Ex-convicts -- Fiction; Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions -- Fiction; Self-sacrifice -- Fiction
She glanced at the bed, saw only that a man was sleeping there, then
glanced about. The poverty of the room and the sick figure confirmed
Tom's story. She put a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Please waken
your brother," she whispered.
She stepped nearer the bed, but Tom hung fearfully back. And now she saw
for the first time David's face with some distinctness. She
started--bent over him--stared down at the face on the pillow. She
trembled backward a pace. One hand reached out and caught a chair.
Tom, seeing his chance to escape, slipped out and took refuge in the
Morgan's flat. The closing door roused David from his light sleep. He
slowly opened his eyes--opened them upon the white face looking down
upon him. The face seemed unreal, merely the face in a frequent dream.
He closed his eyes, then opened them. The face was still there.... A
great, wild, dizzy thrill went through him.
Slowly his haggard face rose from the pillow and he rested upon his
elbow. "Miss Chambers!" he whispered, at length.
For moments she could only stare back at him--the friend once admired,
who by his own confession had stolen the money of tenement children, had
gambled it away, had counted on the guilt falling upon Morton. Then her
voice, straining at steadiness, came out, and haltingly spoke the
nearest thing that did not require thought--an explanation of her
presence.
Her words hardly reached his mind. There was only one thing, the dizzy,
impossible fact--she was before him! His body was chill, fire; his mind
was chaos.
"You have been sick long?" she asked.
He took control of himself by a supreme effort. "For two weeks. It's
nothing--just the grip."
"The boy told me for three months."
"That's just an invention of Tom's." He was conscious that, at his
words, a look of doubt flitted across her face.
She had wondered, as he had done, what her attitude toward him should
be, if chance ever brought them together--what it should be if he were
striving to live honorably--what, if he had slipped down and were living
by thievery. At this moment, without conscious thought, her attitude was
established. But, though decision was against him, he was helpless, in
need.
"Is there anything at all that I can do for you?" she asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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