She stepped back with a spring of terror, trying to pull her wrist
from his grasp; but he followed her, his dreadful young face close to
hers. She put her other hand behind her, and clutched at the banister-
rail of the stairs. She stared at him in a trance of fright. There was
a long minute of silence.
Then Sam said slowly, as though he were reading it word by word,
aloud, from the open page of her face, "He--did--not--lie." He dropped
her wrist; flung it from him, even, and stood motionless. Again
neither of them spoke. Then Sam drew a long breath. "So, this
is life," he said, in a curiously meditative way. "Well; I have had
enough of it." He turned as he spoke, and went quietly out into the
night.
Helena Richie sat down on the lowest step of the stairs. She breathed
in gasps. Suddenly she looked at her arm on which were four deep red
marks; in two places the skin was broken. Upon the fierce pangs of her
mind, flayed and stabbed by the boy's words, this physical pain of
which she had just become conscious, was like some soothing lotion.
She stroked her wrist tenderly, jealous of the lessening smart. She
knew vaguely that she was really wincing lest the smart should cease
and the other agony begin. She looked with blind eyes at the lamp,
then got up and turned the wick down; it had been smoking slightly and
a half-moon of black had settled on the chimney. "Sarah doesn't half
look after the lamps," she said aloud, fretfully--and drew in her
lips; the nail-marks stung. But the red was dying out of them. Yes;
the other pain was coming back. She paled with fright of that pain
which was coming; coming; had come. She covered her face with her
hands....
"Who," demanded a sleepy voice, "was scolding?"
Helena looked around quickly; David, in his little cotton night-
drawers, was standing at the head of the stairs.
"Who scolded? I heard 'em," he said, beginning to come down, one
little bare foot at a time; his eyes blinked drowsily at the lamp.
Helena caught him in her arms, and sank down again on the step. But he
struggled up out of her lap, and stood before her 'It's too hot," he
said, "I heard 'em. And I came down. Was anybody scolding you?"
"Yes, David," she said in a smothered voice.
"Were you bad?" David asked with interest.
Helena dropped her forehead on to his little warm shoulder. She could
feel his heart beating, and his breath on her neck.