"Since when!" he blazed, "since when! I admire your nerve to ask that question of me! Since six years ago, when you first began living with me. Since the day when you and the boy,--and not a preacher within a hundred miles--" Words, a flood of words, were upon his lips; but suddenly he stopped. Despite the alcohol still in his brain, despite the effort he made to continue, the gaze of the woman compelled silence.
"You dare recall that memory, Tom Blair?" The words came more slowly than before, and with an intensity that burned them into the hearer's memory. "You dare, knowing what I gave up for your sake!" The eyes blazed afresh, the dark head was raised on the pillows. "You know that my son stands listening, and yet you dare throw my coming to you in my face?"
White to the lips went the scarred visage of the man, but the madness was upon him.
"I dare?" To his own ears the voice sounded unnatural. "I dare? To be sure I dare! You came to me of your own free-will. You were not a child!" His voice rose and the flush returned to his face. "You knew the price and accepted it deliberately,--deliberately, I say!"
Without a sound, the figure in the rough bunk quivered and stiffened; the hand upon the coverlet was clenched until the nails grew white, then it relaxed. Slowly, very slowly, the eyelids closed as though in sleep.
Impassive but intent listener, an instinct now sent the boy Benjamin back to his post.
"Mamma," he said gently. "Mamma!"
There was no answer, nor even a responsive pressure of the hand.
"Mamma!" he repeated more loudly. "Mamma! Mamma!"
Still no answer, only the limp passivity. Then suddenly, although never before in his short life had the little lad looked upon death, he recognized it now. His mamma, his playmate, his teacher, was like this; she would not speak to him, would not answer him; she would never speak to him or smile upon him again! Like a thunderclap came the realization of this. Then another thought swiftly followed. This man,--one who had said things that hurt her, that brought the red spots to her cheeks,--this man was to blame. Not in the least did he understand the meaning of what he had just heard. No human being had suggested to him that Blair was the cause of his mother's death; but as surely as he would remember their words as long as he lived, so surely did he recognize the man's guilt. Suddenly, as powder responds to the spark, there surged through his tiny body a terrible animal hate for this man, and, scarcely realizing the action, he rushed at him.