Then
he seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word he put on
his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife sat brooding, with
a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone. Now and
then she murmured, "Lead us not into t . . . but--but--we are so poor, so
poor! . . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it?--and no
one would ever know . . . Lead us . . . " The voice died out in
mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered in a
half-frightened, half-glad way--
"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late . . . Maybe
not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking, nervously
clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame, and
she said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive me--it's awful to think such
things--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!"
She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by
the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them
lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell
into fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter "If we
had only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in
such a hurry!"
Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all about
the strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over eagerly,
and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town who could
have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars.
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