The Monkey's Paw Page #4

								


She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room.  He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband's coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden.  She then waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his business, but he was at first strangely silent.

"I--was asked to call," he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers.  "I come from 'Maw and Meggins.'"

The old lady started.  "Is anything the matter?"  she asked, breathlessly.  "Has anything happened to Herbert?  What is it?  What is it?"

Her husband interposed.  "There, there, mother," he said, hastily.  "Sit down, and don't jump to conclusions.  You've not brought bad news, I'm sure, sir;" and he eyed the other wistfully.

"I'm sorry--" began the visitor.

"Is he hurt?"  demanded the mother, wildly.

The visitor bowed in assent.  "Badly hurt," he said, quietly, "but he is not in any pain."

"Oh, thank God!" said the old woman, clasping her hands.  "Thank God for that!  Thank--"

She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other's averted face.  She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his.  There was a long silence.

"He was caught in the machinery," said the visitor at length in a low voice.

"Caught in the machinery," repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion, "yes."

He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife's hand between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old courting-days nearly forty years before.

"He was the only one left to us," he said, turning gently to the visitor. "It is hard."

The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window.  "The firm wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great loss," he said, without looking round.  "I beg that you will understand I am only their servant and merely obeying orders."

There was no reply; the old woman's face was white, her eyes staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband's face was a look such as his friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.

"I was to say that 'Maw and Meggins' disclaim all responsibility," continued the other.  "They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son's services, they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation."

Mr. White dropped his wife's hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor.  His dry lips shaped the words, "How much?"

"Two hundred pounds," was the answer.

Unconscious of his wife's shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the floor.

III.

In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence.  It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to happen --something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.
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