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It came in sight, crowded with workmen on their way home to Quarry End; the rear platform was black with them. It passed over the switch slowly, passed within two feet of her seat. She turned to look at it, wondering at its capacity for so many and looked, instead, directly into the face of Champney Googe who stood on the lower step, his dinner-pail on his arm, the arm thrust through the guard.
"I'm glad such homes are open to you; it is your right and it compensates." "For what, mother?" "Oh, a good many things. How do they live?" "The Van Ostends?" "Yes." Champney Googe hugged his knees and rocked back and forth on the step before he answered. His merry face seemed to lengthen in feature, to harden in line. His mother left her chair and sewing to sit down on the step beside him.
"But I don't see why she should be made responsible for the opinions of her cousin, nor do I exactly knew what 'taking him up' means," returned Courtland quietly. Champney moistened his dry lips with the julep and uttered a nervous laugh. "Suppose we say her husband for that's what his coming back here means.
The mere formulating of his decision in the presence of another man gave him strength, almost assurance to act for himself in furthering his own commitment. But the priest bowed his head into his hands and a groan burst from his lips, so laden with wretchedness, with mental and spiritual suffering, that even Champney Googe was startled from his hard-won calm. "Father Honoré, what is it?
They felt that Champney had played false to his two names, and through the honored names of Googe and Champney he had brought disgrace upon all connections, whether by ties of blood or marriage. To him they had looked to be a leader in the new Flamsted that was taking its place in the world's work.
She stemmed both hands on it as if finding the support necessary. Fixing her eyes, already beginning to glaze with the increasing fever, upon her sister-in-law, she spoke, but with apparent effort: "Yes, I've come, at last, Almeda I've come to ask help for my boy " Mrs. Champney interrupted her; she was trembling visibly, even Aurora Googe saw that. "I suppose this is Octavius Buzzby's doings.
"Do you really believe it?" She folded her work and prepared to leave the room, for she heard the nurse's step in the hall below. "Well, if you do, I'll tell you something, Mrs. Champney, but I'd like it to be between us." She crossed the room and paused beside the bed. "What?" She bent slightly towards her.
Octavius merely nodded, and withdrew in haste lest his indignation get the upper hand of his discretion. It behooved him to be discreet at this juncture; he must not injure Aurora Googe's cause, which he deemed as righteous a one as ever the sun shone upon, by any injudicious word that might avow his partisanship. Mrs. Champney smiled again when she saw his precipitous retreat.
"Champney came home unexpectedly last evening, and the syndicate has offered him a position, a big one, in New York treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Company; and our Romanzo's got a chance too " "You don't say! What is it?" Mrs. Caukins started up stairs whence came sounds of an obstreperous bootjack. "Paymaster, here in town; I'll explain in more propitious circumstances.
"Earning his living, I suppose, like other men." Almeda Champney was silent for a while. Aileen could but wonder what the thoughts might be that were filling the shrivelled box of the brain what were the feelings in the ossifying heart of the woman who had denied help to one of her own blood in time of need. Had she any feeling indeed, except that for self? "Have you seen him?" "No."
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