A woman in armor :: :: University of Virginia Library

RIKKA thumped in, economizing time
by folding her kitchen apron as she
came to inquire about breakfast. But
the attitude and expression of Miss Dimmock
frightened her. She meditated at the effect
which that man produced on the inmates of the
house every time he entered it, and legends she
knew of similar effects wrought by the devil
made her legs quake.

Rikka's steady stare broke Helen's trance of
inaction. She leaped to sudden resolution.
She got up and put George on the hearth-rug.

“Put on his coat and wrap him well, Rikka.
I am going to the church to-night and shall take
him with me. And put some cookies in his
pocket, Rikka. He may get hungry.”

Afterwards when she found the buns in his
little pocket, she wondered where he had got
them. She felt confused, but on every stair-step
her foot fell more firmly.

She tapped at Nina's door as her custom had
always been, and opening into the empty place,
nestled upon the floor with her face down.

“For what else can I do, darling?” groaned
Helen Dimmock. “This man has all the power
on his side. He will take the child and trample
his child-heart as he trampled your child-heart.
Worse than this—for he was never able to make
you vile like himself—he can kill your pure baby
and put into his growing body a sensual, low
nature like his own.

“Yes, I know he will track me. But there
may be some way of escape. I cannot think.
If I can hold to your boy till I can take counsel
and think for you and him! Oh, darling, how
could I let him go to-morrow?”

George clamored for her at the bottom of the
stairs. He was wrapped, and eager to snuff the
night-air.

He danced from one leg to the other till Helen
came down. She was draped entirely in black.
She had a little black felt hat pressed over her
hair, and she carried a valise in her hand.

She glanced into the parlor where Rikka stood
mildly grinning.

“Take care of everything, Rikka,” she begged
gently, “till I come back.”

George pranced upon the pavement. Tethered
by Toola's hand, neither big, mysterious men
nor terrors of the night could find lodgment in
his thoughts. Lamps and shops and hurrying

passers filled him with intense delight. He
stuck the disengaged hand in his overcoat pocket,
tossed his head, and made his boot-toes conspicuous.

Helen avoided the brilliantly lighted square,
and made many detours in so doing before she
reached Grace Church. The old moon stared
ghastly and gibbous at them between Grace
Church towers.

“Moon's got er toofache, Toola,” suggested
George. “See, face all side like Missus Smif
when her got toofache!”

A figure shuffled out of the shade, startling
George.

“Here's the key, Miss Dimmock,” said Billy
Sinks. He knew her times so well that she intrusted
the key to him, so that he could have
everything ready for her. “I was up there and
lit, but I thought you wasn't comin', so after
waitin' awhile I turned out, and started off.”

He unlocked the door, and they entered.
Billy drew a match across the knee of his trousers,
and lighted a taper. His eye fell first on
George, whom he regarded with the benignity
which a large dog bestows on a little dog.
“Howdy do, Georgie!” said Billy compassionately.
He was thinking of the death of his
mother, who left him at as tender an age as
George's, and wondering what he might now
have been had Miss Dimmock gotten him immediately

in hand! For Billy's faith was great
in Miss Dimmock's system of boy-culture.

George was gazing in and around at the half-hidden
walls, and the long, flickering shadows
which the taper made.

“Miss Dimmock, are you sick?” Her faithful
blower lifted his light and regarded her anxiously.
“You look so orful!”

“I am in trouble, Billy. I want you to help
me.”

What could he do? He hung upon her word.
Realizing all she had suffered in the past days,
and his utter helplessness to lift the shadow of
death off her who had so often lifted shadows
off him, he knew not what to speak. He was
distressed, and his freckled cheeks and forehead
puckered themselves.

“No, not to-night, Billy,” as he half turned
toward the stairs, intending to do the thing
which lay next to his hand. “I cannot go up
to the organ. I want to go away! At once!
I must take Georgie out of the city to-night.
We are in trouble—in danger—Georgie and I!
I cannot explain it to you, but I want you to
help me, and to tell no one where I go. I came
here because I can most safely start from here.
Rikka is faithful, but stupid; I dare not let her
know. Now tell me all you can about the
trains!”

Though dazed by her announcement, Billy
felt this request to be solid ground under his

feet. He was a hand-book of railways, for he
owned a secret pulling toward “the road,” and
meant to try it some day.

Standing like three flickering ghosts in the
light of the taper, they consulted. Helen was
feverish and eager, and talked with her watch in
her hand. Billy was careful and accurate, and
full of paternal care. George gazed from one to
the other with great velvet eyes, wherein wonder
and weariness contested.

In the sequel they went out of the church, and
made haste to the nearest depot, Billy carrying
George.

Hours afterwards, while late trains came and
went, while people skurried across the tracks,
and lights flared from below, a lump of a boy
sat shelved on one of the great beams—out of
policemen's sight—meditating on the events of
the evening, fully wrought up to the resolution
of “dropping” on any man who should come
in pursuit of Miss Dimmock, and proving fatal
to the same!