“All the trees are gone,” the boy said wistfully.
Eileen nodded. They stood together by the open window, looking over the once-beautiful landscape. Where there had been wide stretches of lawn, there was now nothing but a barren open space, and where old oak trees had spread their shadow, a huge shed had been erected, from whence came the monotonous clang of hammers.
“Yes—all gone!” Eileen repeated to herself.
The brief phrase rang familiar in her own ears. That had been her answer to Fenton's pleading seven years ago. Then the “all” had stood for the restless pleasures, the luxuries and feverish excitements of a spoiled woman's life. Now it stood for something different—something too vague and intangible for words. The beautiful stretch of country had been ruthlessly marred, and in her own life the best. in her had been as ruthlessly destroyed. And there was to be no atonement. The dead cannot forgive, and the man she had loved and wronged would never know.
From the door of the shed opposite a tall, misshapen figure came out, and, limping across the intervening space, approached the steps that led up to the window. Eileen Delisle drew herself up as if to turn away. The advent of this man into her life had brought with it a strange unrest. She told herself that she hated him. It was his brain that was piecing together Fenton's secret, his will that had built up the great workshop opposite. Silent, indomitable, his ugly shadow had crept over her world. She avoided him in voluntarily as she was trying to avoid him now.
But her son was of another mind. With a delighted exclamation, he freed himself and ran to meet the newcomer, flinging himself into the outstretched arms with a gay, childish recklessness. Whereat Eileen Delisle waited, haughtily patient and seemingly indifferent.
The strangely assorted pair came on together, laughing and talking, the child perched on one broad shoulder. A ray of sunlight fell on the man's bearded face, and for a moment it seemed less ugly, less distorted. The great marring scar that ran diagonally from chin to forehead seemed less distinct, as if the momentary lifting of the man's usual somber reserve had transformed him. As he reached the topmost step, he set his burden gently on the ground. The smile still lingered in his eyes as he turned to the woman who was watching him.
“I've come with good news,” he said. “The first stages of our practical experimenting are over. The end is in sight.” She made no answer, and there was no change in her set features, “I thought you would be pleased,” he went on in the low tone that never altered. “It will be something to have one's husband hailed as the greatest inventor of the century, will it not?”
“You have done the work,” she returned coldly. “You know as well as I do that, were it not for your help, the monoplane would be where it was a year ago—an incoherent riddle. You have unraveled it”
“And you do not love me on that account, Mrs. Delisle?”
She had turned away from him, preparatory to leaving the room, but the tone of his voice arrested her. Her startled eyes sought his face.
“I don't know what you mean,” she said proudly. “If I have shown by any discourtesy”
“That you hate me? Mrs. Delisle, you have never been discourteous. But you avoid me as you would something hateful. You shrink together every time your son runs to meet me. Is that not so? Come”—he laughed out roughly—“be honest! I am only the wreck of a man. And a refined, delicate woman such as you are shrinks naturally from the ugly, the monstrous”
“That is an insult!” she broke in with such passion that the mockery in his eyes faded. “Have you so low an opinion of me, Mr. Rogers?”
“I know something of women,” he returned deliberately. “I know what they value in life. A man's honest endeavor doesn't count in their eyes. It is what he appears to be, what he can give them”
“Have I given you the right to say that?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I only know that since your husband sent for me to help him, I have toiled honestly for his success. I have not asked much for myself in return—neither profit nor honor. But I have done my best—and you hate me. I see you shrink from me. It's absurd that I should care. Wrecks are too easily blown from their course.”
He turned away from her, but at that moment a small, hot hand thrust itself into his.
“You're not nice to my pal, mother,” the child said clearly.
There was a moment's silence. The man and woman faced each other, and suddenly the tears rushed to her eyes.