CHAPTER XX.

"Liz! Liz!"

The call had to be repeated many times before it met with an answer, and even then it came faintly and broken by sobs.

"What do you want?"

"Has Ben gone out?"

"Yes, curse him!"

"Won't you come in awhile? It is terrible in this horrible darkness alone. Don't cry, Liz. Come and tell me what he has done to you."

"It ain't to me. God knows I would bear it and say nothing if it was only me; but it is Dick, poor little Dick, and I am afraid he has killed him."

"Open the door, Liz. Let me help you in some way. I swear to you that I will not try to escape."

The woman arose and threw it open, allowing the girl in the rags of a boy to come from that pit of darkness into the light.

"I would not care much if you did escape!" she exclaimed dully. "He would kill me then, and I think I would be happier if he did. Look there."

She pointed to the child who lay upon a pile of straw on the floor, the miserable little hunchback who had unconsciously prevented Leonie from leaving there upon the night of her imprisonment.

"He has killed him," continued the woman, her voice filing passionately. "Last night when the poor child came in he was sick, so sick that he could scarcely drag his misshapen body after him. Ben told him to do something, and Dick did not get up as quick as Ben thought he ought, and he gave him a terrible beating. This morning the poor boy was so sick that he could not get out of his bed. I begged Ben to let him alone, but the more I begged the more determined he became. Dick got up, and as he did so, staggered against the wall and fell; then Ben, who swore it was nothing but laziness, got the cowhide, and the poor body is black and blue from the marks upon it. Oh, if God would but strike him dead, how much good it would do us all!"

"Why do you live with him, Liz? Why do you not run away?"

"Why?" she asked bitterly. "Where would I go? What would I do? Besides, he would find me and he would kill me. You don't know Ben as I do. He is not the only man in the world that cares nothing for his wife and yet forces her to live with him, because the devil in his nature tells him that it is a good way to torture her. I don't go because I am afraid, like a thousand other poor women who inhabit the world. Some day I know that I shall kill him. If he would confine his beatings to me, I might endure it, but when he treats Dick in the way that he does, there will come a time when the worm will turn, and I, who have been trampled upon, will become a fiend of his own creating."

Leonie had turned away from the woman's passionate agony, and had lifted the little form that lay upon its rude bed in her arms.

The child groaned and shrunk back as though expecting a blow, and a hot tear fell upon his flushed cheeks as he saw the compassionate face bent above him.

Leonie laid her cool hand upon his burning brow, and in a soothing voice said:

"What pains you, Dick? Tell me, dear, and perhaps there may be something that I can do for you! Don't be afraid. There is nothing to hurt you now."

He lifted his scorching hand and laid it upon her face. His lips trembled so that articulation was almost impossible, but he managed to make her understand the words:

"My throat!"

For one moment she shrunk from him, but in the next he was lifted in her arms. She sat in a chair rocking him to and fro.

"Liz," she cried, excitedly, "you must go for a doctor at once--at once, do you hear?--or the child will die! He has scarlet-fever or diphtheria, one of the two--I am not doctor enough to know which!"

A wild terror leaped to the woman's face, but she did not move.

"I can't!" she gasped. "Ben would kill me for leaving you here alone, and he would kill Dick because I loved him enough to risk it. Oh, my God, what am I to do?"

"Go for the doctor, quick!" commanded Leonie, "Ben can think that I was locked up, for I swear to you that I will make no attempt to escape. If he undertakes to hurt Dick when he comes home I will find a way to prevent him if I get killed myself for it! Oh, Liz, go! Is it possible that you can stop to think of anything when this poor child is dying?"

"Dying! dying!" repeated the unhappy woman, in an awe-stricken voice. "Now, God hear my vow! If he dies I will kill the man that has caused it, I swear it! He has wrecked my life, he has made me what I am, and I will end it all in a fitting manner. Oh, Dick! Dick!"

She snatched up a scarf and wrapped it about her head, dashing down the steps and out the door with the speed of the wind.

She did not pause even to secure the door behind her, but seemed almost to fly along until she had reached the office of a doctor.

"Quick!" she gasped. "It is Dick, and he is dying!"

The medical man knew nothing of who Dick was, but the manner of the woman was impressive to the last degree.

