avail yourself of their hospitality. Mrs. Caukins would be so glad to have you both for her daughters' sake and her own. The Colonel desires this as much as she does and--" he hesitated a moment, "now that Romanzo has his position in the New York office, and has married and settled there, there could be no objection so far as I can see."

There was no response.

"But if you do not care to consider that, there is another. About seven months ago, Mrs. Googe--"

"Mrs. Googe?"

She turned to him a face from which every particle of color had faded.

"Yes, Mrs. Googe. She would have spoken to you herself long before this, but, you know, Aileen, how she would feel in the circumstances--she would not think of suggesting your coming to her from Mrs. Champney. I feel sure she is waiting for you to take the initiative."

"Mrs. Googe?" she repeated, continuing to stare at him--blankly, as if she had heard but those two words of all that he was saying.

"Why, yes, Mrs. Googe. Is there anything so strange in that? She has always loved you, and she said to me, only the other day, 'I would love to have her young companionship in my house'--she will never call it home, you know, until her son returns--'to be as a daughter to me'--"

"Daughter!--I--want air--"

She swayed forward in speaking. Father Honore sprang and caught her or she would have fallen. He placed her firmly against the chair back and opened the window. The keen night air charged with frost quickly revived her.

"You were sitting too near the fire; I should have remembered that you had come in from the cold," he said, delicately regarding her feelings; "let me get you a glass of water, Aileen."

She put out her hand with a gesture of dissent. She began to breathe freely. The room chilled rapidly. Father Honore closed the window and took his stand on the hearth. Aileen raised her eyes to him. It seemed as if she lifted the swollen reddened lids with difficulty.

"Father Honore," she said in a low voice, tense with suppressed feeling, "dear Father Honore, the only father I have ever known, don't you know why I cannot go to Mrs. Googe's?--why I must not stay too long in Flamsted?"