Bernard Capes

“ He believed she had discovered.
"To hand the poor mite over to a loving father," she went on. "O! a pretty father! He starves and frights and tortures the child—revenges on him his hate to the dead mother, who bore him, against the bonds of wedlock, to a better man, and then hid him away, lest her guilt should bring disgrace upon her lover. But she confessed on her death-bed, and begged her lawful husband to care for the child! and he undertook it, the devil. O, the dog! the black heart! Charlie's grown a little ghost of terror, they do say—those that have chanced to get a glimpse of him. ”

“ The nurse nodded.
"She fights to win. It were born dead, sir—the poor blessed mite!"
The man knelt down on the hard floor of the hall, and wrapped his arms convulsively about Charlie Smith, and dropped his head on the boy's shoulder.
"Neither brother nor sister at last," he said brokenly, "but, God help me, a mother yet, and my Peggy, my Peggy, a son. O, pray for me, pray for me—little man—wronged so much. He will listen to you—a child—having that—the innocent hostage—in His hands. Only once—O, my God! O, Charlie! ask for a mother—just when you need her—fill the empty place. ”

“ Farmer Pretty (that was Peggy's mother) began to look askance at him—a gentleman was a gentleman, but blood manured no crops—and it was at this pass that he had gone to Peggy to release her, and had bound her indissolubly to himself instead.
"I am just ruined, Peggy," he groaned. "I have got ten pounds in the bank—hardly enough to pay the nurse; no prospect of remittances, if these poor things escape my hands; brokers waiting round the corner. I shall have to close the school, unless——"
"Unless what, John?"
"Never mind. I'm not every way a villain yet." ”

“ And yet he had had a peculiar fondness for this abandoned waif; had always lavished upon him a plenitude of the kindness with which his heart was stored. Would that count for anything? He looked round the sorry room; he thought of the mean and tattered appointments of the dormitory upstairs in which the little quiet body lay—no subject for barter any longer. ”

“ Every citizen, in the constabulary eye, is guilty of something, even if it be of nothing more than his not being a policeman.
"M. de Vermond," said Darling, finding his voice; "I have come to see him, on business."
"No good," said the officer.
"The business is of the last importance," urged John.
"He couldn't attend to it, not if you was the First Commissioner," said the policeman. "He fell down and killed himself yesterday morning."
John reeled. The policeman—first-aid graduate—put an arm like a stove-pipe about him, hooked him into the hall, and shut the door. ”

“ But the man's heart, as it bore him back to his lonely ruin of a home, beat heavily and fiercely in one. Fate had been ungenerous to him, pelting him to the very ground with his own excess of kindness. ”

“ That is for you; but she will have name herself, and that is enough. Now I desire in particular only to give the effect to her wish; and I desire also to remove the child from your so excellent care. It shall be well acknowledge."
John Darling's left hand rested on the letter after he had re-read it. His right supported his forehead, the elbow crooked on his desk, while he pondered. A fat-bodied, spider-legged clock on the mantelpiece struck eight.
"It shall be well acknowledge"—an empty claim to advance in the light of what had happened at the intense psychologic moment. ”

“ Now, however, the door nearest him was open, and through the opening he caught glimpse of pictureless walls, dusty boards, and, thronged upon the latter, a confused gathering of motionless forms, some bronze, some marble, a few sheeted; but all seeming to express, in their cold and inhuman scrutiny, the haunting of a demented mind.
"Was what they call a collector," said the policeman. "Gave his whole fortun' to it, it's said. The house is full of nothing but them figures and busteses—not a washun-stand that'll stand. ”

“ John gulped out both. He had been schoolmaster, until a year ago, he said, to the little boy Charlie Smith.
The admission obviously reassured the officer. He had even heard about him, in a manner, it appeared, from the child.
"Doctor's the man for you, sir," he said. "It's him's got charge of the boy."
He gave the name and address of the gentleman who had been M. de Vermond's professional adviser. As he spoke, he had his eye on John, and on John's own wandering vision.
"Ah!" he said; "a queer lot, ain't it?"
Darling acquiesced mutely. The hall in which he stood was empty and carpetless. ”

“ He must not appeal to her, as his whole emotional soul yearned to do, not to misjudge him, but to bear him, his faults and weaknesses, always gently in mind, if anything should occur to make their separation a long, or even a final one. ”

“ But, as for John, though he parted from his charge with tears in his eyes, he had also, be it remembered, a cheque for a thousand pounds in his pocket.
II Is there not something aggravating to Providence in a too-uncompromising probity? Possibly, since human nature is said to reflect it, to be built after its likeness, there may be. Anyhow, an aphorism despite, scrupulous honesty, which the world has kept poor, begins often to prosper from the date of its first lapse from perfection. ”