"Wait!" he cried. "What is the matter with him? I must know, in order to take what I may need."

"God knows what!" replied Liz, her expression indicating insanity. "I think Ben has killed him!"

The doctor waited for nothing further.

He snatched his hat, and without a word followed the woman as she rushed along in silence to her own home.

The door was ajar. She pushed it open and led the way up the stairs.

There was Leonie, as she had left her, rocking the child to and fro in the dilapidated chair, and singing to him a little song that she might lull him to sleep.

The eyes of the unfortunate mother filled with tears as they fell upon the tableau.

She touched the short crop of curling hair so lightly with her lips that Leonie did not feel it, but it rested there like a benediction.

The doctor took the slight wrist in his hand, and counted the pulse, then he looked at the sploched tongue.

"Why did you tell me that this child had been killed by some one?" he demanded of the woman. "He has a terrible case of malignant diphtheria."

Brave as she was, Leonie's face became ghastly.

With awful horror, Liz crept closer to the doctor.

"Will he die?" she asked, in a hoarse whisper.

"It is impossible to say, though the chances are largely against him. It will depend a great deal upon his nursing. You should have another woman to assist you."

Then the nobility of Leonie's nature asserted itself.

"I will do that, doctor," she said gently.

"But you are a boy, and they are careless. He will need attention day and night."

Leonie colored.

"I think you will find me a capable nurse and a devoted one," she answered gently.

"Then to you I will give the instructions, for the mother seems incapable of understanding."

Very carefully he went over everything that she was to do in detail, telling her that perhaps upon her the life of the child depended, then took his leave, promising to call again later in the day.

"Liz," Leonie said, when she was again alone with the mother and her unfortunate child, "you must go at once and get what the doctor has prescribed. You need not fear but that I will take the best care possible of Dick."

"Malignant diphtheria!" whispered the poor woman, as she took the paper from the girl's hand. "And Ben beat him when he was dying! God forgive him, for I never can!"

She left the room mumbling some words to herself, words that seemed to proceed from a breaking heart; but Leonie scarcely knew that she had gone before she returned.

The medicine was prepared; but with all his frail strength the child resisted, until Leonie bent her tender head and kissed him.

"Won't you take it for me, Dick?" she whispered. "It will make you well, dear, and then there will be such fun for you and me. Don't you want to be well for poor mamma's sake?"

He turned his head without a word and did as she bade him, his suffering terrible to witness. Then pressing his head gently down upon her shoulder, Leonie rocked him until he slept.

Liz watched in a silence that was pitiful. Crouched down where she could listen to the slow tones of the soothing voice, she watched, hoped a little, and perhaps prayed.

"Had you not better lay him down?" she whispered, when quite sure that he slept.

Leonie shook her head.

"The bed is too hard," she answered. "Poor little thing, it will not hurt me to hold him."

"But you may take the disease yourself."

"One must always take that risk. I am willing if I can be of service to him now."

"God bless you!" whispered Liz. "I'll find a way to repay you for this if I am killed for it. I can never forget that you might have escaped and would not because of me and my poor child. You are free to go now if you wish."

"And leave you to face Ben Mauprat with that child? No! my liberty would be sweet to me, but I could not purchase it at such a cost to you."

Liz lifted her eyes blinded with tears. She kneeled and kissed the hand that supported Dick's head.

"You are an angel!" she whispered. "I had a daughter once, long years ago that might have been like you if she had lived, but she died years ago. That was the cause of Ben's deserting me and running away for all those years when I was little more than a girl myself. Perhaps it would have been better for me if he had never come back!"

A puzzled expression crossed Leonie's face.

"How long have you and Ben been married?" she asked, not forgetting in her excitement to speak sufficiently low not to disturb the sleeping child.

"More than thirty years ago. He deserted me and married another woman, but she could not have been his wife, because I was that. Then she died and he came back to me."

Leonie could scarcely control her agitation.

"You say----"

But before she could complete the sentence, the door opened and Ben Mauprat was in the room.

With a low cry of horror, Liz sprung to her feet, and at the same time the eyes of the child opened. He shrunk further into Leonie's arms, seeming to entreat her protection. She clasped him closely and awaited coming events.