back for him, and with these advances and pauses giving him notice of his approach; but he did not move, and at first he did not look up when the steps arrived at the threshold of the room where he sat. When he lifted his eyes at last he saw Bittridge lounging in the door-way, with one shoulder supported against the door-jamb, his hands in his pockets and his hat pushed well back on his forehead. In an instant all Kenton’s humility and soft repining were gone. “Well, what is it?” he called.
“Oh,” said Bittridge, coming forward. He laughed and explained, “Didn’t know if you recognized me.”
“I recognized you,” said Kenton, fiercely. “What is it you want?”
“Well, I happened to be passing, and I saw the door open, and I thought maybe Dick was here.”
It was on Kenton’s tongue to say that it was a good thing for him Dick was not there. But partly the sense that this would be unbecoming bluster, and partly the suffocating resentment of the fellow’s impudence, limited his response to a formless gasp, and Bittridge went on: “But I’m glad to find you here, judge. I didn’t know that you were in town. Family all well in New York?” He was not quelled by the silence of the judge on this point, but, as if he had not expected any definite reply to what might well pass for formal civility, he now looked aslant into his breast-pocket from which he drew a folded paper. “I just got hold of a document this morning that I think will interest you. I was bringing it round to Dick’s wife for you.” The intolerable familiarity of all this was fast working Kenton to a violent explosion, but he contained himself, and Bittridge stepped forward to lay the paper on the table before him. “It’s the original roster of Company C, in your regiment, and—”
“Take it away!” shouted Kenton, “and take yourself away with it!” and he grasped the stick that shook in his hand.
A wicked light came into Bittridge’s eye as he drawled, in lazy scorn, “Oh, I don’t know.” Then his truculence broke in a malicious amusement. “Why, judge, what’s the matter?” He put on a face of mock gravity, and Kenton knew with helpless fury that he was enjoying his vantage. He could fall upon him and beat him with his stick, leaving the situation otherwise undefined, but a moment’s reflection convinced Kenton that this would not do. It made him sick to think of striking the fellow, as if in that act he should be striking Ellen, too. It did not occur to him that he could be physically worsted, or that his vehement age would be no match for the other’s vigorous youth. All he thought was that it would not avail, except to make known to every one what none but her dearest could now conjecture. Bittridge could then publicly say, and doubtless would say, that he had never made love to Ellen; that if there had been any love-making it was all on her side; and that he had only paid her the attentions which any young man might blamelessly pay a pretty girl. This would be true to the facts in the case, though it was true also that he had used every tacit art to make her believe him in love with her. But how could this truth be urged, and to whom? So far the affair had been quite in the hands of Ellen’s family, and they had all acted for the best, up to the present time. They had given Bittridge no grievance in making him feel that he was unwelcome in their house, and they were quite within their rights in going away, and making it impossible for him to see her again anywhere in Tuskingum. As for his seeing her in New York, Ellen had but to say that she did not wish it, and that would end it. Now, however, by treating him rudely, Kenton was aware that he had bound himself to render Bittridge some account of his behavior throughout, if the fellow insisted upon it.
“I want nothing to do with you, sir,” he said, less violently, but, as he felt, not more effectually. “You are in my house without my invitation, and against my wish!”
“I didn’t expect to find you here. I came in because I saw the door open, and I thought I might see Dick or his wife and give them, this paper for you. But I’m glad I found you, and if you won’t give me any reason for not wanting me here, I can give it myself, and I think I can make out a very good case for you.” Kenton quivered in anticipation of some mention of Ellen, and Bittridge smiled as if he understood. But he went on to say: “I know that there were things happened after you first gave me the run of your house that might make you want to put up the bars again—if they were true. But they were not true. And I can prove that by the best of all possible witnesses—by Uphill himself. He stands shoulder to shoulder with me, to make it hot for any one who couples his wife’s name with mine.”
“Humph!” Kenton could not help making this comment, and Bittridge, being what he was, could not help laughing.
“What’s the use?” he asked, recovering himself. “I don’t pretend that I did right, but you know there wasn’t any harm in it. And if there had been I should have got the worst of it. Honestly, judge, I couldn’t tell you how much I prized being admitted to your house on the terms I was. Don’t you think I could appreciate the kindness you all showed me? Before you took me up, I was alone in Tuskingum, but you opened every door in the place for me. You made it home to me; and you won’t believe it, of course, because you’re prejudiced; but I felt like a son and brother to you all. I felt towards Mrs. Kenton just as I do towards my own mother. I lost the best friends I ever had when you turned against me. Don’t you suppose I’ve seen the difference here in Tuskingum? Of course, the men pass the time of day with me when we meet, but they don’t look me up, and there are more near-sighted girls in this town!” Kenton could not keep the remote dawn of a smile out of his eyes, and Bittridge caught the far-off gleam. “And everybody’s been away the whole winter. Not a soul at home, anywhere, and I had to take my chance of surprising Mrs. Dick Kenton when I saw your door open here.” He laughed forlornly, as the gleam faded out of Kenton’s eye again. “And the worst of it is that my own mother isn’t at home to me, figuratively speaking, when I go over to see her at Ballardsville. She got wind of my misfortune, somehow, and when I made a clean breast of it to her, she said she could never feel the same to me till I had made it all right with the Kentons. And when a man’s own mother is down on him, judge!”
Bittridge left Kenton to imagine the desperate case, and in spite of his disbelief in the man and all he said, Kenton could not keep his hardness of heart towards him. “I don’t know what you’re after, young man,” he began. “But if you expect me to receive you under my roof again—”
“Oh, I don’t, judge, I don’t!” Bittridge interposed. “All I want is to be able to tell my mother—I don’t care for anybody else—that I saw you, and you allowed me to say that I was truly sorry for the pain—if it was pain; or annoyance, anyway—that I had caused you, and to go back to her with the hope of atoning for it sometime or somehow. That’s all.”
“Look here!” cried Renton. “What have you written to my daughter for?”
“Wasn’t that natural? I prized her esteem more than I do yours even; but did I ask her anything more than I’ve asked you? I didn’t expect her to answer me; all I wanted was to have her believe that I wasn’t as black as I was painted—not inside, anyway. You know well enough—anybody knows—that I would rather have her think well of me than any one else in this world, except my mother. I haven’t got the gift of showing out what’s good in me, if there is any good, but I believe Miss Ellen would want to think well of me if I gave her a chance. If ever there was an angel on earth, she’s one. I don’t deny that I was hopeful of mercy from her, because she can’t think evil, but I can lay my hand on my heart and say that I wasn’t selfish in my hopes. It seemed to me that it was her due to understand that a man whom she had allowed to be her friend wasn’t altogether unworthy. That’s as near as I can come to putting into words the motive I had in writing to her. I can’t even begin to put into words the feeling I have towards her. It’s as if she was something sacred.”
This was the feeling Renton himself had towards his daughter, and for the first time he found himself on common ground with the scapegrace who professed it, and whose light, mocking face so little
