Rose O'Paradise

"You didn't care," said Molly with asperity.

"How do you know I didn't care? Did you tell me? Did you? Did I know?"

Molly shook her head.

"Then I insist upon knowing now, this moment!"

"My father would have killed me----"

"Well!" His voice rushed in upon her hesitancy.

"When I couldn't stay home any longer, I went away to visit a cousin of my mother's. At least, my father thought I'd gone there. I only stayed with Bertha a little while and father never knew the truth of it."

"And then after that?"

"I didn't know what to do with my baby. I was afraid people'd say I wasn't married, and then father----"

"Go on from the time you left your cousin's."

Molly thought a minute and proceeded.

"I looked in all the papers to find some one who wanted a baby----"

"So you gave him away? Well, that's easy to overcome. You couldn't give my baby away, you know."

"No, no, indeed! I didn't give him away.... I boarded him out and saved money to pay for him. I even took summer boarders. The woman who had him----"

Molly's long wait prompted the man once more.

"Well?" he said again. "The woman what?"

"The woman began to love the baby very much, and she wasn't very poor, and didn't need the money. Lots of times I went with it to her, and she wouldn't take it."

A thought connected with her story made Molly bury her face in her hands. The man touched her.

"Go on," he said slowly. "Go on. And then?"

"Then once when I went to her she said she was going to take the baby on a little visit to some relatives and would write me as soon as she got back."

"Yes," encouraged the low voice.

"She never wrote or came back. I couldn't find where she'd gone, and father was terribly ill, and I've hoped and hoped----"

"How long since you last saw him?"

Molly considered a moment.

"A long time," she sighed.

"How many years?"

"One!"

"Then he was almost seven years with the woman?"

"Yes," breathed Molly, and they lapsed into silence.

The man meditated a space and Jinnie heard a low, nervous cough come from his lips.

"Molly," he said presently, "I'm going to have a lot of money soon. It won't be long, and then we'll find him and begin life all over."

"Oh, I'd love to find him," moaned Molly, "but I couldn't begin over with you. It's all hateful and horrible now."

The man leaned over and touched her, not too tenderly. When Molly's face was turned to him, he tilted her chin up.