Once clear of the house Claire raised her wide questioning eyes to the face of the man beside her.
“Why did you jump in while Len was talking?” she asked abruptly. “Why did you remind him that Jim was--drowned?”
“Because he wasn’t drowned, and--Len knows it.”
“Say, Claire,” McLagan broke in with that roughness she knew so well, “do you think I’d brought Len along to tell your Mum that Jim was foully murdered and robbed? No. I know it. You know it. We’re young and strong, and it’s not going to hurt us, seeing poor Jim is dead anyway. But she’s his mother. Think, my dear, just think. Len and I fixed it up to say that. I jumped, scared he might blurt out the truth. Jim’s mother is some one we both love. Right deep in her heart now is the swell thought of all that boy was trying to do for her. He died doing it. To her there’s no picture of a foul murder with the murderer standing over him and robbing him. Don’t you see? Sure you do. For all her tears I guess we’ve left Jim’s mother a mighty happy woman. An’ she’ll never be told the thing that really happened.”
The girl made no reply. Somehow the man’s harshly spoken rebuke thrilled her as no word of his had ever thrilled her before. Her love for him rose to something like worship as she regarded his plain face and thought of the world of kindly sympathy lying behind it. Her next words were almost humble.
“Is dead. Hanged by the neck, and--dead.”
The intensity, the biting ruthlessness of the man’s tone, was in flat contradiction of his recent mood.
“Then what you thought--what you hoped of Len’s coming--proved out?”
“Will I ever know the whole thing--you know?”
McLagan smiled upon the dingy habitations about him.
“Maybe some day,” he said. “But--not right now. It’s a bad story.”
They had turned out of the side road, and on to the sidewalk of the main thoroughfare. It was still within the business hours of the place, and as Claire gazed about her a certain unusual movement was observable among the people. She drew a deep sigh.
“Sometimes I think it awful in me,” she said, a little desperately. “He’s dead. Hanged. The man who murdered Jim. I’m--glad. Yes,” she went on a little defiantly, “I’m glad. And Jim’s gold?”
“Recovered--most of it. And passed to the feller it rightly belongs. Len Stern. That boy needs it. You don’t, Claire. Your mother don’t. You’re both--my affair.”