8. In The Current

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_ Seven o'clock struck. It made no impression upon her. Eight o'clock--nine o'clock. It was now dark. Ten o'clock. She did not hear. Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart. Eleven o'clock. Ghostly moonlight filled the room. The tenement, restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep. Twelve o'clock. She had not moved: nor dared she move. There was a knock at the door--a quick step behind her. She turned in alarm.

"Millie!"

She rose. Voice and figure were well known to her. She started forward--but stopped dead.

"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.

"Yes, Millie. It's me--come back. You don't feel the way you did before, do you, girl?" He suddenly subdued his voice--as though recollecting a caution. "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he asked.

"Go 'way!" she complained. "Leave me alone."

He came nearer.

"Give me a show, Jim," she begged. "Go 'way. It ain't fair to come--now. Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer approach, her voice rising shrilly. "It ain't fair----"

"Hist!" he interrupted. "You'll wake the----"

She laughed harshly. "Wake what?" she mocked. "Eh, Jim? What'll I wake?"

"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed. "You'll wake the boy."

"Boy!" she laughed. "What boy? There ain't no boy. Look here!" she cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet, wildly tossing the pillows to the floor. "What'll I wake? Eh, Jim? Where's the boy I'll wake?" She turned upon him. "What you saying 'Hist!' for? Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh. "Talk as loud as you like, Jim. You don't need to care what you say or how you say it. There ain't nobody here to mind you. For I tell you," she stormed, "there ain't no boy--no more!"

He caught her hand.

"Let go my hand!" she commanded. "Keep off, Jim! I ain't in no temper to stand it--to-night."

He withdrew. "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"

"Dead?" she laughed. "No. I give him away. He was different from us. I didn't have no right to keep him. I give him to a parson. Because," she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up. And he ain't here no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room. "I'm all alone--now."

"Poor girl!" he muttered.

She was tempted by this sympathy. "Go home, Jim," she said. "It ain't fair to stay. I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."

"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."

She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.

"No, you ain't," he continued. "You've give him up. You're all alone. You can't go on--alone. Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want you. Come to me!"

She wavered.

"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended. "You're all alone. You've lost him. Come to me!"

"Lost him?" she mused. "No--not that. If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take you. If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you. I've give him up; but I ain't lost him. Maybe," she proceeded, eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up. He loves me, Jim; he'll not forget. I know he's different from us. You can't tell a mother nothing about such things as that. God!" she muttered, clasping her hands, "how strangely different he is. And every day he'll change. Every day he'll be--more different. That's what I want. That's why I give him up. To make him--more different! But maybe," she continued, her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up, and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember! Maybe, he'll take me in. Lost him?" she asked. "How do you know that? Go to you, Jim? Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait? I can't! Don't you understand? When the time comes, he might ask me--where you was."

"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested. "You're just plain crazy."

"Crazy? Maybe, I am. To love and hope! Crazy? Maybe, I am. But, Jim, mothers is all that way."

"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.

"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."

"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."

"Keep back!" she cried.

"No, I won't."

"You'll make a cat of me. I warn you, Jim!"

"You can't keep me off. You said you loved me. You do love me. You can't help yourself. You got to marry me."

She retreated. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I can't. Don't you see how it is? Quit that, now, Jim! You ain't fair. Take your arms away. God help me! I love you, you great big brute! You know I do. You ain't fair.... Stop! You hurt me." She was now in his arms--but still resisting. "Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You hurt me. You ain't fair. You know I love you--and you ain't fair.... Oh, God forgive me! Don't do that again, Jim. Stop! Let me go. For God's sake, stop kissing me! I like you, Jim. I ain't denying that. But let me go.... Please, Jim! Don't hold me so tight. It ain't fair.... Oh, it ain't fair...."

She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly sobbing.

"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.

Still she sobbed.

"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly. "It's all right. I won't hurt you. You love me, and I love you. That's all right, Millie. What's the matter with you, girl? Lift your face, won't you?"

"No, no!"

"Why not, Millie?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I think I'm--ashamed."

There was no longer need to hold her fast. His arms relaxed. She did not move from them. And while they stood thus, in the moonlight, falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring, the while, all the reassuring words at his command.

"The boy's gone," he said, at last. "You'd be all alone without me. He ain't here. But he's well looked after, Millie. Don't you fret about him. By this time he's sound asleep."

She slipped from his embrace. He made no effort to detain her: conceiving her secure in his possession. A moment she stood staring at the floor, lost to her surroundings: then quickly turned to look upon him--her face aglow with some high tenderness.

"Asleep?" she asked, her voice low, tremulous.

"Sound asleep."

"How do you know that he's asleep?" she pursued. "Asleep? No; he ain't asleep." She paused--now woebegone. "He's wide awake--waiting," she went on. "He's waiting--just like he used to do--for me to come in.... He's awake. Oh, sore little heart! He's lying alone in the dark--waiting. And his mother will not come.... Last night, Jim, when I come in, he was there in the bed, awake and waiting. 'Oh, mother,' says he, 'I'm glad you're come at last. I been waiting so long. It's lonesome here in the dark without you. And to-morrow I'll wake, and wait, and wait; but you will not come!' He's awake, Jim. Don't you tell me no different. The pillow's wet with his tears.... Lonely child--waiting for me! Oh, little heart of my baby! Oh, sore little heart!"

"Millie!"

"It ain't no use no more, Jim. You better go home. I'm all alone. My child's not here. But--he's somewhere. And it's him I love."

The man sighed and went away....

Left alone, she put the little room in order and made the bed, blinded by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child, whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs. When there was no more work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which she had there kept, poor soul! against the time when her arms would be empty, her bosom aching for a familiar weight upon it. And for a time she sat rocking the cold counterfeit, crooning, faintly singing, caressing it; but she had known the warmth, the sweet restlessness, the soft, yielding form of the living child, and could not be content. Presently, in a surge of disgust, she flung the substitute violently from her.

"It ain't no baby," she moaned, putting her hands to her face. "It's only a doll!"

She sank limp to the floor. There she lay prone--the moonlight falling softly upon her, but healing her not at all. _

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